Caffrey Flashback

Chapter 8: Byron

New York City, White Collar Division. Thursday afternoon. February 19, 2004.

A/N Sad times are ahead for Byron's family. If character death is a trigger for you, when you reach the point in this chapter where Mozzie leaves you may wish to skip to chapter 9.

Peter and Jones looked up as Neal entered Peter's office. "Mozz will apply for the bartender job at Highbury, but he won't come to the Federal Building to talk about the case."

"Why not?" asked Jones.

"He won't meet with government employees unless he can sweep the location for bugs and hidden cameras first," Neal said, as if this were perfectly normal behavior.

"He's not going to give away his address," Peter guessed. "Your place?"

Neal nodded. "He said he'll be ready for us at 4:00." He plopped into the chair next to Jones and put his feet up on Peter's desk. "All right. I'm here to help. What have we got?"

Peter swatted his feet down, concerned that Neal was being overly playful, maybe overcompensating for nerves he felt about going back to face Byron's deteriorating state at the mansion. His best recourse was to keep the kid's mind occupied with the case. "Start over, Jones."

"I found the attorney who drafted the lease of Enscombe to Highbury Professional Connections. His name is Seamus Bickerton. He used to work for a law firm here in the city, but retired about a month after Adler disappeared."

"I'd have expected Adler to use a younger lawyer," Peter said. "As Neal pointed out, he had a preference for young minds."

"Seamus is barely forty," Jones said. "He came into some money, an inheritance according to the partners at the law firm, and moved to Boston. He deposited a million dollars into his bank account shortly before Adler disappeared, and a lot more a month later."

"An incentive and a reward after Adler made a clean getaway," Neal suggested.

"That's my take," Jones agreed. "The contract lists the owner of Enscombe as Perdue Incorporated. It's a shell company that I traced back to a Vincent Perdue. I can't find anything more than a social security number for him."

"Perdue means lost in French," Neal said. "That was Adler's goal – to stay lost when he decided to disappear."

"It's a plausible story," Peter said, "but not hard evidence. We can't get a warrant with this. What else did you find, Jones?"

"Perdue also owns a Wilhelm Salvage. They search the coastline for sunken ships and dropped cargo. They've been operating at a loss, but somehow stay in business." Jones opened a file and displayed a photograph. "This is Vincent Adler's father. When we went after Adler initially, we didn't spend much time investigating his family. He's an only child, both parents deceased. But Adler's father immigrated to the U.S. from Germany shortly after World War II."

Peter asked, "What does this have to do with the salvage company?"

"Wilhelm was the name of Adler's father. He spent most of his career in the U.S. working at a company that builds parts for submarines. There were rumors of Germany sending loot out of the country in U-boats toward the end of the war. What if Wilhelm Adler knew something about a ship that went down off the east coast of the United States, and told his son? It's possible Adler will return when the salvage company finds what they've been looking for, because he's made sure their operating costs are covered for the next decade. It's hard to imagine Adler sinking his money into something like that unless he's expecting a big return on his investment."

"A good angle," said Peter. "We can watch the salvage company but that lead could take years to pay off. Neal, you're awfully quiet. What are you thinking?"