Chapter 36

 

The minutes ticked by with the only sounds coming from the two men pecking at their keyboards. Burke wasn’t finding much he didn’t know and he sensed Tessier was also struggling. He cursed under his breath. Was this as far as he’d get?

“Want to hear something unusual?” said Tessier breaking into Burke’s sense of defeat.

“What did you find?”

“Monsieur López seems to be going through a change of life, at least in business terms.”

“What do you mean?”

Tessier turned his swivel chair and faced Burke. “López was a medium fish in a small pond for years, running a trucking company that didn’t go outside a 200-kilometre range. I found one newspaper article for Tarragona that’s about a decade old and it talks about how he was scaling down his operations, potentially even selling the business, and planning to spend his final years enjoying his grandchildren and doing some traveling.”

“Did he ever take it easy? When I’ve talked with him, he sounds busy on a number of fronts.”

“One year after that article, López announced his trucking company would be expanding and he’d be staying in charge. They’d be doing business along most of the Mediterranean coast of Spain and into France.”

“That sounds like a huge expansion and a costly one,” Burke said.

“He’s quoted as predicting the expansion would mean an extra 500 jobs, most of them full-time. He said it was all about capitalizing on how the recession has changed investment opportunities. I couldn’t find any cost associated with the expansion, but it’s got to be in the tens of millions of euros, maybe more. I thought getting involved in such an expansion was a little odd at his age. I mean, he had to know how demanding the expansion would be.”

“It hardly sounds like retirement or semi-retirement.”

“I’m not finished. A year after that, López and a couple of unidentified partners bought a fleet of 40 fishing boats.”

“Fishing?”

“He said he wanted to ensure Spain retained ownership of its fishing tradition.”

“How much did he spend?”

“The estimated pricetag, including specialty licences, was 25-million euros, according to one source.”

“Where did he get all the money?”

“Patience, Paul. I’m still not finished. Six months after the fishing-boat announcement, he and Chef Andres announced they were combining forces for a catering company to operate not just along the coast of the Med but inland as well. Apparently there are a couple of silent partners involved, including that American numbered company, but Chef Andres and López are the main names associated with it, especially Chef Andres.”

“Any pricetag for the catering firm?”

“One online business site estimated the catering company would need at least 10-million euros to operate properly each year.”

“That’s a lot of money. And a lot of time he wouldn’t be spending with his grandkids.”

Tessier shrugged. “I know. So what happened? Did he start to despise his grandkids or his children? I poked around into his family background, but didn’t get far.”

“Is López married? I don’t recall him mentioning a wife,” Burke said.

“His wife died nine years ago.”

“Maybe losing his wife made him decide to re-dedicate himself to work. Jules, when you do your timeline for Chef Andres, add that new information both about him and López.”

“No problem,” Tessier said. “Just for your information, his wife was killed in a hit-and-run accident.”

“Anyone caught?”

“No. There’s something else, though.”

“What?”

“She was killed while she was riding her bicycle.”