36
SUNDAY, JUNE 10
10:39 A.M.
U.S. ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, FEDERAL COURTHOUSE
DOWNTOWN MINNEAPOLIS
As her call on her cell was answered, Brook nearly jumped in surprise. “Katie?” she said anxiously. “Katie, is that you?”
“Yes, Brook. It’s me.”
“Katie, I know you don’t trust me,” Brook said quickly, “but I’m trying to help Ian as much as I can. My office is trying to find him because they think he has access to stolen money from an old case—that he had some role in handling or laundering the cash. I don’t think they’re right. I’m putting my career on the line here, Katie.”
“It’s alright, hon. Slow down. Ian said I should trust you. It’s okay.”
Brook let out a sigh. “That’s great. Do you know where Ian is? I spoke to him last night. He was using somebody else’s phone.”
Katie gave a shaky whistle. “That’s the million-dollar question. I talked to him too—real short. It sounded like he was hitchhiking somewhere. Girl, this is getting out of hand. I don’t understand why Ian would disappear for so long with his mom in such rough shape. It’s not like him. And Martha’s place got broken into last night.”
“A break-in?”
Katie described the burglary at the house. “First thing this morning, I got her out to a cousin’s place who’s on vacation. I’m staying with her now.”
“Did you report it?”
“What do you think?”
Brook hesitated. “Katie, I think we can do a lot more good if we work together. I’ve got to know more about what’s going on.”
“I agree. I’m scared. Really scared. I’m afraid to even go to the office. I don’t know when to answer calls on my cell. Could my phone be bugged?”
Brook hesitated. Was she really about to cross that line? From making a few calls and subtle hints in an interrogation to full-blown obstruction?
“You’re not being bugged—at least not yet,” Brook answered. “They won’t have gone that deep with Ian still mostly a suspected material witness. Staying away from the office? Not sure. It may be a good idea right now, though I don’t know if they’re watching it or not. Martha’s house as well.”
She’d done it. Crossed the line. Ian, you’d better be the man I think you are.
Brook’s phone vibrated with an incoming message. She held the phone out to read it: 11:00 lunch, where we met this week.
The number was one she didn’t recognize. But this week she’d only met one person for lunch outside the office.
“Katie,” she said excitedly, “Ian’s trying to reach me. I’ll call you this afternoon. Don’t answer any calls except from me or your family.” She paused. “Any numbers you don’t recognize—or even a call from me—don’t answer until the third try.”
“Okay.” Katie hung up.
Brook looked at the time, grabbed her briefcase, and headed to her closed office door.
She was turning down the hall toward the elevators when she saw Chloe at the far end of the hall. The clerk glanced in Brook’s direction.
Minutes later, Brook left the federal courthouse. She was nearly to the corner when a careful glimpse over her shoulder revealed what she’d suspected from her glance into the law clerk’s eyes.
Chloe was leaving the courthouse fifty yards behind, following in her direction.
11:12 A.M.
Standing in the foyer of Kieran’s Irish Pub, Ian shifted back to his left foot, juggling in his right hand the phone he’d just bought to text Brook. The shirt and suit pants he’d worn the past three days felt stiff and uncomfortable. The single gun he’d kept in his possession was a hard, cold lump against his back.
He was about to check the time again when something tugged on his elbow.
“Ian,” Brook whispered. “Come with me.”
She looked so fresh and pretty and safe, even trailing a hint of her perfume, that Ian felt the urge to kiss her. She didn’t give him the chance. He followed as she walked rapidly through the restaurant.
They came to the kitchen door, and Brook pushed through with Ian following. Startled staff looked up; one or two protested. They passed out a back door and into the street.
Ian kept following until they’d crossed Hennepin Avenue, where Brook ducked into the foyer of an old office building before finally stopping.
“Are things worse than I thought?” Ian asked as she turned to face him.
Brook shrugged. “Maybe. Nothing new in the investigation so far as I know, but I have a law clerk on steroids watching me. I don’t know yet what she’s figured out. I think she followed me when I left the courthouse.”
