“It seems likely, doesn‟t it?”
“I wouldn‟t know. I don‟t know much about police work.”
“I thought maybe being a lawyer I said, and let the sentence hang.
“I went to law school but I never practiced law,” he said. “Harry asked me to come on board straight
out of college. I‟ve never really worked anywhere else.”
“Well,” I said, “let‟s just say I‟m not real big on coincidence. It happens, hut it isn‟t logical, it‟s the
long shot. Logic is simply using all the facts you have in order to draw a conclusion.”
“Seems to me there‟s a danger in that,” he said. “You tend to look only for the evidence to prove the
conclusion.”
“I suppose,” I said, noncommittally. “Anyway, logically speaking, Harry Raines‟ death would seem to
be connected to the „Tagliani massacres.”
“That‟s a rather gruesome way of putting it.” He shuddered.
“Gruesome work,” I said. “Murder always is.”
“Why would they want to kill Harry?”
“It‟s the way things happen. One thing leads to another. One murder leads to another.”
“So you think these mobsters did it all,” he said, making it a statement rather than a question.
1 looked back at him. The park was growing dark.
“No,” I said.
“But you said—”
“I said I thought they were connected. I don‟t think the same person killed the Taglianis and Harry
Raines.”
“Oh. Logic again?” he said. His mouth was iron-bent in a smile.
He opened a walnut cigar box on his desk and offered me one of those thin cheroots, the kind
riverboat gamblers in costume dramas always seem to prefer, accepted my refusal with a shrug, and
peeled the wrapper from his own.
“So what does logic tell you about all this?” he asked as he lit the cigar.
I sat down on the windowsill.
“First, I‟d say Raines was obviously coming over here when he got shot,” I said.
“That certainly seems logical,” Donleavy said. “He was probably parked in the company lot.”
“He was parked behind the bank.”
“Well, he still maintains his office here. Maybe he was coming over to get something.”
I went on. “Second, all the Tagliani killings were well planned. Daring, perhaps, but infinitely well
planned and executed. That isn‟t logic, that‟s fact. Logic tells me Raines‟ death wasn‟t. It has all the
earmarks of a sudden move, even a desperate one.”
“How so?”
“Because the killer couldn‟t plan on it being foggy, so he must have decided to use the fog, and that
means the killer had to know exactly where Raines was going to be and the exact moment he was
going to be there. As our witness said, „You couldn‟t see your hand in front of your face.”
“Perhaps he followed Harry,” Donleavy suggested.
“Yeah, except our ear witnesses only heard one person, which leads me to believe the killer was
waiting for Raines.”
“Interesting,” Donleavy said, contemplating the tip of his cigar for a moment. He then added, “Look,
Jake, I may as well tell you, Harry was on his way out to my place. He was very angry. He and
Charlie Seaborn had words. I called Charlie just after I talked to you. Harry was there. I told him I
thought at worst we were guilty of poor judgment and he agreed to come and talk it out, once and for
all.”
“Did Raines have a bad temper?” I asked.
“Only when he felt threatened. He couldn‟t stand being intimidated, by anything or anybody.”
“How about Seaborn? How upset was he?”
He chuckled. “Charlie‟s easily upset, a worrywart. But he certainly wasn‟t distraught enough to kill
somebody.”
“Perhaps there was a problem beyond just had judgment,” I suggested.
“What do you mean?”
“Ever hear of the Rio Company?” I asked.
His expression didn‟t change.
“The what?” he said.
“Rio Company,” I repeated.
He shook his head. “No, should I have?”
I explained to him about the Panamanian Mirror Rule and Virgin Island accounts and that whole
rigmarole. Donleavy was a lawyer, I was sure he knew what it was all about. I guess I wanted to make
sure he knew that I knew.
“The Rio Company is what we call a Hollywood box,” I said. “It‟s like a street on a sound stage, all
front with nothing behind it. It‟s usually used as a payoff.”
“A payoff? For what?”
“Favours, hush money, politicians, illegal lobbies, bad cops. „[„hey have a lot of palms to cross in
their business.”
“Doesn‟t cash work anymore?” he said, laughing.
“This isn‟t the old days,” I said. “We‟re not talking about a few Ben Franklins here and there, we‟re
talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars a week. „The trick is how to hide it. „The Hollywood
box is one good way. They pay off their graft with dirty money and use the banks to clean it along the
way.”
“And this Rio Company was used for that purpose, eh?” he said.
I nodded.
“Are you implying that Charlie Seaborn was involved in all this?” he said, his face clouding with
concern.
“I‟m not implying anything. But his hank is being used as the instrument. He helped set up a rather
elaborate subterfuge to help make it work. And a lot of the money that went through those accounts is
what is called ill-gotten gains. It can be confiscated under the RICO act. I‟m not sure how deeply
involved Seaborn is. He may be guilty only of stupidity. But he could be on the sleeve.”
“The sleeve?”
“The take, part of the payoff. He could be getting a piece of the Rio Company—that‟s if he knew
what he was doing and Tagliani felt it necessary to put him on the sleeve. I don‟t know the answer to
that yet.”
“What do you think?”
“I don‟t think he was.”
“Why?”
“Too much to lose. I think Seaborn‟s indiscretion was that it looked good for the bank and good for
the town and he didn‟t think about the consequences. Seaborn‟s a small-town banker. It probably
never occurred to him that what he was involved in was illegal until it was too late to get out. That‟s
the way it usually happens.”
“Who else was getting paid off?” Donleavy asked, leaning across his desk. “What cops? What
politicians?”
“I‟m working on that.”
“Any ideas?”
“A few.”
“Care to share them?” he asked. “1 assure you, I am as interested in resolving this mess as you are.”
“I‟m sure you are,” I said.
He was leaning on the desk now, staring intently at me.
“Any more logic?” he asked, still smiling.
“I‟ve been thinking a lot about Raines‟ death,” I said. “Trying to narrow down the possibilities.”
“Have you come up with anything?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Logic tells me that there‟s only one person who could have killed Harry Raines.”
“And who‟s that?” he asked eagerly.
“This is going to sound crazy,” I said.
“Try me.”
“It seems to me the only person who could have killed Harry Raines was you.”
“Me!” he gasped, and started to laugh. “Well, except for the fact that I was at my place on Sea Oat
Island twenty miles from here and couldn‟t have done it, how did you come up with such a notion?”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “You have two alibis, me and Dutch. And yet, I have this thing about the logic
of the situation. According to Seaborn, you were the last one who spoke with Harry Raines before he
was killed. He left Seaborn‟s office without even saying good-bye and he was gunned down two