“No,” said Julia.

“He was tight-lipped, wasn’t he? Chapter Seven.”

“What’s that?” said Julia.

“Liquidation,” said Nettles. “My job is to collect what we can and then liquidate all the holdings for the benefit of the creditors, who, unfortunately, are many. I don’t think anyone is going to get anything out of this. But there is something.”

“Something?” I said.

“One chance to give a little back to all those who lost so much. Do you know what a preference is in bankruptcy law, Mr. Carl?”

“I’ve never done much bankruptcy.”

“A preference is a payment made on the eve of bankruptcy to a specific creditor. It’s not fair for the officers of the failing company to favor one creditor over the others, and so the Bankruptcy Code provides that the trustee can get that money back to be distributed fairly to all. Which is precisely why I was so gratified to hear that you were coming this morning, Mrs. Denniston.”

“Why is that?” she said.

“While it is not totally clear – there is a discrepancy between the company’s books and the bank records – there does appear to have been one significant preference payment made which we are trying to get a handle on.”

“How significant?” I said.

“One point seven million dollars,” said Nettles. “The full amount invested by one of the investors.”

“Yowza,” I said.

“And we want to get it back,” said Nettles.

“I bet you do.”

“But there is one slight problem,” said Nettles. “We can’t seem to find this investor. The U.S. Trustee has asked the FBI for its assistance, and yet we still have not had any success. Now, since most of the investors were friends or associates of your late husband, I was hoping you could help us get in touch with him.”

“Who is it?” said Julia. “What is his name?”

He didn’t really have to answer, did he?

17

I was alone in one of the empty offices at Inner Circle Investments, sitting at an empty desk, surrounded by empty walls, with a single thick file in front of me. The phone was disconnected, the hallways were deserted, the hush of failure settled over everything like a dank, foul blanket. There is nothing sadder than a business in its death throes, except maybe a business that is already dead. And have no doubt, Inner Circle Investments was dead.

Julia had left to absorb the fact that she was penniless, and Ernest T. Nettles, after escorting me here and giving me the file, had returned to his own office to continue his liquidation of the company and the search for the missing preference payment. He was a jaunty fellow, Ernest Nettles, yet I wouldn’t want to be on his wrong side. I could just imagine him in a skiff, with an eye patch and a wooden leg, scanning the horizon for his prey.

“Thar Cave blows.”

Yes, of course, the one point seven mil had been paid to the mysterious Miles Cave. Who else was so much in demand? I wondered who would find Miles Cave first, Ernest Nettles or Gregor Trocek. I’d have bet on Nettles, and for Miles’s sake I hoped I was right, because Gregor wouldn’t follow the niceties required by the Constitution. When Sandro sticks hot poker in your eye, Gregor would say in his harsh Eastern European accent, you have right to scream and scream and scream.

It wasn’t so hard to figure out what had happened. Gregor was probably chin-deep in some nefarious enterprise, maybe involving those young Portuguese girls he went on about so rhapsodically. The problem with nefarious enterprises is that the cash they generate is dirty. So how, then, to keep your assets growing? Find an old friend in the investment business, have him bring in another old friend as a straw man, invest the money in the straw man’s name as a way to launder the cash. All quite simple, until the straw man withdraws the investment and then withdraws from the face of the earth.

But it wouldn’t be only Ernest Nettles and Gregor Trocek on Miles’s tail, if I had anything to do with it. Soon I would have to find a way to put Sims and Hanratty on the Miles chase, too, because who was a better suspect for Wren Denniston’s murder? If Wren were still alive, he could have pointed the authorities in the right direction, and, once caught, Miles would have had no choice but to give the money back, either to Nettles at the point of a lawsuit or to Trocek at the point of a gun. One point seven mil was a healthy motive for murder.

But there were other suspects now, too, weren’t there? A whole mess of impoverished investors, looking for a pound of flesh in exchange for their now-worthless investments. Which was why I opened the file Nettles had given me and delved into the sad trail of destruction that seemed to follow inevitably in Wren Denniston’s wake.

The letters in the file were originals, typed on bond or hand-scrawled, and heartbreaking all. They were shouts of pain from the friends Wren had induced to invest in his firm, the letters requesting, demanding, begging. Where is my money? Give me back my money. My daughter is sick. My wife is dying. I have children to put through college. You’re an old friend. My oldest friend. Don’t do this to me. I’m going to a lawyer. I’m going to the police. Please, Wren, I’m pleading with you, get me back my money. The emotions were still so wet and raw it was as if moist, red blood were staining each page.

They were all fools, as far as I was concerned, so rich they couldn’t find anything better to do with their money than give it away to a pug like Wren Denniston for him to lose. Yet I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them all the same. Who better than I knew the bitter taste of spectacular failure? But I wasn’t in that office to exercise my empathy. One by one I read the letters, one by one I wrote down the names and addresses, one by one I created for myself a batch of suspects that would make any cop think twice before dumping a collar on a clever lawyer or give any jury pause before the altar of reasonable doubt.

But wait, what was this? Another letter, stuck in the middle of the pack.

Dr. Wren Denniston

Principal Partner

Inner Circle Investments

Philadelphia, PA 19103

Re: Account #67855

Dear Wren,

As our recent conversations have not gone well, and you have lately been refusing to take my calls, I am having this letter hand-delivered in hopes that I can avoid taking action that you would find distasteful.

We want our money, all of it, and we want it now. We don’t want to hear about shortages or preferences or problems with some stinking bank in Taipei. And don’t talk to me about lawyers. We don’t want to hear about lawyers. We want our money, all of it, and we want it now.

This is not simply business. You owed me, and I trusted that you would live up to your obligation, and now I feel betrayed. You have screwed me again, and this time I will not sit back and allow you to keep what is mine. Return the money, all of it, or there will be no recourse other than violence.

You will receive no more calls, no more letters, there will be no more attempts at polite conversation. Have the funds wired to my account immediately, or I promise, you will pay the price.

Sincerely,

Miles Cave

There he was, in the flesh, the mysterious Miles Cave. I almost yelped when I saw the letter, it was like discovering evidence of a long-lost brother. So Miles had made his threat and gotten the one point seven mil out while the company teetered on the brink of bankruptcy and the other investors went hungry. It looked like he was demanding it for himself and for Gregor, but once it was wired, he decided to keep it all. Why the hell not? I’d probably do the same. And by now, with money in hand, he was no doubt long gone. He had his own lawyers, he was surely advised about what a preference was, he knew that if he was ever found, by the government or by Trocek, the money would have to be returned, so he found another way. Grab the money, kill Wren Denniston, spend the rest of his life on some beach in Brazil, doing the samba with tawny girls in blue bikinis.