got yourself involved in up there.” There was the sound of a keyboard going a mile a minute behind Jewell’s words.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“What I mean is I’ve checked those companies. Each one is a shell company that is held by shell companies that are held by shell companies, but I love a challenge and I found the one entity behind all of them. Kozlov Oil Enterprises.”
“An oil company is buying up property here in Hope City?”
“Yes. Well, no. See, KOE is a front for the Russian Mob.”
Bekki flopped back in her seat. “The Russian Mob.”
“Yeah, we dealt with these asswipes a couple years ago. Whoever is working to obscure their tracks now isn’t as good as the guy they used to have. It wasn’t too much of a challenge tracking them.”
“Did you find any ties to anyone in city government?” Bekki leaned forward, the invoices she was entering now completely forgotten as she spun how she was going to run with the story.
“There have been sizable deposits from KOE into the accounts of several people at the city, county, and state level.”
“And you can track the money into the accounts? Legally?”
“Girl, that was child’s play. The thing is I had to get a federal warrant to do it legally, and that is really where things get sticky. I used the questionable land purchases in Hope City as a basis and the judge bought off on it. The money has gone through several different companies, but the origination of the deposits was from the coffers of KOE.” Jewell’s words fell like ten thousand pounds of story of the century.
“How much?”
“I haven’t totaled them, but we are talking millions.”
“Oh, my God. Thank you, Jewell!”
“Nah, I didn’t do anything, but let me give you a word of advice: don’t break this story without the police knowing. These guys don’t play nice, Bekki. I’d bet they’d kill to keep this quiet. Whatever they’re buying the land for is important to them. Important enough to bribe officials and to purchase the land illegally. Also, I have to tell you because of the warrant I asked for, I’m kind of required to report this up my chain of command.”
“Can you give me time to break the story? Jewell, please?”
“Well, look at that. The briefing went to the bottom of my outbox. That should give you until this time tomorrow. That’s all I can do, and that’s only if you promise me that you’ll let the authorities know ASAP. I can’t have you getting hurt. Understand?”
“I promise. Can you send me the evidence?”
“Check your inbox. Your gut was right on this one. I’m glad you kept digging.”
She shook her head. “You were the one who found the evidence.”
“I found it because you tracked down the connections. We’ll call it teamwork, but I couldn’t have done anything if you didn’t give me the starting point. Dang it. I’ve got to go, I have an operation in North Korea I need to prep for.”
Bekki jerked. “Excuse me, where?”
“Huh? Oh, nowhere important. Toodles.” The line dropped.
Bekki reached across her desk and fumbled for her laptop. She tapped her finger against the top of the old metal desk as she waited for her computer to start up. The email was concise as if Jewell had written a step-by-step on following the bouncing dots, which she had. The companies tracked backward some seven companies deep, others only three, but all of them led back to Kozlov Oil Enterprises. She opened the other file and read Jewell’s synopsis. How had the woman found this?
“Oh, shit.” She looked at the names and the deposits listed in order. Richard Latham, the Lieutenant Governor, three county commissioners, and… Councilman Davis, Councilwoman Howell, and Deputy Mayor Fishbourne had all received money—sizable amounts of money—from KOE. How had Jewell gotten this information? She clicked the print button and printed a hard copy of all the evidence before she saved the attachments to her cloud and sent a copy to Killian for safekeeping.
She picked up her phone and called her dad. It rang through to his voicemail. “Dad, could you give me a call? I’ve caught a break on the story. No, I haven’t left the trailer or acted on it. I want to call Walter and Landon, though. Walter because I need to make sure I handle this the right way and Landon to prep the bosses for the story of the year. Hell, the decade. I promise I won’t tell them where I am.