The Blackmail Caper, Chapter 6

I soon received the results of the criminal records and credit checks. At first blush, there wasn’t much in them. Haupmann’s criminal history was limited to parking tickets near the Embassy and the occasional traffic ticket. He had twice pled guilty to a defective muffler beef. That was probably a moving violation that a lawyer had plea-bargained down to a charge with a higher fine but no points. Which meant that the insurance companies wouldn’t raise his rates.

Haupmann married Mary Pulaski when he was working for Chemical Bank in New York in 1971. Their eldest daughter, Kimberley, was born ten months later. Brian followed in `74 and Melissa in `78. Mary had a moving violation for failure to yield the right of way in 1983, nothing else. Kim was a senior at Yale, Brian was a freshman at Tufts. Kim had more credit card debt than she should have, but nothing that could be considered to be outrageous. There was no criminal history on the children, but then again, I didn’t have access to juvie records.

Haupmann had worked for a few other banks, mostly in New York and then in D.C. Seven years ago, he went to work for the Norwegians as a financial analyst. He must have done some public relations work or something, because he had taken the time to register as a foreign agent under the Logan Act. Hardly anyone bothered to do that; so either Hauptmann or the Norwegians were sticklers when it came to following the law.

Hauptmann’s stepfather was pretty much a solid citizen. Andrew Johnson had been born in 1921; he dropped out of college after the war started to become a Marine fighter pilot. He left as a major after the war, but he stayed in the reserves as he finished getting an engineering degree from Ohio State. Johnson went to work for Ford until he was recalled to active duty during the Korean War. That second round of combat flying resulted in a medical retirement as a bird colonel. There was a note that his first wife had died of cancer in 1947 without having had a child.

He went back to work for Ford, he retired in 1986, then was elected to the school board, where he served until he died of a heart attack three years ago, still married to Solveig.

There was nothing substantive about his mother. She had been in the League of Women Voters in the ‘70s. Other than that, she was almost invisible until she died of a massive stroke a little over a year after her husband had died. Solveig never had a child after her son by the German. Whether she didn’t want any more children or if she and Andrew had tried was not of record.

There was also no mention of whether Andrew had sought to adopt Peter. Given that Peter had been about sixteen when his mother remarried, my suspicion was that Peter had probably loathed his stepfather for a very long time.

The financials showed that Hauptmann’s family was a little stretched, what with two kids in Ivy league schools, but they weren’t in trouble. The Haupmanns had re-financed their house to cash in on equity, more than likely to meet college costs. They had two cars. No surprise, the cars were Volvos. One was five years old, the other nine years old. I’d bet that he drove a sedan and she drove a station wagon. They owned some rental properties in Manhattan that made a little more than the carrying costs. Haupmann probably considered them long-term retirement investments and, given the track record of real estate in Manhattan, he was probably right.

There was nothing unusual in their tax returns. Those are normally hard to get, but he had to provide the Embassy with a copy of his return each year. Hauger had thoughtfully sent the last five years’ worth to me. Haupmann had some investment income from his previous work in banking. Mrs. Haupmann reported income, there was a W-2 form for her from a credit union. In the signature lines of their tax returns, Haupmann had listed his job as a “financial analyst, Mrs. Haupmann listed her occupation as “secretary”.

Nothing jumped out at me from the papers. I didn’t expect that anything would. Hauger didn’t strike me as being a stupid man. If whatever had tripped his warning trigger was obvious, he would have found it.

I called Hauger’s office and spoke to him. I asked him if the Embassy had security logs of when Haupmann came and went. He said only for visitors, not for staff. He seemed a little shocked that I’d even think that they’d have a need to keep close tabs on their people. I thanked him and hung up. Cripes, if I had suspicions about someone and I was him, the first thing I’d do would be to keep track of his movements. On the other hand, employees talk and the fact that he was being watched, if even a little, would get spread around.

