Beyond Suspicion (13 page)

•

At eleven-thirty, Jack was at the Federal Building in downtown Miami. It was familiar territory.

Chafetz was the man who’d convinced him to become a federal prosecutor, and he was the reason Jack had stayed with the U.S. attorney’s office far longer than originally planned. At the time, Chafetz was in the special investigations section, a trial-intensive team that handled complex cases ranging from child exploitation to gang prosecution. It was hard work, high stakes, and never boring. A perfect fit for Jack. He and Chafetz worked side by side, liked each other’s style, liked each other. But nothing lasts forever. Chafetz was promoted to section chief, and Jack moved on to private practice. They tried to stay in touch, but it just wasn’t the same after Jack started working the opposite side of the courtroom.

Chafetz led Jack to a conference room near his office. Two men were inside, waiting. From the hallway, Jack could see them through the window on the door.

“I’ll take Drayton, you can have the little guy.”

Chafetz smiled, then turned serious. “I wish I could prepare you better, but you and I don’t need anyone accusing us of exchanging favors on the side. Just remember, whatever happens in there, it isn’t my show. It’s Drayton’s.”

“I know what you’re saying. It’s no secret how Drayton operates.”

“You know him?”

“Only by reputation. A conceited tight-ass who thinks anyone who lives outside the 202 area code just fell off the turnip truck.”

“Dead on, my friend. Just do me a favor. Don’t mention turnips in the meeting, all right?”

“Come on, you know me better than that.”

“I’m serious. This wasn’t easy to pull off.”

Jack wasn’t sure how Chafetz had convinced Drayton to lay his cards on the table sooner than he otherwise might have. But things like this didn’t happen just because you said “pretty please.” He looked him in the eye and said, “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

He opened the door, Jack and he entered, and the introductions followed. First was the portly guy with tortoise-shell glasses, a crew cut, and virtually no personality. The letters “IRS” might just as well have been tattooed across his forehead. At his side was Sam Drayton. Instantly, he struck Jack as a walking fraud. It was well known that his wife was a millionaire, but he still wore the cheap, off-the-rack suits of a government lawyer because that was the image he wanted to cultivate. The wristwatch was a forty-dollar Timex, and the pungent cologne smelled like some homemade concoction of Aqua Velva and a three-dollar jug of berry-scented massage oil that could have masked the odor of a moose in a spinning class. Jack would have bet his liberty that Drayton had never paid more than six dollars on a haircut.

All of that is fine, if that’s who you are. But there’s nothing more pretentious than a wealthy lawyer who has to work at being a regular Joe.

Jack took a seat at one end of the table, opposite Drayton and his IRS agent. Chafetz excused himself and reached for the door.

“Hey, Chafetz,” said Jack as he flipped him a quarter.

He caught it in midair, puzzled.

Jack said, “My turnip truck is parked out front. Feed the meter, would you?”

They exchanged glances, the way they used to communicate silently as cocounsel in a courtroom. “Sure thing,” said Chafetz as he left the room, suppressing his smile.

The others looked at one another, clueless as to the inside joke. Drayton turned to the business at hand. “Thanks for coming, Mr. Swyteck.”

“I wish I could say it was good to be back.”

“We know it’s an inconvenience. Especially in light of what happened to you this morning.”

“You mean those thieves who took my computers?”

“No. I mean that bruise on your jaw.”

“Seems that someone is really ticked off that I might blame the viatical investors for Jessie Merrill’s death.”

“We know. We’ve read the police report you filled out in the emergency room.”

“Seeing how you’re part of the strike force, am I correct in assuming that my little incident may have had something to do with an element of organized crime?”

“To be honest, we want you to help us pinpoint the exact criminal element involved.”

“I wish I could, but I can’t. Never got a look at who jumped me last night. And I’ve already told the state attorney everything I know about the threats against Jessie. Unfortunately, she didn’t get very specific.”

Drayton said, “We hear from a reliable confidential informant that the beating you took last night came on a direct order from a known underworld operative.”

“How does your CI know that?”

Drayton didn’t answer, didn’t even seem to acknowledge the question. He simply rose and went to the whiteboard, rolling a felt-tipped marker through his fingers as he spoke. “For about eight months now, we’ve had our eye on Viatical Solutions, Inc., or VS, as we call it.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“From the outside, VS appears to be nothing more than a viatical broker. The deals are structured like a legitimate viatical settlement, with one major difference.” Drayton marked a red dollar-sign on the whiteboard, then drew an X through it. “The money from the investors is always dirty.”

“VS is laundering money?”

