The Dollar-a-Year Detective Read online

  I check into my room, accessorize my black polo shirt and khaki slacks with a navy blazer. I leave the hotel and find a deli a block away, right where the concierge said it would be, have a passable corned beef sandwich, and take a cab to the offices of the American Energy Independence Coalition on K Street, a thoroughfare that is the headquarters of lobbyists, think tanks, and advocacy groups. In other words, the seat of the real government of the United States.

  The cab parks in front of an eight-story granite building. The directory in the lobby says that my destination is on the top floor. I ride the elevator up and find double glass doors with the name of the AEIC lettered on them, enter, and tell the female receptionist who I am and why I’m there. She asks me to have a seat, offers the usual beverages, which I decline, and informs me that Mr. Tomlinson will be available momentarily.

  I plop myself down onto an upholstered sofa and scan the magazines fanned out on a coffee table: mainly oil industry publications and sports magazines. I choose the current Sports illustrated over The Journal of Deep-Well Drilling and am just getting into an article about the Major League Baseball season (my Cubbies are predicted to have a good year), when a man comes through the door leading to the inner offices. He offers his hand and says, “Detective Starkey, I’m Ted Tomlinson. I’m afraid, after your long flight, that I can’t shed any light on your investigation, but I’m happy to chat with you.”

  I’m struck by the similarity of that statement with Arthur Wainwright’s greeting. I shake his hand and say, “I just have a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

  Tomlinson has greying brown hair, appears to be in his early sixties, and has an American flag pin on the lapel of his suit coat. He could be an FBI agent, except that on his other lapel is a gold pin depicting an oil drilling rig. What’s good for Big Oil is good for America is the point, I suppose.

  I noted when we shook hands that he is wearing a Patek Philippe watch. I read an article about the current craze for expensive watches in Men’s Journal. Pateks start at about twenty K and top out at just under a million buckaroos. I’d thought: Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, who’d pay that much for the time of day? Now I have my answer. I’m sure that my Casio runner’s watch keeps just as good time, if not better. But you don’t wear a Casio if you work on K Street. Calling to mind that Balzac quotation about the origins of great fortunes, I’m tempted to tell Tomlinson that he’s under arrest just for being able to afford that watch. But I’m out of my jurisdiction—a fact he reminds me of when we’re seated in leather club chairs in his spacious corner office: “You’re a bit out of your jurisdiction, aren’t you, Detective Starkey?”

  “That’s true,” I admit. “So I appreciate your seeing me. I won’t take much of your time.”

  Hanging on his office walls are photos of Tomlinson with presidents and other recognizable politicians, world leaders, sports stars, and entertainment-industry celebrities. The point being that Ted Tomlinson is a power player.

  He shoots his cuff, checks his Patek, and says, “I’m meeting with the Saudi ambassador in fifteen minutes. So what is it you would like to know, Detective?”

  Important people are always tightly scheduled. I look at my Casio and say, “I’ll get right to the point because I’m due at the White House shortly.”

  He smiles. “The public tours are on the hour.”

  Busted.

  When making the appointment, I told his assistant what I wanted to discuss, and why. No doubt he’d had a chat with Wainwright about me and my investigation. Moving right along, I tell him, “I understand that your group supports the Florida oil and gas drilling bill.”

  “Let me make something clear, Detective Starkey. The American Energy Independence Coalition supports the American oil and gas industry in order to help end our nation’s dependence on foreign energy sources.”

  I have to restrain myself from standing up, putting my hand over my heart, and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

  “I can see how you’d want to move the drilling limit in the gulf in to fifty miles,” I say. “In order to keep our enemies at bay.”

  Ignoring my sarcasm, he says, “I wouldn’t put it that way exactly, but you are essentially correct. Deep-water drilling in the gulf is getting played out and is very expensive. We know there are rich oil and gas reserves closer in, so why not tap into them? In an environmentally sound manner, of course.”

