I sat on the porch and smoked and thought. I had the strange feeling that every line of questioning and research I undertook had a curious wrinkle in it-a strange bend in the stream that was totally unexpected and hard to explain. "Curiouser and curiouser," as the British are fond of saying. I considered doing a bit of further research on Mr. James Schilling. Something that Mrs. Haskell told me was knocking around in the old gray matter and wouldn't leave…
I thought about it off and on for almost an hour, then decided to go ahead with it, even knowing that it might possibly upset poor Sarah Hart again, just as she might be starting to recover. But she was so perfectly situated in Pasadena. I called her for a chat to see which way the wind was blowing. If she seemed at all upset I wouldn't push it. She was not upset so much as resigned and bitter-even vengeful. I told her what I wanted her to do and she instantly agreed. "Doc, is this what you call a lead?"
"Probably not, Sarah. I just want to check it out is all. The best paper would be the Los Angeles Times. Schilling died sometime around November or December of 'seventy-eight. If you find anything, would you mind photocopying the article and mailing it to me. If the newspapers are on microfilm you'll have to get assistance from the librarian…"
She agreed and said she'd have it in the mail the next day. Mary and I were due to return to The Breakers on Thursday a evening. It was now past Labor Day, and the Cape would begin to settle down a bit. The traffic on Route 28 would only be terrible, not horrendous. Late September/early October is far and away the best time on Cape Cod. The tourists are (mostly) gone, the water is still warm, the bluefish are beginning to liven up, and the colors of the foliage are beginning to change. So I couldn't wait.
But on Thursday morning I got a call at the office from my old friend Jim DeGroot, the semiretired real estate developer. He owns Whimsea, a thirty-foot Lyman cruiser that he keeps moored up in Gloucester. He was calling to inform me that the bluefish were rushing the season a bit; people were tying into them off Rockport and Halibut Point. The day before some lucky lass had snared twelve of them.
"Twelve?" I asked incredulously.
"Twelve. The paper said it was her first time fishing, ever."
"Ah. Beginner's luck. I have a patient at three, but it's only to remove stitches from a third molar extraction. I can get out of here before four, and meet you at the marina shortly after five."
Jim had also invited Tom Costello, a stockbroker friend of his I'd met several times before. The three of us sat up on the flying bridge as we left Cape Ann Marina northward up the Annisquam River and entered Ipswich Bay. Whimsea rocked and swayed beneath us in the big water, and her motion was exaggerated by our high perch. We sipped beer and took in the ocean. The tide was turning-coming in-which would bring the blues with it. The horizon was invisible in the haze, and boats of all sizes dotted the water. The air was cool, as it always is on the ocean even in midsummer, but as fall approaches, the cold intensifies, especially in the evening. As we rounded the tip of Cape Ann and began to head south, I hopped down and began to rig the big hooks with squid and mullet. We fished the Rockport breakwater for a while. No luck. Not even a hit. We crawled by trolling, watching lobstermen hauling up their traps. I thought again of the Windhover and, as I sat in the chair looking over the stern at the wake that churned and hissed behind us, told Tom about my visits to the Kincaid home and his corporation. He seemed interested. In between fiddling with his reel and tackle box, he asked me questions relating to Walter Kincaid.
"I'm kind of interested," he said, because his company, Wheel-Lock, is about to go into receivership."
I was stunned. "Why" I asked, "when the company even supports a foundation? Besides, I have just been to the headquarters, and it reeks of affluence."
"Well it's a funny thing, Doc… sometimes the companies that appear to be doing best are actually on the skids. Now I take Wheel-Lock. Five years ago, maybe six, it was doing very well. Privately owned. Nice profitability. A lot of Kincaid's business was with the government, supplying them with locks and security systems for military installations, arsenals, armories, bureau offices, and such. But then the contracts ran out-or at least diminished considerably as the Vietnam thing dwindled-and profits shrank. The foundation I know about, but hell, it's tiny. It's just a tax write-off, nothing more…"
"What's going to happen to Wheel-Lock now that the founder and owner is dead?"
