Wicked Is the Whiskey: A Sean McClanahan Mystery (Sean McClanahan Mysteries Book 1) (23 page)

Christmas came and went and the winter, though brutal, was also behind us. One overcast day in March Vinny invited me to join him for a couple of coffees in his office.

“This thing has been driving me mad,” he said to me, as I sipped a fresh cup of his java. “In all my years of cracking codes, I have only come across one case that reminds me of it.”

“What’s the story?”

“By the end of World War II, cryptography had evolved well beyond pencil and paper. It had become mechanized using early forms of computers. Now the Cold War era was in high gear and Russian spies in the U.S., just as U.S. spies in Russia, were all using mechanized cryptography to hide their secrets. In 1953 in the U.S., however, a hand-written cipher turned up in the U.S. that puzzled everyone. They refer to it still as the ‘Hollow Nickel Case.’”

“What do you mean hollow nickel?” I said.

“A paperboy received payment for a newspaper subscription from a woman, who turned out to be the wife of a Russian spy. The nickel seemed odd to the boy, so he threw it to the ground. It cracked open and there was a piece of microfilm inside, a snapshot of a handwritten cipher that had 10 columns of numbers. He handed it over to the FBI, who struggled for more than four years to decode it. It would become the most complex pen and paper cipher ever created.”

“Why was it so complex?” I said.

“Most hand ciphers are either substitution ciphers, in which the letters are substituted for either other letters or numbers. Transposition ciphers, in which the order of the letters is scrambled, were also common.”

“OK.”

“As cryptography became more advanced, however, cryptographers began to combine the two. They’d include both substitution of characters as well as transposition. It looked similar to Hall’s ledger — a checkerboard of seemingly unrelated numbers and characters. Though it all seems incredibly complicated, the person enciphering the text needs only to remember a simple keyword or phrase in order to record coded entries.”

“So the FBI was able to crack the Hollow Nickel Case?”

“With a lot of luck, they were able to crack it. A Russian spy wanted to defect to the U.S. He gave them the keyword that unlocked the code. It was ‘snowfall’ spelled in Russian.”

“You mean all we have to do is come up with the code Hall used to mark her entries and the whole thing will open up?”

“That would be my hunch,” said Vinny. “Do you have any ideas what kind of keyword or phrase Hall might use?”

I smiled.

“Why didn’t you ask?” I said.

“You got something?”

“I think I may,” I said.

“I’ve been waiting for you to come, Mr. McClanahan,” said Sophia Mosconi, sitting behind her desk.

Her jet black hair, hazel eyes, full red lips and natural curves still caused me to swoon — even though I now knew she was a cold-blooded killer and the most successful drug kingpin in Pittsburgh’s history.

“My Father said to never keep records in writing, not even coded records,” she said, wistfully. “This was one of the big mistakes my partner made.”

“It was one of many mistakes Victoria Hall made,” I said.

Hall’s records were meticulous. Every cash payment she made to everyone involved in her heroin enterprise had detailed entries.

“I’m curious,” said Sean. “How did your partnership with Hall begin?”

“We met at the University of Pennsylvania at the Wharton School,” said Sophia. “Victoria Hall graduated number two in our MBA program. I graduated number one.”

“I don’t understand why anyone with impeccable credentials like yours would ever need to get involved in the drug trade,” I said.

“It didn’t happen overnight,” said Sophia. “It happened gradually and then suddenly — and by then we were in too deep to turn back.”

“Were you involved in Hall’s other businesses?” I said.

“No. It was pure coincidence that our paths crossed roughly four years ago. It was coincidence that she hired my brother, Guido, after one of his stints in jail.”

“Your brother told you about Hall’s extracurricular activities as a heroin distributor?”

She nodded.

“Yes, he told me,” said Sophia. “Since I had the ability to terminate our owner-finance sales contract and shut Hall down, she was more than willing to partner with me. Besides, I had old family contacts and connections in the drug world she didn’t have — I had additional contacts in the world of finance. It was I who turned her originally small time operation into a giant concern. A great percentage of the heroin distributed throughout the country the past four years was processed in our operation.”

