The Harry Starke Series: Books 1-3: The Harry Starke Series Boxset Page 16

  “One more thing,” I called after her as she walked away. “Charlie’s laptop. I noticed it wasn’t on the coffee table where it had been that Saturday I came here to see her. Maybe she moved it.”

  Kate nodded. “I’ll look for it when I can get back in there.”

  “You’ll look for it? Does that mean you’re going to leave me out of this?”

  “Have to, Harry. You’re a person of interest in this one, too. You knew her. You’ve been here at her house, and God only knows what else. Oh, and I’m also going to want to know where you were last night, but I’ll do that later. Think about it. For now, you’re outta here.”

  She turned her back on me and walked back toward the house.

  Christ. What did she mean by that, ‘think about it?’

  Chapter 28

  One of the first things I do when I get into the office on Monday mornings is check my email. It’s not something I usually do over the weekend. I try to keep a little time for myself. This weekend, with all that had happened, was no exception.

  As usual, there were dozens of them. Most were just junk. One by one, I quickly deleted them. I was almost done and about to click the garbage can to send a message from someone I didn’t recognize to eternity, when something stopped me. Only rarely do I open emails from senders I don’t know. Tim has hammered home the dangers so often it’s gotten beyond irritating, but there was something about this sender’s address that caught my attention: CM2621@nycpit.com. CM? Charlie Maxwell? I hesitated, and then took the plunge and opened it. Yep. It was from her. It was date and time stamped 6.17p.m., 1/31/2015. Geeze, must have been sent just before she was killed.

  All that was in the message were three words. Check it out. Check what out? Then I saw the attachment. I opened it. It was a single photograph, a picture of a dog, her dog. Why would she send that to me? I only saw the animal once. I couldn’t even remember the mutt’s name.... Buster, that was it.

  I shrugged and forwarded the email to Tim with a message to look at it and then see me. Then I had Jacque call everyone into the conference room.

  “Okay, folks. It’s crunch time. I have three dead bodies, Falk, Olivia Hansen, and Charlie Maxwell; four if you count Tabitha Willard. I’m a person of interest in the Hansen killing, and probably in Charlie Maxwell’s too, and I don’t like it. It could get out of hand. It’s time to do something or get off the pot. I need something to work with, and I need it now. So what have we got?”

  They all looked at me, horrified.

  I had been keeping everyone up to speed with the investigation, so they already knew about Falk and Olivia. They had all seen me dragged out of the office for questioning, but they didn’t know about Charlie.

  “Charlie Maxwell is dead?” Bob looked at me, expectantly.

  I told them what I knew, which at that point wasn’t much, other than it was murder made to look like suicide, and that she was a he. That got their attention, but I needed to move on.

  “You have what I have, people, but it all directly effects what we are doing. At least I think it does. So....” I looked around the room.

  “Ronnie. Let’s start with you. What have found out about Harper’s Foundation?”

  “Quite a bit. It’s murky, and we can prove very little, but by conjecture—”

  “Conjecture isn’t going to get it, Ronnie. I need facts. Hard facts.”

  “I wish I had ‘em, but I don’t. Harper and his team are good, very good, and they’ve woven a seriously muddy web of offshore companies, shell corporations, and bank accounts. Some of them are buried four and five layers deep. I’ve seen some devious schemes in my career, but this one is designed to hide assets, mystify, and confuse on a grand scale. Harry, conjecture is all we have, maybe all we’ll ever have, unless we can dig into the actual finances, the books, of the foundation, if there are any, official ones, that is, and I don’t see that happening, ever.”

  “Well damn,” I said. “What do you have?”

  Ronnie looked across the table at Mike, then at me, cleared his throat, and said, “It’s a nightmare, Harry, a network, a spider’s web of shell and off-shore companies. There are accounts in Dubai, the Caymans, Bermuda, the Bahamas and probably elsewhere as well.”

