Presumption of Guilt (25 page)

“We appreciate you coming here.”

Dani sat back and waited for Reynolds to continue. After a few moments, he began.

“Back then, before the jail was built, I was very ambitious. I’d been in the county legislature for eight years and felt it was time to move up. The state legislature next, then congressman, then senator. Or maybe governor. Even the presidency was within my reach, I thought.” He rubbed a hand, hard, over his face and smiled weakly at them. “So, yeah. Ambitious.

“Still, when Judge Bryson came to me and asked me to look the other way when invoices for the jail came in, I said no. It was out-and-out fraud, and I didn’t want any part of it. But he wouldn’t let it go. Kept badgering me about it. ‘Badgering’ isn’t the right word. He demanded that I do it. And then he laid it out for me. If I did what he asked, he promised I’d be the county executive. If I didn’t, I’d never run for elective office again.”

He sighed and looked miserably out the window for a moment. When he turned to them and spoke again, his voice was almost hushed. “I didn’t want any of the money. I just wanted my career. Being part of government would allow me to make better all the things I thought were wrong. So I told him to keep it.”

“Then what about the hundred thousand dollars you were paid during the first year of the jail construction?” Dani asked. “Where did that come from?”

Reynolds’s mouth fell open. “How did you know about that?”

Dani waved the question away. “Later. Tell us where the money came from.”

“Bryson wouldn’t let me take nothing. He said I had to be invested in it to ensure my silence. The money came from Quince Michaels, but the source was the jail payments.”

Dani did some quick calculations on the paper in front of her. If Singer and Michaels each took seven million, and Judge Bryson took the same amount, there had to be two others.

“Was Paul Scoby part of the group getting payments?”

Reynolds nodded. “He took the same amount as the others.”

“There must be one more.”

“John Engles.” Dani would’ve been tough to surprise at that point, but the revelation that a lawman was involved drove a disgusted grunt from Tommy. “Back then he was chief deputy sheriff. Building a new jail for the county was controversial. John mobilized the support of the guard’s union, got them all behind the need for a new jail. That provided the support for the legislators to vote in favor of building it. Bryson considered him essential and gave him a full share.”

So that’s it, Dani thought. Five men, two of them dead. One of the others was a murderer.

“Frank,” Dani said softly. “Do you know who murdered the Singers?”

“I thought Molly had. But now I realize I was kidding myself all along.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because of Quince. And because my son reminded me of a phone call twelve years ago.”

Dani looked at him quizzically.

“The state was looking into the cost overruns on the jail. It made all of them nervous, me, too, but Joe the most. He wanted us to come clean about it. Kept saying it would be better than them finding out on their own. I’d known Joe since high school. We’d stayed pals over the years. His daughter was dating my son. Alan called me one night and told me I better convince Joe to keep quiet or someone else would shut him up. I brushed away the memory of that remark after Molly was arrested. I mean, she’d confessed. Why would she have done so if she was innocent?”

“Do you think Judge Bryson killed the Singers?”

Frank looked down at the table. His hands were clenched tightly together. “I don’t know,” he whispered.

The silent glances between Dani, Melanie, and Tommy made it clear they all believed Frank. Only one question was left. “Would you be willing to tell this to an assistant US attorney?” Dani asked.

“Shouldn’t I go to the FBI?”

“They would turn it over to the US Attorney’s Office.”

“Whatever you think is right. This will help Molly, won’t it?”

Dani smiled at Frank. “Yes. She’ll definitely get a new trial now. Even if we can’t prove Judge Bryson murdered, or had murdered, the Singers, it was improper for him to preside over her case when there are allegations of his involvement in criminal activity with the victim. He clearly had a personal interest in seeing Molly convicted.”

Frank exhaled deeply. “You know, her daughter is my granddaughter. Finn is raising her.”

“Yes, I know.”

“This will make Sophie very happy.”

“Yes. She’ll be happy to be with her mother. But I suspect she’ll be unhappy about you going to prison.”

“I will, won’t I?”

“I can’t say. Maybe you can work something out for your testimony. That’s out of my hands.”

Frank nodded.

