Nothing but Trouble_ A Kevin Kerney Novel - Michael Mcgarrity [93]
“Yes,” Fitzmaurice replied, “but not until tomorrow morning when the Swiss bank opens. Do you have a particular person in mind?”
Although Fitzmaurice’s tone was mild, his eyes were watchful as he sat slightly forward in his chair, poised and waiting for her reply. Over the past three days he’d been more than patient with her, never once asserting the authority he could rightly have claimed over the investigation. Instead, he had done all in his power to help her and for that he deserved an honest answer. She wrote down a name on a slip of paper and handed it to Fitzmaurice.
Fitzmaurice’s eyes lit up. “Thomas Loring Carrier. I take it that this is the gentleman who is beyond my reach.”
Sara nodded.
Smiling broadly, he slipped the paper into his shirt pocket and turned to the revenue officers. “Let’s gather and compile the evidence we need.”
“What will you do with it?” Sara asked.
“Present it to a judge and ask for Spalding’s assets to be frozen and the villa and the motor yacht to be seized. That should put a damper on his plans to start a new life here.”
For the next hour the revenue officers printed hard-copy information from the bank’s mainframe files, while Sara and Fitzmaurice entered it into evidence. After the material was boxed and carried away by the revenue officers for further inspection, Fitzmaurice presented a list of the seized records to the bank’s solicitor on their way out the door. The man looked none too happy to receive it.
Outside, they hurried across the dark street through a light rain to a waiting Garda vehicle that would take them to the airport for the return flight to Dublin.
“Were I to do a computer search on Thomas Loring Carrier, what might I learn?” Fitzmaurice asked as he slid into the backseat next to Sara.
“Enough to confirm your suspicions about my assignment,” Sara answered.
“Why did you tell me about Carrier now?”
“Because I may need you to cover my back,” Sara said.
“Exactly who might I be protecting you from?”
Sara carefully considered her response before she answered. “They think of themselves as patriots,” she said.
“Ah,” Fitzmaurice said with a knowing nod. “We had our fair share of those during the Troubles.”
Each day that passed with no word from Sara made Kerney more anxious and worried about her. Patrick, who missed his mother badly, intensified Kerney’s unspoken concerns by constantly asking where she was and when she would return. Sara’s absence had shaken Patrick and made Kerney realize that up until now he’d been a sorry excuse for a parent.
Clearly, Sara was the linchpin in Patrick’s world and Kerney the absent father seen only occasionally. That point had been driven home to him midmorning when he’d been called to Patrick’s preschool. A mean, bossy kid had pushed Patrick down and kicked him during playtime. Patrick had thrown a tantrum and tried to run away. When Kerney got there, he found his son teary eyed, sullen, and miserable, demanding his mother, wanting to go back to his real home, his real school, his real friends.
Kerney took Patrick home immediately and tried to soothe him, but it wasn’t until after lunch, when he suggested an afternoon ride, that Patrick broke into a smile. After Kerney saddled up Hondo, a gray gelding, and put Patrick on the saddle in front of him, his son’s spirits lifted enough for him to start in again about wanting his very own pony. By the time they reached the pond, fed by a natural spring, surrounded by marsh grass and cattails, Patrick seemed to be over his preschool ordeal. In the coolness of the cloudy afternoon, with a slight breeze tinged with enough humidity to promise rain by evening, Kerney dismounted and led Hondo up a hillock, with Patrick still in the saddle clutching the pommel. At stone ruins that looked out at the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, knife-edge sharp in a shaft of sunlight that cut through the cloud bank, he tethered Hondo to the thick branch of a cedar tree.
“Do I have to go back?” Patrick asked as Kerney lifted him out of the saddle.
Kerney