Chapter 18… Saugus
“Kill him as soon as possible.”
Repeatedly, this had been the Mushir’s order and at this point it almost made sense. However, the Mushir did not have all the information and as satisfying as it would be to get Mister Curlander out of the way, it would not be wise to move forward on that order without giving the Mushir the complete picture. The repercussions of moving forward too quickly could be more catastrophic than enduring the agonizing delay. “I have discovered the identities of several of the others with whom he has been speaking.”
“Why is that important?”
“Because up to now the deaths of Mister Phillips and Mister Hutchinson have not been suspicious or brought attention to us. Killing Mister Curlander now would surely cause these people and others to associate his death precisely with what we are trying to hide.”
“Who are these others?”
It was the question he’d been trying to avoid for the last week. “Most of them are ordinary citizens, friends of his that were all members of the same fraternal organization in their youth.”
“What does this mean, fraternal organization? What is such a group?”
“It is a brotherhood.”
The Mushir went silent for some moments, a sure sign of concern. “A brotherhood can be a most dangerous association. Brotherhood is for life, and it relies on honor. The bonds between its members can be stronger than family, stronger than the fear of death itself.”
“I understand, Mushir. The late Mister Hutchinson was also part of this brotherhood; he was joining Curlander and these same others for a celebration on the night of his death.”
The Mushir seemed to take this revelation without panic. “If they are ordinary citizens, how will Mister Curlander’s death draw attention to our situation? They have no knowledge of the accounts.”
It was another good question. “Because there are two women he has also been visiting that are associated with this group, one of which is a prosecutor and one of which is a detective. Should Curlander die now, by any means, accidental or otherwise, I fear that it would be too much of a coincidence for either of them and they are bound to pursue officially what he has been pursuing on his own.” He waited a few seconds, but the Mushir did not respond. It was hard to tell what that meant.
“Are we certain that Hutchinson gave Curlander our account information?”
The Mushir was going to the heart of the matter. “Our last intelligence indicated that they met in New York City a little over a month ago for that very purpose.”
“How do we know that?”
“From our sources inside the bank that have been monitoring the bank’s email server. Several emails went back and forth between Hutchinson and Curlander with regards to this meeting.”
“What do you think we should do?” the Mushir continued.
Despite his best effort at avoiding it, he knew the Mushir had just set him up again. Whatever happened now would be his fault. It was possible that Curlander was in possession of their account information and aware of the whole setup of shell firms and offshore accounts they used to distribute funds to their cells worldwide. If so, he had to be taken out of the picture as soon as possible, regardless of the ramifications. However, the fact that Treasury investigators weren’t already pouncing on their account records indicated Curlander might not have actually gotten possession of Hutchinson’s laptop, for which they’d been searching desperately themselves. The risk of waiting was too great, however, and either way getting rid of Curlander was the best option. “As soon as we verify the location of Mister Hutchinson’s laptop, Curlander will be dead.”
“Why do we have to wait?”
“Because he might be the only one who knows its location, or he may be in possession of it himself. If we kill him before finding that out, it might still fall into the wrong hands and all of the work and expense we’ve put into this will have gone for nothing.”
The Mushir said, “I see your point,” but the reluctance in his voice was evident. “What about the prosecutor and the detective?”
“They will be easy enough to find if we need to eliminate them. I will let you know if we need to assemble another team to take care of that, but I am hopeful that we won’t have that discussion. It will bring much more focus on our mission.”
“What is your next step?” the Mushir asked.
“Mister Curlander is on the move again. I have tracked him to a place north of Boston called Saugus. He has been stationary for several hours and it will take me some time to catch up to him and find his exact location.”
“What is the significance of this place called Saugus?”
“At this point I do not know, Mushir, but I will find out.”
“This Mister Curlander is proving to be a very sly and evasive target. I suggest you find the location of that laptop soon.”
“I understand.”
“You have said that before, and still we are in the same place.”
“I understand your frustration, but we must face the possibility that we may never find that laptop. What then, Mushir?”
“You should hope it never comes to that. Find this Mister Curlander again, and we will decide what to do then. I’ll be waiting for your call,” said the Mushir, and he was off the line.
He put down his phone and looked at the sun climbing in the sky, wondering if this was the last time he would see it. The Mushir was much too agreeable and that spelled trouble.
* * * * *
Sitting across the table from Harry and Denise in the grungy interrogation room inside the Saugus police station, Catherine Pruitt pulled a blue file folder out of her flowered carry bag and opened it. She didn’t look happy. “Tell me what happened.”
