X - Chapter Thirty Three. "The Thirty Percent Solution"

 

"The Thirty Percent Solution"

Chapter Thirty Three 

      Over the years Detective Sergeant Wendell Barnes served in the NYPD’S Detective Bureau, he enjoyed a reputation as a methodical and meticulous investigator. 

      Even Barnes’ buddies, who knew he could easily make captain, never directly asked him why he never took the exams to climb the department’s hierarchy. Probably it was because his buddies knew the answer: Barnes loved the mental exercise of solving a tough case, but he didn’t want to be distracted by the responsibilities of a leader, like imposing discipline for poor performance and helping direct reports with personal problems. 

      But there was more. The NYPD detectives and other officers who worked with Barnes respected his humility. Despite his success in so many cases, he never got on the high horse by playing the role of the “brain” or the team’s “intellectual.” Rather, he understood he was one member of a team with a distinct role to play, and he played it to a hilt. 

      With the Winshire case, Barnes wanted to devote his full attention to winning three convictions. The case had turned into a special challenge for him; he had a deep-seated dislike for selfish people who sought to collect material proof of their wealth to prove their worth. 

      Now, on the afternoon after the arrests of the suspects in the case on a drizzly morning at the Trinity Cemetery, the three key investigators were back in their glass headquarters at the 17th Precinct. Special Agent Vince DuBois, Police Capt. Rafael Jimenez and Detective Barnes were discussing next steps in their investigation. Also, Jimenez informed DuBois and Barnes that Assistant District Attorney Clive Stewart would be stopping by later in the afternoon to join their discussion. 

      Already, the trio had read the three suspects their Miranda rights for the second time. The suspects had been booked and processed into the NYPD’s system. And the three investigators had decided to all participate in the initial interviews of the suspects, rather than split up the task, a decision that turned out to be smart; without exception, Grant Stauffer, Steve Bucknell and Gloria Merritt all refused to make any statement without their legal counsel present, earning them the right to be interned at an NYPD holding facility until their arraignment.  

      Barnes was explaining why he wanted to attend the arraignment of the three suspects before Federal District Court Judge Willard K. Esposito. 

      “Look, you guys, let’s be honest how well we’ve done so far,” Barnes started out. “As long as it’s just us chickens here, we can be brutally honest. We already changed signals a couple times. It’s more than déjà vu another time. It’s déjà vu another time again. So, let’s admit it, we made a few mistakes. I sure did. And then, let’s follow up on some more things.”

      Both Jimenez and DuBois nodded their agreement. “Okay, whadda you thinking?” Jimenez asked. 

      “Okay, look’it, first of all, on the arraignment,” Barnes said. “I got no idea on what’s gonna happen there. But I’d like to see those folks, now that they know for sure they’re in deep shit. I’d like to get a feel for who they are when their façade’s pulled down, and how they’re reacting. And, you know, we can size up their defense counsel. These guys have a history too, and maybe they’re planning a surprise for us.” 

      “Okay, can’t argue with that,” DuBois admitted. “Frankly, there’s reason to think all of us could learn a thing or two. And, Raf, maybe you got a history with one or two of these defense guys.” 

      “Let’s wait and see,” Jimenez said. “Yeah, you’re right. I tell ya, that trio, their lawyers aren’t gonna be slouches. That crew isn’t poor. I’m sure they can afford what they think are the best.” 

      No one spoke for a few seconds, and the only sounds they heard were the voices and movement outside their glass enclosure, like the approach of an ocean storm. 

      Finally, Jimenez looked directly at Barnes and asked, “What else you got?” 

      “Yeah, I got a few more ideas,” Barnes said. “Like, I’m thinking it might be a good idea to ask the judge for a search warrant, that is to search their residences. You know, these folks are gonna play games and deny everything. Of course, we gotta prove who pulled the trigger. So, I’m thinking of going over the security tapes again, confirm who wore what, and then check for gunshot residue. That’s just the kinda thing that maybe, just maybe, they didn’t think of.” 

      Again, there was general agreement. 

      Barnes said, “And you know, once we get in the door with our Search and Seizure, who knows what we’re gonna find? And I’m sure, once we get going, I’m sure we’re gonna come up with more ideas. All I’m saying, this is our last chance. ” 

      DuBois broke in. “I’m starting to realize something. We been pretty lucky up to now. So far, we’ve seen practically nothing in the media. But once the word ‘murder’ is used in open court in the arraignment, I bet we’re gonna see a big change. Frankly, this is a sexy story. Can you imagine? Murder in a high-price, classy consulting firm.”