“As if you didn’t know.” The prosecutor leaned into the table and said, “How did your name end up on an offshore bank account with Jessie Merrill?”

“She obviously put it there. How or why, I can only guess.”

“How did the investors pay her the one-point-five million?”

“I don’t know. That happened before she hired me.”

“Was it in cash or a wire transfer from another offshore bank?”

“I said I don’t know.”

“Perhaps it was a combination,” said Drayton, suggesting an answer. “Was it paid in a lump sum, or in installments from various sources?”

“I can’t answer that.”

“That’s unfortunate. Because if you can’t help us, we can’t help you.”

“Help me what?”

“It’s no secret that the state attorney suspects foul play in the death of Jessie Merrill. The way the evidence is playing out, you’re pretty high on the list of suspects.”

“Plenty of innocent people have found themselves on a prosecutor’s list of suspects.”

“No question. And if just half the glowing things your old boss says about you are true, then you probably will be exonerated. Eventually. But wouldn’t it be nice to speed up that process?”

“I’m listening.”

“The quickest way to get off the list of suspects is for you to convince the state attorney that someone else did it. We might be able to help you with that.”

“Are you sitting on evidence that Jessie Merrill was murdered?”

“This is a money-laundering investigation. All we can tell you is that the people we’re investigating-the people who we believe are in control of Viatical Solutions, Inc.-are certainly capable of murder. Your cooperation with us on the money-laundering investigation may well provide the jump-start you need to prove your innocence on the murder charge.”

“What do I have to do?”

“Just answer all our questions about the source of the funds, the structure of the transaction. Who did you meet with? How was the money transferred? From what accounts?”

“I told you, I wasn’t there.”

“And I keep coming back to the same question. Why is your name on that joint account? Just what secrets were you trying to cloak in the shroud of the attorney-client privilege?”

“I can only say it again: I don’t know anything about that.”

“Obviously, we don’t accept that. You have a pretty stainless reputation, but an argument could still be made that you and your client knowingly entered into a transaction that allowed these investors to launder one and a half million dollars in dirty money.”

“There’s no reason for anyone to believe that.”

“Yes, there is. I don’t care how clean you are. A married guy makes a mistake, there’s no telling what he might do for his girlfriend to keep her from sending an audiotape of their little escapade to his wife.”

Jack’s heart sank.
Is there anyone Clara Pierce
didn’t
send that tape to?
“That’s an old tape. Jessie and I dated before I was married.”

“That’s a likely story.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with that joint bank account.”

“We’ll see what your computers show.”

“If that’s why you seized them, you’re going to be sorely disappointed.”

“Computers are just one angle. Fortunately, we have ways of stimulating your personal memory.”

“Is that a threat?”

Drayton resumed his position at the whiteboard. “Simply put, you owe the Internal Revenue Service some serious money.”

“What?”

Drayton and the IRS agent were suddenly making goo-goo eyes at each other. “Peter, what’s the exact number?”

The bean counter flipped open his notebook. “Our latest calculation is in the neighborhood of three hundred thousand dollars.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Hardly,” said Drayton as he wrote the number on the board. “You and Jessie Merrill were joint account holders on her one and a half million dollars. It’s our position that your half of that account is taxable income for legal services rendered. You owe income tax on seven hundred fifty thousand dollars.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but I’ve already spoken to the PR of Jessie’s estate and disavowed any interest in my alleged half of those funds.”

Drayton’s eyes brightened. “Thank you for sharing that. Peter, make a note. It seems Mr. Swyteck has made a gift of his seven hundred fifty thousand dollars. So, in addition to income tax on that sum, he now also owes gift tax.”

The bean counter scribbled in his pad and said, “That brings the total closer to four hundred thousand.”

“You arrogant prick,” said Jack. “I dedicated a big chunk of my career to this office. And now this is what I get? Trumped up charges from Washington?”

“Calm down, all right? I didn’t want to have to threaten you, and I’m not going so far as to say you killed the woman. But there was something funny going on between you and Jessie Merrill. This is an eight-month investigation that needs your help. Fact is, you need our help too.”

“I don’t need anyone’s help. No juror in his right mind is ever going to believe I’m a murderer. I mean, really. If I wanted Jessie Merrill dead, would I kill her in my own bathtub?”

“Good answer, Mr. Swyteck. Did you think of it before or after you murdered Jessie Merrill?”

He knew that Drayton was just role-playing, stepping into the shoes of a state attorney on cross-examination. Still, it chilled him.

“You done?” said Jack.

“That’s all for now.”

He rose and started for the door.

