Chapter 14: Mole

Two parallel investigations — sometimes intersecting, sometimes intertwined.

The FBI, supervised by Ash Collins, was focused primarily on illegal weapons — manufacturing and sales. And chasing the gun money, possibly diamonds, around the world.

Matt Striker, reporting to Constance Grayson, was all things Meriwether. Their PAC, their possible connections to Wexler and Hoffstatter. And, just maybe their connections to diamonds.

I was, for now, relegated to the sidelines. Impatiently so.

Ash and Matt’s investigations appeared to converge in Kiryas Square, New Jersey. The assault weapons factory. The diamonds-for-guns rumors. Wexler had been known to Solomon Grunwald, my Allentown ... mole. Sort of mole. And Hoffstatter had been touting those repeating-serial-number weapons to hate groups in Germany.

Plus, both Wexler and Hoffstatter were Nazi-connected to at least seven compounds here in the United States. The Meriwether overlay was there ... somewhere.

I reviewed my notes. Again. And again realized any ‘evidence’ I had was pretty tenuous. A lot of speculation, suppositions, assumptions. Links that may or may not be there. Relationships that may or may not exist.

I was anxious to ... do something. Almost anything. I needed to be out there ... somewhere, doing something.

Matt and Daddy, two men I admire, urged caution. Patience. Mature stuff like that.

Gun sales, at least the kind that Hoffstatter did, were pretty much a wholesale operation. The big guys — arms merchants — sold to entire countries. Or warring factions in countries. They sold everything from fighter jets to tanks to trainers and mercenaries.

But selling to Nazi compounds was door-to-door. The various groups shared their venom, their strategies, their propaganda, on likeminded social network sites. And they celebrated their favorite weaponry there too.

Not, however, guns with repeating serial numbers. That would draw unwanted attention from unwelcome parties. Of course, the word spread — whisper streams — from compound to compound. But someone — Hoffstatter, maybe Wexler too — had to physically make the rounds. Negotiate prices, quantities, ammunition. And, in Wexler’s case, training sessions for Nazi wannabes.

But there were too many Nazi camps, most of them pretty isolated, for the FBI or ATF or Matt’s people to monitor full time.

Wexler hadn’t been spotted, not recently, at any of the compounds that the Meriwethers may or may not still be supporting. There was an occasional Hoffstatter rumor, but no real excuse to bring him in. His Kansas City stay had demonstrated the futility of the exercise. He wouldn’t talk and the presence of Simon Rothstein, the Chicago lawyer, was still there, hovering in the background.

Matt and I were — respite time — lounging in his bed. Personally, I didn’t actually need a timeout, but I’m an understanding gal. Boys simply had different plumping. Which, of course, was part of their charm.

We were sitting up, his arm around my shoulders. He leaned down, kissed the top of my head, “You’re okay.”

“Thanks.”

My hair was growing back, fully and blondely and ... um, smartly. Not that I’m tossing my Dutch Boy Bob, not at all. I traced circles on Matt’s chest.

He said, “It was Connie’s idea. South-Carolina Connover.”

“Oh?”

“To hire him. Contract with him actually — he’s working on spec.”

“For Constance? And you?”

“Yep. To catch a thief and all that.”

I had realized for some weeks now that my little detective gig was amateurish. At least compared with what Matt and Constance Grayson were doing. My original Wexler-plan — hang out at compounds where he’d visited, pick up intel, nail him — was too rudimentary. Too direct, too dumb. Too dangerous.

I was still learning from Matt, although I had to admit that much of my education was still terra nullius to me.

He had shown me what real disguises look like; how to approach problems from completely fresh angles. Rather than go directly to the Nazis, directly to the guns, I’d been sent to the Diamond District. That led to Solomon Grunwald who pointed me to an address in Kiryas Square.

Which brought us, thanks to a sort-of rumor-confirmation from Naval Commander James Battleford Lightfoot, to a raid on an illegal gun factory run by an under-indictment Hassidic rebbe.

