Vials Read online

  Jill was willing to stay in hiding a while longer, but for her own sanity she couldn't give it more than a few days. They would all re-double their efforts to find out the secrets of Lott. To take her mind off her troubles, she decided that she would create a table about what she knew and what remained unknown on Lott. Getting to the heart of his evilness was the secret to her freedom.

  Jill e-mailed Jo, Marie, and Angela on the death of Aleksandra. She phoned Nathan but reached his voicemail. She left him a message about Aleksandra’s capture this morning. She then called Jo, who was her key to understanding Lott's finances. Fortunately, Jo had sensed Jill's panic and had been able to arrange to take some time off of work to focus on examining Lott’s finances. She thought she might have an answer tonight. Jo thought she could see a pattern to Lott’s financial records, and with additional analysis she would be able to confirm it and explain it to Jill.

  Jill sent Detective Carlson an e-mail asking if the second murder victim in Puerto Rico had been identified. Seconds later she received a response.

  His name was Luke Perez. He was 28 years old and had had several brushes with the law. He was convicted of driving under the influence. He was suspected of selling illegal substances, suspected of petty theft with Gonzales while on scuba diving expeditions. So we know they had a prior history. We suspect that Lott hired Gonzales and Gonzales hired Perez. There are no unusual deposits to either of their bank accounts. Likely they would only have been paid if they had succeeded with their mission. We've come to a dead end, no pun intended, with these two. I'm not expecting any further information. Detective Carlson.

  Another piece of missing information was the original legal action about which Lott had contacted Graeme's firm for representation. She asked Agent O’Sullivan if she had seen an analysis from the FBI’s legal experts on the firm’s work for Lott.

  "I just got an e-mail from our legal division. Let me see what it says.” The agent proceeded to read aloud the lengthy message.

  “It seems that the law firm has had a relationship with Lott dating back 15 to 20 years. It handled 2 of his divorces, one DUI, 2 trusts, and the majority of its work went for his defense for the extortion and racketeering charges by the Attorney General. The original relationship with this firm dates back to when Lott was in law school. Lott’s classmate, Mark Lucas, became his attorney shortly after graduation. When the classmate died 5 years ago, the firm transferred the account to Graeme.” Read Agent O'Sullivan.

  “What did the classmate die from?” asked Jill.

  “It doesn't say in the e-mail, it's just a notation as the cause of the attorney change."

  "I'll do an Internet search about his death. I would like to make sure that he was not murdered.”

  Jill started the search on one Mark Lucas, attorney at law, deceased 5 or 6 years ago. She waited for the search engine to do its thing, clicked on an article, and started reading. He had been found at the base of the cliff in Pacifica where he was known to like to run the trail in the early dawn. It was assumed that he lost his footing in the partial light and fell over the cliff to the rocks below. It was a foggy day, and the time of death was estimated to be just 10 minutes past sunrise.

  Well, Mark might just be another victim of Lott’s, or it could have been an accident. Certainly, Graeme's death had looked like an accident. Mark Lucas’s body would appear in the same condition the same whether he tripped and fell himself, or was shoved over the cliff. She would have to accept his death as ruled, accidental.

  "How long had Graeme been employed when Lott was transferred to him?” Jill asked the agent.

  “It looks like Lott was the first client assigned to Graeme. It makes you wonder if he was hired to be the fall guy for the law firm. By the date of Mark’s death, there would have been plenty of time for questionable things to happen at the law firm. If he was reaching the end of his comfort zone in handling transactions for Lott, that might have caused him to miss his step on the cliff's edge a few weeks later."

  “Would the FBI have reasonable cause to question a senior partner in Graeme’s firm at this point?" asked Jill.

  “I'll put that question to our legal advisors. Given the track record for attorneys with knowledge on Lott’s dealings dying in seemingly unfortunate accidents, our legal advisor may be able to apply some pressure to the law firm to cooperate with us.”

  "Did Graeme defend Lott for the extortion and racketeering charges? Was he considered to have expertise in this area of the law?"

  "Good questions, I'll forward them to Janet. She's the FBI agent who's been doing the legal review on this case," said Agent O'Sullivan.

  Jill obtained a copy of the case briefings for Lott’s extortion and racketeering case. She had a sixth sense that this was where Lott’s secret could be found. She would spend the rest of the afternoon reading and re-reading the case to decipher the legal language. She hoped that while she read, someone at the FBI would get back to her with some information about Graeme's law firm.

  Chapter 22

  It was getting into the evening hour, and she felt like she was brain dead. She was tired of thinking about this case, trying to understand the legal words and the source of Lott’s behavior. She had not had a normal life since the day she had met Emma Spencer at her home outside of San Francisco. She would have loved to settle into a pity party, but that would really not help.

  Likely her biggest problem was lack of exercise. There was nothing like the agony of exercise to shut down her mind and give it a rest. Maybe the agents could arrange for her to visit a treadmill somewhere. She would bet that the FBI building had a fitness center, and she would be safe there, right?