  Sure, just like BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig. Immense globs of oil from that disaster still float beneath the surface and rest on the bottom of the gulf. But he already knows that. I ask: “Can I get a list of your member organizations?”

  “I’ll see that my secretary provides that when you leave.”

  I have no doubt that Tomlinson has been fully briefed about the murders of Lawrence and Marion Henderson and Russell Tolliver. I know that, if I ask him about any possible tie to those murders and the drilling bill, he’ll stonewall me just as Arthur Wainwright had.

  In fact I wasn’t there to see if he’d blurt out a confession any more than I’d expected Wainwright to fold. What I really wanted was to take the measure of both men: Did they seem capable of being a party to three murders? Things are not always what they seem, but sometimes they are.

  After a few more minutes of back-and-forth that produces no valuable information, Tomlinson looks again at his Patek, smiles, and says, “The next White House tour begins in fifteen minutes. You can make it if you hurry.”

  “I wonder if POTUS is in residence,” I say.

  “He is,” Tomlinson informs me—the ultimate one-upmanship. “I had breakfast with his chief of staff this morning. They leave for South Korea tonight.”

  Note to self: never try to snow a snowman.

  After the meeting, my opinion of Arthur Wainwright and of Ted Tomlinson is that they are either complicit in the murders I’m investigating, or they are not.

  Good thing I don’t do this for a living anymore.

  18.

  The Oligarch

  I depart our nation’s capital with two valuable pieces of information: the membership list of the American Energy Independence Coalition constitutes a Who’s Who of the global oil and gas industry, and the Old Ebbitt Grill, the famous DC restaurant where I had dinner before watching the movie High Noon for the umpteenth time, in my room, will prepare an off-menu double bacon cheeseburger as good as I’ve ever had, even for someone with absolutely no clout in the capital whatsoever.

  On the flight home, I decide that a good next step will be to research the AEIC’s membership list, looking for a company or companies with some sort of connection to, or interest in, oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico off the southwestern Florida coast. For that research, I need a more sophisticated partner than Google. So driving home from Southwest Florida International, I call Special Agent Sarah Caldwell in Tampa.

  “Sure, Jack, I can help with that,” she says after I explain what I’m after. “Just scan the membership list and e-mail it to me.”

  “What’s a scan?”

  “Okay. Do you have a fax machine?”

  “We’re getting warmer. I know what a fax machine is. But I don’t have one.”

  “They must have one at the Fort Myers Beach Police Station.”

  “I knew that,” I say.

  I’m sure I would have thought of that sooner or later.

  Cubby has a secretary fax the list to Sarah as I brief him about my trip to DC.

  “What’s the back-up plan if this line of investigation proves to be a dead end?” he asks me.

  “What’s a back-up plan?” I answer.

  Three days go by before Sarah phones to say the researchers at Quantico have uncovered some interesting information about one particular company on the AEIC’s membership list.

  “That company is International Oil Patch Partners,” she tells me.

  The former employer of Tom Tomlinson, the AEIC executive director.

  “It took some digging through federal filings, tax records, shell
corporations, and info gathered by our covert surveillance program—don’t ask about that,” she says. “Turns out that the majority owner of Oil Patch is a Russian oligarch named Sergey Pavlov. He’s a guy we keep track of. He also owns Russian oil and gas companies, as well as public utilities, a piece of the Trans-Siberian Railroad and of Aeroflot. Pavlov has an interesting background. He served with Vladimir Putin in the KGB.”

  “Nice to have pals in high places.”

  I wonder if Sergey Pavlov is related to the research scientist who did that study about dogs salivating at the sound of a metronome which they related to being fed. Say “doughnut” and I salivate too.

  “Is that legal, for a Russian to control a US company?” I ask her.

  “Completely legal. Foreign individuals and corporations have been buying up US companies for decades and hiring American lobbying, law, and public relations firms to represent their interests in the US.”