And that raid drew the man I now think of as The Aryan — Karl Hoffstatter — to Kansas City. To the stockyards, to my office.

Early on, Matt had completely sold me on the Mildred Hawkins identity. He had needed me to buy into it so he could take care of the compromised forger, Bones.

Then, layer upon layer, a second fake Mildred Hawkins went around those hater compounds bragging about the Kiryas Square raid.

Well, I was learning.

Matt tweaked my nipple, “South-Carolina Connover is ... something like an eighth or ninth generation jeweler.”

I said, “Diamonds?”

“Of course. His mother is one of the biggest diamond importers in the state. And probably the largest retailer too. Seventeen stores at last count.”

“So ... South-Carolina Connover, diamonds, the Whittaker Fund...”

Matt tweaked my other nipple. A signal, maybe subconscious on his part, that Round Two was now on our event-horizon. He said, a smile in his voice, “Remember in that FBI interrogation room when Wexler looked into the camera and told Senator Wainwright that he knew about the Whittaker Fund?”

“Of course. And then the camera shut down for a couple of minutes while the senator tried to figure out what the fuck to do.”

“Well, no. Not exactly...”

His voice had that gravely pitch. I smiled, leaned down. A woman’s work is never done.

What with one thing and another, then another, Matt and I didn’t return to South-Carolina Connover until the next morning. Breakfast — biscuits and gravy, spicy sausage patties, Zapp’s Hotter ‘N Hot Jalapeño chips. Hey, it worked.

I used the tip of my linen napkin to wipe a spot of drool from the corner of his mouth. It wasn’t an everyday occurrence, but it happened. Neither one of us had mentioned it. Nor the slight tremor in his left hand. Up to Matt to bring it up. Or not.

“Connie admired the scam that South-Carolina Connover had tried to pull on HUD. The subtlety, the misdirection.”

“Like a magician drawing eyes away from what he’s really doing.”

“Yes. Her idea was to inflict some damage on the Neo-Nazis. Financial damage. Which could piss off the Meriwethers. And out of that thought ... well, we ended up with the Whittaker Fund.”

“Which Wexler heard about.”

“Yes, but that’s the thing. We leaked it to him.”

“You wanted him to know.” Circles within circles.

“Yeah, the Whittaker Fund was a feint. Is a feint. Wexler, and later Hoffstatter, believed it’s there to buy and then sell stolen ammunition. They’d sell it at a discounted price, that’s the attraction.”

“Ammo. Huh.”

“It’s a major expense for those compounds. Training. Showing off to recruits. More training.”

“Okay, the magician has the audience looking at the Whittaker Fund. Then what?”

“We switch the diamonds.”

“South-Carolina Connover!”

Matt nodded.

“How ... when ... where... ?”

“Remember Connie’s primary mission, in this area anyway, is the Meriwethers.”

“And they’re moving from cash to diamonds.”

“Yeah, that’s confirmed now. Well, all but confirmed. Now think about it, Winter, think of Kiryas Square. And all the Hassidim in the Diamond District.”

“Okay. The Meriwether rep, or bagman, whatever he is, buys diamonds to use as untraceable currency. Someone working for the Meriwethers distributes them to the hate compounds. Maybe it’s still Wexler channeling the loot. Or Hoffstatter. The Nazis use the diamonds to purchase guns from Jewish factories like Kiryas Square.”

Matt beamed at me. I wiped the corner of his mouth again.

I said, “So where do you do the switch? Or where does South-Carolina Connover do the switch?”

He just smiled at me, wanting me to work it out. Daddy did that too. I said, “Okay, it has to be in transit. Going to the compound or from the compound.”

I thought about it, “Either way should be okay. The Nazis aren’t diamond experts — good paste should fool them.”

Matt nodded, pleased with his slow pupil.

I said, “So it depends on which one is easier. No, wait. The diamonds going to the compound would be under the Meriwether flag. Their protection. But when the diamonds leave the compound, they’re ... it’s the Nazis’ responsibility.”