  Thirty minutes later, dressed in exercise clothes and under armed escort from Agents Brown and O'Sullivan, Jill left her apartment for the walk across the street to the FBI building. During the walk to the fitness center, they encountered no danger. Ninety minutes later the Agents had to drag her back to the apartment. She had needed that work out. Her brain felt completely re-energized. She would shower, fix something for dinner, and then review all the data that she had collected through the day. She hoped to receive an e-mail from Jo in the next 2 hours.

  Jill settled on the couch with a glass of wine and a beef burrito and watched Jeopardy while she dined. She loved the show and had wanted to be a contestant but had not passed the test. She was not well-rounded in her knowledge. She could blow away any contestant when it came to biology, but she was an absolute dunce for the music categories. She took her empty plate and glass into the kitchen and rinsed them out. The two-hour break from the case had done her a world of good.

  In her inbox was the e-mail from Jo. As usual, her research was lengthy, and her conclusions were brilliant. Janet, the FBI legal expert, had also e-mailed and a complete picture was formed. She now understood the source of Lott’s wealth, the corrupt decisions, and why perhaps in his mind that knowledge was worth murdering for.

  So it seems that Lott’s empire evolved from a single badly negotiated contract. The first contract that amounted to more than a 100 million dollars was a private-sector labor contract for emergency responders, the police force, and firefighters. He personally negotiated the contract, accompanied by his city’s head of personnel. On the opposite side of the table was alleged to be the head of a for-profit security corporation. It is alleged because there is no record of who he actually negotiated with for the contract.

  The emergency services contract had ballooned out of control. This small city in the Bay Area had the highest paid police and firefighters of anywhere in the United States. It was also an unusual city in that the vast majority of cities employed police and firefighters as their own employees. They did not enter into contracts with for-profit security companies for their police and fire services.

  As a council member he had boasted to his fellow city council members that he was an accomplished contract negotiator. He was an attorney after all and excellent at skilled negotiation. The Council members in
some cases had not been to college and were intimidated by his level of education. As the employed officer of the city, the council members were happy to wash their hands of the situation, and as these police and firefighters were not city employees there was no impact on the voting public. Council members had no need to get involved, as it did not influence their public approval ratings with their voters.

  Mr. Lott, in his infinite wisdom, made calculations in his head on the cost of the contract. There was no spreadsheet analyzing the costs of the contract. A letter addressed to the council describing the contract’s services and its proposed financial impact was provided to the council, but the accuracy of that financial impact was not discovered for 3 years by the council. The security firm provision of services as described in the contract was accurate. However, the number of people it took to deliver those services in the actual contract did not match those in the summation letter, a large miscalculation of cost for the city. The cost of the security’s firm’s police and firefighters missed the estimated cost listed in the council letter by more than 50 percent. The 100 million dollar contract was spending at a rate that compounded itself to nearly a 200 million dollar contract. It was speculated that Lott knew of his miscalculation 4 months into the contract. While it was a mistake that should have cost Lott his job and likely his employability in the future, by letting it go undetected, he created a situation that appeared that he had colluded with his city council overseers.

  The city council members became aware of the problem just as they were running for re-election. It was a complete non-starter for anyone trying to get elected. To have so bungled the city’s finances and not checked the work of the city executive was an appalling oversight. With 3 years of experience on that contract, they had had plenty of time to note the problem and re-negotiate the contract. The city executive made a pact with the city council members since it was in both of their interests not to confess to the error. The private company involved in the contract was thrilled with the miscalculation and determined to let it ride as long as possible. It was the taxpayers that were wronged by Mr. Lott and his associates on the city council.

  The council, Lott, and the security company needed a method to get it by the city's outside auditors. Lott approached his personal attorney from his collegiate days and bound him by attorney-client privilege. He set up a dummy account under a trust in the Caymans a year into the bad contract. In return for keeping the contract in place, the city made a payment to that account in the Caymans, which Lott forwarded on to the security company minus a processing fee. He amassed 3 million dollars per year due to that fee.

  Lott was brilliant in getting this by the auditors. An abandoned oil refinery sat within the city’s limits. Significant lead and other harmful by-products of petroleum existed in the soil. He created a fake document from the EPA that stated the city had to set aside a certain amount each year for the Superfund cleanup of the refinery site. Coincidentally, the contract overages equaled the allocation recommended by the EPA for that site cleanup.

  About 8 years into this illegal situation, Lott was still in his job, the city councilmen had all been re-elected twice, and the security company continued to be pleased with the overages in its contract. The citizens thought they had excellent management of their city police and fire services of their property. This might have continued for several more years, but then the housing market and local economy crashed, and the city found itself trying to cope with a lack of sales and property tax revenue.

  The city was pushed to bankruptcy and had its books examined by a different group of outside auditors when it failed to make mandated payments to the state-managed pension fund. One of the auditors was struck by the oddity of the city having to pay for the refinery’s misdeeds regarding pollution. When the auditor pursued it, the whole scheme fell apart.

  The Attorney General believed that Lott was the mastermind, but she ran into problems proving it. None of the city councilmen would provide any information about the case and they were protected by their own city attorneys hired by Lott. Furthermore, since the money trail died with the Icelandic bank crisis, there was no paper trail. Lott was believed to have tied up the local judges in the same manner. The Attorney General subpoenaed Mark Lucas after tracing some dealings back to the law firm. Unfortunately, he slipped off the cliff before he could testify, and that left the key piece of evidence, that original letter from the EPA, without explanation.

