Judy ran up to me as soon as I walked through the door to the lobby.
“Peter, can you believe this?” she cried. “For the love of God, he was only 29!”
I knew of professional athletes that died of heart attacks, but this whole thing had to be
looked upon as a very strange occurrence.
“So, what else did the coroner say?” I asked Judy.
“Nothing else other than that the heart was very stressed for his age.”
I couldn't think of how Julio pulled this off, and been trying to mentally grasp that killing
method since hanging up from my conversation with Martin. Martin was no help, so that had me
quite nervous. He was my steady contact with Julio, so if Julio went with someone else, maybe
that person would like a money laundering center somewhere else, not with PLH. That meant bad
news for the safety of the Hansen family.
I closed my eyes to try to stop my mind from racing so much and didn't think Judy even
noticed. The three of us at PLH were a tight team, our lives wide open at all levels – my time with
Julio notwithstanding – but this could tear us apart. How was Judy going to behave over the next
few weeks? Months? By trying to save PLH, I actually ended up destroying a big part of PLH.
We were going to miss Darryl's laugh, it sounded like Ed McMahon's. Darryl also made
a mean cheesecake.
“Jonathan was beside himself when he called me this morning,” Judy told me. “He'd
been up all night.”
“Yeah.” I sighed. “Can you let him know that if he needs anything, we are happy to
help?”
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Martin might not even have had a job after his talk with Julio, and that was something I
had to be prepared for. I had so little control over anything at that moment that I felt numb to the curtain that was being lifted to show the world what evil Peter Hansen had unleashed.
I began to walk down the hallway to my office when Jonathan entered the lobby. He
charged right up to me with an index finger angrily extended. Jonathan looked like crap, with hair
that showed like it had spent five days camping in the Adirondacks and clothes that should have
been removed twelve hours prior.
“Darryl told you about that guy following us last Saturday, right?” Jonathan blurted.
I looked over at Judy who was clearly perplexed by the question and was shifting in her
desk chair.
“Yes, he did,” I replied. “Have you seen him since?”
Knowing that he hadn't, I simply was trying to defuse Jonathan's anger.
“No…we have not…and the cops think I'm crazy.”
I gave Jonathan my best puzzled facial look and took a small step back.
“You talked to the cops?” I asked.
“Well, they keep telling me that this has been ruled a heart attack and that there is no sign
of foul play….”
“But you don't believe them,” I interrupted.
Jonathan scratched his head. “I don't know…I'm sure the coroner would have found
something if there was foul play…it's just so strange that we start digging up information on
United Enterprises, and he goes and dies on me.”
I couldn't believe what I had heard just then and the numbness feeling that I had earlier
gave way to stomach knots.
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“United Enterprises?” I asked, forcing a smile onto my face and trying to act as cool as
possible. “They're a client of this firm. I can tell you all about them, except what's confidential, of course.”
Jonathan looked at me, taking a deep breath. With his shoulders slumped, he suddenly
appeared more like a freshman debate student getting stumped for the first time than somebody
hot on the trail of a major scandal.
“No, that's okay, this is all so crazy…I don't mean to be accusatory to you…I mean it's
not like you had anything to do with Darryl having a heart attack.”
My puzzled face was back, maybe a little too strong. “No, I would say not!”
Jonathan shook both my and Judy's hands and started walking to the lobby door. “I won't
waste any more of your day…”
“If there is anything, we can do….just let us know, alright?” I affirmed.
Jonathan looked back at us, flashed a weak smile, and exited the lobby. I glanced over at
Judy.
“What was all that about?” I asked her.
“I don't know…I have heard that grief can bring about some strange thoughts and
emotions in people,” Judy replied. “But why was Darryl digging into United Enterprises?”
Shaking my head, I laughed through my nose. “That's nuts. United has an account with
Metrobank that I manage, have for years…he may have been surprised that United is not in the
general pool of funds, but all he had to do was to ask me.”
Judy began talking to a UPS delivery guy who had entered the lobby.
I walked down the hall to my office and closed the door behind me. Collapsing into my
desk chair, I put my head into my heads. I wasn't sure if I was going to hurl, but it felt touch and go.
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What the hell was I going to do now? I didn't want to bother Martin again, as he
obviously had some issues to clear up with his drug lord boss. Yet, I would need to make sure we
set up some non-traceable tracks for United Enterprises by establishing a legitimate business
front. This was not the last question I would hear about this client. As things stood right then, our dummy United Enterprises account had a business origin of Sweden, but that might not have been
so believable to a probing detective. I needed to get Martin to change that to a U.S location.
One crazily important question Jonathan did not ask was about Brad Dellan. I had to
assume that Darryl told him about the lawyer of one my clients getting killed in an accident, so
why hadn't Jonathan made that connection? This would only be a matter of time, though the facts
kind of spoke for themselves – both deaths showed no signs of a criminal activity – and I had
Julio's clever assassin to thank for that.
It didn't surprise me that there was a drug out there that could spark a heart attack and, at
the same time, become untraceable in the body. For all I knew, it was Julio's home brew,
concocted and chemicalized in his own operation. For over a year now, I had wondered - even
lost sleep - over the scale of Julio's operation. Just how big was his cartel in the world of cartels?
One of my phone lines began to ring. It was my wife. She probably heard about Darryl's
death from the Morristown gossip hotline.
“Hey hon, what's new at the house?” I asked.
“Sweety, I heard about Darryl,” she said, probably wondering why I had time to think
about ongoings at our house.
“It's terrible, complete shock….what 29 year-old gets a heart attack?”
“Judy must be beside herself, poor thing!” Claire said. “And what's with your bad luck
string? I mean, two people associated with your firm end up dead in less than a week. Is
somebody out to get you or something?”
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My whole family knew about Brad Dellan, so Claire's question was hardly guesswork.
Charlie loved the fact that Ashley Wells was single again, and, like most kids his age, found the
facts around Brad's death to be rather comical.
“No, it's nothing that I'm aware of…but I feel so bad for Jonathan,” I replied, getting up
for a stretch. “You should make him one of your casseroles, and get the church group involved.
Darryl always said what a lousy cook Jonathan was.”
Claire was silent for a few seconds. “Hey, some guy from the power company was just
here to check the meter. Don't they check the meters on the first of the month?”
“Yeah, I suppose…alright, let me go back to work.”
“Okay, love you sweety.”
Sitting back down in my seat, I thought of all the ways Julio was going to amp up the
watching and listening of the ongoings around Peter Hansen. What had been security from „pants
on fire' was likely to quickly morph into outright surveillance. Julio had to know that I would be
royally pissed at the killing of Darryl. This was as personal as he had gotten. I didn't know the
Linders, and only partly knew and didn't like Brad Dellan. But Darryl was a good friend.
So, while I didn't expect Julio to steal a power company truck, uniforms and masquerade
as a meter reader in order to hook up some new monitoring system for my house, I did expect full
audio and possibly video of 95% of my actions. Or maybe Julio did steal a power company truck.
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Wednesday, November 13th
11:30 a.m.