      Jimenez suggested that the three investigators decide on a spokesperson, and DuBois proposed Jimenez because the murder charges would be the biggest draw for reporters and that side of the case was NYPD’s territory. Then, the trio got into a discussion of tactics, like saying as little as possible to reporters and never disclosing sensitive information. 

      It wasn’t until nearly six in the evening when Assistant DA Clive Stewart finally arrived at the 17th Precinct. He threw his stuffed briefcase and trench coat onto an empty chair and then grabbed another one and dropped into it. He looked disheveled and tired, as though he was trying to fit two days’ work into one. He dropped his head and rubbed his eyes. 

      Then, when he raised his head and sat bolt upright, his eyes wandered over Jimenez, Barnes and DuBois for just a few seconds. The first words out of his mouth were that he had a meeting at seven on another case at One Police Plaza, NYPD’s headquarters, way downtown near the Brooklyn Bridge’s on ramp. 

      Stewart said he had only a half-hour, if that, given the rush-hour traffic and the fact that he didn’t like the subway. He asked the team to get any new case reports to his office ASAP, because he planned to spend tomorrow morning preparing for the arraignment. It was scheduled for two in the afternoon. Jimenez gave him a report on some of the new initiatives the team was planning, which were generally the ideas they had just discussed. Stewart praised the team, and then gave them a pep talk. 

      Stewart focused on how tough the challenge was for the prosecution team – the DA’s office and NYPD investigators. “We don’t know yet who’s gonna be sitting at that defense table,” he said. “But we can be sure they’re gonna be good, very good. Sure, the death sentence went bye-bye years ago. The old electric chair up at Sing Sing, ‘Old Spanky,’ hasn’t been used since sixty-three. Still, of course nobody, and sure not one of these good folks, wants to be convicted of murder. It’s inconvenient. Sure, a conviction and a life sentence doesn’t mean life sentence. But getting a so-called life sentence is still very tough to take. Getting convicted means they’ll be marked for life, and they’ll be locked up for a long time. Not fun for anyone.”

      Stewart stopped for a few seconds breathed in and out a several times. “The defense attorneys are gonna be tough, and they’re gonna be fighting like hell. That means we need an air-tight case.”   

      After Stewart’s departure, Jimenez said, “Clive didn’t say it, but I know his ass is in a sling. ‘Cause of us, or of me, to be honest, he took heat from the DA. The pressure’s really on him. We can’t let him down. We just can’t.”

      No one spoke for a long few seconds. 

      Finally, it was Barnes who broke the silence. “It’s true. We, all of us, we coulda done better. But now it’s our game. We’re closer to the truth, and we got time, that’s one thing. Now, we gotta keep thinking and come up with some real no-doubt proof.” 

-0-  

      As it turned out, Sgt. Barnes wasn’t able to attend the arraignment. Even though Barnes had raised the issue the previous day, and he wanted to witness the performance of all of the actors, he agreed to forego the drama. 

      Assistant DA Stewart had succeeded in getting search warrants for the residences of all three suspects. It was an opportunity Barnes couldn’t pass up. So, he arranged an early-morning meeting with Hakim Touati to go over the security tapes one more time. 

      Touati proved to be a man of surprises. For one thing, he asked Barnes to use the first name “Hank,” the name most of his professional colleagues and American friends called him. He explained that “Hank” made him feel more American, and it saved time because it avoided having to recount his life story every time he met someone. 

      The other surprise was that Hank Touati was a master of security systems. Barnes had expected reviewing the security files would take at least several hours. But as soon as Barnes watched Touati’s fingers dance over the system’s keyboard, he knew the task would take less time. Locating the file for the night of May 13th seemed to take just a few keystrokes.  And since Touati knew the exact times for each segment, it was relatively easy to find exactly what Barnes needed.  

      Barnes realized that he could have trusted his memory, but he followed the rule that it’s best to be sure. And as Barnes followed the images on the screen – watching the movement of the suspects, trying to look as closely as possible at their faces and clothing – and then noting the information in his notebook, he realized he was forming ideas about each suspect. His reaction was not intentional, but he accepted his impressions as possibly ways to understand them better.    

      For example, on the night of May 13th, Steve Bucknell was wearing a tweed sport coat; as well as he could tell from the images on the monitor, it looked to be herringbone with two shades of brown with maybe another yarn mixed in. So, that’s Bucknell, Barnes thought. I’ll bet the guy’s worn that same jacket every time I’ve seen him. Like he’s all business, a serious guy focused on Winshire, his success and maybe ultimate wealth. Fancy fashion doesn’t matter, at least not now. 

