B.A. Hammer Returns Ch. 09

I notified my friend Ed O'Sullivan, a Captain of detectives, that I was intending to travel to Romania. Because of the scene the night before, I figured the police would want to know.

Ike and I boarded a plane for Budapest. I tried to sleep on the plane, but I wasn't really able to. I decided to lay this case out again.

1. How much do I trust Jake Jones? I don't. He will do whatever is best to help his business. He would make us disappear in a second if it profited him.
2. Do we really need to interfere with the munition's shipments to Ukraine? They really need the hardware, and the weapons themselves may not play a part in this mystery. It is the wavers we need to study.
3. How much pressure do we put on Redthorne, and how dangerous could they get if we pushed them?
4. Do we stop looking for the killer if Brick gets Ahmad off?
5. We will need to get the Senator to tell us the procedure to acquire wavers for shipping munitions to foreign countries, and can he tell if the wavers are legitimate.
6. Do we push SDS to get them to drop Redthorne? This would squeeze Redthorne terribly?"
7. Now, for the case.

1. Nathaniel Livingston. I will need to investigate him.
2. We will need to crack Donald. He will have to admit he was there that night. We have a picture of him there and Brick can use it to crack him. We also have the money in his accounts.
3. the second shot. Brick can play on the lack of bleeding from it.
4. The moves against Muhammad and Brick. Brick will be able to put doubt in the jury's minds because someone went to a lot of trouble.
5. The anonymous call to the police. I have men checking with everyone in the Carrington's building. So far, we have found none of the tenants who have admitted hearing a shot or calling the police. It had to be someone not from there.

I finally fell asleep and slept until the plane landed in Budapest. Once we had checked into our hotel, Ike went looking for Andrie.

Within a couple of hours, we were sitting in a small café with Andrei Ionescu.

"So nice to meet you, Mr. Hammer. I am sorry I asked you to fly all the way here, but this is something I was not going to discuss in open channels."

I understand, Mr. Ionescu."

"Call me Andrei. Here is what I have found out. The shipments arrive in Constanta and are put in a warehouse near the docks. New papers are made up and the goods are transferred to Ukrainian grain ships returning to Odessa. They are listed as machine parts for a power plant they are building in western Ukraine. The Ukrainian officials sign off on the shipments, and they are moved to a military base in southern Ukraine. Romania has so far not interfered, and we are not sure they are even aware of what is going on yet."

"Do we have any ideas of what is actually in this shipment?"

"No. It is arriving tomorrow. For machine parts, there is a small army waiting for the shipment. My contacts have already been warned to stay away. That is why I wouldn't say anything to anyone in a public forum."

"I agree with your caution. You would excuse us for a moment while I discuss this with Ike?"

Andrei stood and headed for the bar.

"What do you think about this?"

Ike watched Andrei as he headed for the bar. "I'm not sure we need to involve Andrei in this. We can just let the shipment go on."

"I agree. We have the details of how this works. We can always use that if we needed to squeeze Redthorne."

We both got up and headed for the bar. We informed Andrei of our decision and spent the rest of the evening drinking and reminiscing about our military days. We headed home the next day.

After a couple of days getting over the jetlag, I was back in the office.

Brick called me and I headed up to his office.

"I got the photo. I will use it to confuse the bank employees. I am debating calling Livingston as a witness, but a good lawyer never calls someone he doesn't know for sure he is going to say. I am sure Livingston would not crack under questioning. I am going to use the photo of Donald coming out of the building to place him at the scene of the crime. I am not telling the prosecution about the photo. I am supposed to, but I don't want to warn them. I will have to figure out a way around that. We need to find out something about Sam Jones."

"I have Homer and Liz working on him and Livingston. I will let you know what they find."

"We have Carrington's secret accounts and Donald's secret accounts. Especially the ones he may not know about himself, thanks to Zorro. I must be careful how I use that information as I would have to explain how I got it."

I headed back to my office. I need to talk to Livingston. Stevie got me his cell phone number and I called him.

"Who is this?"

"My name is B.A. Hammer. I'm a private investigator working with Percy Blackstone. I would like to meet with you for a few minutes."

"Why would I do that?"

"Because we both know you are involved in this murder case. I think we may be able to help each other without going nuclear. It might be worth a few minutes of your time."

I could tell he was thinking as I waited. "Okay, I will meet with you." He gave me the address of a café he likes and told me to be there in one hour. I was there when he walked in.

"Thank you for meeting with me."

"I don't know what you think I have to do with any of this." I took out the photo of him in the bank and handed it to him. "What do you think this is."

"This is you opening a bank account for Ahmad Aziz at First National. The signature, by the way, is very good. We didn't think we would be able to find out how someone had forged this account. We knew Ahmad hadn't done it. Your picture solved this problem for us."

