He got up and walked over to his desk, opening the drawer and taking out a small folder. He opened the folder and took out a piece of paper, handing it to me.
I looked at it, but he told me what it was as I did. “It is a bank account in Judge Brennan’s name, opened six weeks ago in the Central Bank of Belize. There is one deposit, made two weeks later, in the amount of two hundred thousand dollars.”
“And Denise has no idea where the money came from?”
“She does not. And she tells me that there were no secrets between them, that they discussed finances and everything else as equal partners.”
I held up the paper. “How does she reconcile that with this?”
He shook his head. “She cannot. Which is why we are having this conversation. If it is somehow related to his death, then the likelihood is that the real killer has not been apprehended.”
“Where do you think he got the money?”
“I simply cannot imagine. My hope is that you will come up with a benign explanation.”
“You’d be amazed how few benign explanations I run into in the course of a day.”
I left there thinking that Judge Daniel Brennan may not have been the total paragon of virtue that his wife and friend believed him to be. I was also thinking that there was a damn good chance that the two hundred grand, however he got it, played a role in his death.
Given his job and position, my initial instinct would have been to think of the money as a bribe. But his taking the money would likely have signified his agreement in the matter, so why would he have been killed? Had he reneged, and was going to rule the other way?
I certainly did not know the answer to that, but there was one thing I did know.
Steven Gallagher did not give Daniel Brennan two hundred thousand dollars.
I never thought I’d say this, but I was happy to see Chris Gallagher.
He was sitting in his car in front of my house, probably in deference to the fact that it was raining outside. Apparently the great man was not impervious to water.
In any event, I needed to talk to him, to find out what, if anything, he knew. And, just as important, to impress him with how much I had learned.
I got out of my car and we made eye contact, which was enough to get him to follow me into the house. He was carrying a suitcase; I hoped he wasn’t planning to move in. The first thing he did was walk into the kitchen and take a beer out of the refrigerator.
“Have I said or done something to make you think we’re buddies?” I asked.
“Not that I recall. I also don’t recall you thanking me for saving your life.”
“What were you doing there?”
“Following you, as was Kagan. You’re not that hard to keep track of; does your car have a rearview mirror?”
“That explains why you were there. Why are you here?”
“It’s time for an exchange of information. We seem to be getting somewhere, and the deadline is approaching.”
“It can be extended,” I say.
“No, it cannot. Everything we discover makes your killing Steven even more unforgivable. Now tell me what you’ve learned.”
I brought him up to date on everything I knew and suspected about Richard Carlton and the situation in Brayton, as well as my belief that it was my nosing around there that got Kagan after us.
He nodded. “The answer is definitely in Brayton.”
“You’re taking my word for it?” I asked, surprised at his certainty.
“No chance,” he said. “I paid a visit to Kagan’s hotel room, which was just outside Brayton. I found some explosives, but more important were the explosives I didn’t find. The box was mostly empty.”
“What kind of explosives?”
He opened the suitcase and showed them to me. “C-245,” he said. “You can keep it.”
I knew what that meant; I had quite a bit of experience with munitions in the army. “Shit.”
“And Kagan was not working alone. I believe the guy he is working with-”
I interrupted. “Tommy Rhodes.”
Gallagher smiled. “Very impressive. What have you found out about him?”
“They were army buddies. Rhodes would know how to use the C-245; he was a munitions expert in the service. Our information is that he was considered as good as it gets, that if you gave him some hairspray and a bottle of Drano he could demolish Argentina.”
He nodded. “That fits. You should also have someone take a look at this.” He handed me some drawings, which seemed to be some kind of geological maps. “I think it’s the land area that Carlton is selling, but I don’t know what it all means.”
“Beats me, but I’ll find someone who understands it. What I can’t figure out is what Rhodes could have been looking to blow up. If he’s working for Carlton, they’ve already won in court. Who could they be after?”
Gallagher frowned. “I should have stayed there and asked Rhodes when he came back to the hotel.”
“I’ll send some people to pick him up.”
“They may not find anyone,” said Gallagher.
“What does that mean?”
“There were empty timer cases in his room. He might have already planted devices on timers. If not, he could detonate them remotely. He may have been staying around to make sure that there were no hitches. But with Kagan gone, he might bail out of the area. Probably depends on when the next device is set to go off.”
“It’s probably soon,” I said. “Rhodes was booked on a plane back to Vegas Saturday night. I’ll have cops at the airport, but he’ll be aware that we know his name, so I imagine he won’t show up.”
Gallagher smiled. “Then Saturday is a really big day all around. Keep your priorities straight, Luke.”
He was telling me that I shouldn’t spend too much time worrying about what Rhodes might or might not have been targeting, because Saturday was already a big day.
It was the day Bryan was scheduled to die.
One thing you need to do, Lucas … you need to tell me the truth. It’s hard enough for me to prepare for this; I just can’t be taken by surprise. I’ve been thinking about my will … my life insurance … right now everything goes to Julie. Not sure if I should leave it like that. Of course, when you change a will, you need two witnesses to sign it. That might be a little tough in this case.
The moment the court decision was announced, Alex Hutchinson was on the move.
More accurately, she was on the phone, planning a strategy of action to prevent Hanson Oil and Gas from starting to drill on the land they had just purchased. Richard Carlton, as much as she loathed him, was no longer the enemy. He had sold the land to Hanson, which made them the threat.
The loss in court was far from unexpected. Alex was smart, and informed, and she was a realist. Similar cases were being decided with some regularity in favor of energy companies, in New York and around the country. And they had already lost in District Court; the appeal had been something of a long shot.
Her first call was to Mayor Edward Holland. He had been a stand-up guy throughout, even taking on the legal work himself, in deference to the town’s shaky finances. It had served him well; the publicity he received was national, and he was portrayed as a heroic figure fighting big business on behalf of the little people. While she recognized his ambition, in her mind he still deserved most of the accolades, even in a losing effort.
It became obvious early in the conversation that he had no more bullets left in his legal gun. “We don’t have the money to take this any further,” he said. “It’s not the legal fees; hell, I’m working for nothing. It’s the bond.”
As he had privately predicted to her, the court had imposed a bond requirement of five hundred million dollars that the town would have to put up, should they try to delay matters with a further appeal. It was the court’s way of saying that their case would not win on appeal, and that Hanson would suffer financial damages if the process caused a delay in drilling the land.