      Gloria Merritt wore a simple black pants suit of a light fabric, perhaps linen or a synthetic; it was gathered at the waist and tight around the butt. Golly, Barnes told himself, That lady’s trying to look fetching. Around her neck she wore a brightly colored scarf, with two shades of blue on a white background, and it flowed behind her on the way up. Too bad it got all messed up, with maybe Bucknell’s or her husband’s blood on the way out.  

      Grant Stauffer presented the clearest message. He was wearing his favorite jacket, the light-weight seersucker he wore almost all the time. Barnes noticed that Stauffer’s hair was longish and carefully coiffed. That guy likes to feel stylish and be noticed, Barnes told himself, by the ladies and maybe even by the guys. But he takes the easy way out, simplifying his choices through repetition. So maybe he’s got a quick mind, but it’s a bit lazy. Or maybe he’s not the genius he believes or wants to be. 

      To finish this part of the job, Barnes sent a memo to his two team mates, Jimenez and DuBois, and to Clive Stewart, and then set a message to one of the Evidence Teams to meet him at Stauffer’s condo downtown in SoHo. He sent a separate note to the other Evidence Team, suggesting it go directly to Bucknell’s condo in the Village and then to the Merritt apartment, not far from the Winshire’s offices. 

-0- 

      Stauffer’s condo was in SoHo, on West Broadway above one of the last art galleries on the street, which was now mainly filled with restaurants and fashion boutiques. When Barnes arrived, he felt as though his past was stolen from him. He remembered the days when West Broadway was a true art center, where he and Lucille could take their time meandering from one gallery to another, taking their time to examine the paintings and sculptures. Back then, they had a tight budget and making a purchase was out of their reach. But over the years, Wendell and Lucille Barnes saved enough to purchase several paintings they loved.  

      Barnes stood on the sidewalk outside 457 West Broadway. He knew sweet memories were one thing, but today it was business: Finding concrete evidence that would prove the events in Ted Merritt’s office the night of May 13th and – especially – who fired the killing shots.

      Without hesitation, he rejected the entrance to Martin Lawrence Galleries and pushed through the heavy glass doors to the condos on the floors above. When the doorman asked him to sign in, he simply flashed his badge and took the elevator to the seventh floor. 

 

      There was no doubt where the action was. Barnes could hear the movement and chatter of the Evidence Team just as soon as he stepped off the elevator. Each floor had only two units. Just a short march and a sharp turn in the hallway, and Barnes recognized his NYPD tech experts through a double doorway, every one in white coveralls and with blue latex gloves. To one side on the thick carpeting was a crumbled plastic tape announcing “Crime scene – Do not enter.” 

     “Hey, Sarg, how ya doin’?” one of the experts addressed Barnes. “Max is in the bedroom straight ahead.” 

      “Thanks, Eddie.” 

      Barnes found Max Greer – the Evidence Team leader – on his hands and knees examining shelves of men’s shoes in a clothing closet that ran wall to wall on one side of the room. The bedroom was immaculate, all polished surfaces and spotless carpeting.         

      “Hey, it’s what’s above that’s important.” Barnes was speaking to Greer’s back. “Like I told you, seersucker and gunshot residue. That’s what we’re here for. I see it, there it is hanging where it oughtta be.”

      Greer twisted around, so he was facing Barnes. “Yeah, sure, I know. Both the jacket and the trousers will end up in an evidence bag, I promise. But let me tell you something. I don’t know why, but I just seem to find stuff in shoes. That’s just what a lotta folks do. I don’t know why. It’s like drugs or cash in the freezer.” 

      “You’re the expert,” Barnes admitted. “Go ahead. Follow your hunches, your intuition, whatever.” 

      “Okay, thanks Sarg, I will. But listen. May 13th was a dry night. That means there was less chance that anything Stauffer’s shoes picked up, chances are better it didn’t wash off in the rain. So, you tell me: See all these shoes. You see the shoes Stauffer coulda been wearing that night?”

       Barnes got down on his hands and knees and pushed Greer aside. He found a mass of shoes in a disorderly pile. He started pushing through the collection, and came up with one shoe he liked. It was an oxblood penny loafer. “Since I just reviewed the security tapes this AM, this could be our baby.” He held the single shoe up, above his head. 

      “You do, you win the prize,” Greer chuckled. “But can you find her husband?”

      “I gotta do everything? That’s it?”

      “I just work here,” Greer answered. “It’s your case.” 

