“Pretty clumsy. Basically, right now, anyone with a key card can get into the accounting file areas.”
Kip didn’t look up. “You’ll see that the CEO was poking around in there, which seems a bit unusual to me.”
Tam cleared her throat. “Are you still needling me about that?”
“Yes, of course I am.”
“Oh look, one of our investigators was in there too.”
“She had authorization from the CEO.”
158
“If that’s your logic, so did the CEO—from herself.”
Kip looked up, one eyebrow adorably arched. “I never said the CEO didn’t have authorization. I said it seemed a bit unusual.”
“A world of diff—damn!” Her keyboard locked up and her screen blanked, leaving only a pop-up window visible.
“What?”
Tam studied the graphic, then laughed. “I thought I hit a trip program left by the hacker or the Feds. It’s got a Yankees logo so I’m thinking it’s a friendly.”
She clicked the Yankee team logo and control of her keyboard came back. Once the pop-up disappeared she noticed a text file had been deposited onto her desktop. “Hank’s sent me a note.”
She opened the file and read it to Kip. “Diane and I have some pandemonium from a few clients, others doing wait-and-see. Ted still has flu. Mercedes giving enemas to baby-faced agents. I’ve got rapport with senior agent, listening to alternatives about frame-up, suggesting they focus on M. Gathering that evidence too when it suits them, but not so gung ho since tix for you to Brazil delivered this a.m. How could you go to Carnaval without me? ”
Kip gave a shout of laughter. “I knew it!”
“You guessed it right.” Tam was grinning. “Start thinking about what Tamara Sterling, inept embezzler, is going to do next to incriminate herself.”
“Flee the jurisdiction, unfortunately. It does look bad.”
“I know.” Tam sighed. “What else?”
“I’m thinking some really good Photoshop images of you and that supermodel will surface.”
Tam scanned the rest of Hank’s note, feeling a chill. “There’s more. Not sure how Barrett involved. Sky eyes watching for both of you. ”
“Sky eyes? You mean I’m flagged if I try to buy an air ticket?”
Tam nodded. “I’m so sorry. You don’t deserve that.”
“Fortunately, I’m not planning to get on a plane any time soon.” She didn’t seem that perturbed. She set aside the last sheet of paper and reached for her laptop. “I’m going to get to know Wren Cantu, see where that leads me. Look for photos of the two of you.”
159
Taken aback by Kip’s nonchalant response to being put on the TSA warning list, Tam said, “Once you’re on the no-fly list who knows if you’ll ever get off it again.”
Her voice quiet but firm, Kip answered, “It’s a risk I’m willing to take to further the investigation.”
But not one she had ever wanted Kip to face, Tam thought, though part of her was pleased. It helped enormously to know that back in Seattle her loyal colleagues and friends were supporting her and keeping things together. The quicker this was all resolved, the better.
Not certain she could get a message back to Hank without it pinging to him as an e-mail the Feds could intercept, she hoped he had left himself a way to see that the message had reached her.
It had been clever of him to have figured out where she was likely to be searching for clues.
Kip made a noise of disbelief.
“What’s up?”
“Here’s a photo of you and Cantu.” Kip turned her laptop around. “You look like you’re about to speak, but I think the background has been cloned to make it look like you’re in the same frame.”
Tam scanned the source—coverage of the New York fundraiser posted on the New York Public Library’s social page.
Kip was right. “I wasn’t there—a lot of people can put me in Seattle. I remember when it went off.” She pointed out Nadia to one side, talking to a man Tam didn’t know. “Nadia was delighted with the turnout. They raised a bunch of money for the business collection.”
“So someone hunted around to find a celebrity of some kind involved with SFI, and then spliced you into the picture? That’s...
Well, I get why they’re after you. They think they have a reason to neutralize you. But just picking an innocent person out of the crowd is pretty scummy.”
“These are scummy people. They zeroed in on a lesbian celebrity, which is even more gossip-worthy.”
“I know.” Kip frowned. “It’s possible she’s not so innocent 160
in other ways, I suppose. The report I got on her shows a lot of debt. Using your little backdoor login, I see that she’s depositing thousands in cash every week, just under the notification limit, and transferring it out.”
“Drugs or money laundering for drugs. That won’t go undetected for long. Banks in the U.S. are obligated to report not just literal cash transactions of ten thousand or more, but any pattern of cash transactions that might be for illicit purposes.”
“Once the Feds get a whiff of this in her records, even if she can prove you and she never met, they’ve still got her for lots of other fun things. It’s all a big messy scandal that has nothing to do with Markoff and his associates.” Kip looked disgusted.
“And if I’m reputed to be dating her, and she’s involved in drugs, then I’m involved by association. Cantu turns out to be a good red herring.”
“One whiff of drugs and prosecutors don’t want you on the witness stand.” Kip tapped at her keyboard before reaching for one of the manila envelopes. “Somewhere in here... Okay, take a look at these. These are the copies of the waiver you supposedly filed with State about the foreign corporation interest.”
Tam flipped through the pages. Her name, Wren Cantu’s, a reasonably good job of her signature at the bottom. “These were filed in person.”
“It’s a proxy service,” Kip said promptly. “Someone mailed the originals to the document service, who then delivered them to the right clerk. That’s a lead to follow, since the proxy would have had to mail the receipts back to someone.”
Tam jotted a note on her work log. There was a growing list of leads that she hoped, delivered en masse to the agents investigating her, would provide them with enough doubt that they ran some of them down before deciding she was their best and only suspect.
She turned to the copies of the applications to open bank accounts in the Bahamas, all with different banks, all of which had ties to other countries, like the Bank of Zurich of the Bahamas.
That was where the first account, the one that had received the 161
most transfers, had been opened. She ran her finger down the page and stilled.
“What is it?”
“I know this man.” She turned the copies so Kip could see them. “Back when SFI was just getting started, one of the first cases was pulling back funds that had been compiled in the Bahamas at this bank, then transferred to their parent bank in Switzerland.
I went there myself to establish our credentials and create a relationship that would let us open accounts quickly, make large transfers, and with their awareness that we were working for the good guys, and with the blessing of law enforcement, which was almost always true.”
“So you met Robert Manna?” She peered at the signature and stamp. “Deputy Manager?”
“Yes. He would remember me very well.” She held up the application copy. “We both liked breakfast in the same cafe. This paperwork wasn’t even necessary. When we’re on a case we’ll open and close several accounts and all by remote access.”