The Manuscript (13 page)

The two women smiled hesitantly at the detectives and then resumed whatever they were doing, which appeared to be editing documents on their computers.

Doug affected a grim smile before saying, “But you guys should know all this. We already told you everything we know, which is basically nothing.”

Ken glanced at Chuck, his face impassive. Chuck looked like he was about to fall asleep on his feet.

“Yeah, well,” Ken said, “we’re here to take it from the top. Is there someplace we can sit and speak privately?”

“Sure. We can use the meeting room.” Doug waved his palm in the direction of a small area toward the back of the workspace next to what he presumed was Abe’s office, given that it was the only other door.

“Thanks. That would be great,” Ken replied, and then followed the young man to the small room. Chuck hadn’t spoken since they’d gotten out of the elevator. He didn’t look like he planned on starting any time soon.

The room was just large enough to fit a small conference table and six chairs. They took seats, and Ken launched into some routine questions. How long had Doug been working there, how old was he, what was his address.

“Did Abe have any enemies or anyone he was in a disagreement with?” Ken asked.

“No, he got along well with everyone,” Doug said with conviction. “Even his difficult clients liked him, and he was universally respected in the business.”

“Did he seem afraid of anything in the last few weeks? Preoccupied over something? Was he involved in any altercations, anything adversarial?” Ken continued.

“No, he was the same as ever. I mean, look, it wasn’t like we were best friends, so I can’t say for sure, but the entire time I’ve worked here he was always the same.”

“I see. Okay.” Ken tried again. “So, is there anything you can think of that might have put Abe in jeopardy, or did he ever mention that he was in danger?”

“Nope. And like I told the other guys, I don’t know anything about any manuscript, either. So I’m afraid I can’t really help you much. Sorry,” Doug finished, placing both hands face down on the table, preparing to rise.

Ken and Chuck exchanged glances again. This time Doug sensed something amiss.

“Why are you so interested in some manuscript, anyway?” Doug demanded. “I never got a straight answer on that. What does a manuscript have to do with Abe having a heart attack, anyway?”

Chuck perked up at this and said, “Well, now that you brought it up, what can you tell us about this manuscript? We’re with a different division than the last group you spoke with. By the way, you wouldn’t happen to remember the names of the officers you talked to, would you?” he added nonchalantly.

“I remember one was named Smith and the other Reynolds. I’m good with names. You have to be to do reasonable editing work,” Doug replied.

“Did they show you their badges like I did?” Ken inquired, equally easily.

“Sure. At least, I think so. I’m…I’m sure they must have,” Doug assured them, and also himself to some degree.

Ken swiveled to face Chuck. “Officer Barron, would you follow up with officers Smith and Reynolds so we can compare notes with them?” Ken then returned his gaze to Doug. “Did they mention their first names? There are a lot of cops in the NYPD.”

“Yeah, I think it was Alan Smith and Richard Reynolds. The Alan and Dick show,” Doug said, eyes rolling towards the ceiling as he recollected.

Chuck spoke again. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah. I mean, it was only this morning.” Doug returned to his original question. “So what’s the big deal with this manuscript, and why is everyone so interested in where it is? Today was the first I’ve heard of it.”

“We don’t get told everything. Sometimes one group will be working on one angle of a case, and we’ll be working another. But just so we’re on the same page, what were they asking? Maybe that will ring a bell. We handle so many of these cases, it’s hard to keep them all straight,” Chuck explained reasonably.

“You know, that was the weird thing. They seemed to know a lot more about it than anyone here did. He got tons of submissions and queries every week, so how could any of us keep up with everything he was doing?” Doug complained.

“Yeah. I’d guess it would be impossible for anyone to know everything that was being read at any given time. And Abe never mentioned it?” Ken tried.

“No, for the twentieth time, I don’t know anything about any manuscript. And I still don’t see what it has to do with Abe’s heart attack.”

“This is all routine,” Ken said. “When it’s slow, NYPD takes more time with simple cases than if it’s a busy week. It’s just really quiet right now, thank God, so we’re trying to be especially thorough. I’m sorry to inconvenience you and take up your time like this – I can see you guys are busy today.”