  A Belgian-Brazilian beer company called InBev bought a majority interest in Anheuser-Busch some years ago. There was grieving at The Baby Doll when that happened. The bartender tied black ribbons around the Budweiser, Bud Lite, and Busch tap handles. However, sales of those brews did not decline one iota. Patriotism has its limits.

  Sarah continues: “We also found out that Oil Patch pays $2.2 million dollars annually in dues to the American Energy Independence Coalition, more than triple that of any other member.”

  “Any evidence that Oil Patch wants to drill in the gulf?”

  “They already are. They’ve got deep-water rigs off the Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi coasts. A year ago, they got permission from the Florida state government to do some exploratory drilling inside the current coastal limits. They paid the state a four-million-dollar fee for the rights for that. All completely legal.”

  “Let me guess. The main proponent for granting that permission from the state was Rep. Arthur Wainwright.”

  “We don’t keep track of state politics. That’s your deal.”

  I’ll look into that, but I have no doubt that Wainwright was behind the approval process and that Russell Tolliver and Marion Henderson’s environmental group were opponents.

  “I owe you lunch,” I tell Sarah.

  “I’d say my info is worth a dinner,” she says, and I don’t disagree.

  That same day, while at my bar, I call Lance Porter in Tallahassee to ask about that Oil Patch oil exploration application. A woman answers his office number by saying, “This is Representative Porter’s office. How may we help you?”

  “You’ve gotten a promotion,” I tell Porter when he comes on the line.

  “The governor appointed me to serve out Russell’s term,” he says.

  “Congrats. Have you heard of International Oil Patch Partners?”

  “Sure. They got a state permit to drill exploratory wells inside the legal limit about a year ago. Paid a nice fee for it.”

  “I’m guessing that Arthur Wainwright supported their application and that your ex-boss opposed it.”

  “Right. Russell felt that if oil and gas reserves were found close in, the camel would have its nose under the tent.”

  “And reserves were found?”

  “Yes. Substantial reserves which can’t be tapped without changing that state law you know about. And it’s been discovered that oil companies have secretly been using fracking to extract oil in the gulf. That’s not illegal on land or underwater, but it’s highly controversial.”

  “Because?”

  “Because highly pressurized liquid is pumped into rock to extract oil and natural gas that otherwise couldn’t be reached. Environmentalists say that the process pollutes ground and surface water and can trigger earthquakes. Oil Patch is one of the companies using fracking in the gulf. If they use that method close to our coastline, as Russell believed they would, environmental damage would be even greater. For all I know, they might be using it now for the exploratory wells.”

  “Did you know that the majority owner of Oil Patch is a Russian named Sergey Pavlov?”

  After a moment of silence, he admits, “That I did not know.”

  “Do you think Wainwright or anyone else in state government knows?”

  “I can’t say. But I see where you’re going with this. The Russians don’t hesitate to eliminate anyone who gets in their way.”

  “I appreciate your help,” I tell him. “Are you going to run for election to your seat?”

  “I’m thinking about it.”

  “If you do, you’ve got my vote.”

  I’ve never thought much about saving the environment, but I do know that the Everglades are becoming polluted with fertilizer runoff from farming and development, killing the mangroves. Not a good thing.

  The first time an environmental problem affected me directly was in the early 1990s, when the government issued a warning to not eat fish from the Great Lakes because of mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants. My buddies and I used to catch and eat salmon, trout, and perch in Lake Michigan. We stopped after that warning and began fishing northern Wisconsin lakes. The only hazard in doing that is running into Packers fans in the taverns. How can anyone think that wearing a big yellow rubber cheese slice is acceptable headgear?

  Of course the threat of pollution in the Gulf of Mexico from offshore drilling is not my main motivation in this case. It is, as it always has been for me, catching murderers. But I’ve been living on the gulf for four years, and I wouldn’t like to see globs of oil, dead fish, and oil-smeared seabirds washing up on the beaches. I wouldn’t want my grandson, Jack, to live in a dying world. And I wouldn’t like it if a Russian company is behind polluting American waters or if a Russian hit man is operating on my turf.

