The Crimes of Jordan Wise (8 page)

In the morning, first thing, we performed the physical change of Jordan Wise into Richard Laidlaw. She'd brought a bottle of dark brown rinse that would alter hair color but could be easily washed out. I used the rinse, put on the brown-tinted contact lenses and the dark-brown theatrical mustache. Annalise completed the transformation by using a blow dryer and brush to restyle my hair, erasing my usual part and making it appear fuller.

When she was done, we stood side by side in front of the mirror. "It's really amazing," she said, "how much different you look."

"The best disguises are the simple ones. Subtle differences, nothing elaborate."

"I like the new you. You know, now that I see us together like this, I think the Laidlaws are even better looking than Bonner and Wise."

"No question in my case," I said.

The second mail-drop place we went to was just right. Street address rather than a box number, no questions asked, mail to be held on the premises indefinitely until picked up in person by either Mr. or Mrs. Laidlaw. From there we went to the Mutual Trust branch, where we opened a joint checking account with the $2,000 cashier's check, giving the local mail-drop address as our own. We also rented a safe deposit box, into which I put the remaining cash I'd brought along.

Next stop: a photographer's studio near the federal building that specialized in passport photos. We took ours to the passport office, where Richard J. Laidlaw and Annalise Laidlaw applied for passports. They were the first passports for each of us under any name, which simplified the process. Birth certificates were the only form of identification required. Again, we gave the local mail-drop address as our current U.S. mailing address.

That used up all of Monday. Most of Tuesday we spent at the DMV filling out applications for Illinois driver's licenses, having our pictures taken, taking written tests and then behind-the-wheel tests with different examiners. When we left the office, it was with interim licenses in hand.

One of our get-togethers that month was a trip to Las Vegas. Annalise had never been there and wanted to go, and I saw no reason not to oblige her. It would be our only opportunity; once I became a fugitive, I had no intention of ever going within two thousand miles of San Francisco. We were spending a fair amount of money on necessities and incidentals, and we would spend a lot more before the end of September, but I'd factored that into the equation. I could always spread another $10,000 among the final six dummy invoices to cover increased expenditures. Besides, the whole point of the Plan was to live well, travel, see new sights, so why deprive ourselves during the setup year?

We stayed in a motel off the Strip, registering as the Laidlaws and appearing in public in our Laidlaw personas. We ate in four-star restaurants; we saw a musical revue at one of the casinos and Dean Martin at Caesars Palace. Neither of us was much of a gambler, but Annalise played the slot machines and keno and I risked a few bets at the $5 blackjack tables. I won $45 and she had the thrill of hitting a $100 keno ticket.

Good omen. After the Vegas trip, I knew that the Plan was going to work exactly as designed.

Late June.

I'd put in for my annual vacation time well in advance, to ensure that I had the last two weeks of the month. On my first day off I made the rounds of the banks containing the dummy accounts and withdrew $2,000 from each. By then, there was an aggregate of more than $400,000 spread among the six. The next day I drove to the airport and bought a round-trip ticket to Chicago, a trip I was making alone this time. I carried some of the cash in my wallet, some in an envelope in my briefcase; the balance was in a hidden compartment of my checked suitcase. I didn't much like traveling with that much cash or entrusting any of it to TWA's baggage handlers, but it was necessary and there were no problems.

I stayed at the same downtown hotel, transformed myself into Richard Laidlaw the following morning, and was waiting at the Mutual Trust branch when it opened. I deposited $2,000 in the joint checking account and put the rest of the cash in the safe deposit box. From the bank I took a cab to the mail drop. Both passports and both Illinois driver's licenses were waiting.

Another cab delivered me to a downtown travel agency I'd picked out of the phone directory. I booked a round-trip Pan Am flight to Georgetown, Grand Cayman, via San Juan, leaving O'Hare on Sunday morning and returning on Tuesday; I also booked accommodations for two nights at a hotel in Georgetown. I was able to reserve a seat on a Chicago to San Francisco flight Tuesday night, with only a four-hour airport layover. All of this I paid for by check drawn on the Laidlaws' joint account; the price was too steep to fund in cash without the risk of arousing suspicion. The travel agent assured me my tickets would be ready as soon the check cleared, no later than Friday afternoon.

Within walking distance was a car rental agency, where I used Richard Laidlaw's new driver's license to rent a compact for the rest of the week. At the hotel after my arrival I'd combed through the apartments-to-lease ads in the local papers, making a list of several in the metropolitan area. I began canvassing them that afternoon and evening.

I expected the process to take two or three days, possibly longer, but I found what I was looking for on the morning of the second day: a furnished, vacant, one-bedroom apartment in a nondescript building in a lower middle-class South Side neighborhood for $600 a month; and a landlord who was willing to settle for a six-month lease. I gave him a check to cover the first and last months' rent plus a $200 cleaning deposit. He had no objection to letting me have the keys early, "soon as your check clears," or to my arranging for a telephone to be installed right away. I told him my wife and I were moving to Chicago because I had a new job there, and that she would be moving in first while I finished up my old job in Minneapolis. He didn't seem to care; he wasn't the nosy type.

The rest of the week I dealt with the phone company and played tourist. On Friday afternoon, just before closing time, I returned to the Mutual Trust branch and removed $5,000 from the safe deposit box—a sum that didn't exceed the maximum amount of cash that could be brought into the Cayman Islands by a nonresident.