“You sound proud,” I said.

“We built a magnificent organization,” said Sophia. “We did it right under the nose of the federal government. We got away with it for years. I would have got away with it if not for the damn ledger Hall kept. I would have got away with it if not for you.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” I said, smiling.

“You had your own brother killed?” I said.

Sophia nodded.

“Guido told me he would go to the feds if I didn’t cut him in,” she said. “He felt he deserved a share since he was the one who discovered what Hall was up to. He didn’t want money. He wanted heroin so he could set up his own operation. But he screwed that up, too, just as he screwed up everything he did.”

“How so?”

“With a little success, he began to change,” said Sophia. “He bought a couple of expensive cars and purchased an upscale condo in the Trimont Building overlooking the city. He was splashing money all over town and drawing attention to himself. I knew it was a matter of time before he got caught and —“

“And soiled the family name?” I said.

“Yes, that’s correct. It was bad enough he got publicity for dying as a heroin addict, but that was better than dying as a heroin distributor. It was just a matter of time before he was going to overdose, anyhow. I just arranged it to do the minimum amount of damage to the family name.”

“Let me get this right,” I said. “You ordered the killing of Preston, Rosie and Guido. You tried to kill me, Erin and Elizabeth. And you did it all to conceal the millions of dollars you raised to provide support to foster children?”

“I imagine it appears absurd to you, but that is exactly what I did and I would do it again,” said Sophia. “As I see it, the people who are using heroin are going to get their product somewhere. They’re going to overdose and die and otherwise ruin their lives whether their heroin is coming from me or someone else. So why not put all of their pain and suffering and poor choices to good ends and raise millions to support foster children?”

“You almost got lucky,” I said. “You almost pulled it off.”

“Luck had nothing to do with it,” said Sophia. “I used proven business processes to plan and execute the operation perfectly. Hall did exactly as she was instructed to do by me. All the illegalities had been carried out by Hall and all the evidence pointed to her and her alone. The only thing that could tie me to her was that damn coded ledger. With the feds unable to crack it, however, I thought I was free and clear. How in the hell did you crack that code, Mr. McClanahan?”

“I’ll tell you another time,” I said. “The ledger tells quite a story, as you know. It includes records of every cash payment she made, and to whom she made it, since she began her drug operation. It was quite a surprise to see your name pop up in there. It was also a surprise to learn that you are the owner of the bank in the Caymans where Hall had shipped some $400 million dollars.”

“It’s regrettable you made both discoveries in Hall’s records,” said Sophia.

“So the two of you split the money, with Hall laundering her half through Preston’s firm, but you keeping your half in cash in your bank,” I said. “I imagine that money was earmarked for your charities and you had a strategy in place to wire small amounts to them over time to avoid scrutiny?”

“You really are very good at your work,” said Sophia. “International charities do not face the same level of scrutiny as international corporations. Hall needed Preston’s firm to wash her money back into the U.S. so she could live the high life, but in the process she squandered millions in expenses and taxes — something I was not willing to do. My plan was to carefully wire every penny of the money I’d earned to multiple charities over the next 5 to 10 years. My purpose was to use the funds to achieve maximum benefit for the foster care charities.”

“How noble,” I said. “But it is all over now. I’m turning all of the information I have found over to the feds. You’re going away for a long time and your father’s legacy will be more tarnished than ever.”

“Why would you do that, Mr. McClanahan, when I can make you a very rich man?” said Sophia. “Besides, if you do turn me in, all of the millions that will go to foster care charities will go to the government instead. It will be a total waste and do no one any good.”

“Your father doesn’t know what you have done, does he?” I said.

Sophia shook her head.

“No, and when he learns, it will kill him,” she said.

“Then why don’t you tell him today,” I said. “I’ll give you one day before I go to the DEA with your decoded ledger.”

Sophia stood and reached across her desk to shake my hand. She was such a proud, stunning woman — and such a shame.

