She smiled. “They get toasted.”
“That’s my girl. So knock off the waffle voice, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Good. Now you work on that memory of yours. If you do your part, I’ll do mine.”
“What’s your plan?”
He stopped at the traffic light, checking himself in the rearview mirror. “One step at a time. This latest development could seriously raise the stakes in our property settlement negotiations. I was thinking I’d just take ol’ Brent’s deposition. Put him under oath and see if we can get some idea just how much money is out there.”
Out of respect for Frank, Liz thought before dragging the family into the divorce. But Brent was a Langford, not a Duffy. Hell, if she had asked Frank, Brent wasn’t even a human being, let alone family.
“Liz, what do you say?”
“Go for it, counselor. You’ll eat that moron alive.”
29
At noon Ryan called Norm from the Panama City Marriott. He had taken a room through tomorrow, until his new passport was ready. The passport, however, wasn’t his first order of business.
“I got it,” said Ryan, seated on the bed. “I got the scoop on the three million that was transferred to my father’s account at Banco del Istmo.”
“How’d you pull that off?”
“All it took was a little persuasion.”
“Something tells me I’d rather not hear the details.”
“And I don’t think I want to tell you. At least not on the phone.”
“What did you find out?” asked Norm.
“Believe it or not, the money was transferred in three hundred installments of nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine dollars, and then one last installment of three hundred dollars for an even total of three million. It was spread out over a fifteen-year period. The last one was made a little over a year ago.”
“Sounds like they were trying to avoid some financial reporting requirements.”
“How do you mean?” asked Ryan.
“Banks are required to file a CTR — a currency transaction report — for any deposit of ten thousand dollars or more. That raises a red flag for the regulatory authorities. It’s a way of keeping track of the big money flow between banks.”
“But these transfers weren’t between two different banks. They were internal transactions, from one account holder at Banco del Istmo to another. Why would that attract anyone’s attention?”
“I’m sure the intra-bank transfer was the last layer of protection in a series of deposits and wire transfers that crossed several national borders. No doubt at least one of the banks along the way did business in the United States, which meant it would have been required to file a CTR for deposits of ten thousand or more. The final internal transfers at Banco del Istmo were each less than ten thousand dollars because they mirrored the amount of the inter-bank transfers.”
“That makes sense, I guess. It also explains why the name on the account at Banco del Istmo doesn’t mean a thing to me.”
“Who is it?” asked Norm.
“It’s a foreign corporation registered in the Cayman Islands. Jablon Enterprises, Ltd. I don’t have a clue who that could be.”
“Quite possibly, you never will. No doubt it’s just a shell corporation.”
“But even if it’s a shell, aren’t they required to have real human beings as officers and directors? Somewhere that has to be a matter of public record, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, but the only place those records would be is in the Cayman Islands.”
“Then that’s where I need to go.”
“You’ll need a passport first. You should be able to pick it up at the embassy tomorrow morning.”
Ryan grimaced. “I hate to lose a day just waiting around.”
“Frankly, I hate to see you go. You’ve already been robbed, Ryan. And that was just for checking on your father’s account. If you start snooping around the Cayman Islands for the names behind this shell corporation, they may not be so polite the next time around.”
“I can be discreet.”
“Sure you can.”
“Can you do me a favor?”
“What, notify your next of kin?”
“Don’t be a wiseass. I need your help sorting this out. I’ve been thinking about this rape conviction. The fact that those documents were in the safe deposit box with the other bank records makes it clear that the extortion is somehow connected to the rape, agreed?”
“I don’t think it was purely coincidence that those records were in the same box, if that’s what you’re saying.”
“Exactly. Now, if you think about it, there are a limited number of people on this planet who can afford to pay five million dollars in extortion money.”
“It’s a big world out there, Ryan.”
“Not that big. Especially when you consider that whoever that person is, somewhere along the line he had to come into contact with my father. More than likely it dates back to the rape.”
“That’s logical.”
“Agreed. So the only sensible thing we can do is reconstruct that period of my father’s life — when Frank Duffy was sixteen. Let’s go back in time and look at the people my father knew back then. And let’s find out where they ended up. Specifically, let’s see if any of them turned out to be the kind of person who could afford to pay five million dollars in blackmail.”
“How do you suggest we go back forty-five years?”
“School is probably the best way. I called the school superintendent’s office this morning. Unfortunately, they don’t have any class lists going back that far. The only way to figure out who was in my dad’s class is to look at the actual yearbooks.”
“Did your dad have one?”
“I went through all his possessions after he died. I didn’t see one. I have a feeling that was a time in his life he preferred to erase. But they keep them at the high school, in the records department.”
Norm paused. “So you want me to drive all the friggin’ way down to Piedmont Springs to look at forty-five- year-old yearbooks?”
“It’s easier than that. My mom’s family goes back five generations in Prowers County. But my dad didn’t move there until after the rape — probably in shame, which explains why he was never really happy there. I can remember when I was a kid. The best reason he could give me for staying in Piedmont Springs was because my mom’s side of the family had roots there. I guess he felt like he was living in exile.”
“So where did he go to high school? Until he was sixteen, I mean?”
“Dad grew up in Boulder. He would have been a student at Boulder High School when the rape took place.”
“So you want me to go to Boulder?”
“It’s less than an hour’s drive for you, Norm.”
“All right, I can do it this week.”
“I’d like you to go today. Just copy the books and get your investigator to check these people out. There can’t be that many of my dad’s classmates who ended up being millionaires.”
Norm checked the appointment calendar on his desk and made a face. “Shit. Okay. I’ll juggle things around and do my best to get over there this afternoon. If it’s that important to you.”
“Thanks,” said Ryan. “It’s really that important.”