Dani left the room to call Cosgrove.

“That son of a bitch. Bryson really was involved?” he said after Dani filled him in.

“Appears so.”

“Keep Reynolds there. I’ll be right over.”

“Trust me, he’s not leaving here until we have his sworn affidavit.”

“Well, congratulations. Looks like you got what you needed.”

Dani wished that were true. It was enough to get Molly a new trial. It was still an open question whether it would be enough to get her acquitted.

Two hours later, Assistant US Attorney Cosgrove emerged from the HIPP conference room and made his way to Dani’s office.

“He’s a solid witness,” Josh said. “My office is preparing arrest warrants for Bryson, Scoby, and Engles. Before we serve them, though, we’re going to see if we can track down the money they hid.”

“Was Frank any help with that?”

“A little. He doesn’t know what they actually did, only that he was told to set up a dummy corporation and open an account for it in one of the Caribbean islands that had banking secrecy laws. Alan Bryson gave him a list of possibilities. He didn’t do that for himself, but he assumes the others did.”

“Makes sense. That’s what Singer and Michaels did.”

Cosgrove looked around Dani’s small office. “So this is what you left us for.”

Dani smiled. “Can’t beat the ambiance.”

Suddenly, Cosgrove turned serious. “You did a good job on this. Without your digging, they would have gotten away with it.”

“Thanks, but it wasn’t just me. I have a great team here.”

Cosgrove stood up to leave. “It’s good working with you again.”

As he reached the doorway, Dani called after him. “What’s going to happen to Frank?”

Cosgrove turned around. “He’ll do some time, but it’ll be a slap on the wrist compared to the others.”

“I’m glad. It was brave of him to come forward.”

“No. It would have been brave twelve years ago. It’s too late for it to be bravery now.”

C
HAPTER

44

D
ani sat in the waiting room at the US Attorney’s Office. She hadn’t seen or spoken to Cosgrove for six weeks when he’d called last night and asked her to come in. Every time someone walked past, she jumped up, hoping it was Josh. Ten minutes later, he popped in and brought her to his office.

“I wanted to let you know that we’re going to execute arrest warrants today for Alan Bryson and John Engles,” he said.

Dani exhaled deeply. “Finally! Did you find the money?”

Cosgrove reached behind him to a batch of folders on top of a file cabinet. “Enough to go forward. Reynolds’s information was invaluable but just a starting point. Do you know much about banking laws in many Caribbean islands?”

Dani shook her head.

“Well as you know, they’ve been a tax haven for years. Many of them allow individuals or groups to incorporate there as an international business company, or an IBC. Not only are the assets held by them free of taxes, but the names of the owners, directors, and shareholders are not made public. In fact, in some countries, they don’t even need to register the names of the true owners. They can use the names of nominee directors and shareholders. To top it off, US subpoenas aren’t enforceable in those countries.”

“So how did you get the money?”

“The IRS has been cracking down on these accounts. They first went after some accounts in Switzerland and India. Just recently they started with Caribbean banks.”

“But how? You said the subpoenas weren’t recognized there.”

“Yes, but—and this is a big
but
—many foreign banks have a relationship with one or more US banks. Either they have an actual presence on US soil, or they use the American bank for certain transactions, such as wiring funds to their American clients. The subpoena gets served on that bank, and the foreign bank must comply.”

“So, what did you find?”

Cosgrove opened one of the folders. “Based on Reynolds’s affidavit, we got a judge to sign a John Doe subpoena for four islands—the Bahamas, Belize, the Cayman Islands, and Dominica—targeting only those banks that had a relationship with a bank in the US. Fortunately for us, Paul Scoby parked his money in one of those banks in the Bahamas and didn’t use nominees. We had him cold.”

Dani knew what came next. When she was an assistant US attorney trying to crack a group of conspirators, she’d work on the weakest one and offer a deal. “So you brought Scoby in?”

Cosgrove nodded, then smiled. “It was hardly any fun at all. He was like a volcano ready to erupt. As soon as we sat him down and said, ‘Your bank account in the Bahamas with seven million dollars has been frozen,’ he started talking. It was like he couldn’t get it out fast enough.”