“Thank you,” she said.

“My pleasure,” I said.

I turned on my heels and walked out her door.

“Thanks for coming down,” said Salvatore Mosconi, sitting on a bar stool in an empty room at the Gut Wrencher Comedy Club.

He was smoking a Camel cigarette and sipping bourbon. He looked small and more tired.

“Not a problem,” I said, sitting on the stool next to him.

“Can I get you a drink?”

I shook my head.

“Come on, after all my family put you through the least I can do is give you something top shelf,” said Salvatore. “How about some Maker’s Mark. It’s been helping me get through the most trying period of my life.”

“A Maker’s sounds fine,” I said. “On the rocks, please.”

He snubbed out what was left of his cigarette in an ashtray, stood, then walked around the bar and poured a generous amount into an ice-filled rocks glass. He set it in front of me, returned to his stool and lit a fresh cigarette. He took a hearty sip of Maker’s, then followed it with a long drag on his Camel.

“So what can I do for you?” I said.

“My daughter told me everything,” he said. “On one hand, the truth ripped my heart out. As I told you, I promised my wife our kids would have nothing to do with the business. We were so proud of Sophia for what she accomplished. To learn that my daughter was so involved in this heroin mess, it just breaks me up and I know her mother is rolling in her grave.”

I took a sip of my drink and let him talk.

“Guido’s death didn’t affect me as much as I’d thought it would,” he said. “He was just one of those who couldn’t do nothing right from the start. He was born to find trouble. He troubled me his whole life and was nothing but a burden on this sister, too.”

I didn’t expect that Sophia explained to him that she’d ordered his death. I let it go.

Salvatore took a drag and blew out the smoke slowly.

“You may not believe it, but I’m a believer in God,” he said. “I go to church often these days. I pray that God will forgive me for my sins. But I know that the sins of the father have a way of visiting themselves on his children. All that hard work — all the awful things I’d done — I did it for my kids. I wanted them to have better than me and not have to experience what I had to. But my sins ruined them both. Guido is dead and Sophia is not long for this world. I think her cancer has to do with me. I think it is my payback. And I think that what she did with those drugs and those killings, she did for the right reason — for the foster kids — but that don’t excuse nothin.’”

He walked around the bar and refilled his glass.

“More?” he said to me.

“I’m good,” I said.

He took a long drink, poured in some more, then returned to his bar stool and sat.

“The thing is, my daughter handled her affairs just as I would have were I a member of her generation,” he continued. “Sure, I kept away from the drugs, but I’m a relic. Were I her age and presented with the same opportunity as she, there is no doubt I would have acted just as she did. In a way you cannot understand, I’m proud of her. Like it or hate it, she pulled off one hell of a coup.”

“Almost pulled it off,” I said.

“Almost,” said Salvatore, smiling. “You’ve been the bane of my existence. But in an odd way, you have earned my trust and that is what I brought you here today.”

“I’m not following,” I said.

“Look, you know and I know that if you turn over that coded ledger to the federal authorities, my daughter’s life is over. It’s over in any event, because she may only have months to live. But what is just as bad is all that ill-gotten money will be confiscated by the government. It may take them a while — my daughter was clever in the way she laundered it and hid it. But they will find it all and get it all and thousands of needy foster kids will get nothing.”

“You’re still worried about your legacy?” I said. “Still trying to whitewash your past? I’m sorry, but justice must be done. Your daughter must pay for what she’s done. She had Preston and Rosie murdered and intended to murder Erin, Elizabeth and me. And you must pay for what she has done.”

Salvatore nodded.

“You’re not hearing me,” said Salvatore. “I know it’s over. I know Sophia is going to jail. I was just wondering if we might be able to make an accommodation that is just for all who have been wronged by my daughter and by me, while we find a way to put all of those funds to better use than giving them to the government.”

“You want to negotiate with me?” I said, laughing.

“You’ll surely like what I’m about to propose.”

“Well, let’s hear it,” I said.

And so he told me about his proposal.