Stone Investigations (Stone Series Book 4) by Bob Blanton (open ebook txt) 📗

“Yes, but why was only four million deposited?  There had tobe eight million in each of those suitcases.”

“Maybe he wants to spread the deposits out so it doesn’t looklike the women have so much money at one time.  That’s consistent with hisplanning.”

“Probably right.  I’ll have to check their houses for therest of the money.”

“So you found them?”

“I’ve got their addresses.  I’ll search for the houses tonight.”

“What about Peters?”

“She texted me that she’d like to meet tomorrow afternoon.”

“Interesting.  I wonder what’s up.  Anything else on Graham?”

“No, he monitored the accounts this morning and then went tothe airport.”

“Boo, kind of boring?”

“You call finding five hundred twenty million dollarsboring?”

“Well, we knew it was there.  It might be a little more thanwe expected, but there was no surprise.  The surprise was the four gorgeouswomen who were handling the money.  And you just have their addresses.  ShouldI come over tonight to help you search their places?”

“Why, do you think I need help?”

“Well, they were gorgeous and you might need to searchthrough their unmentionables.”

“And having you there is going to help how?”

“You might need someone to explain what everything is.”

Matthew snorted.  “You just want to be there, and you’llprobably make it worse by teasing me, so no thanks.”

“Come onnnn.”

◆ ◆ ◆

On Tuesday evening, Emily and Matthew drove to Mission Bay tomeet with Agent Peters.  They told their parents that they were going to havedinner with a friend and discuss an article they were working on for the schoolpaper.

When they reached the hotel, they walked around the back andentered Agent Peters’ room from the beach.

“Hey, Barb, how are you doing?  Wow, you changed your hair.” Agent Peters had dyed her hair a light brown, giving her a very different lookfrom the blond they’d driven with from Dana Point.

Agent Peters did a little double-take at the two unrelatedcomments.  “I changed my hair so I would be harder to recognize.  I’ve had togo into the office a couple of times.  I had to talk to my boss yesterdaymorning, so things aren’t so good.”

“So they know you’re not dead.  Why is that bad?”

“Yes, my boss, my friend who’s been helping, and the head ofthe task force.  The warrants we asked for this week tipped the task force guyoff.  He pulled Harry in and Harry had to tell the truth.”

“And what does Harry know and what did he say?” Matthewasked.

“He just knows that I checked the Starbucks’ video and didsome follow up.  Then we got the warrants and tracked everything thing down. And that’s what he told the task force head, Bertrand Whitehead.  We just wentover it with my boss today.”

“Did you get the warrants?”

“Yes, we’ll be checking the contents of the packages whenDante mails them.  In fact, they should have already checked them by now.”

“I assume they’ll send them on?”

“Yes, but Bertrand wants to pull Dante in for questioning.”

Matthew shook his head violently.  “If you do that, Grahamwill know and pull the plug on everything.”

“I know, but we need more hard proof against Graham to get awarrant for when he does his Catalina run.  I wanted to time it so we pull himin on Monday when Graham is coming back from Catalina, but Bertrand overrodeme.”

“Can you at least convince him to interview Dante downtown inthe office building where he works?  Then as far as anyone knows, he’s in ameeting for a few hours.”

“That might work.  That jackass is stomping around like a . .. a . . . a jackass.”

“Is he mad that you’ve made so much progress without him?”Emily asked.

“Yeah.  He’s trying to figure out how to put his stamp onthis so he gets the credit.”

“Because you’re a woman?”

“No, because I’m not him.  He did the same thing to MichaelGarity last year.  He’s just a political . . . jackass.”

“Well if you can convince him to interview Dante at theaccounting firm instead of pulling him into police headquarters, maybe thingswill turn out.  But even then I can’t see how Dante will keep it together for awhole week.  It would be much smarter to wait until just before the Catalinatrip.”

“You’re right, it’d be smarter to wait, but he’s cutting meout of the decision loop.  I’m not finding out his plans until he’s announcingthem to the task force.”

“Well, right now there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Come on Matt, you could do some listening in for AgentPeters.”

“Geez, Emily.  It’s not like I don’t have other things on myplate.”

“Matt.”

“I’ll try.  Where is his office?”

Agent Peters gave Matthew the pertinent details then gave hima big smile.  “And what did you learn this weekend?”

“Oh, just that Mr. Graham is moving the money to the CaymanIslands like we thought.  He uses the same trick with the two jets, so hearrives on a local flight and doesn’t have to go through customs.  He did thesame thing this morning when he flew back to Charleston, so there is no recordof him having been to the Caymans.”

“Tell her about the gorgeous babes.”

“Emily!  Anyway, he has four women pick the money up from theairport.  They must arrive on a local flight about the same time, so they justpick up his suitcases from the carousel.”

“Where do the women go?”

“Each of them lives in a separate villa.  Obviously, theyknow each other, but they live separately.  It looks like they each depositedone million dollars on Monday.”

“Only one million?”

“Emily thinks Graham’s having them spread the deposits out soit doesn’t look like they’ve got so much at one time.”

“Makes sense.  Go on.”

“I’ve got their names and addresses.  I checked out thevillas last night.  Each of them has a large safe and the safes have the otherseven million in them.  They’re prepackaged in deposit envelopes of one millioneach.”

“Mr. Graham likes to take care of the details.  Okay, whatelse have you learned?”

“That’s it so far.  Well, except that one of the villas isstill under construction.  The woman is living in the guest house behind it.  Oneof the others is still having work done to it.”

“That sounds like Mr. Graham is putting his money in realestate.  That’s better than having it sit in an account.”

“Okay, but he’s