Found Money (27 page)

Ryan stopped for breakfast on the way home. After the blow-up with Amy, he wasn’t ready to deal with his mother. He pulled into C.J.’s Diner, a converted gas station that had become a popular spot for the most unhealthy Sunday breakfast around. The buttermilk biscuits alone were enough to make anyone forget there was more grease in this establishment now than when they were doing lube jobs. As usual, the line for a table stretched out the front door. Ryan was about to check on availability at the counter when his pager went off. He checked the number. It was Norm.

Ryan had to think for a second to remember where on the learning curve he had left his lawyer. Apart from this morning’s fax, they had talked by telephone last night, just after the discovery of the letter. That letter was the first time either of them had heard that the alleged rape victim was Marilyn Gaslow. Like the rest of the country, they had heard her name on television in connection with her recent appointment. Their interest, however, lay in a part of her life that wasn’t in the news. At least not yet.

Ryan went to a pay phone outside the restaurant and eagerly dialed the number.

“Did you get my fax this morning?” asked Ryan.

“Yeah. I’ll give some thought to a handwriting expert. But that’s not why I’m calling.”

“You find something on Gaslow already?”

“Plenty. First, the small stuff. Marilyn Gaslow is exactly your dad’s same age, lived near Boulder when he did. She went to Fairview High School, which was the other one in the area. It’s still conceivable they would have known each other, or at least met.”

“Which means she also could have known Kozelka.”

“That’s an understatement. Here’s the biggie: They were married.”

“What?”

“Joseph Kozelka is Marilyn Gaslow’s ex-husband.”

“How long were they married?”

“Long time. Tied the knot just two years out of high school. Lasted twenty-two years. Been divorced almost twenty.”

Ryan nearly burst through the phone. “This is it!”

“This is what?”

“The connection I’ve been waiting for. Marilyn Gaslow accuses my dad of rape. She marries a rich guy. Turns out the accusations are false. He has to pay. It means my dad is innocent!” He could have hugged his friend. “He’s
innocent
.”

Norm was silent. Ryan asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I just think the celebration is premature.”

“Norm, don’t deprive me of this.”

“Do you want my honest opinion or don’t you?”

“Yes. But all along, you’ve never wanted to even entertain the possibility that my dad was innocent.”

“That’s not true.”

“It
is
true. What are you—jealous that maybe now I’ll keep the money?”

“Ryan, I’m your friend.”

“Some friend. You of all people should know that innocent people do get convicted.”

“Not very often.”

“It’s possible.”

“In some cases, yes.”

“What the hell do you have against my father?”

“For God’s sake, Ryan! If your old man was innocent, don’t you think he would have looked you straight in the eye and told you?”

Norm’s voice slashed with a cutting edge, as if he were grabbing his friend and shaking him by the lapels. It was a heated moment that left them both cold.

“I’m sorry, Ryan.”

The phone was shaking in his hand. “No, you’re right. We need to think this through. There must be something we’re overlooking.”

“Well, we need to think fast. Agent Forsyth called me at home this morning. Now more than ever, the FBI wants our meeting to go forward tomorrow.”

“Let’s put that off. Just tell them I need a few days to bury my brother-in-law.”

“Any more stalling and Forsyth implied the U.S. attorney would initiate a forfeiture proceeding against the Panamanian account. That’s an added three-million-dollar headache we don’t need right now.”

“Who do they think I am, Al Capone?”

“No. But they don’t see you as the typical grieving family member, either. The FBI doesn’t normally get involved in murder cases. But when a
witness is murdered and an attorney is beat up in a pattern of criminal activity that may include extortion and money laundering, that can add up to a federal racketeering charge.”

“Wait a minute. You mean they’ve already linked me to Brent’s murder?”

“You’re probably the number one suspect, Ryan. And that’s just based on what happened in court yesterday. They don’t even have the gun yet.”

“Great. Kozelka is going to
give
them the damn gun if we go forward with tomorrow’s meeting with the FBI.”

“Kind of a catch–twenty-two, I know. But there’s one sure way to beat it.”

“What?”

“Just tell the FBI you’re being framed.”

“I can’t. It’s like my mom said. If I tell them I’m being framed, I have to tell them
why
I’m being framed—which means telling them all about the rape and the extortion. And you know what, Norm? You may have your doubts about my father, and those doubts may be reasonable. But if that letter from Debby Parkens is true and my dad didn’t commit the rape, then he
did
deserve the money. That money was his justice. Turning it over to the FBI and telling them it’s extortion isn’t just stupid. It’s a betrayal.”

