Hedging (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery)

all the time. He was so freakin’ paranoid, but who wouldn’t be on all the drugs he was shovin’ into his system. And people were just sendin’ in money, can you imagine?”
    “So the FBI recruited me to go in and help you.”
    “You’re such a good friend, Wetzon darlin’. I was beginnin’ to see I’d gotten in over my head. I thought you’d stay about a week and we’d get out together.”
    “But it didn’t work that way.”
    “No. I told Jason we were lesbians and he let us alone. You told him that as a dancer, you knew people in show business with lots of money. In particular, Agent Judy here played Madam Moneybags. God, Jason was just dyin’ to meet you, Agent Judy, and get your three million into his bogus hedge fund.”
    “Make believe money for a make believe hedge fund,” Silvestri said.
    “Well, Jason didn’t even question that, Silvestri darlin’. He was greedy prick.”
    “Where is he, by the way?” Silvestri asked.
    “In a Brussel’s jail,” Agent Blue said. “Fighting extradition. But it’s only a matter of time.”
    “The awful thing is everyone was supposed to die on that plane,” Laura Lee said. “He was just goin’ to take those diamonds and disappear. He’d already set up all those Swiss accounts. But now Bill Veeder—there was a surprise.”
    “The news broadcasts said that he was Jason’s attorney,” Wetzon said.
    “I don’t know about that. What I do know is that he was the delivery boy for the diamonds. Jason went looney havin’ to leave without them.” Laura Lee shifted in her chair and looked at Agent Blue. “Wetzon told me that you arrested my poor Uncle Weaver. I think you owe me an explanation, Agent Judy.”
    “We’re building a case against McLaughlin. Your uncle is with the federal prosecutor.”
    Laura Lee jumped to her feet. “He’s got to have a lawyer. He may be a judge, but he can’t represent himself. He’s just a country boy from Mississippi.”
    “Well, I wouldn’t waste any time worrying about the country boy from Mississippi. Your uncle pulled out his cell and lawyered himself up the minute he saw us coming.”
    Laura Lee sank into her chair. “I still don’t understand.”
    “We’ve been working with a Mississippi insurance fraud investigator. Your uncle was buying up small insurance companies with money fed from McLaughlin, then cleaning them out. He’s being charged with participation in a four hundred million dollar fraud by transferring ten million dollars from the New Natchez Insurance Company to U.S. Jackson, the mother company, then to McLaughlin and out of the country. McLaughlin promised him a glorious life in a country from which he wouldn’t be extradited.” Judy Blue shook her head in disgust. “Con men are always suckers for other con men.”
    “My poor Aunt Bren,” Laura Lee said.
    “And the priest?” Wetzon asked. “What does he have to do with this? He can’t be a real priest.”
    “The monsignor—he’s real all right. He went along with McLaughlin’s plan to set up a religious foundation, using the monsignor’s Vatican connections to raise huge amounts of money to defraud both contributors and insurance companies. The money was used to buy the insurance companies, and the foundation contributors were told that profits from the insurance companies would go to various charities, including a charity that McLaughlin had set up.”
    “Was there ever a foundation?” Silvestri asked.
    “Phony stationery, with a phony board of bishops, monsignors, and wealthy lay people, phony tax exempt acknowledgments, all in the name of the St. Anne de Roma Charitable Foundation. The works. McLaughlin gave the old man sixty thousand dollars in cash and put him up at the Regency, wined and dined him, promised him fame and power. Another fairy tale. The federal complaint is for wire fraud and money laundering. The money raised for St. Anne’s was transferred to McLaughlin’s phony charity and used to buy the insurance companies.”
    Wetzon asked, “The proof I was gathering—the papers—” She looked at Silvestri.
    “Lost in the explosion it appears,” Blue said, “but we can build a case anyway ... ”
    “How?” Laura Lee said.
    Judy Blue smiled.
    “You might check with the New Jersey cops who responded to a shooting at a motel near the airport the night of the explosion,” Silvestri said. He stood, ignoring the piercing stare from Blue. “Let’s go home, Les.”
    “What about Laura Lee?”