Key Man by Allen Huffstutter

Author:Allen Huffstutter [Huffstutter, Allen K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cross Creek Books
Published: 2021-04-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 27

The team’s routines had returned to normal by the time the detailed stock trading records they’d subpoenaed finally arrived. The pattern in the short sales transactions was there; it just came with a little twist they hadn’t anticipated.

They had hoped for a paper trail that led straight to Karl Heulenberg. What they found was a series of trades involving half a dozen different brokerage houses, which executed the short sale transactions on behalf of thirty-three different corporations.

“This guy is smart,” observed Ski.

“Well, it makes sense, if you’re trying to hide a paper trail,” added Sam. “We’ve got to get this bastard!” flashed Kat.

“We’ve got to,” Kate reiterated, softening her tone, but not the anger in her eyes.

“Sam, I’ve gotta ask,” started Ski. “Isn’t it time we lay all this out for the lieutenant? Have him put together an interagency task force or something. I mean, this is now a pretty big case for just two homicide cops.”

“And two assistants!” Donny added.

“Task force?” Sam replied. “Do you want to get to the bottom of this case or not?”

“Well, sure I do, but,” Ski had started, when he was cut off by a wave of Sam’s hand.

“Let me tell you what we get from a task force. We get at least a year of arguing over who’s going to be in charge.

“We get another year of fighting over who’ll get all the credit and who’ll get all the blame. That’ll take a year, even though I can tell you the outcome right now. The FBI will get the praise if the case is ever solved, and we’ll get the blame if it’s not.

“On a task force, we’d pull in the SEC and the IRS and then kiss good-bye any possibility of cooperation from them. On a task force, everyone pledges to share information, but they actually begin hoarding it, hoping you’re dumb enough to share your information with them so they can scoop the case and look like heroes.

“Should I go on?”

II

Donny went to work, further analyzing the new data. As best as he could tell, the total take from the short sale maneuvers was in the neighborhood of $123,000,000 ... give or take $5,000,000.

With specific instructions from Donny on how and where to search for corporate records on the thirty-three mystery corporations, Sam and Ski headed off to track down ownership. Their investigation quickly turned into a game of hide and seek. The ‘short sale’ killer, in planning this caper, had been far more paranoid about being traced than they had anticipated. He had created dozens of corporate entities that traded ownership back and forth and amongst themselves as if they were playing Monopoly. Ski finally resorted to laying out the maze of corporate ownerships using a flow chart on his computer, just so he could keep things straight.

Anyone looking at just one or two pieces of the ‘short sale plot’ in isolation would have gotten completely lost. But Sam and Ski had the big picture ... all thirty-three events. When it was all said and done, everything led back to CE Ltd.

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