I thought some, really concentrating. “They’d be heavily armed, but they aren’t professional. Not like real soldiers. That’d be the time to make the switch.”

“And then what happens when the fake diamonds reach the Jews?”

“They’d have an expert there. Someone who ... you know, the four Cs.” Cut, color, clarity, carat weight.

“So the fakes are spotted right away ... a confrontation. Could turn bloody.”

That wouldn’t help in the Meriwether investigation. I frowned, thinking my butt off. Determined to puzzle it out on my own. “Okay, I give.”

He said, “We sell fake diamonds to the Meriwethers. Good fakes, expensive fakes.”

I shook my head, the slow pupil again. “Of course! The fakes go to the compound. From there the Nazis take them to the Jews. Who aren’t fooled. The Meriwethers think the Nazis switched the jewels. The Nazis believe, correctly, that they were given fakes.”

Matt smiled, “Each faction distrusts the other. Animosity grows between the Meriwethers and the compounds.”

“But the Meriwethers have the upper hand. They’re billionaires.”

“Yeah, but both sides still need each other. The Meriwethers are losing faith in the current administration’s ability to accomplish anything. Anything that meets their definition of what needs to be done. They’re feeling an even stronger need to divide the country, to stir up trouble, to force some federal action. Overreaction.”

“So they need the haters. Despite all the mistrust that would come from the fake diamonds. So, how does the Whittaker Fund fit in?”

“Remember that Karl Hoffstatter is, first and foremost, a businessman. Greedy.”

The Aryan.

Matt said, “He’s selling guns, why not cheap ammo too?”

“Okay. But why would he get involved in what he believes is a fund connected to Senator Wainwright?”

“Leverage. If the senator’s involved in something even slightly shady, Hoffstatter would try to seize some advantage.”

“Blackmail?”

Matt glanced at me. It wasn’t pity, not exactly, in his eyes. But here I was, a step behind again. I remembered what Constance had told me about Matt — it was like he’d been educated by the Jesuits and schooled by old-style Boston pols.

I’d asked her, “Subtlety? Surreptitiousness?”

She said, “It’s in Striker’s catechism.”

And here I’d been proud of what Ash Collins termed my oblique approach. Circuitous, but in comparison with Matthew Striker ... I’d been clever, but only in the way a grade-schooler sometimes was.

Fuck.

I frowned in concentration, “No, not blackmail. That would be a waste of valuable intel for a short term gain. And outing Senator Wainwright ... well that would be counterproductive to Hoffstatter.”

Matt nodded, pleased with Ms. Catching Up.

I said, “Hoffstatter would use the info as leverage. An ongoing, low-key threat.”

Matt smiled, and the kitchen lit up, “Any more sausage?”

Matt was a good sleeper. By nature I think — it wasn’t not just because I kept him ... happy. I usually slept the sleep of the just too, but lately ... too much mental turmoil. Add in my eagerness to move beyond the theoretical and to ... just fucking do something. Get out there and kick some Wexler butt. Hoffstatter too.

I was sitting up in bed, my eyes closed in the Georgetown darkness. My right palm rested lightly on Matt’s chest as it rose and fell evenly.

I’d started my quest to find Wexler. To neutralize him, somehow, and bring him in. A naive plan — hang around the Nazi compounds where he’d made the rounds for the Meriwethers. Matt pulled me back into the real world.

The world of sophisticated disguises, deep ID cover, misdirection, in-depth research and reconnaissance. I’d followed a trail from the Diamond District to Allentown, Pennsylvania, to Kiryas Square, New Jersey.

Wexler and Hoffstatter had been spotted in Kansas City. And in Sheridan, Wyoming. Along with the biker who helped Wexler escape — Roger ‘Hoppy’ Cransdale. In addition, Wexler may or may not have been seen at a Riggs Bank branch near Atlanta. In the company of Willian Cochran, a former Riggs executive VP who had eeled his way out of various fraud charges.

