Phone Call (Trouble part 6)

I waited until it was past 8 pm. I picked up the phone, took a deep breath and dialled. This would be the first time I would call my father asking for help since he left the business 7 years ago. It wasn’t pride that kept me from calling; it was that I never ended up in a case that warranted his assistance. The cases I had taken care of were simple, the request was simple, and the target was simple. I had to prove husbands and wives were cheating, employees were stealing, and people were on workman’s comp when they were clearly healthy. All it took was a camera, some patience, and people were quite quick into selling themselves out. This case, however, was something else.

Thompson had money. It was obvious by the few things he did own. The problem was that he left no traces anywhere of his money. It came in from many sources, all legit, but there was logic to these sources. He had some money in shipping, he had shares in a company that owned some buildings downtown, and the other shares of that company were partially owned by another company that reported to Thompson as well. I had talked with a friend more involved in the financial world, and while he wasn’t breaking any laws, it did not feel right for him as well. He had lots of money, but it wasn’t old money. He owned a lot of things, but mostly focused on companies that barely made a profit. He owned buildings entirely, but no one could see that because they were owned by companies he owned through other companies. In fact, if I had not spent about 6 hours reading financial records, I would still believe he was an average but lucky investor who made some good choices.

I had a list of questions I wanted to take care of, but I hadn’t talked to my father in a while, so I also wanted to take care of some civilities. When he answered, I started: “Hey dad, how’s it going? Still sunny in...”

“What’s the case about son?”

“What case, I just wanted to see how you were doing,” at this point, I wondered who contacted my father.

“Well, in the last seven years, you haven’t called on a Wednesday, you usually call much closer to 6 than 8, and Sherry called for the first time in years, saying something had made her think of me.”

“Well, I can’t really be surprised, you were quite the good detective back in the day,” at this point, I figured I should just tease him into helping me. “Familiar with the name Madeline Thompson?”

“The author, I love her books, is she in any kind of trouble?”

“Not really, her soon to be ex-husband is however. She asked me to make a list of all his assets. The problem is, the guy leaves as much of a trace as a snowflake in a blizzard.”

“Well, don’t go into too much details, you worry about those, tell me the big picture,” dad was still very much straight to the point, I missed that.

“Okay, big picture: I have pictures of him with a possible mistress, however, during lunch, they covertly exchanged briefcases. He owns small bits of many companies that are also partially owned by companies which also partially belong to him; so far I have a clear web of 20 to 30 companies each holding around 10% in some of the other companies, so that he becomes the only person owning all of these, but they all have various people hired to represent themselves on the boards, so that no one can clearly see that it’s all his,” as I was saying this, I realized how big this case actually was, we are talking about billions of dollars being moved around, and if it wasn’t for his wife, I would not be poking my nose in all the right spots.

“Well, I have a better idea why you called. This seems big; shouldn’t you be calling the feds on him?”

“Some laws may have been broken in obtaining this information, wouldn’t want to burn an informant with a big mouth. The other thing that bothers me is that what he does requires a high level of knowledge about business, but as far as I know, he hasn’t graduated from any universities in the country. He would also have needed a big amount of money to start his scheme, but there are no traces of that money as well.”

“Have you considered that he might not have always had that name?”

“Actually, I did, but there are no usual traces of a name change. He has a legit birth certificate, everything fits,” as I was saying this, I realized something but I felt like letting my father saying it.

“Laws have changed, so there might be some name changing involved, a simple way to get to where it started is to trace back the money to where it was before it was in this guy’s pockets. I can hear you thinking, I think you should look at the info you have from that new point of view. Also, you can always catch a cab and go to the companies in person. Sometimes, people who don’t know something is supposed to be secret will give you the info you need.”

“Thanks dad.”

“One last thing...”

“Yeah?”

“Can you get me an autographed copy of Madeline’s “Walker in the Dark” book? It’s my favourite.”

[No comments really, I like the progress, and I have a better sense of how to get where I want to get.]