"What do you want?"

"We don't need to show that you are the one who opened the account. If you are willing to be our handwriting expert to say this isn't the signature of Ahmad Aziz, we don't need to go any further. I can show the bank teller your picture to point out that you sort of look like Ahmad, and she can't swear who opened the account. All you will have to do is deny you opened the account. You could say you use that bank for any other thing you want. We won't challenge you on it."

"You know the DA isn't going to let this go. He will assume you think I opened it, and he will push it."

"He might want to, but he needs it to be Ahmad that opened the account. The last thing he will want to do is take out his main profit motive. My guess is he will claim it is not you."

"You are probably correct." He sat quietly for several minutes. Finally, "I think you are probably right. If you promise to leave me out of setting up the account, I will be your witness."

"Thank you." I handed him a summons. "This is just for your protection. You can honestly say you were subpoenaed and had no choice."

"That will work." He took the piece of paper and left. We had a witness. I headed to Brick's office.

"Livingstone says he will be our handwriting expert to say the card's signature is not Ahamd. I agreed we will not ask him about opening the account. I gave him one of your subpoenas."

"I should be able to confuse the bank teller with that and the picture."

"He knows you will use the picture. He said he would say he was there because he has business at that bank. I need to know if I can talk to the Senator. I have a question I need to ask him."

"What is that?"

"I need to know if he has any connections with SDS. I'd like to shake the tree a little."

"That won't help us with the case."

"No, but it might help us find the real killer. Is he going to explain how the wavers work? Has he found out if these wavers are fake?"

"Okay, I will ask him. about SDS. He says he can tell me about the wavers when he comes to New York." Back to my office.

I called Liz, Homer, Ike, and Stevie to meet in my office. Time to summarize what we have for the trial.

Everyone met together in my side office meeting room.

"I want to go over everything each of you are working on so we can put our final plan together. Liz, Homer, what do you have on Redthorne, Livingston, or any other party?"

Liz shuffled her notes. "We have the accounts of Redthorne that William says shows they are having difficulty staying solvent. We have found a couple of accounts for Livingston, but we know he has several we haven't found yet."

"You don't need to worry about him any longer. We have made a deal with him. He is going to be our handwriting expert in exchange for not disclosing that he was the one who opened the account."

"Liz, what do you have on Sam Jones?"

"Not much. He is really slimy. He has a couple of accounts here and in Washington, but they are normal. We need to find his real accounts."

"I'm going to have to ask Zorro. He's going to be pissed."

"Ike, what about you?"

"Bubba is still around. He had nothing to do with the raids on us, so his warning was real. I haven't heard anything from him since. I still have a couple of men on Muhammad. So far, no one has bothered him. Donald is still alive."

"Yes, I guess they want him to testify at the trial. They must be confident Brick will not be able to break him. They probably don't know we have his private bank statements. That should be interesting. I have a couple of other things I am working on. That should be it for now. Liz, try the lobbying company Jones works for."

"Stevie, have you heard about any further shipments to Ukraine?"

"No, it is quiet on that front."

Everyone got up to leave. "Stevie, keep on Redthorne. They may be panicking soon. Ike, you can pull the men from Muhammad. I thought we had talked about that."

"We had, but I had a hunch. I'm going to leave them until the trial starts."

"Ok, thanks everyone." I texted Zorro. He replied with an address and "now."

When I was standing in front of him, I expected him to yell, but he just stood there. So, I took a picture of Sam Jones out and handed it to him. "This is Redthorne's lobbyist that set up the scam. I am pretty sure he had Carrington killed. Whatever you can find about Jones would really help. We are about to go to trial. We understand every piece of the puzzle except him."

"I will get you everything there is to find. I will have a man drop it off at an address I will text you. Then, we are finished." He probably means it this time.

"Wait, Zorro. No one knows about Carrington's private accounts, or Better World's accounts. If nothing is said by the end of the trial, it is free money. If it is clear by then you can take it, and no one will ever know. That make you happier?" He just grunted and waved me off. However, as I turned, I saw him smiling. It's still okay.

I went home. Kitty is still there, but it has been quiet. The police had interviewed Jake Jones about the attack on Brick's house. The investigation is ongoing. Mary is less than two months away from her due date. She is getting bigger, and she is very uncomfortable. The trial date is only a couple of days away. I think the information about Sam Jones is the last piece of the puzzle.

The next day I got a text with an address. When I got there, a man handed me a manila envelope and disappeared. I headed to the office to see what Zorro had found.

Inside the envelope were several account numbers. The totals were HUGE. This man has millions stashed offshore. Most of it is in a company called "Better American Times". Now I have something to shake Sam Jones's tree with.

I met with Brick the next morning and we went over everything I had. He now knows what I know.

It is time for the trial.