Ian’s shoulders slumped. “I can’t take you further into this.”
“Too late, cowboy. I just advised your legal assistant how to avoid detection by the police. I even gave her a code to avoid phone calls. So we’re past noble gestures. Just repeat what you said on the phone again. You know, the innocence thing?”
“I swear, Brook, I haven’t done anything wrong. Not intentionally anyway.” He hesitated. “Not sure I can say the same thing about Connor and Martha Wells.”
Brook watched his eyes carefully as he spoke. When he finished, she took his hand and led him through a side door to the fire escape staircase. They sat together on one of the concrete steps.
“Alright,” she said with finality. “All of it.”
It took nearly an hour to bring her up to speed. The only part he hedged was telling her more about the shooting in Northeast Minneapolis. He held that back, halting the story with the fight at the bar. That and his mother’s words the previous night about exchanging information with Ahmetti. For some reason, that seemed too fresh and personal to share just now.
He ended with the impressions, images, and words he could recall from his recent dreams.
“Those are no dreams, Ian,” she said. “Or at least you’re dreaming from something you actually experienced.”
“Yeah,” he acknowledged. “I figured that part out. I have to have been with my mom at the ’98 Doyle funeral in Florida and afterward. Getting involved with Callahan and Rory Doyle has brought those memories to the surface. I can’t say how much, but I saw and heard at least some of what I’m dreaming. And the old man has to have been Jimmy Doyle.”
“You mentioned dreaming something about a painting and a date,” Brook said. “You should know one of the Rockwells stolen was The Spirit of 1776.”
Ian stared at Brook. “I wish I could remember more.”
“You remember enough. If you’re right about even half of it, your dad was up to his eyeballs in this.” She thought a moment. “That part about your mom telling Jimmy Doyle they didn’t want the money? Whether they ultimately took it or not, it would have to mean your dad was entitled to a share of the money. Which means he must have participated at a high level in whatever they did. So your dad must have known everything. Including about the killing.”
Ian felt the blood go out of him. “What killing? You’ve never mentioned a killing.”
Brook’s eyes filled with worry. “Sorry. Don’t know why, but I just assumed you knew.”
“I’ve got to hear it all now. All of it.”
Brook leaned back on her elbows and told him about the crime. She related it like an opening statement at trial. Ian listened with pained but grudging admiration. So detailed. Almost personal. Through the shock at what she related, he recalled that he hadn’t seen Brook in trial in years—and that she must be very good. Hearing her skilled portrayal of the crime made his father’s role in it that much more sorrowful.
By the time Brook finished with the shooting of the security guard, Ian felt sick. He recalled his mother’s comments, telling “Connor” they had to be done with this once and for all.
“Look, I’d rather you wouldn’t pass on the crime details to Katie just yet,” he said. “I don’t want to draw her too far into this.” Brook nodded her agreement.
Ian leaned forward and pulled the gun from behind his back.
“That’s what you threatened Callahan with?” Brook asked. “Is that your dad’s gun?”
Ian nodded as he ejected the magazine. “Yeah. I stashed another one in Loring Park.” He went silent as he counted. “There are two bullets missing,” he said softly.
“You haven’t fired it?”
“Nope.” He pushed the clip back into the grip.
“You know how to use it, though?”
“Well enough. I took a class in college.”
Brook shook her head. “Ballistics could prove if that gun was used in the art theft thirty-five years ago.”
Ian felt worn and jagged. “A week ago, my dad was a quiet guy who took care of his family and didn’t overcharge his clients. Not wealthy like your folks, but content to make an honest dollar. Now ballistics can prove he was a murderer at a multimillion-dollar art theft whose only saving grace was that he may have turned down his share of the money after killing a security guard.”
Brook looked away. “Sorry. Telling you that way, I must have sounded clinical. This has got to be terrible for you.”
In the distance Ian heard people entering the foyer, followed by elevators rising. A few muffled voices passed through as well. No one entered the stairwell.