“Nice bag,” Harry said smartly.
Pruitt speared him with a glare. “My granddaughter made it for me.”
Knowing he’d just been a turd head, Harry said, “Oh.” Unfortunately, he wasn’t in the most sociable of moods either.
“Are you going to make me repeat myself?”
Harry said, “We were here last night for hours. We’ve already told the police everything we know.”
“Humor me.”
“How did you find out about all this?” Harry asked.
“I got a call from the detective I met last Friday who was investigating the break-in to Mrs. Hutchinson’s home.”
“Isn’t he in Cambridge?”
“He is, but somehow he got wind that a higher up from First International Bank offed himself at a meth shooting gallery here in Saugus. He remembered that Mister Hutchinson had worked at the same bank and put two and two together and called me to say that I might want to get up here and take a look into the situation.” Pruitt paused and gave Harry the eye. “And lo and behold, here you are. Somehow I’m not surprised that you’re involved with this.”
“What, are all you guys out of the same mold? For the tenth time, we were not involved. We were just sitting there and the guy decided to make a brain fountain out of his head.”
Denise said, “Ugh, stop it Harry. I think I’m gonna be sick.”
“Who was he?” Pruitt demanded.
“What makes you think I knew him?”
“Don’t play with me, Mister Curlander. I’ve got a lot of other investigations I should be working on and I keep getting roped back into this one.”
“Well it is your case,” Harry shot back mercilessly.
“I’m trying to make it a case!” Pruitt exclaimed. “Now, what about the suicide victim?”
“What about him?”
“Look, who’s asking the questions here?”
“I don’t know. Who is?”
“I am, Mister Curlander. Let’s get that straight.”
“So you want to know about the suicide guy.”
Pruitt slammed her hand on the table. “Yes, damn it. The suicide guy. Tell... me... who... he... was... and what happened!”
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“Okay, fine. You don’t have to get all huffy about it.”
“Mister Curlanderrrrrr....”
“He was the CFO at the bank, okay? His name was Jerry Brennan and he succeeded Hutch into the position. This makes the third guy from the bank that’s died around this non-case in the last two months. Are you still gonna tell me there’s nothing to investigate?”
That took Pruitt by surprise. “What do you mean, this is the third guy? Who else died besides Mister Hutchinson?”
Harry suddenly realized she didn’t know. “Do you remember the phone conversation we had when I was in the hospital last week?”
Pruitt seemingly punched a rewind button in her head. “I do, but you talked about several things in that conversation.”
“You might recall that one of them was that I met someone at Hutch’s wake who was introduced to me as Brendan Phillips. Do you remember that name, Detective?”
“Vaguely.”
“Brendan Phillips was the CEO at the bank.”
“Was? Are you telling me he’s the third man who died?”
“He was the first, actually. Died about a month ago, maybe six weeks. Not sure of the exact date. Wanna know how he died?”
Pruitt sat back in her chair and started twirling her pen. Her eyes narrowed. “Tell me.”
“Severe myocardial infarction—just like Hutch.”
Pruitt stared blankly at the blue folder spread open in front of her. Brushing back a tuft of grey hair, she said, “Why would someone pretend to be the dead CEO of the bank?”
“He wasn’t. It was who Brennan introduced the man as Brendan Phillips hoping I’d know it wasn’t really him. Brennan was trying to tip me off that Hutch had not died naturally, but had been murdered—just like Brendan Phillips had been murdered.”
Pruitt shifted her attention to Denise. “Mrs. Curlander, what do you think?”
“You’re asking me?”
“Yes. I think you have great instincts.”
Denise shot Harry an I-told-you-so look and replied, “One of the things Mister Brennan said before he....” She couldn’t say it.
“Killed himself?” Pruitt said for her.
Denise nodded. “He said the man he introduced as Brendan Phillips was one of them.”
“Them,” Pruitt repeated.
“As in the people who own the accounts at the bank. He was also the one who tried to run Harry off the road back in New Jersey.”
Harry said, “Do you remember the black BMW we were stalking last Tuesday night? Do you remember how it pulled out and passed us after we got pulled over by Officer Nekel?”
Pruitt said, “How could I forget?”
“The guy driving that BMW is the same guy we’re talking about now. He’s been tracking me this whole time.”
Trying to put it together, Pruitt said, “You talked about them. Was Brennan one of them also?”
