“I’m on a watch list. I don’t know who listens in on your voice mails. I only wanted to talk to you.”
Get the information first, I thought, and then check it out. The rest we could deal with after, but I didn’t know why Beatty was out there. If I didn’t, no one else would either and I could hear the questions already. Sometimes it’s the murderer who calls in the killing.
“You’ll have to come down and meet whatever officers or agents come out. Are you clear on that?”
“It’s not going to be you?”
“It’s going to be whoever can respond fastest. I’m caught up in the bomb investigation. We caught a break.”
My phone beeped and I said, “Hang tight for a minute. I’ve got a call coming I’ve got to take. I’ll be right back to you.”
“I’ll switch phones. I’ll call you back.”
“Jeremy, just hang on, it’s not going to be long and no one is trying to get your location. I’ve been with Julia and just walked out of the hospital. Stay on the line. Don’t go away. I’ll be right back.”
I took the other call. It was the front desk and they transferred me to Venuti.
“Come to the office as fast as you can. Omar Smith and his lawyer just arrived and Smith is asking for Special Agent Paul Grale. What is it with you two? He says he’s got a confession to make but wants you here.”
“Okay, but I’m twenty minutes out and I’ve got Beatty on hold. Let me tell you what he just told me.”
I did and asked, “Can we get agents out there?”
“How good a shot is he?”
“Very good.”
“Then I could be sending agents to their deaths. We need to be careful here. I’ll call Strata. Get here. Get into the room with Smith and then we’ll deal with the rest of this. I’ll make some calls before you get here, but Smith is ready to talk. You need to focus on that. Do you have any ideas about what he’s going to say?”
“It’ll be something about money. Let’s stick on Beatty for a minute. Let’s say he’s right.”
“No, let’s say he’s dangerous. We know he had a beef with these security guys and we know he has no reason to be there. Based on what you’ve told me, we have to treat Jeremy Beatty as a possible murder suspect. If it’s sheriff’s deputies that go there first, we have an obligation to warn them.”
“If you frame it that way, you’ll get him killed.”
“Get here and we’ll talk. I’ve got to go.”
He hung up. He was exasperated and questioned my judgment. Truth was, I wavered for a moment as well and when I switched back to Jeremy, he was gone.
49
Despite air conditioning, Smith’s forehead and scalp glistened with sweat. His gaze held mine for a moment then moved to the wall behind me. The tall, thin lawyer to his left looked worried and nervous. He’d probably advised against this meeting.
“On May twentieth, my sister’s three daughters were kidnapped in Istanbul. They were pulled into two cars and the kidnappers told my brother-in-law they would kill my nieces or sell them into Syria to ISIS or for prostitution in Turkey if he did not pay $300,000 for each of them. So almost a million dollars, and my brother-in-law has no money. He doesn’t even work. The kidnappers must know this. Everyone knows this, so I am wondering, ‘Who is behind the kidnapping?’”
He answered his question a moment later.
“I am thinking the men I am in court with in Istanbul are the ones. It is a way to pressure me. Perhaps the ransom goes to them and the kidnappers get a cut. Thoughts like these are in my head, but my sister is nearly without words when she calls me. She is crazy with worry.”
“Did you contact the police in Istanbul?”
Smith looked at me like I was a fool and said, “It was a condition of the ransom we make no contact with the police.”
“It always is.”
“The police, I don’t trust them. The men I owe are speaking to me and they are very angry. They want money I owe and they want it now. This is what I am thinking. I do not expect them to hurt the girls, and they know Ozan, my brother-in-law, has no money. Why take the children of a man who has no wealth? It was obvious, it was to reach me.”
The lawyer scowled and twisted a pen between his fingers as if this was difficult for him to hear, though I didn’t grasp why. Maybe he knew what was coming next.
“I told my brother-in-law $300,000 for each girl is more than I can pay. There is nothing I can do with numbers like that. But I love my family and I am not a coldhearted man. I am thinking every second how to get them back. Through Ozan, I tell the kidnappers we must negotiate. When my sister hears that, she collapses. She believes I am very, very, very rich, and that negotiating means I do not love my nieces. Nothing could be more false. One week later I offered $150,000 for all three.”
“On May 27?”
“Yes.”
“You offered a fraction of what they had demanded?”