CHAPTER FOURTEEN

We were sitting on the Early American furniture across from the fireplace, me on the couch, Karen on one of the wingback chairs, drinking white wine from glasses that were simple and without adornment. The cat had left the room. She said, "They give me money, and I transfer it out of the country without reporting it to the Treasury Department. Any deposit over $10,000 we're supposed to file a form with the Treasury Department, but I don't. That's what it's all about, taking in the money and not reporting it. I put the money into an account, then transfer it to a bank in Barbados. In, then out. It doesn't seem like much, does it?"

I said, "Who gives you the money?" I was looking for a way out for her. I didn't know what that would be, but maybe if I heard enough, something would present itself. It's the scattershot approach to the detective business.

"Either Charlie or a man named Harry. It's usually Harry, but sometimes it's Charlie."

"Who's Harry?"

"Just this guy. He works for Charlie and he's usually the one who brings the money."

Outside, the sun was dropping down and the sky was taking on a deep blue cast, but there was maybe a half hour of good light left. Toby was still working the ball. "I'm surprised you see Charlie. The top guys like Charlie and Sal always stay away from stuff like this. They use guys like Harry. Something goes wrong, Harry takes the fall. That's what he's paid for."

She sipped some of the wine, then set down the glass as if the wine had lost its taste. "This is common to you, isn't it? You deal with things like this all the time."

"Not exactly like this, but close enough. People look for ways to trap themselves and they usually find what they look for. I see people at their extremes."

"Are you good at what you do?"

"Not bad."

"I'm surprised you found me. I took great care to hide myself. I erased my maiden name from all my credit records. I took the name Lloyd from a billboard."

"You left a trail a mile wide."

She picked up the wine again and had some, as if she needed the wine to help her talk about these things. "I want you to know that what I've built, I've built without their help and without their money. I didn't use Peter's help and I didn't use theirs."

"All right."

"Three days after I made the first transfer, a man came to the bank and gave me an envelope containing one thousand dollars. I called Sal and told him to take the money back, but he wouldn't. He told me that friends have to take care of one another, that kind of thing. He was sweet and charming, and it was a thousand dollars, so I let myself get talked into keeping it. That first time, after I got used to the idea, it was even sort of exciting. Do you see?"

I nodded.

"But after more calls, and more money, it wasn't. I knew it was wrong and I was scared, and finally they said, okay, if you don't want to get paid, we won't pay you. But they had already paid me a total of sixty-five hundred dollars, and I had spent it." She got up and went back down the hall again and came back with a 5x7 manila envelope. She opened it and shook out a small stack of papers and handed them to me. "Over the past three years I've put forty-two hundred dollars into various charities. I didn't want to keep any of the sixty-five hundred. That's all I can do."

I looked. The receipts totaled forty-two hundred dollars. Twenty-three hundred dollars until a clean conscience. Extremes.

She said, "Does this help at all?"

"If you got caught and went to trial, or if you went to the cops, maybe. Other than that, no."

She nodded. "Oh."

"Has Charlie ever mentioned any other way he launders money?"

"No."

"How about the woman who hired you, was she in their pocket?"

"I don't think so."

"Do they own anyone else at the bank now?"

"No."

"Does anyone else at the bank know what's going on?"

"'No."

"Is there a paper record that passes between you and the DeLucas?"

"No."

Maybe the scattershot approach wasn't going to work so well. Sort of like trying to find intelligence. "How about a record of the bank transfers?"

"Not for the first few times. The first few times, I was scared and I didn't want there to be a record so I erased it from the computers. Then I got scared to not have a record and I started keeping a file."

"Okay. That's something. I'll need to see it."

She nodded. "All right. I can print out a transaction record at the bank."

I said, "Is there anything you can think of that maybe I'm missing?"

"I don't think so."

The cat came down the hall and walked across the dining room and into the kitchen. Karen Shipley Nelsen leaned toward me and clenched her hands together. "What about Peter?"

I spread my hands. "I have what we in the trade call an ethical dilemma. I've taken Peter's money to find you, and now I have. I owe him that information."

She stared at me, still clenching the hands.

"I've found people before and kept their secrets, but that won't work here. Peter wants to find his son and he has unlimited resources with which to do it. If I tell him that I couldn't find you, he will simply hire someone else and they will find you. You weren't that hard to find."

Her jaw tightened. She wasn't liking it much, but she knew that she didn't have to like it.

I said, "What does Toby know?"

"He doesn't know anything about the DeLuca family or how I'm involved with them. I don't want him to know."

"What does he know about Peter?"

"He knows that his father's name is Peter Nelsen, and he knows that his father left us because he didn't want a family and he didn't want to be married. We don't talk about it. He doesn't know that his father is the guy who makes movies and has articles written about him."

"You should think about telling him."

She stood up and went to the window and looked out at her son. The ball was sitting motionless on the drive and Toby was sitting against one of the birches. She said, "Tell me the truth. Do you see any way out of this?"

"Guys like the DeLucas, they won't do something out of the goodness of their hearts. If we want something, we'll have to give something."

"Like what?"

"They might let you go if we could put one of their people in your place. That way they don't lose anything. Would you walk away from the bank?"

"Yes. Yes, I'd walk away." Her face was pale when she said it.

I nodded. "Okay. That's a place to start. I'll ask around, find out about the DeLucas, see what's there that we can give them or what we can use as leverage. What you can do is get together all the information you have about the accounts and about what you know about Charlie and Sal. Don't leave anything out. Even if it seems small or silly or beside the point."

"Okay."

"I'll go to Charlie and give him a little push and see what happens. Charlie won't like it, but there isn't any other way. Is that all right with you?"

She nodded.

"Maybe I can get you away from the DeLucas before we bring Peter in. If they're away and you're not a part of them anymore, it might work."

She nodded again.

"If it works, Peter doesn't have to know about the DeLucas and they don't have to know about Peter."

She was looking hopeful. "That's what I want."

"But it may not work out that way. It may get messy and you have to be ready for that, too. Focus on DeLuca. DeLuca is who is important. Not Peter. Do you understand?"

"Of course."

"We'll take it a step at a time."

She nodded some more, then we stood up and went to the door. When we got there, she said, "How much?"

I looked at her.

"How much do you want for this?"