  He flipped the screen on his iPad, looked up at me and said, “Dubai seems to be the hub of the foundation’s activity. It’s well known for its emphasis on business and trade, for a number of reasons. One is its close geographical proximity to Iran and other Middle Eastern regimes that are under close scrutiny by the Office of Foreign Asset Control, the OFAC. The fact that Dubai has no taxes and that there is total freedom to move funds in and out of the country is another. A third is their attitude toward secrecy in banking. Dubai has a long-held tradition of “ask-no questions.” Their approach to commercial and financial regulations, and especially toward foreign financial crimes, has attracted “big money” from around the world, much of it in the form of cash or gold.”

  “How does that effect the foundation?” I asked.

  “I’m coming to that. Dubai’s financial posture provides cover for a non-profit, such as Harper’s, to operate under the radar. With all of the international banks, money exchange houses, and trading companies to monitor, the OFAC, which is tasked with imposing sanctions on rogue countries, entities, and individuals, simply does not have the resources to monitor the foundation and the complex structure that we think is funding his efforts in the U.S. financial system.”

  “Geeze, Ronnie. We never have these conversations without you giving me a headache. Go on.”

  He grinned. “That’s what you pay me for, boss. Anyway, let’s take a quick look at the Foundation itself.

  “The initial funding came from a sweet real estate investment Old Man Harper, Little Billy’s granddad, made in Dubai a few years before he died. He borrowed $735,000 against one of his life insurance policies — which cannot be traced by the way — and thus he was able to buy and sell real property all across the Emirates. When the markets exploded, and with his access to insider information, he made a killing. As his investments grew, he recognized the need to shield the money and block all transparency, so he used the money from his investments to start the William G. Harper Foundation.”

  He looked at me and Mike, grinning widely, and then continued.

  “As it turned out, the Harper Foundation also came in handy as a place to receive political donations from countries, entities, and individuals that wanted to leverage his influence; bribe him, in other words. Over the years since the Foundation’s inception that initial $735,000 loan has grown into a vast sum of money capable of exerting considerable influence.” He paused and took a deep breath.

  “Now for the interesting part. When Harper the younger, Little Billy, took over the running of the Harper Foundation, he too realized its potential. His biggest challenge, however, was to devise a scheme to get the funds back into the states. With it being registered in Dubai, and with him being a senior elected official, he could not structure the funds through the banking system, due to the heightened regulations and oversight created by the Dodd-Frank legislation. This is what he came up with. The Harper Foundation created a Limited Partnership to manage the investments.”

  “And that would be Jesper Hogstrum of Geneva, right?” I said.

  He nodded. “Right. Hogstrum is, as you know, a lawyer. He was made the General Partner, the Harper Foundation itself being the Limited Partnership with 99.9% ownership. With more than $500 million in capital, the Harper Foundation is able to make plenty of legitimate investments in hedge funds, private equities, commodities, blue chip stocks, and so on. There are also ample funds to invest in other, albeit illegal, projects that would benefit him additionally. Interest, dividends, return of capital from the Limited Partnership to the foundation to make more legitimate charitable contributions; all provided additional cover for his shady activities. Still with me?”

  “No,” I said, “but go on.”

  “There’s not m
uch more, but, as I said, it’s almost all conjecture. So, we come now to Nickajack Investments and the other shell companies. There are a great many more than the three we are most interested in. Investments into those companies could take the form of loans or equity. With them being registered offshore, it is simply impossible to track the money flow or ownership. Harper can use those shell companies, and others like them, to make contributions, take out loans, and compensate himself, and others, none of it traceable. He has, in fact, created the proverbial cash cow.”

  “Done?” I looked at him.

  He nodded. I had a headache.

  “Mike. Anything to add?”

  He shook his head. I could tell by the mystified look on his face that he’d had almost as much trouble following the narrative as I had.

  “That was way too much information to digest all at once. Can you put it down on paper for me, Ronnie? Something I can study.”

  “Already have. You’ll find an email in your inbox with a file attached. You can open it in your iPad.”