Harry said, “Absolutely not. He was being threatened as well.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he told us so. He was being pressured to get those accounts ‘out of the spotlight,’ were the words he used. Otherwise, he thought he was going to be next on the hit list—literally— and suffer the same fate as Hutch and the real Brendan Phillips. I guess he couldn’t take it anymore and decided to take the express train to the big bank vault in the sky rather than wait for the inevitable.”
“Harry, really,” said Denise. “Why do you have to talk like that?”
Pruitt said, “Wait. Are you telling me Mister Brennan was aware of what was happening at the bank?”
“Not was happening, Detective, according to Brennan it is happening, although I’d bet that whoever owns those accounts is moving quickly to find another place to put their funds now that they’ve killed the top three officers there.”
Pruitt continued, “Did Mister Brennan give you any insight into the accounts themselves, where the money is coming from, anything like that?”
“No, nothing. He popped himself before we ever got to that.”
Demurely, Denise said, “Honey?”
“Yes dear?”
“When are you going to tell the nice detective about the why these horrible people are trying to kill you?”
“Oh... yeah. I was gonna get to that.”
“Honey?” she said again.
“Yes dear?”
“Now would be a good time to do that, sweetheart, before I come over there and beat you with a stick.” Denise smiled sweetly and Pruitt gave him a stare.
Harry swallowed hard. “I was Hutch’s backup plan. They think he gave me all of the account information before he died so that if anything happened to him someone else would be able to bring them down.”
“Oh. I can see how that might have slipped your mind,” Pruitt said sarcastically. “Does anyone besides you know Mister Brennan is dead?”
Harry exchanged glances with Denise. “Possibly not,” he said. “We know he wasn’t married, and we haven’t told anyone. As far as we know, besides the cops who were on the scene, the only people who know are in this room.”
“What about the people in the bar?”
“I don’t think they’re gonna say anything. Those freakazoids got their own problems.”
Pruitt nodded. There were a couple of other people who knew, one of them being Detective Lopez from the Cambridge PD, but she could handle that. “We know something they don’t,” she said as she broke out a sinister little grin.
* * * * *
“As in the Saugus that’s outside of Boston? What the hell has gotten into you?” Caruso was more than a little upset. “Haven’t we already talked about this?”
Pruitt took a deep breath and felt herself exhaling shakily. Going off assignment in Caruso’s squad was no trivial matter. “There have been a couple of developments.” She held the phone about a foot away and waited for the rest of the storm to come around.
“Developments? Really? And how would you know that, Detective? Surely you haven’t been working this case after having been told multiple times to drop it.”
“Well....”
“Well, what?”
“I’ve sort of been poking around on my own time. I haven’t spent a minute of the squad’s time or money on this since you said that.”
“Until now.”
Caruso wasn’t buying it. “I’d like you to reconsider.”
“What are you, nuts? Have you seen our case load? Have you seen your own case load? Reconsider what? Is there any new evidence indicating that this Hutchinson guy died of something other than a heart attack?”
“No.”
“Has the DA decided to pursue this for some reason that I’m not aware of?”
“No.”
“Then why the hell should I reconsider? This isn’t like you, Catherine.”
“I know.”
“Oh, well then, as long as you know. Then I guess everything is all peachy keen and we can all tippy-toe around and work on whatever we want to work on.” Caruso paused for a second, but only because he ran out of air. “What the hell, Catherine. This isn’t TV. What about your other assignments? What about the nursing home investigation?”
“Can’t Medina pick up on that for me? He’s been chomping at the bit to get in on it anyway. You know that.”
“Medina is a bull in a china shop, Catherine. There’s a reason you’ve been assigned to that case—and why am I explaining this to you? I ought to suspend your ass.”
“But you won’t,” she said bravely.
“Don’t be so damned arrogant, Detective. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t do exactly that.”
“I’ve already told you, there have been some developments, that’s why.”
Caruso took a moment and let his stack, which he’d blown sky-high, come back to earth. “You’ve got thirty seconds, Catherine. It had better be good.”
“As of yesterday, another top execut
ive at First International Bank where Mister Hutchinson was president has died. That’s the third one in the last six weeks. The first one died just like Mister Hutchinson did: severe myocardial infarction. He was the CEO. The one who died yesterday put a Taurus revolver under his chin and pulled the trigger. He was the CFO. Three top executives of a major international bank are all dead, all within a six-week period. That’s no coincidence, Barry, regardless of what the medical examiners have said.”
There was total silence on the other end of the call. “Take a couple of days and let me know what you find out. I’ll put Medina on the nursing home investigation.”
“Thanks Barry.”
“You owe me.”
