Chapter 6 - THE SENATOR'S PHONE CALL
Owen Pike was missing for eleven hours before the city admitted he had been kidnapped.
The university called him voluntarily absent.
The police department called him a person of interest until Park nearly broke a pencil in half during a briefing.
The senator's office called the entire thing unfortunate speculation.
I called it what it was.
A warning.
At noon, Senator Celia Beltran appeared on television outside a federal courthouse wearing a cream suit and the expression of a woman accustomed to cameras finding her best side.
A reporter asked about her son.
"Maurice is cooperating fully," she said.
"This appears to have been a tragic misunderstanding among young people."
I turned off the hospital room television before Renata could see more.
She tapped the tablet.
Turn it back on.
"You don't need this."
Her eyebrow lifted.
I heard my own sentence.
I turned it back on.
Celia was still speaking.
"We must also be careful not to destroy promising young lives before all facts are known."
Renata typed.
Whose promising life?
I didn't answer.
The tablet spoke again.
Not mine apparently.
"Renata."
She stared at the screen.
I sat beside her.
"She's protecting her son."
So are you.
"I'm trying not to break laws while I do it."
She looked at me.
The tablet said, Good start.
I deserved that.
Park called at 12:37.
"Can you come downtown?"
"Why?"
"Because somebody wants to tell you something they shouldn't."
"That sounds safe."
"It isn't."
The district attorney's annex had no marble lobby and no television cameras.
Just bad coffee and security trays.
Park led me to an interview room where a woman in her forties waited with a legal pad.
"Daniel Salgado, Assistant U.S. Attorney Maya Torres."
I looked at Park.
"Federal?"
"Formerly state organized crime," Maya said.
"Now financial corruption."
She held out her hand.
I shook it.
"You knew Elena?"
Maya's expression changed.
"Once."
She opened a folder.
Inside was a scanned intake memo dated August 2007.
Elena Marquez-Salgado.
Complainant.
The name hit me like a physical thing.
"She came to us six weeks before she died," Maya said.
"Us?"
"I was a junior investigator. She asked for immunity information and witness protection procedures."
"For herself?"
"For you."
I laughed once because the alternative was to put my fist through the wall.
"She thought I was going to cooperate?"
"She hoped you would."
"She never asked me."
"According to her, asking you directly might have gotten someone killed."
The room became too warm.
Park stayed quiet.
Maya pushed the memo closer.
Elena had described three streams of money.
Redevelopment grants.
Construction contracts.
Charitable endowments.
They crossed through companies I recognized.
Companies I had created.
Two had supposedly been dissolved.
One had belonged to Mateo.
"She believed someone was recycling your old infrastructure," Maya said.
"For bribery?"
"Bribery. Kickbacks. Political donations. Possibly money laundering."
I read another paragraph.
Elena had named Marcus Vale as an intermediary.
Arturo Cordova as a contractor.
A young attorney named Celia Beltran as outside counsel on one suspicious grant.
"She wasn't a senator then," Maya said.
"She was building the résumé that made her one."
"Did you investigate?"
Maya looked ashamed.
"Not enough."
"Why?"
"Because Elena withdrew the complaint."
"Why?"
Maya turned the page.
A handwritten note had been scanned beneath the typed memo.
SUBJECT STATES THREAT WAS MADE INVOLVING INFANT DAUGHTER.
My hands flattened on the table.
"What threat?"
"She wouldn't repeat it."
"Who made it?"
"She wouldn't say."
"And you let her walk out?"
Maya's eyes hardened.
"Yes."
There was no excuse in her voice.
That made it worse in a different way.
"We were young. We had a thin case. We thought we needed her willing. We thought if we pushed too hard, we'd lose her."
"You did lose her."
"I know."
Park looked at the memo.
"Why bring this now?"
Maya folded her hands.
"Because this morning Senator Beltran called the U.S. Attorney personally."
"About her son?"
"Officially, yes."
"Unofficially?"
"She asked whether Elena Salgado's name appeared in any active federal corruption matter."
I stared at her.
"She asked about my dead wife today?"
"Yes."
"Nineteen years later."
"Yes."
Park leaned back.
"That means she knows the old file has resurfaced."
Maya nodded.
"Or she's afraid it has."
My phone buzzed.
Mateo.
I ignored it.
It buzzed again.
Then a third time.
Park looked at me.
"Answer."
I did.
"What?"
Mateo's voice was low.
"Owen Pike just called my house."
I stood.
"Where is he?"
"He doesn't know. He got away from whoever had him."
"Is he hurt?"
"Not badly."
"Where is he now?"
"Daniel, listen to me."
"Where?"
"He called from a pay phone in Jersey City. By the time my guy got there, he was gone."
"Why did he call you?"
Silence.
"Mateo."
"Because whoever took him kept asking one question."
"What question?"
Mateo exhaled.
"Where did The Ghost hide the original ledger?"
I looked down at Elena's nineteen-year-old complaint.
I had never heard of an original ledger.
Apparently everyone else had.
---
(To be continued)
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