  When someone inquired of the EPA about that letter, it replied to the city asking about the location of the bank account into which the city had been sending payments. That question started off a new round of forensic accounting by the state. It spent 2 years but was unable to identify where the money had disappeared to. Finally, the Attorney General sat down with Lott, and a deal was cut.

  She told Lott that she could continue to examine and take legal action for the next decade. It was, however, in the city’s best interests that he leave the state. Rightfully, the community was the victim, and therefore, all the council members were recalled and removed from office. Lott's newly elected bosses planned to cancel his contract with the city. He was so corrupt, with so many connections, that it was generally believed that he could still manipulate city contracts. So she had offered him a deal to renounce his California residency and move to Mexico. They settled on Puerto Rico as a compromise. She also issued a restraining order that he not step foot in his former city nor make contact with any elected official.

  It was a sweet deal for Lott. He was able to keep funds that he had siphoned from his city for over a decade. It would stop the active legal prosecution of his case. Unless new evidence came to light, no further legal action would take place. Estimates were that he kept at least 30 million dollars. His life seemed the only one not wrecked by the circumstances.

  It was a very long and detailed report from Jo, and it gave Jill plenty to consider. So what if Graeme had come across proof that attorney Mark Lucas had created the original EPA letter at Lott’s direction? He just had not been wise enough to see that he needed personal protection after confronting Lott. What a naïve guy. Jill thought under the circumstances that that would fall under the definition of new evidence. If convicted, Lott would lose all of his money and spend the rest of his life in jail especially if a murder charge could be proved. This seemed like a really good motive for homicide, as his entire empire and lifestyle could come crashing down. Now all Jill needed to do was prove it. Given the trail of people wronged by Lott, she thought she might get some help in her quest for evidence.

  She wanted to examine 2 aspects of this case. First she wanted some help locating whatever evidence Graeme had come across in dealing with Lott. If Graeme had discovered it, then the secret hadn’t gone off the cliff with Mark Lucas. Second, she bet that some crack forensic accountants could follow the money trail beginning 8 or 9 years ago. Order had been restored to Iceland’s banking industry, and new information might be available. The moment she could find whatever document Graeme had in his possession, she would be free of needing this safehouse.

  Jill had a brainstorm that Graeme might have left something in his residence relating to this case. She had forged a pretty good relationship with Emma, and Jill wondered if she would allow her to go through Graeme's home office. She would see if she could set up an appointment with Emma in the morning and take with her someone with some computer knowledge from either the SFPD or the FBI.

  Jill closed her laptop having made arrangements with Emma to meet for 10:00 the next morning. The FBI had agreed to supply Jill with assistance for the search. The FBI had no warrant and therefore needed Emma’s approval to search the residence. Emma was cooperating fully and the FBI wanted to make sure that it stayed that way.It had been a long day and her muscles were starting to ache from the work out earlier. She hoped she would find that piece of evidence in the morning and be home in the Palisades Valley by afternoon. After the excessive excitement of the past week, she thought she'd be happy
to sit on a chair in the middle of her vineyard and watch her grapes grow.

  Chapter 23

  Jill entered the kitchen the next morning searching for coffee and a bagel with cream cheese. She had prepared her interim statement for payment for Emma and e-mailed it to her already this morning. She had been informed by Agent Ortiz that Agents Brown and O'Sullivan would escort her to Emma’s house. Agent Brown was considered to be the local computer geek and would assist in examining any computer records. Emma had agreed to a full search of the house. She saw the law firm as complicit in Graeme's death by assigning Lott as a client to him.

  Jill and the agents arrived at the mansion shared by Emma and Graeme. Emma gave them a tour and showed them Graeme’s home office that included a file cabinet, a beautiful old-fashioned desk, and a computer. In addition, Emma provided the briefcase that Graeme had used to transport work between office and home. She mentioned that he took it with him to Puerto Rico. She also gave the agents permission to look through luggage, sock and underwear drawers, car trunks, and essentially any space that she could remember Graeme using. Jill hoped they would find something.

  Emma and Jill retreated to an enclosed pool area so as to stay out of the way of the agents and have some privacy for their conversation. Emma had a check waiting for Jill as payment for her services. It was the most that Jill had ever billed a client, but it was also the most hours she'd ever put in to solving a case. Jo, Marie, and Angela would be glad to see the increase in cash for their vacation accounts.

  “Emma, how are you doing? I imagine a lot of your time has been taken up dealing with Graeme's estate. Have you returned to work?” inquired Jill.

  "I'm really heartbroken. I feel as though someone at Graeme's law firm knowingly assigned an unsavory and unethical client to him. Whether someone ever suspected that Mark Lucas’ death might be suspicious and might be related to Lott, I'll probably never know unless this case goes to trial. I don't trust the firm and I have fired it in the probate of Graeme's estate. I did an interior office design for a different law firm in the city, and I feel that that they have more ethics and honesty than Graeme’s firm exhibited.