“I can see how you feel that way. But there comes a point where it may be too late to claim you were framed.”

“I haven’t even been formally accused yet, Norm.”

“True. But as more time passes, the tighter Kozelka can weave his net.”

“Why the hell is he going to all the trouble of framing me, anyway? If he wanted to keep me from
talking to the FBI, why not just kill me outright?”

“My guess is that the trip you made to K&G Enterprises saved your life. It would have been very incriminating if you were to turn up dead right after paying Kozelka a personal visit.”

“That makes sense, I guess.”

They paused to collect their thoughts. Finally, Norm asked, “What are you thinking?”

“I was thinking about timing. You said Joe Kozelka and Marilyn Gaslow were divorced twenty years ago. Was it before or after Amy’s mother wrote this letter to my father?”

“After. The divorce was final within a year, actually.”

“So they were still married when Kozelka started making the first few extortion payments to my father.”

“That’s right.”

Ryan asked, “Why would he keep paying after they were divorced?”

“Probably for the same reason he’s so determined to keep you from talking to the FBI.”

“But speaking from personal experience, if someone were blackmailing Liz, I’m not sure I’d feel obligated to keep paying after our marriage was over. What kind of thing could he have going on with his ex-wife?”

“Something’s screwy there.”

“You’re telling me.” Ryan thought for a moment. “Push our meeting with the FBI to the end of the day, at least. I need some extra time.”

“Oh, shit. Last time I heard you talk like this you nearly landed in a Panamanian prison.”

“Don’t worry. This time I’ll wear my running shoes. Talk to you later.” He hung up the phone and hurried to his truck.

Sunday was a workday for the presidential appointee. Marilyn Gaslow had just a few days to prepare for her Senate confirmation hearings, and she was wasting not a minute.

Her advisors were working with her at her home in Denver. Some were her friends, some were paid consultants. Today, they would engage in role-playing. Five partners from her law firm pretended to be the Senate Judiciary Committee, firing questions. One of them even showed up with a hangover to lend an added element of authenticity. Marilyn would answer as if it were the real thing. No one was to pull any punches. They assured her that this mock exercise would be much tougher than the real thing.

Marilyn prayed they were right.

To say that head of the Federal Reserve had been a lifelong dream wouldn’t be entirely correct. Marilyn was too much of a realist to dream for things that didn’t seem attainable. True, she had been one of the President’s earliest supporters in Colorado. Her law firm had raised millions for his two campaigns. It didn’t take a cerebral hernia to figure out that someone at Bailey, Gaslow & Heinz was due a political plum of an appointment. The buzz at the law firm was something along the lines of an assistant cabinet position or perhaps an appointment to
the federal appeals court in Denver. But not the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve—and certainly not the chair. Some of her colleagues had kidded her, saying she must have had influential friends she wasn’t telling them about. Marilyn took it as good-natured ribbing. She simply smiled and said nothing.

“I need a break,” said Marilyn. By 9:00
A.M
., they had already been role-playing for ninety minutes. Marilyn’s head was beginning to hurt.

“You okay?” asked her consultant. Felicia Hernandez was one of the paid assistants, a young and wiry go-getter who survived on caffeine. Marilyn thought of her as a cheerleader with a Ph.D. in psychology.

“Yeah,” she said, massaging her temples. “I think I’d just like to get some aspirin.”

“All right. Everybody take five.”

The group disbursed, most of them heading toward the coffee and bagels. Marilyn headed down the hall toward her bedroom, alone. She was prone to headaches, though not usually this bad. The excitement over the presidential appointment and the apprehension over the approval process was a deadly combination. Although she had passed Senate confirmation once before, years ago, when she was approved for her position on the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, she knew that wasn’t dispositive. Professor Bork had been approved as a federal appeals judge before Reagan had appointed him to the Supreme Court. That didn’t keep his enemies from running down to Blockbuster Video to see what movies he’d been renting—anything to dig up dirt and keep him from getting the higher appointment. And they succeeded.

Marilyn went straight to the medicine cabinet and swallowed two Tylenol. As she screwed the cap back on, a noise startled her. From the bathroom off the master, she could hear the fax machine in the bedroom. Curious, she cut across the room. Sure enough, two pages were resting in the receiving bin. They were still warm to the touch.