“Well, we’re trying to figure out what to do now that Abe’s gone. There’s still a mountain of work here, and we’ve already had a number of other agencies call to see if there was a formal transition plan,” Doug lamented. “And then there’s all the authors wanting to know who’s going to be handling them…and then Mona doesn’t show up today…”

“And Mona is…the receptionist?” Ken guessed, looking out at the work area and seeing the empty station.

“Yeah. Everyone’s kind of off balance right now. This totally caught us unprepared. I mean, one day Abe’s here, bigger than life, taking care of things, and then the next he’s gone forever – to be replaced by a steady stream of cops.”

“Right. And then your receptionist doesn’t show up, adding to the workload. Is she like that? Undependable? Is she new?” Chuck asked blithely, as if anxious to wrap up the interview.

“Mona? God no. She’s been here forever. Decades. And she’s never out sick. But I guess the Abe thing has hit us all differently. Besides, she’s kind of the office manager, too – so who would she even call in sick to? You see the problem we have here? Nobody is running the show,” Doug grumbled. “I’m not even sure how we’re going to get paid. Abe’s lawyer is supposed to show up in the next day or so and give us some news, so hopefully that will clarify things. But right now, I don’t even know whether we’re all working for free or not.”

“Well, I can’t think of anything else to ask, can you?” Ken asked, looking at Chuck while raising an eyebrow ever so slightly.

“No, not really. Oh – yeah. Did the other cops…” Chuck fumbled with his little notebook and squinted at it, “…this Smith and Reynolds…was there anything distinguishing about them? Anything that would help us figure out which division they’re with? Were they both Caucasian? Age? Height? Anything?” Chuck appeared to be completing a routine interview and was just being detail-oriented.

“Uh, well, Reynolds was African American, Smith Caucasian, and they were both in their forties, I would guess. Nothing unusual. Just very professional,” Doug said, with a hint of implication that they’d been more professional than Ken and Chuck.

“Okay. I think that should do it for now,” Ken said. “If you could give us a few minutes, Doug, we’ll want to talk to your colleagues as well. Can you send in, what was her name, Diana?”

“Dinah,” Doug corrected. He got up and went to collect the diminutive Dinah from the open office area.

Ken glanced at Chuck, who made a movement with his head. They both got up and moved through the office.

“We’ll be right back. Going to grab some coffee downstairs. You want anything?” Ken asked over his shoulder as they approached the front door. Nobody did.

Once they were outside, Ken and Chuck both made calls from their cell phones. Ken wanted to know how much longer it would take to get the electronics specialist over to the office to remove the bugs, and Chuck was following up on the phantom cops. After a few minutes they signed off and Chuck spoke first.

“There is no other team working this, Ken.”

“Yeah, I kind of got that within the first second of the kid’s mentioning it. Good job on the low-key fishing, by the way,” Ken replied.

“It was magical to watch, wasn’t it? I should have been in the movies. But meanwhile, this just went from routine to completely weird. A mystery team interviewing the staff this morning, impersonating cops…” Chuck started.

“Worse than that, Chuckee, me boy. We didn’t even know that this was a homicide until late morning. I talked to the coroner at around ten or so and confirmed it. So the only people who could have been here…” Ken trailed off.

“…Had to be aware Abe didn’t die of natural causes and were really concerned over some manuscript. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Chuck asked.

“We’re on the same wavelength. I think we go back in, interview the others while we wait for tech to show up, then tape the office off and dust it before we pull the bugs my contact told me about. Which reminds me; I think I need to have an in-person sit down with my buddy who put me onto this, because it just took a major turn down the weirder-than-shit road, and I have a feeling we’re operating in the dark. I’ll kill him with my bare hands if he’s holding out on me,” Ken promised, stabbing at his cell phone keypad as he talked.

He held the device to his ear and listened as the line rang four times, then Michael’s voice came on advising him to leave a message, and he’d return the call as soon as possible. Ken left a perfunctory greeting and requested Michael call him the second he got the voice mail.