I sighed. I liked it better, much better, when it was just Wexler and me.

Now we had South-Carolina Connover involved with Constance Grayson’s plan to damage the rapport between the Meriwethers and the Nazis. Everything folded into the Whittaker Fund — a scheme to entrap the Aryan — Karl Hoffstatter.

Matt stirred and turned on his left side, facing me. I smiled to myself in the dark. Erect again. Men. If they didn’t have a ... bounty time.

We were sitting around our kitchen table drinking house-made limeade. Walker smiled at me, “Tell us about that time you nailed that insurance fraud guy. Waterskiing down at the Lake of the Ozarks.” Pilar nodded eagerly.

I smiled, “It was a disability claim. Guy was a lineman in Raytown, his car got T-boned by a drunk driver. License had been suspended, then revoked.”

Pilar shook her head, “And he kept driving.”

“Yeah. My guy — the disability guy — had AAA. Who was suspicious about just how hurt he really was.”

Walker said, “AAA couldn’t nail him. Here comes Winter!”

I looked sharply at my son. At Pilar. Innocence personified.

“Okay, what do you two want? Any time you ask me to stroll down Remembrance Lane, you have something else in mind.”

Walker turned, just a little, pink. Busted. I am, after all, a professional detective. Licensed. Plus, his fucking mother.

“Me and Pilar...” caught himself, “Pilar and I were offered a summer job.”

Pilar nodded, “Pays good.”

Walker, “Educational too. Learning experience.”

“Oh?”

Pilar said, “We’d be like urban ... what did he call it?”

“Urban anthropologists.”

“He who?”

Both kids glanced away, just for a nanosecond, but I caught it. Walker looked me in the eye, “Tony Gonzales.”

Ah, Handsome Tony.

Pilar said, “We’d be his eyes and ears. Around town.”

Walker, “Report whatever we see.”

Pilar, “Even something that seems to be nothing...”

Walker, “Scraps add up.”

Tony Gonzales. Pronounced Gone-ZALES. Or the Latinx version when it suited his ... needs. Our Tony, a handsome, Black Irish rogue who was one of my Irregulars. A notorious womanizer. Who happened to have seduced my own mother. And undoubtedly had eyes on Pilar.

But that wasn’t what bothered me; Pilar could take care of herself. I simply didn’t want the kids drawn into Tony’s web of intrigue. They brushed up against enough darkness because of my job. Or the darkness brushed up against them.

I said, “Let me think about it.”

Walker winked at his girlfriend, “Translate.”

“Winter needs to ask Vanessa how to tell us no.”

Matt called me, “Karl Hoffstatter nibbled.”

“At the Whittaker Fund?”

“Yep. He placed a tender offer. Subject to seeing the books.”

“Tender offer?”

“To buy the whole thing.”

“The Whittaker Fund?” Why am I always playing catchup these days?

“Yeah. He loves the idea of buying cheap ammo. And selling it at retail prices of course.”

“Of course. How will you work it?”

“In stages. We already have the fake spreadsheets. But first, we’ll give him some sample cartridges. Let him take them to a range and test fire as many as he wants.”

“What good will that do?”

“Mainly, establishing a relationship. Or the start of one. He’ll think he’s closing in on Senator Wainwright.”

“Okay.”

“We’ll have a tracer in the carton that the cartridge boxes are in. Be interesting to see where he goes. Well, it wouldn’t be Hoffstatter himself. But we’ll track whoever he sends.”

“And that just might lead to Wexler.”

“Might.”

Lying in bed with Vanessa, her arms around me from behind, I sighed in contentment. She licked the back of my neck. Just the exact right spot.

“Hmm.”

“Winter, what do you think Tony is really up to? Offering the kids summer jobs?”

I smiled in the dark; this is one I’d managed to puzzle out. “He must have heard a rumor, a whisper, that I’m working on a case that involves diamonds.”

“Okay.” Another nuzzle.

“Diamonds mean money. And that means Tony wants to cut himself in.”