I took out a pad of paper, one of the yellow-lined ones that lawyers love, and made some notes. Basically, I had nothing. Most of the time, there is some loose corner or a threat that can be pulled on. There were about as many loose threads in Haupmann’s life as there were on a billiard ball. Sometimes, the way to generate something to run down was to try spooking the target and seeing what he does. But that would have violated the prime directive from my client.

On a normal case, what I would have done is reported what I had to the client and then let them decide if they wanted me to continue the investigation. No point in doing that here, for I had no doubt that Hauger already knew what I had found out.

I drove over to Haupmann’s neighborhood on a scouting run. The neighborhood dated back to around to the Twenties, when appliances began replacing servants for the professional classes. The houses were smaller than those of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. There was an alley that ran down the middle of each block of houses. The street side of the houses showed only the houses and the front yards. There were no driveways; the garages were in their back yards that faced onto the alleyways. Garbage cans stood next to many of the garage doors. The garbage trucks came down the alleys to pick up the trash. Back in the day, milkmen probably delivered to boxes in the alleys.

That trip gave me a path to take. I went back to the office, called the town’s department of public works and eventually found someone who knew the trash pickup schedule. I told the lady that I was house-sitting for friends and that they hadn’t told me the trash day.

Which was why, on the following Tuesday. I was driving slowly down the alley at three in the morning. I’d be screwed if the Haupmann family was one of those which put out their trash thirty minutes before the truck came by. I stopped and looked in their cans, they had put their garbage out. I grabbed just one bag, put it in the trunk of my car, and drove off. There were three other bags in the cans. This time, I was less interested in what was in the bag than the bag itself. I later stopped by a grocery store and bought four boxes of the identical type of trash bags.

My plan was to do a switch on Haupmann’s trash each week. In the business, it’s called a “trash cover”. It’s even legal, the courts have ruled that trash set out for pickup is deemed to be abandoned property, which is why the police can search your trash without a warrant. Still, the big trick was not to get caught. Not because I was worried about getting pinched by the cops, but because the goal was not to be detected by the target.

I went home and set up a pair of sawhorses in the garage. A sheet of plywood went on top of the sawhorses, which, in turn, I covered with a sheet of plastic. I pulled on a set of coveralls, donned a pair of rubber gloves and looked through the trash. There was nothing remarkable in the trash. There were a few boxes from a Chinese takeout, lots of Kleenex, dental floss and grungy paper towers. There were six cans of Fancy Feast and a bag of grey dirt that apparently was used cat litter.

I rebagged the stuff up and wadded up the plastic sheet. I had gotten garbage juice on my coveralls. I made a mental note to get some of the disposable impermeable coveralls used by house painters and serial killers. Hell, I might as well get some goggles and a face mask, for only the Almighty knew what I’d find the next time.

My garage smelt of garbage. Ah, the glamorous life of a private detective.

The Blackmail Caper, Ch. 5

When I came to the office four days later, the receptionist, Amy Airhern, handed me an envelope that had been delivered by a messenger service. I thanked her and went into my office to see what was in the envelope. It held copies of the papers that Hauger had shown me in his office and a check for my retainer. The check was in the name of the “Embassy of the Kingdom of Norway,” it was drawn on the Bank of Boston. There were also copies of releases that had been signed a few years earlier by Haupmann, as well as a letter which authorized me to make inquiries and conduct investigations of embassy employees on behalf of the Kingdom of Norway. The letter was in both English and Norwegian. The Norwegian text had that funny letter “o” with a slash through it.

I made out a deposit slip and went to the bank. When I asked how long it would take for the check to clear, the teller looked at the check again and called over one of the cube-dwellers. They conferred and the answer was twelve business days.

I read the background materials on Haupmann before then. He had been born in a “displaced persons” camp in 1945. He and his mother, a Norwegian named Solveig Jorgensen (she was born in 1928), lived in the camp until 1949, when they were permitted to emigrate to the United States. His mother’s reason for emigrating was that she feared retribution for having borne a child of a German officer and that her family had disowned her.