“Did he say he killed the Singers?”

“No. And he doesn’t know who did. He thought it could be any one of the other three. Since it’s not Reynolds, that leaves Bryson or Engles.”

“Did he lead you to the bank accounts for them?”

“No, but we’re going ahead with the arrest warrants without their money. Now that Scoby corroborates Reynolds’s account of the enterprise, it’s enough for a conviction.”

Dani twisted the ends of her hair, her mind racing as she plotted her next moves. A new trial for Molly—that was a certainty. With evidence of the criminal scheme Joe Singer was part of, Reynolds’s testimony that Singer wanted to confess, and Bryson’s veiled threat against him, and with the expert testimony on false confessions, Dani felt optimistic about Molly’s chance for acquittal.

As she headed back to her office, her feet seemed to skim over the pavement. She would file the papers for a new trial tomorrow, and then visit Molly to tell her the good news.

Hudson Valley Dispatch

February 17

Hudson County Shocker!

Byline: Shannon Evans

FBI agents arrested County Court Judge Alan Bryson and Hudson County Sheriff John Engles and charged them with theft of government funds, fraud and RICO violations. Both were removed in handcuffs from the courthouse and jail, respectively. According to the warrant, the men were part of a five-man group that stole more than $35 million from Hudson County through inflated and fraudulent invoices submitted in connection with the building of the Hudson County jail. Joseph Singer and Quince Michaels, the principals of the company that built the jail, were part of the conspiracy, as was local Democratic leader, Paul Scoby, and County Executive Frank Reynolds. Scoby and Reynolds have been charged as well, and sources say they’ve agreed to a plea bargain.

Spokesmen for both Bryson and Engles vehemently deny the charges and say they will vigorously defend themselves at trial.

Twelve years ago, Joseph Singer and his wife, Sarah, were found brutally murdered. Their daughter, Molly Singer, who was the only other person in the house with them during the time of the murders, first confessed to the crime and then recanted. She was convicted of both murders and is serving two consecutive life sentences at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Bedford, New York. Quince Michaels was recently killed in a boat accident ruled suspicious by the Coast Guard.

Back in the familiar motel room, Bryson waited for Engles to arrive. The unthinkable had happened. Now he had to manage it. Engles wasn’t capable of doing so on his own. He paced back and forth in front of the two beds. Even the shot of scotch hadn’t calmed his nerves.

He pounced on the door when he heard the soft knock.

“About time.”

“I had to give Kathy an excuse,” Engles said. “She didn’t want to leave me alone. Thought I was suicidal or something.”

Bryson looked at him coldly. “You’re not, I assume.”

Engles answered with an equally cold stare. “I’m fine. So now what? It’s your meeting.”

“We need to coordinate our responses. They don’t know where our money is or else they’d have put that in the indictment. And frozen the accounts. Without the money, they have nothing concrete on us.”

Engles snorted. “Nothing except the word of Scoby and Reynolds. Damn! I knew Reynolds felt all guilty over Molly Singer. I should have taken care of him before it came to this.”

It all came back to those murders. He never should have brought Engles into the deal. The sheriff’s whole adult life had been spent in close proximity to criminals. It must have rubbed off on him. Bryson hadn’t wanted Joe Singer murdered, just frightened into silence. That’s all. If Engles hadn’t overreacted, they’d all be looking forward to retirement soon, each with seven million dollars paving the way for a luxurious end to their time left on earth. He’d be damned if he would spend it in prison instead because he’d aligned himself with a Neanderthal.

“It’s still their word against ours,” Bryson said. “It’s easy to dismiss Scoby. We say since he knew he was going down himself, he thought he’d try to take down the leaders of the Republican party in Hudson County along with him.”

“Reynolds is a Republican.”

“As you said, he wants Molly out. Figured if he fingered the judge who presided at her trial, it would get her a new one.”

Engles eyed Bryson warily. “How do I know you’re not going to make a deal with them? Throw me under the bus for a lighter sentence?”

He really is an idiot, thought Bryson. “Because our fates are tied together.”