      This time, Barnes was more methodical. He paired the shoes and laid them out on the carpet. He found there were actually two pairs of loafers, and besides a slight variation in color, they were the same shoe. “Listen, Max. You got me. I don’t know which pair is the May 13th pair. Can you run both these pairs through your process? I just can’t choose.”

      “Barnesy, only for you. Don’t worry about it. If there’s something on those shoes, we’ll find it.”

       “You’re the best. Thanks.” Barnes struggled to his feet. “Look’it, I’m gonna stroll around and get a general feeling for the place. And I’m gonna take a bunch of photos, kinda bring the place back to me in all its glory, and of course, so I can show my bosses I haven’t been wasting my time.” 

      The next room Barnes visited, apparently a home office, hit him with a sense of careless disorder.  Two large tables in the middle of the room and the desk against the high windows were strewn with documents, some in piles and others spread out, as though Stauffer had to rush away while working. One wall displaying framed photos and documents, and a large ficus tree was positioned in a sunny corner. The room had the scent of dead air with a hint of pipe tobacco. 

      The next room was apparently a storage room. To Barnes, the room felt simply utilitarian, with piles of cardboard boxes filled with documents and clothing. In one corner of the room were cartons with their sides emblazoned with UPS, FedEx and Amazon. The cartons were unopened. Strange, he thought, like Stauffer was momentarily interested in something, but he quickly lost his interest – damn the cost. Barnes quickly visited two more bedrooms furnished with what looked like items selected from a Macy’s catalogue. 

       And the next room was the living room, but it could have been a museum. Almost everything in the room, with the notable exception of the massive television screen, carried a consistent old-west style. The leather chairs and couches, the tables and chairs, the wall hangings and lamps, they all could have been shipped directly from Reno or Dodge City, or from a millionaire’s cattle ranch. Two pedestals displayed Remington sculptures, and large oil paintings displayed cowboy themes. Strangely, the room was polished and immaculate, and it appeared untouched, unlived-in. 

      Gotta show Raf and Vince this place. Barnes made a mental note as he clicked off a dozen or so photos. Hope they don’t mind my humor, but the “cowboy museum” is a real special place. Guess, this is what rich folk do with their money when they don’t know how to spend it, he thought. Well, tell ya what! I’m impressed. But what does the “cowboy museum” tell us about the deep-down Grant Stauffer? What’s he trying to make up for? Does all this explain the guy? 

      Of the rooms he visited, the detective in Barnes felt Stauffer’s office calling out to him. So, he found Max Greer in Stauffer’s ultra-equipped kitchen and explained what he had seen and let him know that he’d spend some time in the office. 

      Standing in the doorway, Barnes could imagine Staffer working at his desk, and every once in a while glancing up at the people on their rooftops and at the view of Lower Manhattan. And then another thought came to Barnes: Stauffer’s office was, in a sense, a “virgin” environment. Stauffer couldn’t have known he would be arrested on the day of Ted Merritt’s entombment at the Trinity Cemetery. Therefore, Stauffer would have left his condo as he would on any other day, making no effort to hide documents he was working on or to make sure suspicious items were out of view.  

      After clicking off a good number of photos, Barnes pulled on his latex gloves and walked directly to the tables with documents scattered over them. In the middle of the documents was a laptop. Barnes knew his limits, so he decided to get the FBI technical teams to try to extract files and emails from it. Then he returned to the documents, and glanced from one page to another. It seemed logical that all he had to do was catch the phrase “thirty percent solution” to find Stauffer’s work for any fraud conspiracy. It seemed simple, but too easy. Barnes did catch interesting subjects, like “Albanian Escorts,”  “G. Gordon Hope – Performance Reviews,”  “Potential Acquisitions, Weaknesses,” and “Staff Complaints, Hush funds.” Sure, Barnes thought, this stuff’s interesting. And there’s gotta be a reason Stauffer kept office files at home. But I’m not getting any closer to a fraud conspiracy.  

      Then Barnes thought, if Stauffer was actively working on a special project, maybe he would keep it in a drawer. Barnes plopped down in Stauffer’s orthopedically perfected chair, and looked at the drawers on both sides of the desk. Slowly and carefully he opened them one after another. Finally, in the last drawer, of course the last drawer, Barnes saw an unassuming manila folder with one word: “Bucknell.”

       He cautioned himself: You been here before. Don’t expect it’s gonna be easy. You don’t even have an hour on the clock here. It can’t be this easy. 

      He reached slowly for the folder and pulled it from the drawer, and then placed it on the desk in front of him. He waited to open it. He counted slowly to ten. Then he turned back the cover. 

