forcibly raped maybe a dozen times and that virtually every inch of her body had been lacerated with a razor blade? Am I happy that the man who did that is sitting next to his million-dollar swimming pool in his five-hundred-dollar designer sunglasses while the most expensive law firm in the state of Florida and the fanciest public-relations outfit in New York City are doing everything possible to position him as the innocent victim of an incompetent and corrupt police department? Are you asking me if I’m happy about that?”
“So it would be an understatement to say he’s not cooperating with the investigation?”
“Yes, sir. Yes indeed. That would be an understatement. Mr. Ballston’s attorneys have made it clear that their client will not say one word to anyone in law enforcement about the bogus case fabricated against him.”
“Before he decided to say nothing, did he offer any explanation for the presence of a murdered woman in his freezer?”
“Only that he has had frequent work done on his home, has had many household employees, and Lord only knows how many people might have had access to his basement-not to mention the burglar himself.”
Kline looked around the room, his hands palms up in a questioning gesture, but no one had anything to add. “Okay,” he said. “Detective Becker, I want to thank you for your help. And for your candor. And good luck with your case.”
There was a pause. Then the soft drawl. “Just wondering… if you gentlemen might know anything about this case up there on your end that could be useful to us down here?”
Kline and Rodriguez looked at each other. Gurney could see the wheels turning as they weighed the potential risks and rewards of openness. The captain finally offered a glum little shrug, deferring the decision to the DA.
“Well,” said Kline, making it all sound iffier than it really was, “we think it’s possible we may be looking for more than one mis-per.”
“Oh?” There was a silence, suggesting that Becker was either taking time to absorb this or wondering why it hadn’t been mentioned sooner. When he spoke again, his voice had lost its softness. “Exactly how many are we talking about?”
Chapter 54
On the long drive home, Gurney was obsessed by the situation in Palm Beach, by the image of Jordan Ballston beside his pool, by the desire to get to the man and get to the bottom of this bizarre case. But getting to the man would not be easy. Having insulated himself behind a wall of legal and PR spokespeople, Ballston sure as hell was not about to sit down for a friendly chat about the body in his basement.
Just outside the little village of Musgrave, Gurney pulled in to a Stewart’s convenience store for coffee. It was close to 3:00 P.M., and he was on the verge of caffeine withdrawal.
As he was getting back into his car with a steaming sixteen-ounce container, his phone was ringing.
It was Hardwick. “So what do you think, Davey? Whole new ball game?”
“Same game. New camera angle.”
“You see something you didn’t see before?”
“An opportunity. Just not sure how to get at it.”
“Ballston? You think he’s going to tell you anything? Good luck!”
“Only key we’ve got, Jack. Got to find a way to turn it.”
“You think he’s somehow behind this whole thing?”
“I don’t know enough yet to think anything. I can’t imagine any way he could have killed Jillian Perry. But I’ll say it again-he’s the only key we’ve got. He’s got a real name, a real business and personal background, and his ass is planted at a real address. Compared to him, Hector Flores is a ghost.”
“Okay, ace, you let us know when that genius brain of yours figures out how to turn the key. But that’s not why I called. Some more stuff on Karnala and its owners just drifted in.”
“Kline told me you discovered it wasn’t really a clothing company?”
Hardwick cleared his throat. “Tip of the proverbial iceberg. Or more like the tip of an insane asylum. We still don’t know for sure what business Karnala is in, but I got some data on the Skards. Definitely not people you want to fuck with.”
“Hold on a second, Jack.” Gurney opened his coffee container and took a long swallow. “Okay, talk to me.”
“We’re getting this in bits and pieces. Before they came to the U.S. and went international, the Skards originally operated out of Sardinia, which is part of Italy. Italy’s got three separate law-enforcement agencies, each with its own records, plus local stuff, and then there’s Interpol, which has access to some of it but not all of it. Plus, I’m getting snatches of stuff that’s not in any file-old rumors, hearsay, whatever-from a guy at Interpol I’ve done some favors for. So what I have is disconnected chunks, some of it unique, some of it repetitive, some of it contradictory. Some reliable, some not, but no way of knowing which is which.”
Gurney waited. It never helped to tell Hardwick to skip the preamble.
“At the visible level, the Skards are high-end international investors. Resorts, casinos, thousand-dollar-a-night hotels, companies that build million-dollar yachts, shit like that. But the betting is that the money they use to acquire those legal assets comes from somewhere else.”
“From a nastier enterprise they’re concealing?”
“Right, and the Skards are very effective concealers. In the whole bloody history of the family, there has been only one arrest-for an atrocious assault ten years ago-and not a single conviction. So there are no real criminal files, almost nothing on paper. Rumors keep surfacing that they’re into very-high-end prostitution, sex slavery, extreme S &M pornography, extortion. But none of that can be verified. They also have very aggressive legal representation that pounces with an instant libel suit when anything remotely critical appears in the press. There aren’t even any photographs of them.”
“What happened to the mug shot from the assault arrest?”
“Mysteriously disappeared.”
“Nobody has ever testified against these guys?”
“People who might know something, people who might be persuaded to say something, even just people who happen to be in the general vicinity of the Skards in times of stress, have a hell of a time staying alive. The few people who cooperated with media stories about the Skards, even anonymously, disappeared within days. The Skards have only one response to trouble-they erase it, totally, without compunction, and without a hint of concern for collateral damage. Perfect example: According to my Interpol contact, about ten years ago Giotto Skard, presumed head of the family, had a business disagreement with an Israeli real-estate developer. After a meeting in a small Tel Aviv nightclub during which Giotto appeared to agree to the Israeli’s terms, he said good-night, stepped outside, barred the exits, and burned the place down. He managed to kill the real-estate developer, along with fifty-two other people who just happened to be in there.”
“Their organization has never been penetrated?”
“Never.”
“Why not?”
“They have no organization in the usual sense.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Skards are the Skards. A biological family. The only way in is by birth or marriage-and right off the bat I can’t think of any female undercovers devoted enough to the job to marry into a pack of mass murderers.”
“Big family?”
Hardwick cleared his throat again. “Surprisingly small. Of the oldest generation, only one of three brothers is believed to still be alive. Giotto Skard. He may have killed the other two. But no one will say that. Not even whisper it. Not even as a joke. Giotto has-or maybe had-three sons. No one knows how many of them are still alive, or exactly how old they are, or where they might be. As I said, small as they are in numbers, the Skards operate internationally, so it’s presumed that the sons are in various places around the world where Skard interests need to be looked after.”
“Wait a second. If only family members are involved, what do they do for muscle?”
