Ransom

Holmquist spent the rest of the afternoon interrogating him. After which, he was formally booked, and informed that it was too late in the day for a federal judge to set bail. He would have to cool his heels in jail for the night, and could only be released after a hearing to set bail at nine o'clock the next morning. Phillip Addison was beyond outraged, and there was nothing his lawyer could do to help him. Addison was still unclear about what had set the investigation off in the first place. It appeared to be a matter of irregular debits and deposits and money disappearing over state lines, notably to a bank where he had an account under another name in Nevada, and the government wanted to know why, what he was doing with it, and where the money came from. He knew by now it had nothing to do with his crystal meth labs. All the money he used to run those came from an account he kept in Mexico City under another name, and the proceeds went into several numbered Swiss accounts. This current situation truly appeared to be a matter of tax evasion. Agent Holmquist said that over eleven million dollars had come in and out of the Nevada account in the past several months, and mostly out, and from what they'd been told, he had never paid taxes on any of it, nor on the interest. Phillip continued to look unconcerned as they took him away to a cell for the night, although he gave a look of fury to both Holmquist and his attorney.

Holmquist met with the agents who had searched his offices after that, and nothing much had turned up. They had gone through computers and files, which would be used as evidence against him. They had brought boxloads of them back to the office. They had also unlocked his desk, and found a loaded handgun in it, a number of personal files, and four hundred thousand dollars in cash, which Holmquist found interesting. That was a lot of cash for the average businessman to keep in his desk drawer, and they said he had no permit for the gun. They had two boxes with everything they'd found in Phillip's desk, and one of the agents handed them to Holmquist.

“What do you want me to do with this?” Rick looked at them, and the agent who had handed it to him said he thought he'd want to go through it. Rick was going to tell them to put the boxes with the rest of the evidence, and at the last minute thought better of it, and carried them into his office.

The gun had been put in a plastic evidence bag, and there were several plastic envelopes with small scraps of paper in them, and for no reason in particular, he started to read through them. There were notes with names and phone numbers on them, and he noticed that two of them had the name Peter Morgan on them, but the phone numbers were different. He was halfway through the second box when he found the file on Allan Barnes, which spanned three years of his career, and was as thick as the San Francisco phone book. It seemed like an odd file for him to keep, Holmquist thought to himself, and set it aside. He wanted to ask Addison about it. There were several photographs of Barnes from old magazine and newspaper articles, and there was even one of Barnes with his wife and children. It was almost as though Addison were obsessed with him, or even jealous. The rest of what Rick found in the boxes was meaningless to him. But might mean something to the U.S. Attorney's office. They had used master keys to open all his desk drawers, and the special agents who'd gone through them assured Rick that when they left Addison's office, his desk was empty. They had brought everything back with them, and seized it all as evidence, even his cell phone, which he had forgotten to take with him.

“If he has a phone book in it, remember to mark those numbers down too.”

“We already did.” One of the agents smiled at him.

“Anything interesting?”

“It's all the same stuff that was in his desk. Some guy called Morgan called while we were working on it, and when I said I was FBI, he hung up.” The agent laughed, and so did Holmquist.

“I'll bet he did.” But the name struck him again. His name and number were on the two pieces of paper from Phillip's desk, and he was obviously someone he spoke to regularly, if he had called looking for Phillip. It was probably nothing, but it was one of those odd instincts he had sometimes, like a tic, that gnawed at him and clicked later. He had a sixth sense about the name. It stuck in his mind, and for some reason he couldn't forget it.