“Go on in,” she ordered and then she yelled into the room. “Legal counsel for Matthews.”
“Thank you,” I responded as I grabbed my clothes and personal items and hobbled barefoot across the filthy linoleum to the nearest empty chair.
I was so used to the laid back and familiar manner of SPD, the formality of federal and state agents was grating. Vicki and I dressed in silence and then saw ourselves back to the visitors room.
“Could we get a copy of the arrest report and charges?” Vicki asked the officer at the front desk.
I had forgotten to ask for that. Bernice was her name, and she was usually chatty and bored. But today, she was super professional and silent as tapped keys and handed us paper off a printer.
“Thanks,” Vick said and she slipped back in the room. She glanced through the papers and I read over her shoulder while we waited for them to bring Kelsi in.
“She was arrested after an unnamed witness was arrested for trying to sell elephant tusks in a sting operation. The unnamed witness was given a plea bargain for naming Kelsi and James as suppliers,” Vicki summarized as we both read it.
“What do they have as evidence?” I asked.
“It sounds like...” she flipped through the pages. “When they searched her house, they found it in the backyard.”
“Where do you see that?” I skimmed the sections on the document, and she pointed.
“Whoa,” I said. “There was a portable shed in the backyard with more than 40 elephant tusks.”
“Where do you sell those things?” Vicki wondered.
I didn’t know much about the smuggling industry so I pulled out my phone and searched it.
“Holy shit,” I muttered. “So, you sell it to China or other Asian countries because they believe it’s beautiful, rare and has healing powers.”
“Right,” she said.
“But here’s the thing,” I smiled. “So ivory sells for about $1,500 a pound, and elephant tusks get this...depending on the species of elephant, a tusk can weight between one hundred and two hundred fifty pounds.”
“Whoa,” she said. “So a single tusk is worth about $150,000.”
“On the low ened,” I nodded as I scanned the web page. “But it all depends on the size of the elephant itself, how healthy the elephant had been, all of that.”
Vicki had her calculator up. “But at $150,000 a tusk, forty tusks is like six million dollars.”
I whistled. “This isn’t going to be a slap on the wrist case. Millions in contraband smuggled overseas? Someone’s going to prison for a long time.”
“And if you’re half as good as I think you are,” Kelsi entered the room, “it won’t be me.”
“Hello Kelsi,” I smiled.
Kelsi looked every bit the part of the waify hipster model wife. Her arrest paperwork put her in her early thirties, but she looked in her mid twenties. She was overly slender, with long blonde hair but unkempt enough to be rocker chic as opposed to Barbie doll slick. Even in her blue jail scrubs, she walked with the smug confidence of the overly intelligent.
“I have two kids at home,” she said as sank into the chair. “And they need their mother. This is bullshit. I didn’t smuggle ivory tusks. We’re fucking...vegans for Christ’s sake. Everyone who knows us, knows that. We’re green, we recycle. I drive an electric car. James even did a benefit for the wetlands. Honestly, the sight of animal teeth in my garage made me physically sick. It reminded me of the Nazi concentration camps when they would show pictures of confiscated eyeglasses and I think they harvested teeth too. I don’t remember. But that was all I could think of when I saw those tusks. Someone going around ripping out animal teeth, and collecting them. And then leaving them in my garage? It’s straight up fucking sadistic and evil. I don’t who’s trying to fuck with us, but this is a sick fucking joke.”
Some clients we had to pry the truth out of them. But this one was ready to talk. Okay. I could handle that. It didn’t necessarily make anything she said true. It just was a place to start.
“Do you have any ideas on who might have placed the contraband in your garage?”
“No fucking idea,” she said.
I didn’t believe her. But something I had read in one of online articles gave me an idea.
“Do you know Irwin Montague?” I asked.
She broke eye contact for just a second and then looked at me again.
“The art dealer?” she asked. “Sure everyone knows him.”
“How well do you know him?” I asked.
“I know that you sent his mom to prison,” she said.
I raised an eyebrow. This one was feisty.
“I didn’t send her to prison,” I corrected. “She embezzled millions of dollars and let an innocent man be framed for a murder. So, I exposed her criminal acts.”
“Whatever,” she shrugged. “Reba McQuaid might have had some screwed up ideas. But she’s been through a lot. Sending her to prison really tore that family apart. Irwin’s really fucked up about it.”
Reba McQuaid had been embezzling millions of city funds over decades, some of it went directly to her son to cover his misdeeds. Of course he’s screwed up about it. His financial pipeline just dried up.
“We’re not here to talk about Reba McQuaid,” I said. “We’re here to talk about you. Because right now, the US government thinks you smuggled illegal ivory into the country. The seizure hasn’t been valued yet, but it could be worth millions.”
“What?” her face paled. “M-millions? I’m a photographer, a make-up artist, and I model on the side, and I’m a mom. A million dollars might as well be a billion for all I know. This is just crazy. Dude, you guys have got to help