“The only thing worse than my dad’s involvement is my mom knowing about the crime and just carrying on. Living her life with Dad—raising her kids—like nothing happened. It changes everything I know about her too.”
“Ian,” Brook said, taking his arm, “you don’t know what she knew or when she learned about any of it or how she felt about it. You told me your parents didn’t even get married until 1987. That was four years after the art theft. Look, this is really, really hard, but we’ve got to set some of this aside for now and try to figure out what’s going on. Size up who took the money, for starters. Before it’s too late.”
He looked at her and nodded. “Yeah. Sorry. You’re right.”
“Good. Now, let’s start with motive to steal the money from your account.”
“Okay.” Ian thought for a moment. “Either Rory or Sean had plenty of motive to take the money. Sean could have wanted all of the trust cash and not just his share. He hadn’t the opportunity under the trust terms until the banker moved it the other night, because the trust said until then only the banker was to have the account information on where the money was being stored. On the other hand, Rory had motive because it’s looking like he didn’t qualify for his share at all.”
“Yes,” Brook said, “but we’ve got to assume that whoever stole the cash from your account is likely the same one who’s been passing hot money the past couple of weeks. Who had a motive to do that?”
“Nobody,” Ian said. “Throwing around hot money would get the FBI to sniff around and maybe reopen the case—just at the moment they’d planned on taking the cash for themselves.”
“There’s one possibility,” Brook began. “The thief might have wanted to spread the hot cash to set you up for the blame. They could have assumed that once the money disappeared from your account, you’d likely go to the police yourself and the case would get reopened anyway. So the thief might have been trying to set things up in advance to look like you were the one who stole the trust money. Then you couldn’t go to the police. Plus there’d be the added benefit that the other trust beneficiaries would also think you were the thief.”
“I said something along those lines to Callahan last night,” Ian said. “I suppose that when my dad was still the lawyer set to handle the trust distribution, there wasn’t any risk he’d turn to the authorities, since it looks like he was involved with the art theft. But once he died, things changed. Come to think of it, that’s why I was the natural to replace him as the attorney for the trust.”
Brook looked perplexed. “Why?”
“Think about it. That decision was Callahan’s to make. If Callahan never intended to take the trust money for himself—you know, was content to allow it to be distributed and just get his share—his choice of me to replace Dad would make sense, because if I learned about the art heist, there was at least a chance I wouldn’t go to the police since it would implicate my own parents. Especially my living mother. But if, on the other hand, Callahan was always planning on stealing the trust money, I was a good choice because I could be set up as the trust thief in advance, just like you described. The FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office would buy it, thinking I’d ‘inherited’ Dad’s right to part of the theft proceeds. So either way, choosing me made more sense than grabbing a lawyer off the street.”
Brook nodded. “And I assume part of the banker’s job was to keep the transfer from being traceable back to the Caribbean banks holding the money—and ultimately to the Doyles or Callahan or that McMartin. That’s probably why he did the transfer in the middle of the night the way he did.”
“There’s one glitch with our reasoning, though,” Brook went on. “Regardless of who the trust thief was, they had to know there was some risk you’d go to the police. It wasn’t a sure thing you’d stay quiet to protect Martha. How did they plan for that possibility?”
“That’s easy,” Ian said grimly. “If it came to that, kill me and make my body disappear.”
The words sounded alien coming out of his lips. It grew more real when he saw the horrified expression on Brook’s face.
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, if the thief gets the spotlight trained on me, and I disappear at the same time the money disappears, the FBI would think I ran with the cash. With me dead and hidden, they’d keep chasing that dead man while the real thief slipped away.”
“No. I get that. I mean why are you so convinced they’d go that far and actually kill you?”
“Apart from the fact that they already murdered somebody in the art theft?”
“Nothing else?” she pushed sternly. “Like we haven’t gotten to the shooting you told me about last night.”
Ian grew defensive. “Yeah. I was getting to that.”
