“I’m not taking orders from you.”
“Do you really think I’m here as a favor to her kid? This is an ongoing investigation into a dangerous series of crimes.”
“Then show me a warrant.”
“You don’t want a warrant, believe me. You see, warrants require judges and then we have to go through everything, every file in your office, every account—”
“You can’t do that.”
True. It was a bluff, but what the hell. Better to come off a little crazy, a little unhinged. Kat lifted the receiver. “I’m asking you to make one call.”
Bork hesitated for a moment. Then he took out his smartphone, found Dana Phelps’s mobile number, and dialed it. Kat heard it ring once and then the voice mail picked up. Dana Phelps’s happy voice asked the caller to leave a brief message. Bork hung up.
“She’s probably on the beach,” he said.
“Where?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss it.”
“Your client transferred a quarter of a million dollars out of this country.”
“Which is her right.”
Realizing he said too much, Bork blanched as soon as the words came out of his mouth. Kat nodded at the mistake. So the money had been sent out of the country. She hadn’t known that.
“It was completely on the up-and-up,” Bork said, his explanation coming fast. “This company has a protocol with a transfer this substantial. Perhaps in the movies, it can be done with a just a few clicks on a computer. But not here. Dana Phelps made the request. I personally spoke to her on the phone about it.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Do you know where she called from?”
“No. But she called from her own cell phone. I don’t understand. What do you think happened here?”
Kat wasn’t sure how to answer. “I can’t reveal the full extent of my investigation.”
“And I can’t tell you anything without Dana’s permission. She gave me strict instructions to keep this confidential.”
Kat cocked her head. “Didn’t you find that odd?”
“What? Keeping things confidential?” Bork considered that. “Not in this case.”
“How so?”
“It isn’t my job to judge. It is my job to honor the request. Now if you’ll excuse me . . .”
But Kat still had one major card to play. “I assume you reported this transaction to FinCEN?”
Bork stiffened. Pay dirt, Kat thought. FinCEN stood for the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a scary division of the Department of the Treasury. FinCEN looks at suspicious financial activity in the hopes of combating money laundering, terrorism, fraud, tax evasion, stuff like that.
“A transaction this big,” Kat said. “It has to send up a red flag, don’t you think?”
Bork tried to play it cool. “I have no reason to suspect that Dana Phelps has done anything illegal.”
“Okay, then you won’t mind me calling Max.”
“Max?”
“He’s my pal with FinCEN. I mean, if everything is on the up-and-up—”
“It is.”
“Cool.” She took out her cell phone. It was another bluff, but an effective one. There was no Max at FinCEN, but then, how hard would it be to report something like this to the Department of the Treasury? She smiled now, trying again to look a bit unhinged. “I got nothing else, so I might as well—”
“There’s no need for that.”
“Oh?”
“Dana . . .” He looked at the door. “I’m betraying a trust here.”
“You can explain it to me,” Kat said, “or you can explain it to Max and his team. Up to you.”
Bork started to bite on his manicured thumbnail. “Dana asked for confidentiality here.”
“To cover up a crime?”
“What? No.” Bork leaned forward and spoke softly. “Off the record?”
“Sure.”
Off the record. Did he think she was a reporter?
“Her transaction, I admit, is rather unconventional. We may indeed file an SAR, though I have thirty days to do it.”
SAR stood for Suspicious Activity Report. By law, a transaction of this size out of the country should require that the financial institution or individual notify the Department of the Treasury. It isn’t written in stone, but the large majority of honest institutions would do it.
“Dana asked for a little time first.”
“What do you mean?”
“Again nothing illegal.”
“Then?”
He looked toward the corridor. “You can’t tell Brandon this.”
“Okay.”
“I mean it. Dana Phelps specifically requested that no one, especially her son, know about her plans.”
Kat leaned in closer. “My lips are sealed.”
“I wouldn’t be telling you any of this—in fact, I shouldn’t be—but my job is also to protect my clients and my business. I don’t know what Dana would say, but my feeling is that she would not want her confidential wire transfer—one that her child should have never seen, by the way—scrutinized by the Department of the Treasury. Not because it is illegal. But because that could present a host of problems and attention.”
Kat waited. Bork wasn’t really talking to her right now. He was talking to himself, trying to find a justification to give her information.
“Dana Phelps is buying a house.”
Kat wasn’t sure what she was expecting him to say, but that wasn’t it. “What?”
“In Costa Rica. Five-bedroom beach villa on the Peninsula Papagayo. Stunning. Right on the Pacific Ocean. The man she’s traveling with? He proposed.”
Kat just sat there. The word proposed turned into a stone and dropped down some internal mine shaft. She could see it all—the gorgeous stretch of beach, the coconut trees (were there coconut trees in Costa Rica? Kat didn’t know), Jeff and Dana strolling hand in hand, a gentle kiss, lounging together on a hammock as the sun set in the distance.
“You have to understand,” Bork continued. “Dana has not had it easy since her husband’s death. She raised Brandon by herself. He wasn’t an easy kid. His father’s death . . . it really affected him. I won’t get into more details than that, but now that Brandon’s in college, well, Dana is ready for a life of her own. You can understand that, I’m sure.”