“We do have a deceased individual,” he says, “but no confirmation of what happened or if it might be the woman reported missing.”
“I don’t believe it.” Marino glances over at my phone as he listens. “Machado and his fifteen minutes of fame.”
“Has Dr. Scarpetta been contacted?” the correspondent asks.
“As soon as we’ve cleared the scene the body will be transported to the medical examiner’s office,” Machado states.
“Is Dr. Scarpetta on her way here?”
I scan to see what else might be on the Internet as wipers loudly drag the glass, and then Marino’s cell phone rings. It sounds like a revving Harley-Davidson with Screamin’ Eagle pipes. He touches a button on his earpiece and Sil Machado’s voice is on speakerphone.
“Talk about the devil and look who calls,” Marino says.
“Channel Five’s been showing a picture of her,” Machado starts in. “At least we’re getting a lot of tips from people who think they saw her at the Psi Bar. But nothing helpful so far.”
“How did Channel Five get her picture?” Marino’s earpiece blinks bright blue.
“Turns out the girl who reported her missing posted it on their website around midnight,” Machado says. “Haley Swanson.”
“That’s kind of weird.”
“Not necessarily. Everybody’s a journalist these days. She called nine-one-one and then posted the photo and that Gail was missing. Guess she was trying to help us do our job, right? The person in the photo looks like the dead lady. Exactly like her.”
“Gail Shipton,” Marino confirms as I find a story on the Internet that grabs my attention.
“Unless she’s got an identical twin.”
Gail Shipton is involved in high-stakes litigation that is about to go to trial, and I remember Carin Hegel and what she told me in the federal courthouse several weeks ago. She referenced a gang of thugs and living away from home. I scroll through the story about a lawsuit Gail filed, the details surprisingly scant for a case this big. I search some more.
“Has Haley Swanson come to the station to do a report yet?” Marino asks.
“Not that I know of.”
“That bothers me.”
“Maybe she figures there’s no point, that Gail’s not missing anymore, that it’s a lot worse than that. How far out are you?” Machado’s voice fills the car.
“ETA about five.”
“The Doc with you?”
“Ten-four.” Marino ends the call.
“Gail Shipton was in the middle of a legal battle with her former financial manager, Dominic Lombardi.” I skip through the story displayed on my phone. “His international company, Double S, is locally based, just west of here in Concord.”
“Never heard of it.” Marino irritably flicks his lights at an oncoming car that has its high beams on. “Not that I give a shit about financial companies since I’ve never exactly needed one and think most Wall Street types are crooks.”
I search for “Double S,” and there are plenty of stories about it, most of them puff pieces probably placed by their PR machine.
“It appears to specialize in extremely high-net-worth clients.” I dig down several pages and click on another news story, this one indicating not all has been rosy for Double S. “They’ve had problems with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC, investments that allegedly violated the Know your client rule. Plus some problems with the IRS. And this is rather interesting. They’ve been sued at least six different times over the past eight years. For some reason no case has ever made it to court.”
“Probably settled. Everybody settles. Litigation is the new national industry. The only thing made in America anymore,” Marino says acidly. “Legalized extortion. I falsely accuse you of something and you give me money to shut up. And if you can’t afford a hotshot lawyer you’re screwed. Like what just happened to me, a class-action suit handled by a shitty little law firm and I’m out two thousand bucks in truck repairs because the dealership had the biggest law firm in Boston and a PR firm and everything. A damn design problem with the bed being out of alignment and they said it was the little guy’s fault for driving it too hard over ruts.”
Marino, who is anything but little, rants on about a truck he bought in the fall, his angry story one I’ve heard so often I practically have it memorized. After he’d driven the brand-new pickup for less than a week he noticed the rear was squatting, as he put it. When he gets to the part about the bump stop being impacted by the rear axle and the frame being too weak, I cut him off.
“I can’t tell if the cases were settled.” I return his attention to Gail Shipton’s lawsuit against Double S and the suspicious fact that it appears she’s conveniently dead less than two weeks before the trial is to start. “But so far I don’t see any mention of settlements, just that the cases were dropped. That’s the word used in a story that ran in the Financial Times several years ago. ‘Double S is a big international business run by a small company in the horse country of Massachusetts.’”
I skip ahead to the most significant part. “‘Claims made by former clients were frivolous and were dropped, according to CEO Dominic Lombardi. In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal he explained that “sadly, sometimes clients expect miracles and then get angry when that doesn’t happen.” He added that Double S continues to be a highly respected financial management company with clients all over the world.’”
“A weird name for money managers. Sounds like the name of a ranch,” Marino comments as the silo-shaped silhouette of the Cambridge Forensic Center, the CFC, appears up ahead.
But that’s not where we’re going. I’m reminded of how close the death scene is to my headquarters.
“It certainly could be one of the horse farms around there.” I’m struck by another close proximity.
Double S is but a mile or two from Lucy’s fifty-acre country estate, fenced in and gated, cameras everywhere, a helipad, indoor firing range, and multiple garages. She has a series of rustic buildings that belie the spartan décor and intense technology inside a main house that is sided in one-way glass with a sweeping view of the Sudbury River. I wonder if she knows her neighbor Dominic Lombardi, and I certainly hope she’s not a client but I doubt she would be. My niece has been burnt before and is very careful with her money.
“Maybe he runs his financial business out of his home,” I suggest as I continue searching the Internet for details about Gail Shipton’s lawsuit, what few there are.
News about her case is almost nonexistent, and I suspect Double S has made sure of that.
“It looks like she filed the suit some eighteen months ago for a hundred million dollars. I seriously doubt a jury around here would go for a number like that. Breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract,” I read on as I explain. “The upshot seems to be that financial management software used by Double S has rendered the accounting unreliable, and money may be missing.”
“In other words, stolen,” Marino says.
“Obviously that can’t be proven or this would be a criminal matter, not civil.” I’m again reminded of the case Carin Hegel mentioned when I ran into her a few weeks ago. I wonder if it’s the same one.
I have an unsettled feeling it is.
“Where the hell would a grad student get money like that?” Marino turns on the defrost.
“Technology, mobile-phone apps,” I read and again I think of Lucy, who amassed a fortune at a very young age from creating and selling search engines and software systems.
I send her a text.
“Huh.” Marino leans close to me, popping open the glove box. “Getting filthy rich from high-tech stuff. Sounds familiar, right?” He grabs a lint-free window-cleaning paper towel. “I sure as hell hope the two of them don’t know each other.”