Chapter 7 : Straight Talking
Hightower walked up alongside Lisbon "Indeed Mr Mashburn enough playing games with everyone, it's time for some straight talking, but first we need to sort out this incident. However I expect you and Ms Kapoor at the CBI tomorrow afternoon. It's up to you whether you bring an attorney."
"Why would I need an attorney?" Mashburn looked from Hightower to Lisbon.
"Any number of things I would imagine, no doubt you sail close to the wind most of the time." Hightower fleetingly glanced at Lisbon before weighing up whether this was the right time to strike. "You assume you can manipulate everyone, even to the point of calling in the CBI and specifically requesting 'friendly' investigators. At this moment I'm seriously considering re-assigning the case, if I see any sign whatsoever of preferential treatment this case will be handed over to another unit, which would not reflect well on Agent Lisbon."
Lisbon stared fixedly at the ground, accepting the truth of Hightower's statement. Unabashed Mashburn looked to Jane, who just shrugged his shoulders, there was nothing he could do.
"There's no point looking to Jane for help, he's by no means out of the woods himself." Hightower folded her arms, viewing the two men critically with her unblinking stare.
One of the things that Jane had always admired about Madeline was her ability to take difficult decisions when required, playing the long game, even though it may seem unfair in the short term. It was a new experience to Mashburn coming up against a real ball-breaker, who didn't resort to feminine wiles. An amused smile passed his lips as he turned to Jane. "Is she always like this?" Jane nodded slowly, wary of incurring Hightower's wrath further on Lisbon's behalf.
"Nothing like a woman on top." Mashburn quipped appreciatively, oblivious to the grimace on Jane's face.
Lisbon averted her eyes, aware of the seriousness of the situation, yet unaccountably feeling an urge to start laughing at the sight of Jane and Mashburn being lectured like recalcitrant schoolboys. She caught Hightower's sideward glare and quickly got control of herself, after all it was Lisbon in the firing line once again.
Coolly Hightower walked away; she didn't give them an inch, they had to believe that she was prepared to carry through on her threat. Nevertheless an amused smile played on her lips, once she was out of sight.
Needless to say Jane took the brunt of Lisbon's sense of grievance on the drive back. "Honestly Lisbon, you know Hightower is just making ideal threats. Besides you could always work the case even if you were suspended."
"Yes and look where we ended up last time, being rescued from a container by a goat herd." She snapped irritably.
"But wasn't it worth it when we caught the bad guys? Anyhow Walter won't risk you getting into trouble, surely you know that by now?" Jane didn't want to say too much at this stage, but he had an inkling that this affair was further reaching than it first appeared. He just needed Van Pelt to test his theories, and then they would be able to call Walter's bluff.
Hightower had all but taken command of the case, and Lisbon had been charged with the responsibility of interviewing Mashburn. It was imperative to know that Lisbon could deal objectively with Mashburn, before Hightower took any decisions on the case. Jane had primed Lisbon with the fruits of his and Van Pelt's labours, so she was as well prepared as she could be.
Nita and Mashburn occupied interview rooms either side of the observation suite. As usual Nita was looking prim and composed, but there was something about her that brought out the protective side of men. She certainly didn't encourage it, but before long Rigsby and Cho were clucking round her like mother hens ensuring she had everything she needed. A slight smile passed her lips as she politely declined; she knew their intentions were genuine and found them rather sweet. Grace just raised a supercilious eyebrow as the boys vied for Nita's attention, recognising the steel behind Nita's mask.
Both Mashburn and Nita had waived the right to an attorney, and Mashburn stood up to greet Lisbon like an old friend as she entered the room. Well aware that she was under the eagle eyed scrutiny of Hightower in the observation room, Lisbon tried to put the interview on a more formal footing.
"Mr Mashburn..."
"Teresa, Walter please.."
"Mr Mashburn a murder had been committed, and you have not been eliminated as a potential suspect, so it's in your best interests to start taking this seriously. We are not your private investigators to bend to your will." Lisbon avoided eye contact as she sorted her papers, wary of being subjected to a charm offensive.
"I assure you Teresa I take this very seriously, Chong was one of my oldest collaborators. Besides you're mistaken about my motives for requesting you and Patrick, I asked for you because I knew if anyone could solve this you would." Mashburn adroitly addressed her concerns.
Lisbon shuffled uncomfortably in her chair. "Very well, it's time we established a few facts. We understand you have an apartment in Dubai."
Mashburn hesitated slightly, guessing where this line of questioning may take them. "Yes, I have a penthouse suite overlooking the Palm Jumeirah. It's not unusual, many businesses have a presence out there." He leaned forward "It's really rather nice there Teresa, perhaps you'd let me take you there some time."
Lisbon glanced nervously towards the observation pane. "Mr Mashburn, were you in Dubai at the time Vijay Kapoor was killed?"
Mashburn leaned back heavily in his chair. "No I was not." The answer was short but guarded, his failure to add to the statement spoke volumes, the natural response would have been to offer some opinion on the tragedy.
His reaction didn't go unnoticed by Lisbon. "But you knew Kapoor?"
