“And what happened when he found out who you really were?”
She raised her brows and compressed her lips.
“He wasn’t happy. He took me out for drinks, and I thought he’d be pleased. He’d mentored someone who’d one day have—” She raised her hands to indicate the corner office.
“But he wasn’t,” she said. “He told me that this was a business built on relationships and trust. Not on tricks. Not on games. He wished I’d been honest with him. And that it didn’t speak highly of him, or of me, that I felt I needed to pretend. That I didn’t trust him. He didn’t say it, but I could see I’d disappointed him. It was awful.”
And I bet you’ve spent the last few years trying to make it up to him, thought Beauvoir. Was Baumgartner that clever? To play her like that. To talk about trust when he himself was violating it?
Beauvoir reached into his satchel and placed the statements on her desk.
“I’ve had an agent working on these. I suspect you’ll come to the same conclusion.”
Madame Ogilvy put on glasses and picked up the statements, without comment. A minute. Two. Five went by. Jean-Guy got up and wandered the office, examining the walls and the art. Glancing at her every now and then.
His iPhone buzzed, and he looked at the text. It was from Gamache, asking if he could meet him over at Isabelle Lacoste’s place in an hour.
He sent back a quick reply. Absolutely.
Finally Madame Ogilvy put down the statements. Her face was bland. Almost blank. Though he saw her fingers tremble, just before she closed them into fists.
“You were right to be concerned, Chief Inspector.” Her voice now held none of the emotion of before. It was clipped. Controlled. “I’m glad you brought these to me.”
“Are you?” he asked, sitting back down.
Her smile was thin. Her eyes cold. This was not a young woman. This was the senior partner in a multibillion-dollar investment firm. Who didn’t get the job because she was the CEO’s daughter but because she could do just this.
Absorb information quickly. Break it down. See the implications and options. And not hide from reality, no matter how unpleasant. They were skills that would have served her well in any business. Including his.
“I am,” she said. “It would come out eventually. Better we have a chance to manage the situation.”
At least she was being honest about that, thought Beauvoir. But he wasn’t fooled by her sangfroid. Agent Cloutier had made it clear that embezzlement on this scale, for what appeared to be a long time, would probably need the collusion of someone very senior.
They were far from sure Anthony Baumgartner had been in it alone.
In fact, Beauvoir had begun to formulate a theory.
That Baumgartner was corrupt, that much seemed obvious, but he was also a tool. He’d set up the shell, directed the play, to use Cloutier’s analogy. But someone else wrote the script.
Who better than the CEO’s daughter? Baumgartner’s former protégée?
Had the story she’d just told him been more bullshit? Beauvoir wondered. About disappointing Baumgartner? About him not knowing who she was? About his decency?
Had he in fact taught her things she didn’t learn in business school? Like how to steal from clients?
Who, after all, was in a better position to hide what was happening? And to protect him if caught. As he had been.
Instead of firing his ass, they’d fired the assistant.
And then there was the question of where the money went.
Anthony Baumgartner’s lifestyle showed none of the fruits of this labor. He lived in the same home he’d been in for years. Drove a nice, though midrange, vehicle. Had not gone on any luxury vacations.
It was a rare person who was greedy enough to steal clients’ money and then disciplined enough not to spend it.
Unless the lion’s share was going somewhere else. To someone else.
“And how do you manage this situation?” he asked.
“Well, the first thing I do,” she said, reaching for the phone, “is call the regulatory commission and report this.”
“We’ve already done that.”
“I see. I’ll call as well, later.” She put down the phone, slightly miffed. “We will, of course, replace any money taken from clients.”
“Stolen.”
“Yes.”
“Bit awkward, isn’t it?” he said. “This isn’t the first time Anthony Baumgartner embezzled from clients.”
“You’re talking about what happened a few years ago,” she said. “That wasn’t him. Not directly. It was the assistant of one of the senior partners.”
“You?”
“No.”
“They were having an affair, I believe,” said Beauvoir.
“That’s true. The assistant apparently used Tony to get at his access codes and was siphoning money from various accounts. He was bound to be caught. Not very smart, really. But he did get away with quite a bit before it was discovered.”
“Who caught him?”
“Tony. He came to us immediately, and we acted.”
“By firing the assistant.”
“Yes.”
“And not Monsieur Baumgartner.”
“He’d been foolish, trusted someone he shouldn’t have. But his actions weren’t criminal.”
“And yet you suspended his license.”
“There had to be a consequence. Other brokers had to see that if you’re tainted in any way, there will be a punishment.”
“And his clients?”
“What about them?”
“Were they told?”
“No. We decided not to. The money was replaced, and it was decided Tony would work with another broker, who’d put in the tickets and do the actual transactions. But Tony would continue to manage the portfolios. Make the decisions. It wasn’t necessary for this to be spread on the street.”
“The street?”
“Our language. It means the financial community.”
The street.
Beauvoir was beginning to appreciate that the only thing that separated this “street” from rue Ste.-Catherine was a thin veneer of gentility. But once that was peeled away, what was revealed was just as brutal, just as dirty, just as dangerous.
“Baumgartner was fine with the new arrangement?”
“He understood. Look, he didn’t have to come to us. He probably could’ve figured out how to cover it up. But instead he sat right where you’re sitting and told me everything. About the affair. About finding out Bernard had stolen his access codes for the accounts. He offered to quit.”
“But you didn’t take him up on it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve already told you.”
“You know as well as I do that you could’ve fired him. And given what’s happened, perhaps even should have.” He looked at the statements. “I want the truth.”
She took a deep breath and continued to hold his eyes.
“He was the best financial adviser we had. Brilliant. I am, after all is said and done, my father’s daughter, Chief Inspector. I know talent, and I want to keep it. Tony Baumgartner was that. And so we chose a middle ground. Suspending his license to trade but allowing him to continue managing portfolios.”
“So if he could no longer trade, how did he manage to steal all that money?” Beauvoir pointed to the papers on her desk.
“No, no, these are all fake. There were never any trades. That’s the whole thing. He made it look like there were, but it’s all gobbledygook. If a client actually bothered to read this”—she put her splayed hand on the paper—“what they’d see are numbers that are both impressive and mind-numbingly boring. No one, other than another financial wonk, would bother to study these.”
“So where did the money go?”
She shook her head and took a deep breath. “I don’t know. But it looks like millions. Tens of millions.”