“Hope to hear from you,” said Drayton. “Soon.”

“Hope springs eternal,” said Jack. He left the room, steadily gaining speed as he headed down the hall to the elevator.

•

A blast of chilly air followed Todd Chastan out of the autopsy room. He wadded his green surgical scrubs into a loose ball and tossed them into the laundry bag in the hallway outside the door. A soiled pair of latex gloves sailed into the trash. His pace was brisk as he headed down the gray-tiled hallway.

Dr. Chastan was an associate medical examiner in Atlanta. The office served all of Fulton County and, on request, certain cases from other counties. Chastan had spent nearly the entire morning exploring the internal cavity of a sixteen-year-old boy who’d botched his first attempted robbery of a convenience store. He’d left a loaded.38 caliber pistol, twenty-eight dollars, and about two pints of blood on the sidewalk outside the shattered plate-glass window. Just a few hours later, his young heart, lungs, esophagus, and trachea were resting on a cold steel tray. The liver, spleen, adrenals, and kidneys would be next, followed by the stomach, pancreas, and intestines. His brain had already been sliced into sections, bagged, and tagged. It was all part of a typical medical-legal autopsy required in the seventy or so homicides the office might see in an average year. Over the same period of time, ten times that number of examined deaths might be classified as “natural.”

An urgent message from a medical-legal investigator didn’t usually spell “natural.”

Dr. Chastan made a quick right at the end of the hall, knocked once, and entered the investigator’s office. “You paged me?”

Eddy Johnson looked up from the papers on his desk. “It’s about the Falder case.”

“Falder?” he said, straining to recall.

“The woman you did yesterday. The one with AIDS.”

“Yeah, yeah. Her medical history painted a bleak picture. By all accounts, she was on borrowed time. Full autopsy didn’t seem necessary. I did an external and sent some tissue and blood samples to the lab.”

“Got the report right here,” Johnson said as he pulled a file out from under two empty coffee cups and the sports section.

“Something give you concern?” He smiled impishly, but realized that he was in a medical-legal investigator’s office, and answered his own question. “Obviously, something gives you concern.”

Johnson was deadpan. “Plate’s under the microscope. Have a look-see for yourself.”

Chastan maneuvered around the swollen folders on the floor and stepped up to the microscope that was resting on the countertop, right beside
Gray’s Anatomy
. He closed one eye, brought the other to the eyepiece, and adjusted the lens. He twisted it to the left and then to the right, but something didn’t seem quite right. He stood up, scratched his head, then gave another look. Finally, he faced Johnson and asked, “What the hell is that?”

“It’s the blood you drew from Ms. Falder.”

He blinked, confused. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

“That’s why I have the file,” he said with a wink. Johnson was known around the office as a strange-case specialist.

“What do you think it is?”

“I couldn’t even guess. Some kind of virus, maybe.”

“We need to send it off to the Center for Disease Control right away.”

“I already did, this morning. But there’s more to this case that troubles me.”

“Such as?”

“She came here with just over two liters of blood in her body.”

“I took only three vials.”

“That’s my point. Where are the other three and a half liters?”

“I don’t know. I looked at the photos. No blood at the scene of her death.”

“That’s right.”

“She couldn’t have donated it before she died. AIDS aside, nobody walks around with sixty percent of the blood in their body missing.”

“Right again,” said Johnson.

“Which means what? Somebody took it?”

He gave the doctor a serious look. “I think you and I are now on the same page.”

“She had multiple injection marks all over her body. I didn’t think anything of it. She had AIDS. She was getting injections almost every other day.”

“Looks like one of those holes was used to siphon out her blood.”

“That changes everything. If that much blood was drawn while she was alive, it would have sent her into cardiac arrest.”

“Which means the cause of death was anything but natural.”

“I need that body back,” said Chastan. “We need a full medical-legal autopsy. I can get on it this morning.”

“Go to it.”

He started for the door, then stopped. “Ed, why do you think someone might have wanted this woman’s blood?”

“Don’t know. But I have a feeling we’ll have a better idea when we hear back from disease control.”

“You think someone out there is into collecting blood infected with strange organisms?”

“Collecting. Or harvesting.”

With all that he’d seen over the years-dismembered bodies, charred babies-it took a lot to get a reaction from Dr. Chastan. But the thought of someone cultivating disease in human hosts was up there. “This could be one sick son of a bitch.”

“You got that right.” Johnson switched off the light on the microscope and put the blood plate back in the file. “I’ll put homicide on notice.”

“Sure,” he answered. “The sooner the better.”