43
The next day he interviewed three doctors at YBMG, two of whom had not invested and one who had. The first two felt understandably snake-bit, but neither one saw a grand conspiracy at work in his bad fortune. The Group had done well and they both wished they had been more a part of it, but it was like the lottery. Who would have predicted the windfall? It was a fluke, and they'd been given their chance.
The lucky one, Dr. Seidl, was a younger member of the Group, only entitled to ninety-two shares. Paying his monthly bills in December, he had sent in his $4.60 and promptly forgot about it. Last month, when he received his payout of $13,143.12, he thought it was very nice, but after taxes it was a little under ten grand, and after all his credit cards he was back to square one. It sure beat a swan dive into a dry swimming pool, but it wasn't really going to change his life.
Hardy was starting to think it was going to be hard to sustain his conspiracy theory, even to himself, if he didn't find somebody who had made a bundle, and theoretically, at least, would have had reason to shut up a whistle blower if that's what Larry Witt had been.
In the afternoon he went to the library and looked up the members of the YBMG Board in the business reference section, but the names were all unfamiliar. He did learn that the corporation as an entity was scheduled to hold fifty-one percent of the stock, and the doctors forty-nine percent, if all of them bought in. He wondered if there was a provision for outstanding, unbought doctor stock, some kind of secondary buy-in, but he saw no mention of it in the published prospectus.
He did some figuring, realizing that if only ten percent of the doctors bought their stock, then there appeared to be a little over 125,000 shares out there somewhere – unclaimed – with a value of something like $17 million.
On Friday morning, he was in his office, talking on the phone to the Los Angeles Police Department. He still had discovered no evidence connection between YBMG's business dealings and Dr. Larry Witt. He had talked to Jennifer again last night, pressing her, but she could recall nothing Larry said or might have said regarding the proposed buy-out. Hardy was tempted to tell her to make something up just so he could get it in front of somebody, but he restrained himself.
Then it struck him – there had been an investigation. He knew that policmen got sensitive about their unsolved backlogs – their skull cases, they called them – but he might be able to drum up a little enthusiasm – tie the old crime to another one?
'Restoffer. Homicide.'
It was an older voice but not a tired one. And Hardy had gotten through the huge bureaucracy faster that he'd have thought possible. Maybe it meant something.
Hardy introduced himself, trying to talk fast and still be as clear as he could be – he was a defense attorney in San Francisco and maybe had discovered a possible link between his client and the murder of Simpson Crane.
There was a longish pause. 'What'd you say your name was?'
Hardy told him. Another pause. 'Just a minute. Hang on, would you?'
When Restoffer came back on, there was less background noise. 'You said you were in San Francisco?'
'That's right.'
'I'm listening.'
Hardy went through it, more slowly this time, filling in the blanks. When he'd finished, Restoffer said, 'That's pretty tenuous, Mr. Hardy.'
The inspector was right, of course, and Hardy admitted it. Simpson Crane ran the law firm that represented the medical group of which Larry Witt had been a member. Crane himself hadn't been YBMG's lawyer, or Witt's. For that matter, even Jody Bachman hadn't been Witt's lawyer.
Hardy knew better than to push. It was the quickest way to turn a cop off – a citizen, especially a defense lawyer, lobbying for an unsupported theory. The facts were either going to intrigue Restoffer or not. 'Well,' Hardy said, 'I just thought I should report it to somebody, get it off my chest.'
It was Restoffer's cue to hang up if he was going to, but he stayed on. 'We're pretty sure it was union muscle but we couldn't find any kind of trail. They did it right…'
'Same up here. Except they've convicted my client – Witt's wife – of killing him for the insurance.'
'They've convicted her already?'
'Last week. My problem is she's got no defense, other than saying she didn't do it. She says she saw somebody walking up the street. Maybe it was some kind of hit man, so I've been trying to find a reason for a hit man to want to kill Witt. This might be it.'
There was a long silence. 'I've got four months before I retire,' Restoffer said. 'I'd love to close out these two. Crane was a prominent guy. So was his wife. But I've got five live cases right now. When am I supposed to fit this in?'
That was his problem, and Hardy let him wrestle with it.
'You got a paper trail, anything at all?'
All Hardy had was the offering circular and the prospectus from the library, which he'd fax down if Restoffer needed it.
'How much money we talking about?'
'I figure about seventeen million dollars.'
'Seventeen million?'
'You think that could motivate somebody to do something serious?'
Restoffer grunted. 'Seventeen dollars does it down here, sometimes seventeen cents.' The line hummed, empty and open. 'Okay,' he said, 'why don't you send your stuff down? I'll take a look at it.'
Now it was Hardy's turn to hang up, but much as he wanted Restoffer's help, he didn't want to mislead him. It was full-disclosure time. 'Inspector…' he began.
'Floyd,' Restoffer said.
'Okay, Floyd, there is one other thing you ought to know that argues against this hit man theory. It might make the whole exercise not worth your time. l'
'I'm listening.'
'I don't know what the practice is with professional killers – if they do this. But Witt was shot with his own gun.'
The silence hung. Hardy thought he heard Restoffer let out a deep breath. 'So was Crane,' he said. 'Send down your stuff.'
At least some things seemed to be falling together, even the details that did not appear to have particular relevance. For example, the FedEx package.
While Hardy was filling out his subpoena form to call Ali Singh as a witness for the defense, it had come back to him that the FedEx invoice had been entered as an exhibit, and all he had to do was look up who had sent the package.
He had done that, and seeing that it had come from Nancy DiStephano, he had remembered – putting things together – that Tom had gone over to Jennifer's house the week before the killings to deliver his own present, but that Nancy was going to wait to deliver hers in person when the Witts came to visit on Christmas. So what had happened was that after the Witts had blown off the family visit, Nancy had sent her present to her grandson Matt by Federal Express. What the gift had been didn't matter – it had obviously vanished into the gaping and insatiable mouth of Christmas presents, into the mountain of Matt's new toys.