* * * * *
Denise was snoring lightly in the other bed but Harry couldn’t seem to doze off. He glanced at the clock, noting that it was quarter after two in the morning and he’d been in the same position for the last two hours. Inside his head, the pieces of this puzzle were starting to fall in place. He likened it to the puzzles he worked on at his grandmother’s house when he was a kid. It was an odd memory, but there was always a puzzle in progress at Nanna’s house, and the one he remembered most was The Tower of Babel. It covered Nanna’s entire dining room table and he remembered the rush to get it completed by the Sunday before Thanksgiving so she could use the table for Thanksgiving dinner. He remembered those autumn afternoons when he and Curly tried to piece it together while his mother and Nanna drank tea and talked in the kitchen. At first each piece was meaningless, but after a while he began to see more and more of the picture and it became easier to determine where each piece fit. This was like that, and while lots of pieces of this puzzle were still missing, he was pretty sure he’d find them eventually.
As of the last couple of days, one section of the puzzle that was starting to come together was how the bad actors that were after him knew where he was. Having discovered that someone could still track a person’s cell phone even if it was turned off explained how the BMW could be showing up wherever he went. If that was the case and they were tracking his cell phone signal, he had to figure out how to use that to his advantage.
Another important piece was Hutch’s laptop. They—whoever they were—didn’t know that the laptop’s hard drive had been erased. Similarly, they didn’t know Jerry Brennan had killed himself. That put two critical puzzle pieces in his pocket, and the picture could not be completed without them.
Finally, the white envelope Suzanne had given him might be the most important piece. When that was put in place, the FinCEN people would be able to move in like the storm troopers and take down the whole structure of shell firms, offshore accounts, and paper companies that had been set up to launder who knows how many millions of dollars being used to finance evil and illegal activities. If only he could find the key to decipher those account numbers.
Lying there in that hotel room, he was becoming more and more concerned about his own safety, and Denise’s too, of course, despite the fact that they were both armed. Pruitt had addressed the issue by picking this particular hotel for them to stay in, with her being the only person on the planet who knew where they were. Her objectives were different than his, however. Pruitt wanted to convince her boss to put her on the case full time. It was by the book, and she was thinking like a detective who had to accumulate evidence in a certain way in order to eventually ensure a conviction. He wasn’t bound by any such rules or procedures. His objective was to kill the motherfuckers.
* * * * *
It was Friday morning and Monica Brimton thought to herself: TGIF. She dropped her mocha caramel macchiato on her desk and immediately dipped into her email. Twenty-three of them loaded up and no sooner had she begun weeding out the ones she could delete immediately than her phone rang. It was still before eight o’clock and when the phone rang that early it was usually pretty important.
“ADA Brimton,” she said tersely.
“Monica, Catherine Pruitt here.”
“I hope you’re calling about something other than the Hutchinson case—which doesn’t exist—but somehow I doubt it.”
“Caruso gave me a couple of days to look into it.”
Leaning back in her chair, Monica said, “He authorized time on it? Based on what? Did the ME change the COD on Hutch?”
“It had nothing to do with that. Another senior executive at the bank where Mister Hutchinson worked has died. Committed suicide the day before yesterday.”
Monica’s posture went to elbows on the desk now, hunching over the phone. Immediately, she thought back to the conversation with Harry and Denise at the Quattro Fratelli restaurant in the Bronx the previous Saturday. That’s when Harry told her that the former CEO of the bank had also passed away a few weeks earlier, also having died from a severe myocardial infarction. “Who was it?” she asked.
“Fellow named Jerry Brennan. He was the CFO.”
Brushing back a handful of dangling hair, Monica said, “That’s the third officer from the bank who’s died in the last few weeks. That’s no accident.”
“Highly doubtful,” said Pruitt. “According to Mister Curlander, the man was being manipulated and threatened by the people who own those accounts at the bank. I guess he just couldn’t take it anymore.”
“Wait, Harry was there? I thought he went back to Jersey.”
“He was there, all right. He’s onto something, Monica, and I think he’s in extreme danger, him and his wife both.”
“And so are you,” Monica countered.
Pruitt took a moment. “I hear you,” she said, “but I’d like to get to my reason for calling.”
“Shoot. Oh, sorry. Bad choice of words.”
“Do you have any pull with anyone at the Essex County DA’s office?”
“I know some people. Why?”
“Do you have enough juice to get Mister Brennan’s suicide put on ice and classified as a John Doe temporarily? If it’s possible, I’d like to use that information to pull these people into the open and try to get an ID on them.”
