Born in Death (In Death 23)

“Until nearly midnight, as I recall. I was ready to drop. Actually thought I was coming down with something, I was that tired. But after a good night’s sleep, I was fine. We had a lovely brunch the next morning.”

“Give your wife a little something to help her sleep,” Eve theorized as they drove to Brooklyn. “Plenty of time to get to Copperfield’s, take care of her. Get to Byson’s, do him, get home. Catch a few z’s, then have a lovely brunch.”

“What did he do with the computers and discs?” Roarke asked.

“Yeah, there’s that. Hauled them home. Probably has an office there the wife doesn’t fool with. Or he rented a place to hold them until he could properly dispose of them. Only one little hitch with that particular theory though.”

“Which is?”

“Robert Kraus has never had a driver’s license or owned a car. Whoever did this had to have private transportation. So he worked with an accomplice.”

“Bullock or Chase?”

“Maybe. Likely. Or someone else in the firm. Cavendish or his keeper. It spreads out, the way I see it. One or more people in the accounting firm had to know what was going on. One or more people in the foundation. One or more in the law firm. You said it was an operation. I’m going with that. Where does the money come from? The funds they’re laundering, funneling, juggling? What’s the source?”

“It’s listed as donations, charitable trusts, privatized income. I couldn’t dig deeper without specific names and companies.”

“The fees, the percentages. They’d likely be kickbacks, or hush money to the accountant, the lawyer. We’ll need to follow that, because it landed somewhere.”

The Inner Circle was an indoor golf course and driving range where aficionados of the sport could play a round, practice their putting, and have a friendly drink. For added fees, there were tony locker rooms with sports channels cued into wall screens, efficient attendants, shower facilities, and the services of a masseur or masseuse. The wet area included whirlpools, saunas, a lap pool, steam room.

They found Kraus in a party of four, on the ninth hole.

“A few minutes of your time,” Eve told him.

“Now?” His brows drew together under a tweed golf cap. “I’m in the middle of a round, with clients.”

“You’ll have to catch up later. Or I could walk along with you,” Eve said obligingly, “and we can discuss the discrepancies in the Bullock Foundation’s account in front of your clients.”

“Discrepancies? That’s ridiculous.” But he glanced at the woman and two men at his tee. “A moment.” He moved to them, hands spreading in apology. His face was full of annoyance as he walked back to Eve. “Now what’s this about?”

“It’s about a multimillion-dollar motive for murder. Natalie Copperfield came to you regarding questionable accounts in the Stuben and Company file.”

“Stuben? She did not. You asked me if she discussed anything of the sort regarding a client with me, and I told you she hadn’t.”

“The questionable accounts relate to the Bullock Foundation, which is your client. And your alibi for the murders.”

He flushed, glanced around. “Would you mind keeping your voice down?”

Eve merely shrugged and hooked her thumbs in her coat pockets. “If you have a problem with someone overhearing this conversation, we can take it back to Central.”

Looking thoroughly put out, he gestured for them to follow. “We’ll take this to the clubhouse.” Kraus strode off the ninth green toward an open patio under simulated sunlight, and after swiping a key card in a slot, gestured them to an umbrellaed table.

“I don’t know what you think you’ve come across,” he began.

“The laundering of funds through charitable trusts,” Roarke began. “The disbursement of funds claimed as tax exempt to subaccounts, which is then funneled back into the trust and redisbursed. It’s a clever circle, washing considerable income annually.”

“The Bullock Foundation is above reproach, as is our firm. What you’re saying is impossible.”

“Natalie Copperfield accessed the Bullock accounts.”

“I don’t understand

you, and obviously you don’t understand how we run our business. Natalie wasn’t cleared for that data.”

“But you were. They’re yours. Her killer got her home unit, her discs. Got to her office unit and deleted files. But he couldn’t delete all of them, certainly not files that were on record as her clients. She changed the label on the file. The Bullock data was still there.”

“Why would she do such a thing?”