"Why are you asking me questions you already know the answer to?" Mashburn countered with an air of nonchalance, in the hope of drawing out exactly how much the CBI knew without volunteering too much information himself.
"It's customary for the interviewer to ask the questions. Let me rephrase that, when did you first meet the Kapoors?" Lisbon knew the answer, but it was important that they brought the truth out once and for all.
"Vijay worked for me briefly as an intern, he had one of the sharpest minds I've ever come across." Once again Mashburn chose not to elaborate.
With a cursory glance at her notes to check her facts Lisbon proceeded. "Well on paper that's true, but you're choosing to gloss over the fact that the Kapoors were working on an assignment for you in Dubai when Vijay was killed. The income the Kapoors were receiving from the Cayman Islands has been traced back to a shell company set up by one of your subsidiaries, in short the Kapoors were employed by you."
A smirk passed over Mashburn's lips, he was impressed by this new harder hitting Lisbon. "I don't suppose there's any point denying it, but there was nothing illegal about it. Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire, and I was just protecting my business interests."
Unwilling to let Mashburn off the hook, Lisbon pressed the point home. "That's for us to judge, but why don't you just save us all time and tell us the whole story."
"Very well, but I don't see what this has got to do with the situation in hand." Mashburn shrugged in resignation.
"It may be nothing or everything to do with this case, but until you come clean with us we will never know." Lisbon was determined to get to the truth of the matter.
Mashburn slowly crossed his long legs while he considered his story. "We were about to launch our bid to take over VA, but we were aware that the business could be affected by political decisions. Although both the Governor and California Energy Commission recognised the advantages of Zero Emissions Vehicles (ZEVs] and advocated incentives to encourage the development and availability of ZEVs, there was one particular Senator who opposed every new initiative. With the outgoing Governor unable to stand for re-election, Senator Burke was strategically positioning himself for the next election.
"Vijay had picked up on Senator Burke's frequent visits to Dubai, and had discovered that Burke had close links to the oil industry. He suggested we could try and set up a sting to discredit Burke, nothing illegal Teresa, just a honey trap to catch him with his fingers in the till." Mashburn added for good measure. "We'd tried everything else at that stage, but had made no headway with him."
"So basically you were annoyed he took someone else's money not yours?" Hightower nodded approvingly at Lisbon's stinging attack.
"That's a bit harsh Teresa, money was never offered." Mashburn affected an offended look.
"Perhaps not, but I'm sure there are other inducements, more subtle ones that couldn't be directly traced back to you. But someone outbid you, the question is who?" Lisbon continued to press on.
"I know, the bastards! I wish I knew the answer Teresa. This whole business could have been avoided, if I'd known who."
Lisbon let that go for now. "So what exactly happened to Vijay?"
"He messaged to say he'd gotten a lead, and was meeting someone at the marina. I don't know any more than that. Their apartment was ransacked and his computer was stolen, Vijay was a real wizard with computers, he could hack into anything." Mashburn looked warily at Lisbon at that point, guessing that last sentence would have been better left unsaid.
"You really have no idea who wanted to kill Vijay?" Lisbon raised a sceptical eyebrow.
"Well Burke took fright and fled back home, so it's fair to say he wasn't unaware of events. There's never been anything to tie him in with the explosion, and believe me I left no stone unturned. My hands aren't exactly tied by protocol." Mashburn flashed a quick look at the observation pane. "I used every means at my disposal, every means Teresa. I was determined to find Vijay's killer and clear his name for Nita."
"So why didn't you clear his name?" Lisbon didn't doubt his sincerity for once.
"Nita would have nothing to do with me for a couple of years. I never stopped investigating but without knowing exactly what led up to events, I was hamstrung. Sadly the trail had gone dead by time Nita was ready to start talking to me again." Mashburn ruefully replied.
"But that didn't stop you going ahead with the takeover of VA?" There was hint of disapproval in Lisbon's tone.
Mashburn spread his hands out apologetically. "It was a good deal. However much I wanted to, I couldn't turn back the clock. If I'd walked away it would have meant it was all for nothing."
"So what happened to Senator Burke?" It occurred to Lisbon that she hadn't heard of him for a while.
Mashburn didn't even bother hiding a satisfied smile. "Apparently he got implicated in some scandal and quietly withdrew from public life."
It was obvious who'd engineered that situation, but Lisbon had no interest in following that up. As far as Lisbon was concerned if the Senator had allowed himself to be caught in a compromising situation, that was his fault.
A tap on the window alerted Lisbon that Hightower wanted to talk to her, "I'll arrange for some coffee, just wait here for a while."
Mashburn shrugged and pulled out his phone and started checking his email, he could pretty much work from anywhere.
Lisbon met Hightower and Jane in the observation room a curt nod from Hightower indicated her approval. "Time to swap things round now, let's see what Jane and Cho can get out of Ms Kapoor."
Apart from some darkness under the eyes, Nita looked as composed as ever, with her petite frame there was a birdlike quality that made her look fragile, but Jane wasn't fooled for a minute, there was an inner steel. Inured to the travails of her life, she had channelled her energies into something positive, without completely letting go of the past.