She checked the first page. It confused her at first. Every other word was blacked out, so that it made no sense to anyone—except to someone who had seen the original. A closer look took her throbbing headache to yet another level. She could see it was a letter addressed to Frank Duffy. And she recognized the signature of her old friend Debby Parkens—Amy’s mother.

She quickly turned to the second page. The message was brief: “Meet me at Cheesman Dam. Monday. Two
A.M
. Alone.”

Her consultant appeared in the doorway. “Marilyn?” she said in her perky cheerleader voice. “You coming? Lots of work to do.”

She folded the letter and quickly tucked it in her pocket. “Yes,” she said nervously. “Lots of work.”

A trail of dust followed Ryan up the driveway. The morning sun had already baked the back roads, leaving no sign of last night’s rain. As he stepped down from his truck, he heard the screen door slap shut. He looked toward the house. His mother was standing on the front porch.

“You ready to talk?” she asked as she lowered herself into the chair.

He climbed the stairs, saying nothing, the answer being obvious. Ryan still wasn’t convinced that last night’s timely arrival of Josh Colburn was
coincidental. Nor was he convinced that Sarah’s tears were genuine. It all had the makings of a big diversion his mother had created to preempt the family meeting she had promised. Ryan had the unsettling feeling that for whatever reason his mother might never tell him the whole story. Perhaps it was just easier for her, emotionally, to tell him a little at a time. At this point, he’d take whatever he could get.

He leaned against the railing, his back to the yard. “An interesting night,” he said. “Mr. Colburn took me by surprise.”

“Me too.”

“Why do I doubt that?”

“You shouldn’t,” she said.

“Are you telling me you knew nothing about the letter in Mr. Colburn’s safe?”

“Ryan, I swear on your father’s soul I know nothing about anything that was part of the blackmail.”

“But you knew about the rape.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

“Because I believed it never happened.”

He made a face, confused. “Why did you believe that?”

“Because that’s what your father told me.”

“And you just accepted it?”

“It took time. A long time.”

“You must have had a reason. Did Dad show you something, say something?”

“Nothing. I didn’t want a fancy explanation in some signed and sealed affidavit. Too much time had passed to dig it all up again. I believed him for one reason only, Ryan. Because I
wanted
to believe.”

Ryan looked at her skeptically. “Mom,” he said in a voice that shook. “I’ve never said this before, but I have to say it: I don’t believe you.”

“What don’t you believe?”

“I don’t believe you just took it on faith that the rape never happened. Dad was
convicted
. You don’t just take a convicted man’s word for it that the crime never happened.”

“You do if that man is your husband, the father of your children.”

“No.” He started to pace, trying to contain his anger. “You saw the letter, didn’t you?”

“I never saw anything, Ryan.”

“That’s why you believed Dad. You saw the letter from Debby Parkens.”

“I told you, no.”

“You’re the reason he got the letter, aren’t you?”

“What?”

“Dad told you it never happened, and you didn’t believe him. So he had to go out and get the letter from Marilyn Gaslow’s best friend saying she made it all up.”

“I never saw the letter.”

“But you
knew
about it.”

She paused. “Your father told me he had proof it never happened. He said he was going to use it to get even with the bastard who had framed him. I never saw the proof he had. Just, all of a sudden, money started pouring in. Millions of dollars. That was enough for me to believe him.”

“Why didn’t you just look at the letter?”

“Because I believed him without seeing it.”

“You
refused
to look at it, didn’t you. You felt guilty for not believing him.”

“Ryan, you’re getting this all backwards.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Ryan, did it ever occur to you that I didn’t want to see the proof because I believed him just fine without it? That maybe my greatest fear was that seeing the so-called proof would just raise more questions in my mind?”

Ryan searched her eyes. Her agony seemed genuine. He wanted to console her, but he was suddenly thinking back to a pointed question Norm had raised: If his father was innocent, wouldn’t
he
have told Ryan? The answer might have been right before him all along, deep in his mother’s eyes. Maybe Dad couldn’t face the pain of yet another loved one who
said
“I believe you” but in the heart harbored doubts.

Then another possibility chilled him.

He got down on a knee and took her hand. “Mom, I’m going to ask you something very important. I want a completely honest answer. Do you think it’s possible that Dad made up the proof? Would he go so far as to forge a document to prove he was innocent?”

Her reply was soft, shaky. “I don’t know, Ryan. But this is the way I’ve always looked at it: Would a phony document make somebody pay five million dollars?”

It was the kind of question that needed no answer. Until he thought about it. “Depends on how good the fake is.” He rose and retreated into the house, letting the screen door slap shut behind him.