Final Option

letters?”
    “No letters. Cash withdrawals, of course, could be made only in person by either of the signators.”
    “How were they identified,” I asked, “apart from the code number?”
    “We have photographs on file.”
    “May I see them?”
    “I’m afraid not,” replied Martindale with regret. “Though the management of the bank would be more sympathetic to that request if it were accompanied by the code number.”
    “You said that money was transferred out of the account on Monday. Can you tell me where it was transferred to?”
    “To another account in the bank, this one in the name of Mr. Silver alone.”
    “When was that account opened?”
    “Six months ago.”
    “Have any other transfers been made from the joint accounts to Mr. Silver?”
    “Yes, three in the last three months. All transfers in excess of one million. We also have been instructed to have a withdrawal of five hundred thousand U.S. dollars cash ready this Friday.”
    “When was this instruction received?”
    “Last Friday. You can understand that it takes us five business days to ready a withdrawal of that much foreign currency.”
    “Is there anything else you can tell me?” I asked. “From the day the accounts were first opened, Mr. Bean has never set foot inside the bank. To my knowledge, all of the cash withdrawals have been made by Mr. Silver.”
     
    I stayed up late that night going through the bank statements that Martindale had given me, looking for patterns. The accounts had been opened simultaneously, each with a modest initial deposit of nine thousand U.S. dollars. After that, deposits had been erratic, always large and interspersed over the year with no particular regularity. Withdrawals seemed more regular, roughly every other month, between fifty and sixty thousand dollars at a crack.
    There were, I knew, regulations about bringing cash into the country. Customs required that currency or negotiable securities in excess of ten thousand dollars be declared in writing. But five hundred one-hundred-dollar bills could be easily concealed, and it was my experience that U.S. customs inspectors were much more interested in looking for drugs than money.
    From the records it appeared that from the time the accounts were opened the money had traveled—wire transfer or deposits of checks from Hexter Commodities, Inc., cash withdrawals every sixty days—in U.S. dollars. Within the last six months the pattern changed dramatically. There were, in addition to the previous day’s wire transfer, two other transfers of funds, each in excess of one million dollars, going as far back as four months before, all from the same account. The Friday before Bart Hexter’s death, a five hundred thousand dollar wire transfer had been attempted from the same account and denied for insufficient funds.
    The money in the Bermuda accounts was certainly a motive for murder. From where I sat the most likely suspect seemed to be Carl Savage. The accounts were opened after he’d been with Hexter Commodities long enough to have gained Bart Hexter’s trust, and he would be a logical accomplice for the internal trade allocation. Then there was the fact that Hexter had stolen Torey Lloyd from him.
    There were, I realized, only three minor glitches in my theory. The first was that if Savage intended to empty the Bermuda accounts into his own, why did he pull the stunt with Barton Jr. about extorting a higher salary? Did he just assume that inexperienced Barton would be willing to pay anything to keep Savage’s expertise? Was it true that there was no limit to greed? Second, if he wanted to kill me, would he risk using his own name in the message luring me to the Merc? More troubling, of course, was the minor problem of how Carl Savage could have gotten hold of Bart Hexter’s gun and shot him.
     

CHAPTER 24
     
    My plane touched down at O’Hare a few minutes after four, and I rushed to catch a taxi back to my office. I spent the cab ride into the city turning everything over in my mind for the thousandth time. During the last few days of Bart Hexter’s life, he’d ricocheted from one confrontation to another. According to Mrs. Titlebaum, he’d spent his last day at Hexter Commodities in a foul mood, fighting with whoever had the bad luck to cross his path. That afternoon he’d called Ken Kurlander to urgently make an appointment—presumably in order to change his will. The only person he didn’t tangle with on Friday was Torey Lloyd;