What Doesn't Kill Us--A McKenzie Novel by David Housewright (most read books txt) 📗

his mind raced. Reinfeld had all but convinced himself that this McKenzie knew exactly who he was and what he was contemplating.

He took a sip of the wine.

“I own exactly four-point-seven percent of KTech stock myself,” Reinfeld said.

He took another sip.

“What a coincidence,” McKenzie said.

“I know three other shareholders who also control just under five percent.”

“No kidding? Maybe we should start a club.”

“He’s parking,” H. B. Sutton said.

“I don’t know what that means,” Detective Jean Shipman replied.

H. B.’s number had been second on the list of those captured by my cell phone the afternoon that I was shot. After briefing Bobby—he wasn’t sure he approved of how Shipman handled Elliot Sohm and Emma King, by the way. He said he might have been inclined to bring Elliot in, meaning he would have questioned her in the confines of the SPPD. He thought that the surroundings alone would have impressed on her the seriousness of the situation and might have even persuaded her to be more cooperative.

“Or it could have convinced Elliot to demand her free phone call and dial D-A-D-D-Y,” Shipman said. “Certainly that’s what her BFF Emma would have told her to do, assuming she didn’t call the cavalry herself. Who knows what that might have led to, the Kings and all that money?”

“You might be right. We’ll see.”

While she was pleased that Bobby was pleased with her progress, Shipman was shocked when he called Greg Schroeder and asked him if he could suggest a way to brace Justus Reinfeld. Shipman had never seen or heard of Bobby reaching out to a PI before. Schroeder said he had an idea only he couldn’t share it without permission from his client. Bobby said to get back to them with whatever he learned. Schroeder said he would.

After the conversation was concluded, Bobby asked Shipman what her next move would be. She said she was going to contact H. B. Sutton, which is what brought her to H. B.’s houseboat on the Mississippi River.

Shipman had never been on a houseboat before and she felt uncomfortable, although she couldn’t explain why.

“I call it the earthquake effect,” H. B. said. “The idea that the deck is constantly moving beneath our feet. Some people find it very disconcerting.”

“I’ve been on boats before and it hasn’t bothered me.”

“You’ve been on boats for only a few hours at a time, if that, usually with the sun and sky and water and the shoreline to orient you. Have you ever been inside a boat, sitting at a kitchen table and drinking coffee while unseen waves lap against the hull and make the boat bob just so?”

“I haven’t.”

“It takes some getting used to.”

“How do you live here in the winter?”

“That’s probably the most asked question I get,” H. B. said. “I heat the boat with space heaters.”

“Yes, but…”

“I have electricity.”

“I get that, but…”

“The boat is extremely well insulated, trust me on that. I have three electric heaters including a mini-fireplace that keeps the inside nice and toasty, plus an electric blanket in case of emergencies. Also, the boat has pretty great circulation and plenty of dry heat to prevent all my stuff from getting damp and growing mold. In some boats, the temperature difference between the inside and the outside can cause condensation to form everywhere. My neighbor, because of all the damp and mold in his boat, one day he discovered that all of the suits in his closet were wrinkled from condensation on just the one side facing the hull.

“The outside—my boat is protected by bubblers, what we call these little underwater fountains that circulate the water to prevent ice from forming against the hull. That’s why I don’t get stuck in the ice all winter; why ice doesn’t crush my hull. The worst thing, the water is shut down on the docks because the pipes would freeze. So, I have to use long hoses from pumps on land to fill my water tanks, which is a major pain and makes for very short showers. That, along with shoveling snow off the deck, is my biggest gripe. It’s a small price to pay, though.”

“Your home is very beautiful,” Shipman said.

“Thank you.”

“It just seems so isolated.”

“That’s why I like it.”

“What does McKenzie say about it?”

“Like most people, he thinks it’s a great place to visit; he just wouldn’t want to live here.”

“About McKenzie…”

That’s when Shipman asked H. B. if she could remember what we talked about during the phone call I had made to her.

“McKenzie wanted to know about a hedge fund manager he met named Justus Reinfeld who owns All Uppercase Investments.”

“What about him?” Shipman asked.

“He’s parking.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It means—according to McKenzie, Reinfeld said that he and at least three other parties each held just under five percent of KTech stock. I can think of only one reason to do that. Reinfeld is trying to steal KTech from the King family. My theory, Detective Shipman…”

“Call me Jean.”

“Jean. Thank you. Jean, parking is a time-honored method that corporate raiders use when they wish to take over a company. In 1968, Congress passed what is known as the Williams Act. Along with the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, it demands that investors who own more than five percent of a company’s stock tell the SEC how many shares they own, the source of the funds used to purchase the shares, and the reason for the acquisition. ’Course, when you give the SEC this information, you’re also telling the company, and for obvious reasons raiders rarely want the company to know what they’re up to. So, what some of them do, maybe most, I don’t know, is hide their position in the company by transferring their shares to other parties, no one holding as much as five percent. That way neither the SEC nor the management of the company will know the true extent of their stock ownership. Then, when they’re ready to make their move, they’ll have the parties transfer the stock back to them,