  “Thanks, Ronnie. I’ll spend some time on it later, when we get finished here. By the way, Tim, talking of emails, I forwarded one to you, from Charlie Maxwell. It has an attachment, a photo. She told me to check it out, but I could make no sense of it. See if you can figure it out and let me know if you find anything.”

  Tim made a couple of notes, and then said, “I’ll take a look at it as soon as we’re done here.”

  “Okay, so what have you been able to find out about the pendant?”

  “As to the pendant itself, I wasn’t able to find out very much. There are thousands of pictures on the web of jewelry with similar designs, and lots of references to snakes and serpents, most of it relating to the Hindu religion, but that’s about it; nothing specific.”

  I said, “Well, I’ve been able to find out quite a lot about it. You’re right. It does have its origins in Hinduism, but what we have here is something quite different.”

  For the next fifteen minutes, I related what I now knew about the pendant and how I thought it might fit into the investigation, leaving out my encounters with Olivia Hansen and Senator Michaels, of course. Fortunately, they didn’t question me how I’d found out as much as I had, thank God. How the hell I would have managed to explain that, I had no idea.

  Well, now at least we knew something. How it all tied in with the big picture was something else again. It was time for some direct action.

  “Bob. I need to find out who has been following me, and maybe Charlie Maxwell, too. Someone has been tailing me in a silver Honda CRV, late model. He could be black, but he could also be white; Charlie just wasn’t sure. If he was black, it could be Duvon James; I believe he’s been following me in Tree’s BMW. If so, why the Honda? Charlie Maxwell spotted him, the same person — at least she thought it was the same person — three times. On two of those occasions, it could well have been Duvon, because of where she spotted him, outside the Green Tree Mall. The third time, she saw someone outside the Read House. That was on the afternoon I first met her. He was on foot then, but the CRV could have been parked in the multi-story just down the street. We have to find him. I’ve spotted the Honda three times, the last time was on Sunday morning outside the Read House. I tried to catch him, but he was quick, too quick. By the time I got turned around, he was gone.

  “So, Bob I want you to find him. I also want you to organize some surveillance. I need tails put on Tree, Duvon and... I think, Harper.”

  “Harper? That’s a bit risky, don’t you think?”

  “Perhaps, but after what we’ve learned here today, I think it’s worth it. Whoever you hire to do the job, make sure they’re discreet. If Harper finds out, there’ll be all hell to pay.”

  I called the meeting to an end and went to my office. I needed a drink. I looked at my watch. It was just after noon. Early, but what the hell. I reached into the cabinet, took out the bottle of Laphroaig, poured myself a stiff one, took a sip, and relished the fire as it slid down my throat. Next, I called Mike into the office and asked him to run to the Deli and get me a sandwich, a Rueben, and then I fired up my iPad and opened Ronnie’s file. He was right. It was a big one.

  The sandwich arrived less than ten minutes later, and I settled myself down in one of the leather arm chairs and I ate as I read. It was almost five o’clock when I finally came up for air. What I had learned was incredible. Harper’s empire stretched around the world: a dozen banks, more than sixty shell corporations, real estate, hedge funds, and so on, a vast network of shadowy enterprises with no substance that I could use. All good stuff, but without the actual financial information to go along with it, it wasn’t a whole lot of help. Hell, I couldn’t even tie Harper directly to any of it. I could suspect, but.... Ronnie was right. It was all conjecture.

  I hit the button and sent the file to the wireless printer. A sketch with the text outlined the structure of the Harper Foundation and its activities. Interesting. All of that information must be kept somewhere, probably on Harper’s computer. If not his, well... I guess it could be anywhere. Must look into that.

  ——-

  I was still at the office, browsing Ronnie’s file, when Kate called. She didn’t waste any time with small talk. She jumped right in.

  “You were right. There was no laptop. We also have the preliminary results from the autopsy. She had drugs in her system. Nothing dramatic, Rohypnol, Rufies. Where were you on Saturday night, Harry?”