      “Thirty Percent Solution. Maximizing Client Fee Charges. By Steven Bucknell.” And throughout the text, on different pages and in different versions of the fifty-page document were hand-written notations in a crimped, childish style. 

      Barnsey, you did it babe! Is that skill? No, this time it was luck! Pure luck!

      Barnes felt quiet satisfaction, like a confident gambler on a winner’s streak. If there’s more, there’s more. 

      To the right of the desk was the wall containing the framed photos and documents. Barnes found himself just glancing from one photo to the next, one document to the next. Lordy, what I got here, this is the history of Winshire, the whole thing from the very beginning! It goes back ten years. That’s a big hunk of Stauffer’s life. 

      Something special caught his eye. It was a cheap black frame. But some of the writing in the document had strange characters. They looked squiggly, not like Chinese or Korean or Japanese, and certainly not like Hebrew. 

      Barnes started to read the portion of the text in English. “Grant Stauffer, hereby awarded Doctor of Judicial Science, with all of the rights and privileges appertaining thereof. Granted by the India University  (at Quora, India). That’s it, the strange characters, strange for me, they’re Hindi. 

       Barnes knew he would have to research the question, but he’d heard of Indian degree mills. You send in your check, and they send an impressive sheepskin. Lordy, no, that couldn’t be it. Stauffer had to be a real lawyer. How could he put fake stuff like this over on people? Is that guy a phony? Does that explain him? Is that why he’s trying so hard to prove himself? Maybe he’s not the big genius he’s pretending.  

      “You been mighty quiet, fella.” It was Max Greer, the Evidence Team leader. “I was just wondering if you took off, without telling me, or what.” 

       “Thanks for hunting me down. You’re saving me a trip.” Barnes couldn’t repress his smile. “I gotta show you what I found. And I gotta say, I been pretty lucky.” 

       Greer took some time studying the Bucknell file, and then Stauffer’s doctorate in law. “I heard of these fake degrees before, and I gotta tell ya they’re not cheap,” Greer explained. “Ya know, you get all the prestige and privileges of doctor in the law, and you don’t have to do all that study and sweating out those big exams. If it’s what it looks like, they can cost upwards of ten thousand.” 

      “Look’it, this might be the most important stuff,” Barnes explained. “Can you guys get these files, and, please don’t laugh, but also all this stuff on the wall, the photos and the docs, over to the FBI, yeah, the one downtown, the Javits Center? You know, their secured evidence facility. They got these evidence specialists, and we sure need them. I’ll tell ya, we’re drowning in documents. And the laptop, the FBI’s technical guys can help out with that.”

      “No problem. You got it. And if there’s anything else we turn up here. But the clothing, if it’s all right with you, they’ll go to the police lab. They already got the big boss’s, Merritt’s blazer and other stuff.”

      “That’s great, thanks,” Barnes said. “And also, this laptop. The FBI’s technical tech team can deal with that.” 

      After Greer took off, Barnes touched base with the other two Evidence Team leaders. The team at the Merritts’ condo reported that they found a few interesting documents, and they needed to know what Gloria Merritt was wearing on the fatal night in May, so the NYPD lab could check for gunshot residue or any other interesting traces. But most interesting, they found an elegant little dairy, silk binding with encrusted glass stones. All they would say on a non-secured phone line was that the diary sounded like it was written by a high-school girl, and that Gloria Merritt loved Steve Bucknell very much. They agreed to get the documents, along with photos of Bucknell and some other gentlemen, over to the FBI. 

      Barnes felt a sincere touch of sadness when he talked with the Team Leader at Bucknell’s apartment, which was in Greenwich Village not far from the Café Figaro. Small, utilitarian and impeccably clean, the place was loaded with books on economics and the business world, a good number of them from the Harvard Business School, and little else – except, of course, numerous notes and drafts of “The Thirty Percent Solution, Maximizing Client Fee Charges.” 

      Barnes did tell the Team Leader what Bucknell had been wearing, and Barnes had a moment of fright when he was told no such sport coat was in the apartment. But most likely, Bucknell’s clothes would be in the evidence room at the 17th Precinct. Again, all documents would be delivered to the FBI.  

      Then, the bane of all police officers: Writing reports. Barnes thanked Greer and his team, and then took the subway back to the 17th Precinct, where he spent more than an hour writing his report on the results of the searches at the three residences. No way could he could he provide all of them, but he did attach a selection of photos, of course including the “cowboy museum.” 

      When he finally sent his report to Jimenez, DuBois and Clive Stewart, Barnes felt tired but pleased. He knew he earned his pay that day.