In 1954, Haupmann’s mother applied for a Norwegian passport for both her son and herself. They both became naturalized Americans in 1959. His mother married Andrew Johnson, an American, in 1961. Johnson was a widower. There was no mention in the papers as to whether or not Solveig and Andrew had any children or if Andrew had children by his previous wife. Those were all things that I would have to check into.

Haupmann was one smart cookie. He graduated high school in Westlake, Ohio three years early, earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree from the Wharton School of Business by the time he was 23. He married at age 26 and was still on his starter marriage. In my line of work, coming across someone who had been married for that long was like sighting a unicorn. Haupmann had two daughters and a son, all in school.

When the Embassy’s check had cleared, I ordered criminal records checks and credit checks on Haupmann’s immediate family, his mother and his stepfather. Hauger had probably done that already. He hadn’t included them in the materials that he sent to me. No matter, I’d have done the checks regardless.

I had just finished sealing up the order envelopes (with the fees) when Sarah Thorpe came into my office. “Do you have a minute,” she asked.

“Sure.” I gestured to one of the client chairs.

Sarah sat down. She’s the private detective that I rent my cubbyhole of an office from. Or, I guess, sub-let it. “You busy these days?”

I shrugged. “I make a living. You?”

She nodded. “The same. I think it’s time to start talking about formally joining forces. We help each out enough on cases. If we were to merge, then we wouldn’t have to keep billing each other out as subcontractors or consultants. We wouldn’t have to keep getting our clients’ consents for each of us to work the other’s cases. And if one of us can’t do something, the other can cover as clients would be retaining our firm, not us as individuals.”

“Like Spade & Archer?”

She smiled. “Yeah, except I’m not looking to end up being shot by Brigid O'Shaughnessy.”

I grinned.

“How do we work the money end of it,” I asked.

“The root of all evil?”

“Yeah.”

Sarah nodded. “I thought about that. We could do it much the same way as now. The company would pay the rent and pay Amy. We’d each chip in our share. Outside of that, we’d get what we earned. If I work a case you brought in, you’d be paid for your time and vice versa. And maybe we can get a small business rate for health insurance or even set up some form of pension plan.”

I leaned forward and put my elbows on my desk. “You’ve thought a lot about this.”

“Yeah.”

“You got a name for this operation?”

“Thorpe-Hawkins Investigations, Inc.”

I thought about that. It’d probably look good for applying for government security work, what with the first name being that of a female owner. “Why that,” I asked.

“Because we could have a logo that emphasizes the initials for the words,” she said.

I frowned at that a little. “That’s read as ‘t-h-i-i-n-c’ or ‘thiins’?”

“More like ‘thiink’.”

I blew a little bit of air out my nose, it sounded like a snort. “Think IBM might complain of trademark infringement?”

She shrugged. “Probably not. I’ll get my lawyer to check to see if IBM’s trademark covers detective work.”

I stood up and held out my hand. “OK. Deal?”

Sarah stood up and shook my hand. “Deal. I’ll have my lawyer draw up what needs to be done. He’ll probably tell you that you should consult with an attorney of your choosing.”

We sat back down. “I don’t see a need for that. We’ve had each other’s backs when the guns’ve come out. If I can trust you to be behind me with a loaded gun in your hand, I can trust you not to screw me on this deal.”

“OK, but he won’t like it.”

I made a dismissive gesture. “Fuck him if he can’t take a joke. But maybe he can draw up a form of a retainer agreement that we can use.”

Sarah shook her head. “Nah, I have one. I’ll get Amy to revise it once the lawyer files the incorporation papers.”

I shrugged. “OK, but let’s not spend a friggin’ fortune on lawyering this thing.”

“Right. Well, I have paying work to do,” she said. She stood up and said: “See ya,” and left.

Yet Another Project, Ch. 4 (The Blackmail Caper)

I am quite a bit into this, so I thought it was time to start posting more chapters.

____________________________________________

“Would you care for an aperitif,” Hauger asked.

