Federal investigators and prosecutors chose not to believe him. Citing his high-flying lifestyle both while running the S amp;L and on the run, and the fact that he clearly had some of the money-albeit a fraction of the whole-with him in Costa Rica, they settled for prosecuting only Kenyon.

After a four-month trial in a federal courtroom packed each day with a gallery of victims who had lost their life savings in the S amp;L collapse, Kenyon was convicted of the massive fraud and U.S. District Judge Dorothy Windsor sentenced him to forty-eight years in prison.

What happened next would result in one more bludgeoning of the reputation of the FBI.

After passing sentence, Windsor agreed to a defense request to allow Kenyon time at home with his family to prepare for prison while his attorneys prepared appeal motions. Over the prosecutor’s strenuous objection, Windsor gave Kenyon sixty days to get his house in order. He then had to report to prison forthwith, whether an appeal was filed or not. Windsor further ordered that Kenyon wear a monitor bracelet around his ankle to ensure he did not attempt another flight from justice.

Such an order following conviction is not unusual. However, it is unusual when the convict has already shown his willingness to flee authorities and the country.

But whether Kenyon had somehow been able to influence a federal judge to get such a ruling and planned to flee once more would never be known. On the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, while Kenyon was enjoying the twenty-first day of his two-month reprieve, someone entered the Beverly Hills home he was renting on Maple Drive. Kenyon was alone, his wife having left to take their two children to school. The intruder confronted Kenyon in the kitchen and marched him at gunpoint into the marble-tiled entry of the house. He then shot Kenyon to death just as his wife’s car was pulling into the circular drive out front. The intruder escaped out a back door and through the alley running behind the row of mansions on Maple Drive.

Except for the investigation and pursuit of the killer, the story might have ended there or at least taken on the mundane boredom of a cold trail. But the FBI had Lojacked Kenyon-bureau-speak for having placed him under an illegal surveillance that included listening devices planted in his home, cars and attorney’s office. At the moment he was shot, a tech van with four agents in it was parked two blocks away. The murder had been recorded.

The agents, aware of their illegal standing, nevertheless raced to the home and gave pursuit to the intruder. But the gunman escaped while Kenyon was being rushed to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, only to be declared dead on arrival.

The missing millions Kenyon was convicted of looting from Washington Guaranty were never recovered. But that detail was eclipsed when the actions of the FBI were revealed. Not only was the bureau vilified for undertaking such an illegal operation, it was also publicly castigated for allowing a murder to happen right under its nose, for bumbling the chance to intervene and stop the assassination of Kenyon, not to mention capture the gunman.

McCaleb had viewed all of this from afar. He was already out of the bureau and at the time of Kenyon’s murder was preparing himself for his own death. But he remembered reading the Times, which was at the forefront of the story. He recalled that the newspaper reported that there were demotions all around for the agents involved and calls from politicians in Washington, D.C., for congressional hearings on illegal activities by the bureau. To add insult to injury, he also remembered, Kenyon’s widow filed an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against the bureau, seeking millions in damages.

The question McCaleb now had to answer was whether the intruder who killed Kenyon in November was the man who killed Cordell and Torres two and three months later. And if it was the same man, what could possibly be the connection linking a failed savings and loan president with an aqueduct engineer and a newspaper pressroom worker?

He finally looked around and noticed his surroundings. They were well past Vasquez Rocks now. In a few more minutes they would be at Amelia Cordell’s house.

24

AS PROMISED, AMELIA CORDELL had spent a good part of the weekend going through her memory and filling four pages of a legal tablet with what she recalled of her husband’s travels in the two months before his death on the twenty-second of January. She had it ready and sitting on the coffee table when McCaleb arrived.

“I appreciate the time you put into this,” he told her.

“Well, maybe it will help. I hope it helps.”

“Me too.”

He nodded and sat in silence for a moment.

“Um, by the way, have you heard from Jaye Winston or anybody else from the Sheriff’s Department lately?”

“No, not since Jaye called me on Friday to say it was okay to talk to you.”

McCaleb nodded. He was heartened by the fact that Jaye hadn’t called back to rescind the permission. Again it made him think that she wasn’t going along with her captain’s decision to drop McCaleb from the case.

“And nobody else?”

“No… like who?”

“I don’t know. I’m just curious about whether, you know, they’re following up on the information I’ve given them.”

McCaleb decided he had better change the subject. “Mrs. Cordell, did your husband have a home office?”

“Yes, he had a small den he used, why?”

“Do you mind if I look around there?”

“Well, no, but I’m not sure what you’ll find. He just kept files from work there and he did our bills there.”

“Well, for example, if you have credit card statements for the period of January and December, it might help me isolate where he was at different points.”

“I’m not too sure I want you taking our credit card records.”

“Well, all I can do is assure you that I’m only interested in the billing locations and possibly the items purchased. Not your credit card numbers.”

“I know, I’m sorry. That was silly of me. You’re the only one who seems to care anymore about Jim. Why am I suspicious of you?”

It made McCaleb feel uneasy not being totally truthful with the woman and telling her he had lost his official sanction. He stood up so that they could move on and he didn’t have to think about it.

The office was small and largely used as storage of skiing equipment and cardboard boxes. But one end of the room was largely taken up by a desk with two drawers and two built-in file cabinets.

“Sorry, it’s a mess. And I’m still getting used to doing all the bills. Jim always handled that.”

“Don’t worry about that. Do you mind if I just sort of sit and look through things a bit?”

“No, not at all.”

“Um, would it be possible for me to have a glass of water in here?”

“Of course, I’ll go get you one.”

She headed to the door but then stopped.

“You don’t really want the water, do you? You just want to be left alone and not have me hovering around.”

McCaleb smiled slightly and looked down at the worn green carpet.

“I’ll get you the water anyway, but then I’ll leave you alone.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Cordell.”

“Call me Amelia.”

“Amelia.”

McCaleb spent the next half hour going through the drawers and the paperwork on top of the desk. He worked quickly, knowing that the package from Carruthers was probably waiting for him in his postal box in the harbormaster’s office.

At the desk McCaleb took some notes on the legal pad Amelia Cordell had already worked on, and he piled documents and credit card records he wanted to take with him to study later. He made an inventory list of the things he wanted to take so that Amelia Cordell would have a record.

The last drawer he went through was in one of the file cabinets. It was almost empty and had been used by Cordell as the place to file work, insurance and estate planning records. There was a thick file on medical insurance, with billing records dating back to the birth of his daughters and his own treatment for a broken leg. The billing address of one of his treating physicians was in Vail, Colorado, leading McCaleb to guess the bone had been broken in a skiing misadventure.