“Please do.”
“Well, the guy Willy Dryer shot was one of the same ones who attacked me in the bar. They’d followed me out onto the street. One of them had a gun, the other a knife. I think they were planning on silencing me. Especially given that we now know the trust thief took the money out of my account around the same time those guys were closing in on me.”
Brook swung a fist hard into his chest. “What else haven’t you told me?”
“Whoa, cage fighter,” he said. When that failed to lighten her up, he grew serious. “That’s all. Really. I didn’t want to worry you.”
“Then you’re an idiot,” she said. “Ian, we’re done. We’re going to my office now.”
“NO,” Ian said. The sound of his voice echoed in the stairwell. Brook stared at him, silent but undeterred.
“No,” he said again more softly. “Not now. With the evidence as it is, I could be taken into custody—and I can’t protect my mom while in jail. Callahan thinks I took the money, so he will punish my mother if he can’t reach me. I know he would, and you’d believe it too if you met him. I’ve got to trace down this money and get it back to Callahan. After that, we can figure out what we’re going to do, and how.”
They grew silent together once more. “Okay,” Brook finally said. “So both Callahan and Rory had motive. Then who took the money?”
“It had to be Rory,” Ian said flatly. “It’s either him or somebody we don’t know. Callahan or Rory could have set me up to go to Larry’s Bar on Friday, I suppose, and used that opportunity to break into Mom’s house. But if the bigger point of that exercise was to make me disappear, his Marine could have shot me out at Medicine Lake or where I sat in his living room. And Callahan’s performance at his house was too real last night. He genuinely thought I took the money. So it’s got to be Rory. Or somebody we still don’t know. McMartin maybe.”
“Alright. So what do we do?”
“Well, I’ve got to find Rory. Face him and see if I can confirm he’s the one who took the cash, then figure out how to get it back. And if he’s not the one, we’re back to the starting line on who else might have taken it.”
Brook grew silent. Ian looked at her, and the notion of kissing her returned. Instead he reached out and pulled her close for a long hug.
“You’re going way out there for a guy you recently told to shove off at Kieran’s Pub,” he said. “I haven’t had much time to think about what you said, or how to answer your questions about us, but—”
“Stop right there. I’m sorry I got so worked up. It was nothing but misplaced anger. Forget it.”
“Don’t think that’s likely.”
“Yeah, well we can work on it later. Bond with a game of truth or dare.”
Truth or dare. It reminded Ian of his mother’s words from the hallway the night before that he hadn’t shared with Brook—about her telling Ahmetti something as payback for information the Albanian had shared before.
If his mom knew where the Rockwell painting was, could that be what she told Ahmetti to ‘get even’? What else would have interested a man who prided himself on knowing everything fenced in the Twin Cities?
The door to the stairwell opened. A stooped man with a tattered sleeping bag, straw hat, and several shopping bags stuffed with clothes stepped in.
“You’re in my house!” he shouted. “Get outta my house.”
Ian and Brook stood and brushed quickly by him, back into the building’s foyer.
Alone again, Ian said, “I’ve got an idea. There’s a guy who I think could fill in some big gaps for us. Maybe help me find Rory too. I want to go see him now while the idea’s fresh. If that doesn’t pan out, I may have to go to Florida.”
“Who’s in Florida?”
“Ed McMartin. The only beneficiary I haven’t tracked down.”
She nodded supportively. “Okay. I’ll see if maybe I can slow things down a bit at the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”
“That’s not a good idea. Don’t take any more chances with your career.”
“My career, my choice,” she said. “But don’t you take any more chances yourself. No more walks at night. And I recommend against more conferences in Callahan’s living room too.”
Ian nodded. “Time’s running short. Even if Callahan keeps his word, my mom’s a target for him in three days.”
They parted on Hennepin Avenue, Brook heading back to the courthouse, and Ian walking just up the street toward Doggy’s Bar. The last time he saw her, Brook had stopped on the other side of the avenue. She was looking his way too.