“Anyone could spend them—eventually. You see, these bonds had fixed terms. Five-year terms. At the end of the term, they could be cashed in for full value plus a sizable bonus—almost four million additional dollars. But until the term ended, they weren’t worth a dime.” He laughed. “Muggers don’t usually have that kind of patience.”
“But you and your little fishing friends did?”
Fred held up his hands. “He gave them to us! Really! We didn’t steal them.”
“Why would he—”
“He knew he was dying. For all he’d been through, he’d never gotten any pleasure out of the millions he stole. He wanted someone to enjoy the fruits of his labors. So he told us where he’d hidden the bonds.” Fred lowered his head. “And then he died.”
“I don’t recall hearing that there were any fisherpersons hanging about the cabin when his body was discovered.”
“No. We lit out of here in a heartbeat—with the merchandise. What was wrong with that? Tony was dead. We couldn’t help him. And if we were found on the scene, the Blaylock boys would undoubtedly have a lot of questions for us. Especially if we suddenly came into a lot of money. And if they found out about the money, they’d try to take it. So we blew town.”
“What did you do with the bonds?”
“Stuck them in a safe-deposit box in Mexico City. Nothing sleazy—a reputable bank. But one that didn’t ask too many questions—like where’d it come from. And one that didn’t check ID.”
“You took the box out under an assumed name?”
“We did. It seemed safer.”
“Who got the keys to the box?”
“We all did. But we left strict instructions that the box could not be opened except in the presence of all of us. That way we could rest assured that the bonds would stay in the box until they could be cashed in.”
Mike took a seat at the thin, wobbly, linoleum-topped table that had probably served as a surface for cleaning fish more often than as a dining table. This was a lot to take in all at once, but he thought he was beginning to get a clearer picture of what had happened—and why. It was a tall tale—but it made a crazy kind of sense.
“Sounds like you thought it all out carefully. Planned well.”
“Yup. Sounds like it, doesn’t it? But the best-laid plans …” He shook his head. “About six months ago, we all got together to recover the bonds. The term wasn’t quite up yet, but Canino thought it might take a while to negotiate them, since they were foreign and all. Lots of procedural hurdles. Papers to be filed. So we all went out to get them. Last December fifteenth.”
Mike thought back. “That was just before your buddy James shot up the law school.”
“You’re quick, aren’t you?”
“I gather the timing isn’t a coincidence.”
“No. Jim was nuts—totally bonkers. But there was definitely a trigger. Something that set him off.”
“Which was?”
Fred drew in his breath. “We all got together and took a little trip down to Mexico. We all went to the bank and opened the box.”
“And?”
“And the bonds were gone. All of them. The Blaylock bonanza had disappeared—again.”
When Ben didn’t answer his apartment door after she’d been pounding on it for more than a minute, Christina had to assume he wanted to be left alone. Unfortunately for him, she had her own key.
She let herself in and marched straight back to his bedroom, where he was sitting up in his pajamas staring at the same page of a Trollope novel he’d been at when she’d dropped by two days ago.
“Excuse me?” Ben said, pulling the covers around him. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, since you haven’t been to the office, I had to come to you.”
“I don’t think it’s unreasonable to take some time off when you’ve been in trial for months.”
“Wah, wah, wah.” She glanced down at his book. “Must be a real page-turner.” She grabbed it away from him and dropped it on the floor.
“Hey! I was reading that.”
She dropped a thin, blue folder in his lap. “Read this instead.”
Ben picked it up and fanned the pages. It was only about ten pages long. It appeared to be some kind of report. “Where did this come from?”
“I don’t know. A courier brought it to our office this morning. From an anonymous sender who paid in cash.”
Ben glanced at the first page. The author’s name wasn’t given, but the distribution list showed who got it—all the top Blaylock brass, including Myron Blaylock himself. And at the bottom of the list—Charlton Colby.
“Why haven’t we seen this before?” he asked.
“I think the last name on the list is the answer to that question. Colby withheld it under a claim of attorney-client privilege.”
“Because his name is on it? He didn’t write it, and it wasn’t written for him.”
“I didn’t say it was a good claim. I’m just trying to explain why we haven’t seen it before.”
“There’s no way they can—”
Christina covered his mouth with her hand. “Ben, just be quiet for a moment and read.”
Ben did as she bid. He wasn’t halfway through the first page before he understood the enormous significance of the report—why Blaylock had wanted it hidden, why Christina had brought it to his immediate attention.
When he hit the bottom of the second page, though, he gasped. Literally gasped. “I can’t believe it,” he said breathlessly. “I mean, I always thought they were responsible for the deaths. But I never in my wildest dreams—”
“Yeah.” Christina nodded appreciatively. “I thought the same thing.”
Ben climbed out of bed. For the first time since the jury had returned, he felt his heart beating again. “I’m going over to see Colby.”
“I already tried to get you an appointment. He refused. So I made you an appointment with Myron Blaylock. He didn’t want to see you, either, but after I read a few choice bits from the report, he changed his mind.” She smiled. “I have a hunch Colby will want to be there for this meeting, too, don’t you?”
“No doubt.” Ben pulled his least-wrinkled shirt out of the closet. “Good work, Christina. Would you excuse me?”
She looked at him blank-faced. “Why?”
He held up his clothes. “I need to get dressed.”
“And?”
“And—you’re in my bedroom!”
“Oh, that’s all right. We’re professionals.”
“Christina!”
“Fine. I’ll wait outside.”
“Thank you so very much.”
She stopped halfway out the door. “Did I tell you how cute your pj’s are? I’ve never seen the ones with candy canes and little teddy bears before.”
“Christina!”
“I’m going, I’m going.”
Chapter 46
MIKE DIDN’t KNOW HOW long he’d been sitting in this fishing cabin listening to Fred tell his story. Time seemed irrelevant now. This bizarre tale of greed and deception was positively addicting.
“Someone had stolen the bonds?”
“So it seemed. As you can imagine, our friendship deteriorated somewhat in the aftermath. Accusations were made. Names were called. Canino and James got into a fistfight. James was really over the edge. He’d never been the most stable person—mentally, I mean. And to make matters worse, he was drinking too much, he’d just lost his job, and his wife had left him. He was counting on this money to put his life back in order. And it was gone.”
“That’s why he went ballistic at the law school, isn’t it?”
Fred nodded. “By that time, he was totally psychotic. Crazed. Didn’t even realize that Canino wasn’t teaching the class, at least not at first. All he knew was that he wanted the merchandise. That was the codeword we had developed for the bonds during the years we waited for the term to run. We had all kinds of cloak-and-dagger nonsense we invented, just so we could talk about it without talking about it.”