As we talked, we reeled in the lines and switched to Rapala and Rebel plugs, put a strip of squid on the rear treble hooks and let them out again. We had Jim rev up a wee bit so the lipped plugs would wiggle and dance in the wake.
Tom Costello shrugged his shoulders and gave his Penn reel a few cranks. He sipped his beer and put it down.
"Dunno. I don't know of the arrangements he would have made in the event of his death. Surely he made some…"
"And you say the corporation is privately owned, or by a limited number of shareholders?"
"Right. I don't know how many but I can check. Anyway, rumor has it that when the board meets next they're going to file for bankruptcy unless some giant conglomerate will bail them out and take Wheel-Lock under it wings. But it's a little company. Only loose change, you understand? The only reason a bunch of us were talking about it is because of the story of Kincaid's death."
"Tom, if Kincaid saw his company was going under, would feigning his death make sense?"
"Not usually, unless he had some hidden angle. The best thing to check would be corporate cash flow. Was any large sum drawn from company funds-for any stated purpose within the last few months or so that looks suspicious? If so, your theory could hold some water. I think though that-hey! wait… oh shit, I thought-hey, there it is again!"
He flipped his rod backward over his head hard, reeled in fast and furiously as he lowered the tip again, then yanked back again, setting the hook. I saw his rod tip tremble. DeGroot looked back and cut speed a tiny bit. When the fish headed in, he'd turn the boat slightly to follow it. But there wasn't much to do really but wait and watch Tom work the fish. The blue made three runs before Tom had it up alongside, and we gaffed it. Eleven pounds. A keeper, but nothing spectacular.
But ten minutes later Jim tied into one from the bridge, and I went up to man the wheel while he cranked it in. Nine pounds. We searched some more, and came up with nothing. Moving over to Halibut Point, Jim and I hooked two at once and Tom had to mind the helm. Then Tom came down and he and I tied into two more. They were running a little bigger, between twelve and fourteen pounds. As we hauled them in over the side they flip-flopped and slid all over the cockpit, trailing slime and thin bright streaks of blood. The blood is hell to clean up, and Jim, a true Dutchman, is fastidious. I grabbed the nearest blue and whapped him smartly on the top of the head with the billy. Nothing. He continued to flip and work his mean jaws at me. Whap! Nothing. Whap!
"Jesus Christ!"
"Hard-headed little devils aren't they?"
I whapped him twice more hard and he went limp. I plopped him in the well and went after the others. The bluefish is shaped like a torpedo, black and silver with shades of blue. They say the blue can see well out of water, and go for you. I believe it. Their heads are pointy, with a lot of mouth that's long, but not wide like a bass's mouth. You see a lot of teeth. Their heads are solid bone and thick carapace. A few minutes later we had all the stunned monsters in the commenced flipping around again. I killed them the same way I killed the lobsters, a quick thrust of knifeblade downward behind the head.
"You say look for suspicious cash flow in Wheel-Lock?" I asked Tom, returning to our earlier conversation. "I can't do that… but could you?"
"Not unless there was a special reason, like an investigation, or they wanted to let me. Wheel-Lock is a privately owned corporation. That stuff is private, and since they have no stockholders to account to, they can keep the information to themselves. The only people who can know it all-in a case like this-is the IRS."
"Have you ever heard of a firm called A. J. Liebnitz?"
Costello turned and looked at me, giving a low whistle. He thumbed the line through his fingers and thumb, feeling it play out.
"Uh huh. Was Kincaid involved with A. J. Liebnitz?"
"Don't know. Let's just say it's a guy who hasn't answered his mail in quite a while. Where's the company located and what does it do?"
"Adolph Jacob Liebnitz and Associates is located on Grand Cayman Island in the Caribbean. I think it's just south of Jamaica. Tax haven."
"I've seen the ads. It's a place where the very rich go to bury their funds."
"Yeah, and pay nothing. They can just sit around down there and sip zombies and pina coladas and collect interest. A. J. Liebnitz is a commodities broker. Precious commodities. I think he owns half the gold and silver in the free world."
"That's fairly interesting."