Cho took up the questioning, very gently probing into Nita's life in Dubai and establishing any contacts Vijay had made. Jane listened as Nita adeptly handled Cho's line of questioning, letting it go on for a while before Jane decided to up the ante.
"You don't strike me as someone who would passively sit in the background just waiting. You must have had some idea who Vijay was tracking? Even if his computer was stolen, I'm sure you'd have taken precautions to back everything up and would have checked his emails. So what aren't you telling us Nita?" Jane had a shrewd idea that she knew more, even if she couldn't piece the facts together.
"Do you honestly think if I knew something, I wouldn't have done something about it?" The fire in Nita ignited.
Jane nodded, empathising with her more than she knew. Although the accounts had long been taken down Van Pelt had shown him evidence of the Kapoors on social media, it was a carefully constructed front, but the photographs spoke of two people enjoying the time of their life. Jane had no doubt that Nita was working hand and hand with Vijay.
"There was nothing in the emails, otherwise you would have done something about them. So why was the computer taken, who had you been investigating?"
"Vijay had spotted Senator Burke on board the yacht of a Russian Oligarch Anatoly Dyukov, who had extensive oil and gas interests. It may just have been a social acquaintance, but we never got to find out. Vijay had left me a message that he was going to the marina to investigate a lead, and asked me to meet him there, but it was too late by time I got there." Nita saw no point in trying to hide anything at this point.
"Walter said Vijay had the ability to hack accounts, is there any chance he could have stumbled on to something he shouldn't have and it was traced back to you?" Jane suspected Vijay had ventured into perilous territory, especially if the Russian mafia were involved.
"If the network had a honey pot mechanism in place, it's possible they traced the hack back to Vijay, but without his computer it's impossible to see which sites he was accessing that day. Everyone assumed his phone was destroyed in the explosion, it never turned up anywhere." Nita didn't try to deny what they had been up to.
"Did you try to hack the accounts yourself?" Jane didn't doubt she was capable of it.
"Not at first, but when I came back to the USA I was determined to carry on the fight. It was too dangerous to use my own computer, so I'd go to libraries and internet cafes to work, sometimes I'd wear a Hijab to help disguise my appearance." Despite the potential illegality of it, Nita rightly guessed the CBI weren't interested in pursuing that.
"Why wouldn't you let Walter help you?" Jane gently enquired.
"Vijay tried so hard to impress Walter, he pushed himself too much. For a long time I blamed Walter for that, but I began to realise it was Vijay's nature and he would always push himself. It took me a few years to get that stage. Walter had always kept me apprised of his own investigations through a third party, and kept a line of communication open. Then we unexpectedly met at a conference and got talking, and I realised we could do much more working together than working independently." Nita was ultimately a pragmatist.
"I assume you haven't given up your investigations. Is there any chance that something you've done could be traced back to VA?" Jane watched Nita closely.
Nita looked down at the desk guiltily "I may have used my work notebook from time to time. Are you suggesting the two events are linked?"
"Who knows? But there is a clear conflict of interest between a company making Zero Emissions Vehicles and an Oil Oligarch." Looking up to the observation panel Jane stated, "I think this is one for Van Pelt."
Nita looked crestfallen that her actions could have contributed to the problems at VA. "I've pursued so many different avenues of enquiry but most of them are quite general, there could be any number of possibilities."
"It's not your fault, anyone would have done the same." More than anyone Jane understood the imperative for justice and revenge, he locked eyes with Nita, who understood his meaning perfectly.
"How do you cope with it all?" Nita turned the question back on Jane, there was a hushed silence as everyone waited for his response. No one openly questioned Jane like that.
He gave a sad smile. "I don't know that you ever truly cope, but you latch on to something to keep you going. Besides you're never alone, the memories are always with you. We will find whoever killed Vijay, I'm absolutely sure of that now."
Jane stood up and left the room without a word, and disappeared into the kitchen wanting to be alone with his thoughts for a while. Even if he wasn't making much progress on his own account, he was comforted that he could make a difference to Nita. The fact that they'd established a tenuous link to a Russian connection was a start, with Van Pelt's ability to cross reference to ongoing investigations, and his own mental acuity, Jane was sure they could make a break through. The consultant was well away with his thoughts sipping his tea, when Lisbon quietly came alongside.
"Nita's with Van Pelt now, and Walter's left." Lisbon knew better than to allude to what had just happened, but her tone was softer than usual.
Jane's eyes crinkled with a smile, Lisbon was there for him in the same way that Walter was for Nita. Even when he didn't ask or want her help she just came anyhow, he inclined his head towards her. "Told you Walter was one of the good guys."
"How can you say that! He's broken goodness knows how many laws, encouraged hacking, laundered money, tried to influence a legislator and I dread to think what he did to set up Senator Burke." Lisbon's pitch steadily rose as she rattled off Walter's rap sheet.
"You'll never prove any of it, and most of it happened outside the jurisdiction of the USA. Anyhow you know exactly what I mean." Jane's lips quirked with amusement at Lisbon's embarrassment. Temporarily lost for words, she struck a hasty retreat.