“Coffee with cream would be nice, thanks.”

Hauger picked up the handset of his phone and presumably placed the order. One word did sound like coffee.

“Tell me about Haupmann,” I said.

Hauger opened his desk drawer and removed a manila envelope. He handed it to me. “This is a copy of his personnel file, translated into English,” he said.

I opened up the envelope and slid the papers out. There were about thirty sheets. I slid them back in, it was more than I wanted to look at right now.

“Who typed them up,” I asked.

“I did,” Hauger said.

“Who knows about this case,” I asked.

“Here? Only the ambassador. My superior in Oslo knows,” Hauger said.

“The other day, you said that you had a bad feeling about Haupmann. Did you consider just asking him if something was wrong,” I asked.

He shook his head. “I have no indication that something is wrong. If I were to talk to him about what I suspect, that can be an adverse personnel action under our rules.”

“For just showing concern?”

“Yes.”

I was thinking of something to say when the woman who had brought the sandwiches returned with another serving tray. She set a coffee cup, carafe and a pitcher of cream on Hauger’s desk in front of me. I thanked her, she collected the detritus from dinner and left.

“You’re not having anything,” I asked.

Hauger turned around and opened a file cabinet that was a disguised mini-fridge. He put some ice into a glass, closed the fridge, and then produced a bottle. He poured some booze into the glass. Then he sipped it.

“I am going to miss American bourbon whiskey when I am transferred for my next assignment,” he said. “It costs too much in Europe.”

I didn’t have anything to say to that. There was no shortage of American military PXs in Europe; surely he had some contacts who would get him some bourbon from one of them. Maybe Hauger was too straight-laced for that. I poured some coffee into the cup, added some cream and took a sip. This was the good stuff.

“So, Haupmann is pinging your spydar,” I asked.

Hauger looked confused. Then he smiled. “Ah, a contraction of ‘spy’ and ‘radar’. You are correct. There is something wrong with him or his life. Will you look into it for me?”

“If the price is right,” I said. “I’ll need a healthy retainer from your government.”

“How much is ‘healthy’,” he asked.

I named an amount. It was into the five-figure range.

Hauger sat back in his chair. “Why so much money?”

I shrugged. “You represent a sovereign nation. I’m not going to get anywhere trying to collect from you if you don’t pay. And I don’t know you. It would be too easy for you to disavow any knowledge of my actions and not pay me. So I want payment, in advance.”

Hauger sighed. “I will need to obtain approval for that. It is above my level of authority.”

“Fine with me. Also, if this case costs more than that, I’ll let you know. Same rules apply, I don’t go into the hole for governments.” I stood up. “If you get approval, you can send the materials on your guy over with the check. I’ll start on the case once the check clears. Also, if Haupmann has signed releases for his medical and financial records, please include them, along with whatever authorizations I would need.”

“What do you mean,” Hauger asked, as he stood up.

“If he’s signed releases for your staff to look through his records, then I’ll need a letter authorizing me to act on behalf of the embassy.”

“I see. I’ll show you out, then,” Hauger said. He walked me to the door. People were still coming in to the reception. The noise level spilling out of the dining room was incredibly high.

At the front door, Hauger stuck his hand out. “Thanks for coming, Mr. Hawkins.”

I shook it. “My pleasure, Mr. Hauger.”

He nodded, somewhat gravely. “I’ll be in touch.”

“Until then.” I turned and walked out the door and went back to my car.

I was a good part of the way out of the city when I realized that I was being tailed. I stopped off at a gas station and topped off my car, for all of four gallons of gas. I went inside, paid for the gas, then browsed the convenience store part for a few minutes. I bought a few things, then went back to my car. A tail picked me up about a half a mile down the road. Whoever was tailing me wasn’t being terribly overt. It wasn’t like they were trying to tell me that I was being tailed. But it wasn’t a big-budget job with several cars picking up the tail and then dropping off.

The tail disappeared when I was about ten minutes from home. I guess they assumed that I was going home for the night.

They were right.