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

got over five hundred million in his accountthere.”

“Whew!  I wish we could seize it.”

“You can’t?”

“Probably not.  The Caymans have pretty tight privacy rules. And how would we prove which account he’s stashing the money in?”

“Well, Matt can move the money.”

“Oh!  You know that would be a good thing.  We don’t wantGraham to have access to a lot of money when we bust him.”

“Just let me know when.”

“Okay.  Now, anything else?”

“I’m going to research the deeds for the villas and see whatI can find out about the women.”

“Give me their details and I’ll run a background check onthem.”

“Here,” Matthew wrote the information he’d gathered on thehotel tablet.

“You even got their passport numbers.”

“Might as well.”

“Barb, we’re going to dinner, do you want to join us?”

“I’d love to, but I don’t think we should take the risk ofanyone connecting us together.  When this breaks, there could be some backlashand I don’t want you two caught up in it.  We should talk again on Friday afterwe interview Dante.”

“And after Matthew has some data on the jackass.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Doesn’t this feel like we’re secret agents?” Emily asked asthey drove down to Mission Bay to meet Agent Peters again.

“Don’t be so dramatic.”

“Come on, lighten up.  Have some fun with this.  It’sexciting.  By the way, you never told me what you learned about AgentWhitehead.”

“I learned that he is a jackass.  I did tell you that theydelayed questioning Dante, but we’ll have to see what Agent Peters thinks ofwhat I heard.”

They parked across the street down from the hotel and madetheir way to Agent Peters’ room from the beach like they had on Tuesday.

“Hi, Barb.”

“Hey you two.  I assume you’ve heard they’re going to holdoff pulling Dante in.”

“Matt just told me.”

“Did you hear anything after he agreed?  He was pretty pissedoff after the meeting,” Agent Peters said.

“Yeah, he had plenty to say.  Most of it inappropriate.  Heand his buddy Abrams were ragging on you for quite a while after the meeting. You need to keep on your toes, he said he’s aiming to take you down.”

“I’m not surprised.  He’s got me cooling my heels.  Did youlearn anything else?”

“I’m not sure; he and Abrams were talking about the warrantfor the jet.  It sounded like they wanted to enter it while it’s at Catalina. Tell me they’re not stupid enough to try and examine the cargo until Graham isin possession of the drugs.”

“I wish I could.  But those two think they’re super agents. They think they can pull anything off.  I’ll try to talk them out of it. There’s another meeting on Wednesday, then, of course, next Friday when weinterview Dante.”

“Is he going to let you be involved?”

“He kind of has to.  I’m the one who saw the activities. There might be something I noticed that we didn’t catch on camera, so he wouldreally be going against protocol if he freezes me out of it.”

“Okay, so should we meet again next Friday?”

“Sure, same time, same place.”

“Wait, you’re supposed to tell us about the women in theCaymans.  Both of you!” Emily gave Matthew an accusing look.

“Oh, sure, I don’t have much,” Matthew said, “but we canreview it.”

“Oh, do tell.”

Matthew rolled his eyes but started down his list.

“Two years ago, Mr. Graham formed a digital corporation inthe Caymans.  That’s like a numbered bank account.  All control of thecorporation is based on being able to access a secure database and sendinstructions to the agent that is hired to manage it for you.  It’s completelyanonymous.”

“Doesn’t that mean the agent can steal it from you?”

“No.  It’s a legal company in the Caymans.  So you caninstruct the courts to take action. You just have to provide them the rightcodes from the corporation.  Anyway, once he formed the company, he bought fiveempty lots around George Town.  He paid thirty percent down and financed therest.  It cost him thirty million dollars.”

“So, he’s been putting his money in real estate like wethought.”

“Some.  He kept things leveraged.  After four months hestarting building a house on one of the lots.  They first put in a small prefabguest house.  It was pretty nice.  Then they started to build the big villa. That must have been when he decided he needed someone he trusted more to dealwith the money and stuff.  So he hired the blond, Melanie Strickland, to managethe building activity.  I assume that’s when he also started to have her handleputting the money in the bank.”

“How could he trust her?” Emily asked.

“I don’t know.”

“It wouldn’t take much to convince a single woman that sheshouldn’t cross him.  Besides, he was paying her well.”

“Right.  He set up an escrow account for her.  He would putmoney in the account each month, it looks like it was about twenty thousand. The deal was that she had to report to the escrow company each month, showingshe was still managing the house.  And Graham had to have his digital companycertify that he was still engaging her.  If either of them fails to do so formore than two months, then the money reverts to the other party.”

“Slick, so he gave them a strong vested interest to continueto assist him.”

“Right.  Anyway, eight months later he hired the second womanand started to build another villa.”

“Okay, what else?”

“Once the first house was completed, he rented it out as anexclusive retreat a few times, but I think it must have made him and Ms. Stricklandnervous because he stopped doing that.”

“So they just manage the construction and handle the money.”

“Right, based on the records, they each make two deposits aweek, one on Monday and the other on Thursday.  That means they each make eightdeposits for each trip Graham makes, spreading the money out so it doesn’t looklike it all comes in at once.”

◆ ◆ ◆

The next Friday, Emily met Matthew at his house.

“I can’t believe you’re ditching math,” Matthew said as helet her in.

“You’re ditching it too.”

“But I can watch the tape and the professor doesn’t takeattendance.”

“Well, I’m not going to miss this.  Are we ditching French ifit goes long?”

“I was planning on it.”

“Good, so was I,” Emily added.  “Now have they started theinterview?”

“Not yet.  He’s just getting to work.  Barb