The flights to Puerto Rico and then to Grand Cayman were uneventful. Richard Laidlaw's new passport passed inspection and I went through customs without incident. As soon as I could on Monday, I went to one of the larger banks and, with half of the $5,000, opened an account under the Laidlaw name. At a different bank, I used the other half to open a second account in the name of Wise Investments, Inc., Richard James Laidlaw of Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A., sole proprietor, and arranged for all monies that came in to that account to be immediately transferred to the first one. My passport was the only identification required.

The two separate accounts guaranteed untraceability. Bank accounts in the Caymans are sealed, just like those in Swiss banks, a fact that in those days wasn't as well known as it is today. Not even government agencies like the FBI and the IRS can gain access to personal information related to them. Monies held in Caymans banks are also free of corporation and other taxes and are not subject to exchange controls, which allows free transfer of funds in and out of the islands. Richard Laidlaw would have no U.S. tax liability on the sums he moved from the Caymans to his bank on St. Thomas, because that money was already his; he would be simply transferring assets.

The rest of my time on Grand Cayman I soaked up the heat and local attractions, and the blue-water vistas from my hotel balcony—an invigorating foretaste of what was to come. The tropical sun and humidity didn't bother me. From that brief exposure, I knew I would thrive on them.

I still had two vacation days left when I got back to San Francisco. I spent these making the rounds of the six banks and arranging for wire transfers of half the funds in each dummy to the new Wise Investments account in the Caymans. Only one of the bank officers commented on the procedure, but his main concern was the loss of business to his bank, not the transfer itself. The completed transactions fattened the Wise account to more than $250,000.

That weekend I saw Annalise, gave her a report on the Chicago portion of the trip, and handed over her passport and Illinois license and the keys to the South Side apartment. For her protection, I didn't tell her about the trip to Grand Cayman or the new accounts.

July.

Annalise gave notice at Kleinfelt's, saying that she was moving to Seattle at the end of the month to get married. Her apartment was rented on a month-to-month basis, so there was no lease to break; she gave notice there as well. Over that month, she disposed of nearly all her personal belongings, either selling them to acquaintances or giving them away to Goodwill. She kept only the clothing and personal items she could fit into two large suitcases and one small carry-on bag. She held on to her car until the thirtieth, then sold it for the Blue Book price to a Van Ness Avenue dealership. On the thirty-first, she rode a cab to the airport and bought a one-way ticket to Chicago, as before paying in cash and using an assumed name.

The previous weekend was our last together during the preliminary stages. We met at a small hotel on the Monterey coast and wallowed in bed most of the two days. She was nervous and excited about the move, and this translated into tremendous sexual energy. I was worn out by the time we were ready to leave.

"I'm going to miss you so much," she said. "Two and a half months seems like an eternity."

"They'll go by faster than you think. We'll talk on the phone at least once a week."

"I can't make love to the phone."

"Well, you could, but it would probably be painful."

She laughed and nipped my neck. "Messy, too."

I said, "I'll be thinking of you all the time."

"Same here."

"And of how'U it be for us on St. Thomas."

"And of all that lovely money."

August.

I called Annalise from a pay phone the day after she flew to Chicago, to make sure she'd arrived safely and gotten settled into the apartment. She didn't like the place. Statement of fact, not a complaint. There wasn't much about it for anybody to like. I'd explained why I picked it and why it was important for her to establish residence in Chicago well in advance of October 1. She'd be bored and antsy back there alone, but she'd manage all right.

I increased the amounts on each of that month's dummy invoices, to bring the aggregate close to $500,000. The last set, to be put through the following month, would push it well over the half-million-dollar mark, to a final total of $600,000. My motive now wasn't greed so much as added security The more we had, the more I could invest for the future, and the better our new life would be.

Later in the month, I made a careful inspection of my belongings, to be certain I left nothing behind that might help the authorities. There were no recent snapshots or posed photographs of me—no one to take any, no reason for the taking. I did find an envelope of old, mostly black-and-white photos my parents had taken. I'd forgotten I had them, wasn't sure why I'd bothered to save them; I had no sentimental attachment to my family or my past. The photos of me were infant and childhood images, mostly. Three had been snapped in my mid-teens; they showed a four-eyed kid I barely recognized or remembered. Shuffling through them had a depressing effect. I tossed the lot into the trash.

I had also saved my high school senior yearbook. My graduation photo was a fair likeness, but in those days I'd worn nerdy hornrimmed glasses and my hair was in a stiff butch cut that made my ears look larger than they were. Nearly all of the senior-class pix had multiple caption lines; mine had only two. "Activities: Math club. Ambition: To do something important someday."

I laughed long and hard when I read the second line. Oh, Jordan, you teenage schmuck, if you'd only known! I ripped that page out and tore it into little pieces and flushed the pieces down the toilet. The rest of the yearbook went into the trash with the old photos. Investigators would be able to track down another copy, but why make it easy for them?

The only other picture of me in existence was my driver's license photo, four years old. A copy would be on file with the DMV, but it was another fair-only likeness. Average height, average weight, average build, no distinguishing marks or characteristics other than the blue eyes and glasses. Mr. Average. Richard Laidlaw was somebody, Jordan Wise could be anybody.

One other group of items needed to be disposed of. I boxed up the books on the Virgin Islands and my small collection of sailing and seafaring adventure books, and took them around to a trio of secondhand shops, where I traded them for a variety of nondescript fiction and nonfiction hardcovers and paperbacks. These I took back to the apartment and set out on the shelves.