Catching the Bad Guy (Book Two) (Janet Maple Series) (23 page)

“Thank you for a wonderful dinner,” said
Aileen once they were standing outside.

“Thank you, Aileen.” John paused,
suddenly looking hesitant. “I don’t suppose you would be free to see me next
week?”

“Why ever not?”

“I thought that your boyfriend might
object.”

“My boyfriend? I have lots of male
clients,” Aileen replied gaily. “If my boyfriend were to object, he would have
been driven mad with jealousy by now. But he seems to be too busy with his own
affairs to pay me much mind, but somehow he always finds time to see my
father.”

“Your father?”

“Yes, my father, the famous Cornelius
Finnegan.”

“The state attorney general?”

“That’s right. I might as well put it
out on the table since that’s the question everyone asks me when they meet me
for the first time.”

John coughed embarrassedly. “Oh, excuse
me. I didn’t mean for it to come out like that. I was merely trying to point
out that it’s a good thing that your boyfriend is getting along with your
father.”

“Oh, they get along all right. Sometimes
I wonder which one of us David is really dating,” Aileen halted, cursing her uncontrolled
blabber. It was the apple martinis combined with the bottle of red that
followed afterwards sneaking up on her.

John smiled, not at all abashed by
Aileen’s frankness. “So are you free this Friday night?”

Aileen considered her options. Her Friday
evening loomed wide open, courtesy of David cancelling another one of their
dates. She could spend the evening organizing some silly social event for the
club with her mother, or she could do something fun. “I’m game if you are.”

“Excellent, so I’ll see you Friday.”

Peter Laskin stared at the data on his
computer screen: there was enough evidence to launch an insider trading case
against David Muller and his sham of a charity, Phoenix Fund. Normally, Peter
would have been pleased. Right now, however, he was not happy about this fact
in the least. Instead, for the first time in his life, he wished he had failed
at his job.

Over the course of the past two weeks,
Peter had had three dates with Aileen. To be fair, their meetings were not
exactly dates. Nothing of a physical nature had happened between them: Peter
had not tried to kiss Aileen or even so much as hold her hand. But there had
been flirtation in their conversations, and he enjoyed spending time with
Aileen much more than he liked to admit. The latter realization was now causing
him great conflict and discomfort.

In an hour’s time, Peter was due at
Janet Maple’s apartment to share his findings on Muller with her and Dennis.
Already, Peter had more than enough information on the trading activity of
Phoenix Fund to prove that David Muller was acting on insider information.
Phoenix Fund had been actively investing in options positions in manufacturing
stocks, a strategy that in and of itself would hardly raise suspicion had it
not been for the specific investment choices favored by Phoenix. The two
companies that Phoenix invested in, Orion and Hudson Steel, were obscure
mid-size firms that had experienced a sudden jump in earnings and stock value
after winning large manufacturing contracts with Rover Industries, a major
industrial conglomerate. Both times Phoenix had reaped enormous profit on its
investment. Phoenix also had investments in other sectors of the market, such
as the S&P index and the Dow Jones, as well as several blue chip stock and
some bonds, but those were generating very modest returns. It was almost as
though these additional investments were meant to act as decoys, and Peter had
caught the drift right away. Granted, had he not been spending as much time
with Aileen Finnegan as he had been, it might have taken him a bit longer to
solve the puzzle, but with Aileen’s unwitting aid he had been able to get to
the heart of the matter in no time.

The minute Aileen had mentioned that
Muller was spending a lot of time with her father, Cornelius Finnegan, Peter’s
ears had prickled with suspicion. Cornelius Finnegan was a very powerful
man—what reason could he possibly have to spend so much time with Muller? There
had to be more weighty reasons than the mere fact that Muller was dating Finnegan’s
daughter. The Treasury Investigations department had a background search
software that could find links between people based on common factors. The
search process, however, was far from easy: the software produced many false
positives that one had to sift through before unearthing relevant results, if
any at all. Most investigators, including Dennis Walker, eschewed the software
due to its tediousness. Peter, on the other hand, was of a different opinion.
Over the years he had perfected his search skills, and there were many times
when he had unearthed key evidence for investigations through the background
search software. That was the tool he turned to this time as well. The way he
saw it, he had three leads: David Muller’s investments in Orion and Hudson
Steel stocks through the Phoenix Fund, David Muller’s connection with Finnegan,
and Orion’s and Hudson’s connection to Rover. If Peter’s hunch were correct,
there had to be a link connecting the three leads.

Peter’s first step had been to identify
the top executives of Orion and Hudson Steel and see if there were any links
between those individuals and Finnegan or Muller. The search had come up empty,
but Peter had half-expected it to be so; he had simply started with Orion and
Hudson because these companies had a smaller universe of executives to search
than Rover. Peter’s next move was to search the backgrounds of the top
executives of Rover. After the search of the company executives did not produce
any results, Peter’s zeal was beginning to cool, as he began to wonder whether
he had indeed been mistaken. Just to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s,
Peter did a search on the board members of Rover. His last search had been on
the newest board member, Kevan Magee, and that was when Peter struck gold: it
just so happened that Kevan Magee and Cornelius Finnegan had gone to the same
Catholic school. Finally, Peter had the connection he had been looking for:
Magee was Finnegan’s and Muller’s informant.