"Old A. J. is quite a guy. There was an article about him not long ago in one of the financial rags. Jewish refugee from the Nazis. Both parents wiped out. Brothers and sisters wiped out. Arrived is Lisbon without a cent. Now he's worth-who the hell knows?"
"And his firm deals mostly in precious metals?"
"I think now he's branching out more and more into gems and art treasures. If it's precious-sought after-A. J. has a hand in it. But he made his name in gold and silver, yes. His name crops up wherever they're traded: Geneva, Zurich, Brussels, Antwerp, London, New York, Paris. If the subject's gold, the name Liebnitz will surface before long. He knows all the big deals: who's buying and who's selling and where and when. At all the big deals and auctions one of his representatives is there. They've got branch offices in all the big money centers."
"I'm wondering if I could write the head office for information about this guy…"
"Forget it. Liebnitz is as tight as a Swiss bank. Confidentiality of all clients' holdings is absolute."
He turned the reel handle, watching the line making thin swirl marks in the ocean, and squinted in concentration. "Ab-so-lute," he repeated with finality.
Disappointed, I gazed at the sea haze. Was there any way to pierce the shield of anonymity that surrounded Wallace Kinchloe?
"What if I were from a law enforcement agency?"
"No dice. Interpol, the FBI, and all the secret service organizations have been after Liebnitz and the Swiss banks for decades. They're tighter than clams. I'll tell you one thing though, whoever the guy is you have in mind, he's loaded: Liebnitz likes to brag privately that he only handles millionaires. His outfit is definitely not the minor leagues. Even to do business with him, you've got to be a heavyweight."
"What kind of minimum deal are you talking about?"
"I honestly don't know, Doc. But I know Liebnitz and clan pick and choose carefully. They have a minimum staff and want minimum overhead and bookkeeping. If you're not promising, they don't take you on."
The line jerked and ran. I hauled and cranked. I was rewarded with what I was searching for: a ten-pound striped bass.
"You're dribbling at the mouth. You OK?"
I told him I was just salivating. A normal reaction to catching a big, plump sniper. I was rewarded twice more, with nice bass.
It was a perfect day. The sun sank low in the west, silhouetting the twin lighthouses of Gloucester. The tide was swelled to it fullest and Whimsea rolled and yawed lazily in the broad troughs. The exhaust noise wafted up to my ears in a faint and peaceful burble. To the east the sky was dark bluish purple-to the west, brilliant red-gold. We broke out the steaming chowder as Jim swung around for the trip back. We eased back, taking our time. We passed the twin breakwaters of Rockport, which are man-made piles of granite a mile offshore. They lay dim, huge, ghostlike in the gathering dark, like mined hulks.
I sat on the bridge, downing chowder and beer and watching for lights and buoys as we entered the channel. My watch said quarter to nine.
"My cast stinks."
"What?"
"My cast and bandage. They're al1 full of fish slime. One of the biggest pains in the ass about this damn thing is I can't wash it. Hey, isn't Thursday night a good night for bar drinking? When I was in college we always used to go drinking Thursday nights."
Jim replied that to his knowledge the bars were usually pretty packed Thursdays, especially during the summer months.
"Instead of heading back with you guys I think I'll hoist a few in, Gloucester tonight."
He looked at me in disbelief.
"I thought you hated bars."
"I do. But there's one here I want to pay a visit to. I'm told a certain boatbuilder hangs out there and I'd like to meet him."
"Well, you should stay out of all of 'em. They're for commercial fishermen and all pretty rough, so I'm told. They're not for the likes of us, Doc."
"I was going to buy you guys dinner there. I just want to see a guy-"
"I'm not interested, Doc. Don't know about Tom. I'm going home. Listen: I want you to give me your fish too, in case you don't come back."
I thought this was in“poor taste, and so informed him. Tom declined also. We reached the harbor and made Whimsea fast and shipshape and parted_company on the dock. I told Jim to please call Mary and have her proceed with dinner without me. I knew this wouldn't make me popular, but I had to speak with Danny Murdock. And according to his wife, the Schooner Race was his second home.