  “Oh come on, Kate. You don’t think for one minute that I drugged Charlie and then slit her wrist, do you?”

  “No, but Guest does. Where were you? Do you have an alibi?”

  “I was out. Investigating the pendant.”

  “By yourself?”

  “No.”

  “Come on, Harry. Who were you with? It’s important.”

  “Kate, I can’t tell you. It would break a confidence.”

  “Oh my God. You were out with a woman. You’re goddamn addicted.” And with that, she hung up.

  I tried to call her back, but she wouldn’t answer. Dammit.

  Chapter 29

  It was just after eight o’clock on Tuesday morning when I dumped myself down on a stool in front of Tim’s desk.

  “Okay, Tim. What do you make of it? Charlie’s email. That photo means nothing to me. She’s been dead for more than forty-eight hours. Was she trying to tell me something?”

  “Harry, it’s pretty cool. Simple, but cool. I’m almost certain it’s a Steganographic cypher generated by a simple computer program. The program performs monoalphabetic encryption, and decryption, using a keyword to create a 26-character cipher alphabet and then it hides a ciphertext within the pixels of a bit map image file—”

  “Oh my God,” I interrupted him. “Doesn’t anybody speak English anymore?”

  Tim grinned. “That is what your image is, Harry, a bitmap. It’s pretty simple; a kid could do it. The thing is, though, simple or not, it will fool anyone who isn’t computer savvy. No one would think of looking into the guts of a photograph for a message. It would also have to have been generated by someone who knows computers.”

  “Charlie was a systems analyst.”

  He smiled. “That would do it. So, all we need is a copy of the program, the keyword, and the image. I have the program. We have the image. Do you have the keyword?

  “No. At least, not that I know of.”

  “I’d watch your inbox. That first email with the image was pre-scheduled. I would imagine that there will be another one following. If not, we’re screwed.”

  I punched up my email account. Just a half-dozen run of the mill messages, most of them junk. Nothing more from Charlie. Dammit.

  “Tell me more about this steno code, or whatever it is, Tim. How does it work?”

  “Harry, it’s not easy to explain so you’ll understand it.”

  “Give it a shot.”

  He took a deep breath. “Okay. You asked for it. Steganography allows us to conceal information i
nside a computer file. The file could be an image file, a photograph, as we have here, or it could be a doc file, even a program file. Image files are ideal. The steganographic coding is inserted into a transport layer, the photo. Your sender might choose an innocuous image file, a doggy pic, and adjust the color of every fiftieth pixel, or any other number, to correspond to a letter in the alphabet, a change so subtle that someone not actually looking for such a change would not notice it.

  “The advantage of steganography over an encrypted message, a code, is that the message does not attract attention to itself, as would an openly coded message. No matter how unbreakable such a coded message might be, it would be sure to attract attention, should it get into the wrong hands. Cryptography is used to protect the contents of a message. Steganography does much more than that. It conceals not only the content of a message, but also the message itself. Cool, huh?”

  “Yeah. Cool. Very cool. She was smart, was Charlie. Very smart.”

  “Well, smart or not. If she didn’t send us the key, we’ll never be able to decipher it. We need the key, Harry.”

  I nodded. “It will come. She wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble and then leave out the key. I’ll keep watching for it. I’ll let you know as soon as I get it.”

  It came the next day, in the afternoon.

  Chapter 30

  I’d been checking my email account all throughout the day. By three o’clock, there was still nothing, and I was getting antsy. Finally, at exactly three-thirty, there it was. I didn’t bother to open it. I forwarded it straight over to Tim, then picked up the phone and buzzed him to let him know that it was in his inbox.

  No sooner had I put the phone down than my cell phone buzzed. I looked at the screen. Unknown caller.

  “This is Harry Starke.”

  “Harry, it’s Linda Michaels. Can you talk, privately?”

  I sat up, instantly alert.

  “Yes, I’m in my office. Just a second. I’ll close the door.... Okay, we can’t be heard. What is it? You sound—”