The data that Peter had gathered so far
would certainly provide strong evidence to prove the insider trading link
between Magee, Finnegan, and Muller, but Peter would be first to admit that the
evidence was far from being ironclad. It could take years to prove that
Muller’s trades on behalf of the Phoenix Fund were indeed based on Magee’s
tips, and it would be even harder to prove Finnegan’s involvement. If only
there was a way to show evidence of interaction between the three men …

The worst part of the matter was that
Peter knew just how to procure such evidence, but the fact that he had learned
of it from Aileen made him reluctant to use it. During their last meeting,
Aileen had mentioned that Muller was going to have a meeting with her father
this Saturday. She had mentioned the matter jokingly, but there had been
bitterness in her voice when she remarked that she had again been stood up by
Muller in favor of her father. What matter could Finnegan possibly have to
discuss with Muller on a Saturday night? Peter had wondered. When he attempted
to broach the matter with Aileen, she had replied that it was business related
and that she kept out of Muller’s business affairs. It had taken all of Peter’s
self-control not to press the subject further.

Peter’s usual course of action would
have been to share his findings with Dennis and Janet, but when it came to his
meetings with Aileen, he had done no such thing. Instead, Peter had done the
unthinkable: for the first time in his life he had concealed information from
his colleagues. Oh, he had shown Dennis and Janet the trades that Muller had
run through the Phoenix Fund, but he had said that the background search on
Rover’s executives did not produce any leads to Finnegan or Muller. Deep down
he knew that he was doing something wrong. He did not want to obstruct the
investigation, but neither did he want to help it along at the expense of his
own happiness. He liked Aileen, and he could tell that she liked him too. Each
time they met, the chemistry between them seemed to grow, and who knew what it
could lead to eventually? From what she had told him, Aileen had been head over
heels in love with Muller at the beginning, but Peter could tell that she was
starting to become disheartened by Muller’s negligent treatment. Peter, on the
other hand, was lavishing Aileen with attention. True, he could not compete
with Muller’s riches, but he could make Aileen feel like the most beautiful
woman in the world. Why should he lose what he could have with her because of
some stupid investigation? He had solved hundreds of cases, and what did he get
as a reward? Being called a geek by Dennis Walker, who received all the
accolades for Peter’s backbreaking work behind the scenes. No, he had decided,
if Dennis wanted to solve this case he would have to get his hands dirty and do
the background search on Rover’s executives himself. Rationally speaking, Peter
knew that his protective attitude toward Aileen was compromising his duty. In
his defense, he did not intend to hinder the investigation, but he liked Aileen
and he did not want to hurt her.

***

Alex Kingsley leaned back in his chair
and propped his feet on his desk. His new job as the head of the Treasury
Investigations department was turning out to be a very nice gig indeed. He got
to boss people around all day, and the best part of it was that there was no
one to boss him around. Aside from having to report on the department activity
to Finnegan every other week, Alex did not have to answer to anyone. And this
was only the beginning. Finnegan was bound to move up the political ladder, and
as his trusted protégé, Alex would follow Finnegan’s trail. Who knew, a few
years from now Alex could very well be the next attorney general—he certainly
had the credentials for the job. The key was to keep Finnegan satisfied, and
that meant not questioning Finnegan’s motives, even in Alex’s own thoughts. To
say that Alex did not find Finnegan’s keen interest in the doings of the
Treasury Investigations department odd would be an understatement, but at the
moment Alex did not see a way of gaining from his suspicions. “At the moment”
was the key element in the current state of things: a few years from now,
should Finnegan fail to reward Alex’s loyalty, Alex might very well remind
Finnegan of the rendered services. But for now Alex had to focus on supplying
Finnegan with the requested information. And that meant keeping a watchful eye
on each and every investigator in the department.

Alex was fairly certain that he had
gauged the characters of the majority of his employees. There was, however, one
exception: Dennis Walker. The so-called star investigator of the department was
the only possible rebel and the source of Alex’s worries. Alex was certain that
the others were too mousy to defy him; even Janet, who had been so defiant at
the beginning, had seen the light and became his informant. Alex smiled at his
victory: subjecting Janet to his will gave him a new thrill that exceeded that
of sexual attraction. It pleased him to know that she was within his grasp once
again, and he could do with her as he pleased. It amused him to play the game
of cat and mouse with her: he would ask her out, she would refuse, he would ask
her again, and so on. For now he accepted her excuses, content with her
usefulness as the office spy, but he would reclaim his prize soon enough, not
because he wanted her but because he could have her.

Still, one must not get drunk on power.
While he was ninety-nine percent certain of his influence over Janet, there was
still that one percent of doubt that Alex reserved in all of his personal
dealings. To check for any possible omissions in Janet’s reports, Alex had
requested Georgiana to run a report on the log-ins into the department’s
background search software. The background search software was a nuisance to
use; Alex had used a similar version at the onset of his investigative career
at the DA’s office but had quickly abandoned the use of this cumbersome tool.
But just because the system was a nuisance did not mean that Alex could not use
it for his advantage.

Alex examined the report on his desk
that summarized the employee log-ins since the time Alex assumed his position
at the Treasury: Alex figured that anything that happened before his arrival
was not his responsibility, but if anything went amiss afterwards, Finnegan
would be sure to skin Alex alive. Alex was looking for any unusual spikes. He
quickly leafed through the log-ins for Laskin and other data analysts who used
the software on a daily basis. The list was structured alphabetically, and
Alex’s attention turned to the letter w. Dennis Walker was the last employee on
the list. A deep crease appeared on Alex’s forehead. The log-in history showed
that Dennis had hardly been using the system previously, but for the past few
days he had been logging in for several hours at a time. Alex flipped to the
section of the report that showed the subjects of the searches. Apparently,
Walker had a keen interest in the backgrounds of the board members of company
called Rover Industries. The name was vaguely familiar, and Alex typed it into
the search engine on his computer. He soon learned that Rover was a major
industrial conglomerate. Alex’s lips drew into a sharp line: Janet Maple had
not mentioned anything about an investigation into Rover in her report to Alex
that morning.