  So bring it on. I’m all in.

  19.

  A Russian of My Own

  Marisa and I are driving north on I-75 in my Vette on our way to Sarasota for an overnight stay. She likes to hit the fancy shops at Saint Armand’s Circle and I’ve never been to the Ringling Circus Museum. Sarasota was the winter home of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus when it traveled the country. It’s the second week in April, a good time for sightseeing because the winter residents are beginning their annual migration north and the ranks of vacationers also are thinning.

  During the drive to Sarasota, I tell Marisa about Oil Patch and Sergey Pavlov. I also mention that Arthur Wainwright has a bodyguard who is so big he needs his own zip code. “Hate to admit it, but I just might be in over my head,” I tell her. “Big Oil, fracking in the gulf, byzantine state politics, K Street lobbyists, a Russian oligarch, and an assassin … I’ve never handled a case with so many moving parts.”

  “Fortunately, you have your own Russian,” she comments.

  She is referring to Count Vasily Petrovich, whom I met during that Naples murder investigation.

  We have a great time in Sarasota. Marisa buys so much in the shops that the packages won’t begin to fit in the Corvette’s trunk, so she has to ship them home. The circus museum is terrific: makes me feel like a kid again, with its amazing forty-four-thousand-piece circus model, the parade wagons, the posters, the Big Top, the cannon that shot daredevils through the air, the high wire, the ferocious (fake) tiger and other animals—and the clown car in which, fortunately, there were no live clowns.

  We stayed at the Ritz-Carlton, took a walk on the beach, and had a room-service dinner while watching a movie. I suggested Top Gun, which I’d seen maybe fifteen times already, but I acceded to Marisa’s request for When Harry Met Sally, which she admitted to seeing nearly as often as I’d watched my Tom Cruise jet-jockey flick—one of the classics of modern cinema, right up there with Road House, Bull Durham, Full Metal Jacket, and Hoosiers.

  No romantic comedies on my list.

  When we arrive home, I open a Bergoff, carry it out onto the deck, settle into a lounge chair, and make a call to my very own Russian.

  Count Vasily Petrovich is neither a count nor really named Vasily Petrovich. He ma
nages a very successful hedge fund in Naples called The Atocha Fund, named for a Spanish treasure galleon that sank in 1622 in a hurricane off the Florida Keys.

  I met Vasily a few years ago when he bought a house—if you can call a residence the size of a hotel a house—that Marisa had listed for sale. He invited her to the first dinner party in his new home, and she brought me along as her significant other. It was an elaborate affair attended by a bevy of VIPs, one of whom asked me to refresh his drink, taking me for one of the catering crew.

  Vasily’s real name is Boris Ivanovich and he is the son of a Russian Mafia kingpin in Brighton Beach, a heavily Russian neighborhood in Brooklyn. His family in Brighton Beach is now mainly into legit businesses, but maybe he can help me learn more about Sergey Pavlov and Oil Patch.

  “Very good to hear from you, Jack,” he says when he answers my call. “It’s been awhile. I trust you are well.”

  “I am, Vasily. And I trust you too are well, and prosperous.”

  He chuckles. “Quite right, on both counts.”

  I explain where I am with my current murder investigation and why I need his help.

  “I know of this Sergey Pavlov,” he tells me. “He is a very dangerous man—especially when billions of dollars in oil and gas money are involved.”

  But Vasily is no shrinking violet and he agrees to help me. We schedule a meeting at his office the following Tuesday. It’s Friday, and I’m on a flight to Chicago. I decided to attend Claire’s wedding, so I’ll have to suck it up and watch my ex exchange vows with an orthopedic surgeon who, I’m certain, doesn’t deserve her and is probably committing Medicare fraud. Maybe I’ll drop a dime on him.