“Tech will be here in twenty minutes,” Ken said, “along with CSI, so let’s play it low key when we go back in, get some statements, and then do a Columbo on them.”

A Columbo was where they played dumb, and then just as the interview was winding down, they hit their subjects with a, “Oh, just one more thing,” and then lowered the boom. No need getting everyone agitated until they needed to. They had a few minutes before the other NYPD units showed up to process the office, so it was best to hear unstressed statements before the storm troopers paraded through the office.

“No way we’re out of here before this evening, earliest. Sorry, buddy,” Ken said.

“Yeah, I sorta figured that out on my own. And anticipating we’d be here a while, I also asked HQ to send a sketch artist ASAP so we can get a drawing of the ghost officers.” Chuck’s demeanor was now completely different than the shlumpy, disheveled career bureaucrat who’d walked out of Abe’s offices.

“It’s going to be a long one. But I don’t like the way this is shaping up, and we just got here,” Ken said.

“Roger on that. So you wanna grab some coffee before we interview the two women?”

“Might as well. It’ll only take a minute or two, and I have a feeling we’re going to need it.”

Chapter 8

Michael’s afternoon surfing the internet in an effort to find out more about the claims made in the manuscript transitioned into evening, but yielded no further revelations. His head hurt from staring intently at the screen for hours, and by early evening, he’d about had it. Reflecting on his day, he called Samantha one more time to see if she’d made any progress. She picked up on the second ring.

“So, I was thinking about shooting myself in the back of the head due to my lackluster romantic life…” Michael started.

“Seems like doing it the hard way, but what can I say? If you gotta go, you gotta go…” Samantha fired back.

“I was just checking in to see if you were able to corroborate any of the other search items I gave you,” he explained.

“I figured it was more than my female charms that had you ringing my phone off the hook. There wasn’t much more, except for something that was probably unrelated. Had to do with the stock market,” Samantha explained.

“Let me guess. Was it a connection between Muslim fundamentalists and the architecture of the electronic trading houses?” Michael queried.

“Wow. You are good. Yup. It was on an obscure site that mainly deals with problems in the stock market – corruption, crooked regulators and the like. But one of the claims was that the group of designers who created the electronic trading platforms that much of the trading takes place on in the U.S. markets are one degree of separation from Islamic jihadists, and that they were instrumental in not only the 2008 financial meltdown, but were part of orchestrating other crashes for the profit of their cause,” Samantha said.

“Can you give me the url?” Michael asked.

She provided it, along with another caution to use the IP masking software when accessing anything on the web.

“Michael, the site documents the connections, but it’s not hard proof by any stretch. It’s just more akin to, Party X is the brother of Party Y, who is reputed to be a financier of terrorist group Z,” Samantha commented.

“I get it. I also see from the address it’s another one I need to look up on the internet archive?” Michael asked.

“It’s not current, if that’s what you’re asking. But that’s not as unusual as you’d think, especially these days. Oftentimes, a site will pop up for a few years, and then the owner will lose interest, or get sick, or move on to something else.”

“Or shoot himself in the back of the head.”

“Touché, my friend, touché. Be careful. The stuff you’re looking at gives me the willies. It’s a little too close to plausible for my liking. I prefer my conspiracies the crazier the better, but this sounds pretty convincing,” Samantha warned.

“Believe me, I’m with you there. Hey, if you find anything else, here’s an e-mail you can use to contact me. I’m going to be hard to get hold of for the next few days.” Michael gave her his new sanitized e-mail, and they bantered a bit more before finally signing off.

So, that was another claim in the manuscript that had at least some loose corroboration. It described the transition from the cocaine and organized crime funding in the 1980s to a far more sophisticated form of criminality using the global stock markets in the post-2000 period. And if the architects of large pieces of the system were the close relatives of terrorist financiers, that certainly raised Michael’s eyebrows.

He went to the website and read the copious research, becoming more alarmed as he progressed. It nearly mirrored the allegations in the manuscript, but lacked some of the purported proof of links between the U.S. government and a who’s who of international criminal syndicates.