Her mouth suddenly very dry, Monica sipped some coffee and said, “I don’t know what Harry’s got you roped into, Catherine, but you need to be careful. You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
“I’m well aware of that, Monica, but people are dying.”
* * * * *
Having slept restlessly, Harry bit into a donut and squirted a blob raspberry jelly right onto his t-shirt. It only added to his annoyance level which was cruising into the red zone and it was only nine o’clock in the morning. “What do you mean, we can’t leave the room?” he barked through his powdered-sugar mustache. “That isn’t going to work. This place isn’t exactly luxurious and we’re starting to smell like the carpet.”
“We can’t risk exposing you. It’s not safe.”
“Who’s we?” Harry shot back, but Pruitt didn’t answer. “Exposing me is how we expose them.”
“Using you as bait is out of the question. Three people have already died because they knew about the accounts; you could be the fourth. It’s too risky.”
“I’m supposed to be the fourth. That’s why we need to go through with this plan.”
“I didn’t know we had a plan.”
“Of course we have a plan. At least I do. I don’t know what the hell you’re thinking.” Pruitt bristled and he poured it on. “How the hell are we going find out who these people are if we don’t lure them out? We need to turn the tables and instead of them coming after me, it needs to be us going after them. Besides, if I’m right, they can track my location and I’m not about to become a sitting duck.”
Looking over her coffee cup, Pruitt asked, “What makes you think they can track your location?”
Harry walked over to the small round table on the other side of the room and picked up one of two cell phones there. “This,” he said, showing the phone to Pruitt. “I think they’ve got this cell phone number and
they’re tracking me through the GPS. My guess is that’s how they found me to run me off the road, and that’s how that bastard showed up outside Slick’s Monday night. I should have blown the fucker’s head off when I had the chance.”
“Language please,” Denise called to him.
Pruitt said, “Pull the battery out of the phone and it will stop pinging its location.”
“Yeah, I know that now, but now I want to use the GPS signal to my advantage.”
Pruitt was starting to get the picture. “You want to draw them, or him, to a specific location.”
Harry shoved more of the donut into his mouth. “Bingo, Detective.”
“So what?”
“What d’ya mean, so what? Then we got him.”
“And how do we have him?” Pruitt responded. “What crime would he have committed, or what proof would we have that he killed Mister Hutchinson? That’s still what this is about, isn’t it?”
Harry paused uncomfortably. Reinforcing Pruitt’s question, Denise asked, “Is it, Harry? The detective asked you a question.”
Harry sipped some coffee and bought himself a moment, but the question seemed to swallow him. “It’s about me too, okay? They tried to kill me, goddamn it, and I’m not about to turn the other cheek and hope this will all go away. If they’re gonna screw with me, then I’m gonna screw with them.”
Pruitt looked at Denise and said, “Aren’t you going to try and stop him?”
Denise started packing her bag and said, “On the contrary. We know what we’re going to do, Detective. What are you going to do?”
Pruitt just shook her head. Looking at Harry, she said, “I hope you love her very much, because she’s about to get you killed.”
“I do,” said Harry as he looked back at Denise. A moment lingered as they locked eyes.
“Tell me where you’re going,” Pruitt demanded.
“Anywhere but here,” Harry shot back. “I’m not making myself a target.”
“I could stop you,” Pruitt warned.
“Yeah, how?” Harry challenged. “We haven’t broken any laws.”
“Except carrying a concealed weapon in Massachusetts without a proper permit.” Her eyes travelled to Harry’s duffel bag which was sitting on the bed.
“How did—”
“I’m a detective, Mister Curlander. I see things. And where is that little number you’ve been carrying?” Pruitt snapped at Denise.
Defiantly, Harry said, “Go ahead. Take us in. Someone has been trying to kill me and I have a right to protect myself. I’d bet a judge might just agree with that. If not, I’d post bail and be back on the street in a couple of hours. Is that what you really want to accomplish?”
“Of course not. I’m trying to keep you alive.”
“Then you need to go along with my plan.”
Pruitt picked up her things and headed for the door. “Listen you two, I can’t stop you from whatever you’re going to do. You want to go out and paint a bull’s eye on your back, that’s up to you, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She yanked the door open and turned back one final time. “It’s time for you to go back to New Jersey.”
If anyone in that motel was still asleep, they probably weren’t after Pruitt slammed that door. Harry looked at Denise and said, “Do you think she’s really pissed, or is that all an act?”
“Oh, she’s pissed,” said Denise. “No doubt about it.”