‘‘So?’’ I asked.
‘‘The signature,’’ said George. ‘‘Look at the signature.’’
I squinted, then put on my reading glasses. ‘‘God?’’ I asked.
‘‘No, no, no!’’ he said, exasperated. ‘‘Not God, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, that’s Gabe. That’s an e that he trails off, and it looks like
…’’
‘‘Gabe.’’
‘‘Gabe.’’
We all needed coffee after that. Sally came back to copy the papers, and we got her some coffee too.
It turned out that what Melissa had provided us with was a fairly complete paper trail for a theoretical hoard of gold, kept in Belize and manipulated from San Jose, Costa Rica. The manipulating organization was known as the P.M. Corporation, with offices in San Jose; Portland, OR; Corpus Christi, TX; and St. Paul, MN. Well, box numbers. They listed suites only in San Jose and Portland. P.M., it seemed, stood for Precious Metals. So…
What they did was this: You bought a share in the P.M. gold, for $500. This got you an ounce. They kept the gold marked with your name, and it would be instantly available to you when and if the government of the United States collapsed and there was a ‘‘World Upheaval followed by a World Crash.’’ This, by the way, seemed to be pretty inevitable, if you listened to P.M. If, on the off chance, the United States hadn’t collapsed by 2015, you would receive $5,000 per invested share. Right. Wanna buy a bridge?
Interestingly enough, although P.M. stoutly claimed that there was no money of value except gold (the rest were all ‘‘false creations of credit’’), they would accept your personal check.
And it was in this bunch that Herman had invested his and his son’s net worth. So had many, many others, if you could believe that part of the P.M. spiel. This wasn’t the first group that did this that I’d had information about, but P.M. was the first one I’d seen with glossy, slick brochures.
‘‘People can’t really be this dumb, can they?’’
‘‘Carl,’’ said George, ‘‘they get a lot dumber than that.’’
I’d worked fraud cases before, but it had been my experience that the average Iowa farmer would read a spiel like that one and spit on the shiny shoes that tried to sell it to him. Politely, of course. Maybe even apologetically. But he’d spit accurately, nonetheless. Herman must have been a little short of saliva one day. Not to mention brains. Yet he was known to be a little short on assets as well. He’d been convinced enough to borrow and beg to get the funds to buy into the P.M. hoard. The ‘‘pot of gold,’’ as I began to think of it.
‘‘God,’’ said Hester. ‘‘He borrowed money to buy into that?’’
‘‘Yeah,’’ I said.
‘‘Well,’’ said George, ‘‘that’s not half of it. We’ve dealt with P.M. and its right-wing connections before this. There actually is some gold, you know.’’
No, I hadn’t known. As it turned out, P.M. was just one of several names used by a small group of Nazi types in South America who were supporting the neo-Nazis in the United States. The money that they gathered in was shipped back into the United States and ended up in the coffers of some militant groups, who used it mostly to buy equipment and for publicity and recruitment propaganda. Well, a lot of it went into the pockets of certain individuals too.
‘‘You know,’’ said George, ‘‘that’s one of the stranger aspects of all this business. Most of the individuals who prosper here have followers. Most of them exhort those followers not to pay their federal taxes, and many don’t. But most of those making the big profits do report to the IRS, and pay their taxes up front. They just claim that they don’t. Neat, isn’t it?’’
‘‘That it is.’’ I got up to go get more coffee. ‘‘Anybody else want more?’’
‘‘Me,’’ said Sally.
‘‘Okay.’’
‘‘Can I ask a question?’’ said Sally.
All three of us officers had worked with Sally enough to know that she could be trusted completely and that she frequently contributed quite a bit to investigations.
‘‘Sure,’’ I said.
‘‘What do you think Herman’s wife thinks about all this? I mean, don’t you think she’d be furious about the money?’’
‘‘I don’t think Nola probably gave him too much crap about it,’’ I said, sort of absently. I hadn’t really thought about it.
‘‘I sure would,’’ she said earnestly.
‘‘Yeah,’’ I said, ‘‘but think about this situation. They’ve been married, what, about thirty years by now? Experienced the same ups and downs. Know the same people. They were probably quite a bit alike when they got married, for that matter.’’
‘‘So,’’ said Sally, ‘‘you think she agrees with him?’’
‘‘I think so,’’ I answered. ‘‘Either that or she could be behind it and he’s just following her. It sure wouldn’t be the first time.’’
‘‘But that big an investment?’’ Sally seemed truly perplexed.
‘‘Actually,’’ said George of the Bureau, ‘‘it’s not so much an investment as… as a commitment, I guess you’d say.’’
‘‘Commitment?’’ said Sally. ‘‘Like, in a promise?’’
‘‘Sort of,’’ said Hester. ‘‘I think George’s right. It would be like a couple investing heavily in their church or their mutual religion. That happens a lot, for a lot less of a promise of a good return on the investment.’’
‘‘Oh.’’
‘‘On the other hand,’’ said George.
‘‘No!’’ came from me and Hester at about the same time. George is an attorney by education, and an agent only by trade. He can argue endlessly on either side of a question.
‘‘Sorry I asked.’’ Sally grinned. ‘‘But I still say I’d be bent about that… even if’’-and the grin broadened- ‘‘it was my fault in the first place. I mean, if he’s dumb enough to do what I told him to do?’’ She smiled coyly. ‘‘What’s a girl to do?’’
The point? How well did we know Nola Stritch? Obviously not well enough to know if she was like Sally, so not well enough at all.
‘‘I’ll do her,’’ sighed Hester. ‘‘Thanks, Sally.’’
‘‘No problem. Just too bad the smartest cop got stuck with it.’’ With that, she stuck out her tongue at George and me and went back to copying papers.
In the meantime, George told us about the computers.
The combined DCI/FBI evidence team, working the Stritch residence, had apparently seized three computers, along with numerous disks. Neat. They were coming into the office with them before going to the lab.
‘‘We think,’’ said George, ‘‘that Herman and company probably did a lot of their correspondence on the machines, along with, maybe, a database of addresses…’’
‘‘Great,’’ said Hester. ‘‘We get to go over it?’’
‘‘That could be a problem,’’ said George. ‘‘The lab folks want their experts to do it, in case there’s any crypto stuff, and messages might be destroyed if we pry…’’
‘‘I don’t think,’’ I said, ‘‘that Herman’s able to cope with anything complex…’’
‘‘But do we want to take the chance?’’
Normally, I wouldn’t want to take a chance on destroying evidence. But George told us that it would be about three weeks before the information would be back from the lab.
‘‘Your lab, the FBI lab, right?’’ I asked.
‘‘Sure.’’
‘‘And they won’t give us shit,’’ I said. ‘‘If there’s anything concerning the P.M. organization, for instance… it’ll be classified because it’s part of an ongoing investigation, and we’ll never hear about it. Right?’’
George didn’t say anything.
‘‘And no matter what’s there, it just might as well be destroyed as far as our little investigation is concerned. Right?’’ I asked again.
George had kind of a pained look on his face. ‘‘Probably.’’