I could hear the smile in Vanessa voice, “So he offers the kids jobs to leverage you into cutting him in.”

“Yeah, he knows you and I would never let Walker and Pilar work for him. But if we just tell them no...”

“That would make them more eager than ever. Maybe even sneaky-eager.”

“Yeah. So Tony is thinking that if I let him in on whatever it is I’m working on, he can just tell the kids that their job is postponed. Maybe next summer.”

“He’s a schemer.”

“He is. But I’m a detective.”

“Licensed.”

“Matt, how will the ammunition transfer go? I mean where will Hoffstatter ... who ... what the fuck is going on?”

I was sorta an inside player and sorta not. I didn’t need to know every detail of every operation that Constance and Ash were running. But Wexler and Hoffstatter both came after me. Here in Kansas City.

Wexler to fulfill his Greta Gunther contract to kill me. The Aryan? Maybe to show support for Wexler. More probably because I fucked up his clandestine weapons factory in Kiryas Square.

So ... I wanted to know what the fuck is going on.

Matt donned his soothe-Winter Jennings voice over the phone. I bit back my further annoyance ... I’d wait to see what he had to say.

“Okay, here’s how it’s going down. One of Connie’s Idaho teams started the Whittaker Fund rumor.”

“Stolen ammunition for sale. Cheap.”

“That’s right. Now switch over to the FBI. One of Ash’s undercover agents — you don’t need to know his name and don’t want to.”

“But it’s a guy.”

“Has to be. Dealing with those Neanderthals.”

“Of course. Sorry, go on.”

“Well this guy has been underground for over six years. He’s buried so deep.”

“Okay.” God, what a life that would be.

“Agent X is Mr. Ammunition. But he’s suspicious of everyone. Trusts no one. Hoffstatter has to argue his way into even getting to meet the guy.”

“And Hoffstatter smells money. Profit.”

“He does. Cheap NATO cartridges combined with phony serial number assault weapons...”

“A consummation devoutly to be wished.”

“You sure talk funny. For a girl.”

Vanessa: “Why are lesbians lousy construction workers?”

Walker & Pilar, “Why?”

“They don’t know how to handle wood.”

Matt called me, a smile in his voice, “Road trip?”

“You bet! When and where?”

“I’m flying in tonight, late. Don’t bother to pick me up, I’m staying at the airport Hilton.”

“I could stay with you.”

“Spend the night with your family; we could be gone a while. Meet me at six in the morning at United. We’re flying to Denver.”

“And then?”

“Sheridan. Confirmed Wexler sighting. At the WHITES compound. The Christian Torch Riders.”

“For sure?”

“Yep, double-confirmed by the FBI. Remember that box of sample ammo we gave to Karl Hoffstatter?”

The Aryan. “Yeah.”

“Well the delivery boy is an old acquaintance of ours — Cransdale.”

Robert ‘Hoppy’ Cransdale, the Minnesota biker who had helped Wexler escape.

“Really? Outstanding.”

“Yeah. The Whittaker Fund representative made the handoff in Sioux Falls. Cransdale drove straight to the Wyoming compound. The Christian Torch Riders buy a lot of ammo.”

“And Wexler was spotted there.”

“And Wexler was spotted there.”

It was still dark that Tuesday morning. It always was at four in the morning. Pilar insisted on fixing breakfast. Vanessa insisted on driving me to the airport. Walker was especially clingy with his goodbye routine. I fought back tears.

No real reason for all the emotional drama. Yet this trip had a ... I don’t know ... undercurrent of ... something. Something that might happen.

Vanessa had insisted I include a little black dress, “You never know, Winter.”

I didn’t argue with her. Nor did I worry about weaponry. Matt wouldn’t take me into enemy territory stark fucking naked. I didn’t even glance at Le Wand. Superfluous this time around.

I donned my red wig last; I’d be Barbara Reynolds on this trip. Another Page Boy Bob. Walker grinned when he saw it. Pilar elbow-poked him, “Perv.”