Go-Between (18 page)

Edgemore Media received $539,372 in compensation. Red Seas Research got $348,191.

Michelle paged ahead.

In the next section of directors, she found Matthew Moss. Also listed for two hours a week at zero compensation.

The final board member, Steve
. . .
she still didn't know what his last name was.

She continued to scroll.

Next came the highest compensated employees.

The first was Caitlin O'Connor, President.

Caitlin worked thirty-three hours a week, according to the disclosure form: twenty hours at Safer America Action, thirteen at “related organizations.” Her annual salary was divided between three columns, D, E and F. The first was “Reportable compensation from the organization,” which had to mean Safer America Action. The second column was for “Reportable compensation from related organizations.” Maybe from SAF, the other group of PDFs, whatever that was? The third column was “Estimated amount of other compensation from the organization and related organizations.”

From Column D, from Safer America Action, Caitlin received $159,286. From Column E, “related organizations,” she got $127,776. From Column F, “other compensation,” $45,113.

Michelle added up the numbers in her head.

She was getting paid $75K, so she guessed it wasn't that surprising that Caitlin was making close to $300K, even without adding in “other compensation.”

Not real wealth, not like the hedge fund managers and the Fortune 500 CEOs and the new tech millionaires, maybe not even that much for a person living in River Oaks.

But wasn't this supposed to be a nonprofit?

The Vice President of Finance/Administration, Porter Ackermann, was next. His salary and compensation were about $50K less than Caitlin's. He too was working thirty-three hours a week, with a similar split in who paid him.

She had a sudden flash of Porter in his expensive suit, sitting behind his expensive walnut desk. He had other income, she was willing to bet on it.

“Hon?” she heard Caitlin call from the Great Room. “Did you make any reservations yet?”

“Not yet. Anything in particular you feel like?”

“Oh, I don't know.” Caitlin hugged the doorframe. “How about
. . .
something healthy?” She grinned. “Sushi, maybe?”

“Sure,” Michelle said.

She scrolled past the other highest compensated employees. She didn't have much time before lunch.

Statement of Revenue. Statement of Functional Expenses. Balance Sheet. Reconciliation of Net Assets.

A lot of big numbers. Tens of millions in places. There was no way for her to make sense of it skimming like this.

Public Charity Status and Public Support. Reason for Public Charity Status. Support Schedules. Public Support Percentage and Investment Income Percentage. A page for Supplemental Information, left blank.

Then, finally, there it was:

Schedule B. **Public Disclosure Copy**.

Schedule of Contributors.

Her heart beat a little a faster, and she could feel the sweat break out on her scalp and back, in spite of the air conditioning.

She paged past the Organization Type and General Rules versus Special Rules to Part 1: Contributors.

The first contributor's contributions totaled $8,500,000. The type of contribution checked was “Person.”

The other information, the name of the contributor, the contributor's address, was blank.

“What?” she muttered. That couldn't be right.

She scrolled down the page.

The next contributor kicked in $7,000,000. A “Person.” No identifying information.

$5,500,000. $3,300,000. $1,500,000. Two more pages with decreasing amounts. The lowest was $5,000.

No information about the donors at all.

“You about ready for lunch?” Caitlin called from the other room.

“Lunch sounds great,” Michelle said. She closed the program and rose. “Oh, would you mind if I ran a quick errand after? I just need to pick something up at the drugstore.”

“Sure, go ahead. There's not a lot going on today anyway. Take the rest of the afternoon off, if you'd like.”

“Well, I won't say no to leaving early,” Michelle said quickly. “There's just a few things I want to do here first.”

“Do you want to
stop at the CVS now?” Caitlin asked after lunch, some $175 of sushi and premium sake. Caitlin had drunk most of the sake, so Michelle was driving. “It's on our way back.”

Michelle hesitated. She couldn't think of a logical reason to say no, but she didn't like the idea of Caitlin knowing she'd gone to buy a flash drive.

“I don't want to put you out,” she said.

Caitlin made her weary wave. “Oh, you're not putting me out. I'll just wait in the car with the air on.”

“Okay, thanks. I'll be quick.”

She left Caitlin in the passenger seat fiddling with the radio, the car parked in the middle of the small CVS parking lot.

She bought a box of Kleenex, a bottle of Mrs. Meyers counter cleaner and a bar of hand soap along with the flash drive.

When she exited the CVS, she felt like she'd walked into a sauna, especially after the store's overly chilly air conditioning. Why do places do that? she wondered. It just made going outside worse.

There was a car parked two spaces over from Caitlin's White Pearl Lexus SUV. A late model silver compact, one of those anonymous economy imports that you saw everywhere and couldn't necessarily identify. Something about it nagged at her. What was it? A Kia?

No. A Hyundai.

She drew closer.

A Hyundai with a bumper sticker that said
owned by a pug
.

Carlene's car. Gary's errand girl who'd picked up the suitcase of cash from her apartment.

From behind, the car looked empty, but Carlene wasn't very big. Maybe she was crouched down, blocked by the front seat.

Maybe she can't see me, Michelle thought. She circled around to the passenger side.

She's Gary's person. You have to assume she's dangerous.

Michelle had her .38 tucked in her hobo with the custom holster. She wrapped her hand around the grip now. Approached the car and peered through the window.

Empty.

Michelle straightened up and scanned the parking lot, swiveled her head around to check the exit of the CVS.

Where was she?

Just get out of here, Michelle thought. She turned and half-jogged around the Hyundai toward the Lexus.

And saw Caitlin slumped in the passenger seat, head lolling to one side.

Michelle froze, heart hammering in her throat. She took a step toward the passenger door, then another. She couldn't see Caitlin's face. Was she breathing?

Michelle rapped her knuckles on the window. Caitlin stirred. Turned her head and opened her eyes.

Relief flooded through Michelle like cool water.

Caitlin stretched and sat up.

“I can't believe I feel asleep,” she said when Michelle opened the driver's door. “It hasn't been that long, has it?”

“Not really.” Michelle managed a smile. “This heat takes a lot out of you.”

It was Carlene's car, she was sure of it, parked in a place where Michelle was likely to see it. Obviously Carlene wasn't trying to hide her presence, wherever she might be now. She wanted Michelle to know she was here.

As Michelle pulled the Lexus into the parking lot exit, she saw a woman standing by the bus stop on the sidewalk to her left, wearing a sun visor and accompanied by a leashed brindle pug.

Carlene.

She stared at Michelle, the fingers of her free hand finally wiggling in a fractional wave as Michelle steered the car onto the street, turning right, away from her.

Gary's way of saying that he was always watching.

Chapter Seventeen

It turned out it
was perfectly legal to shield the identity of donors in a 501(c) organization from the public.

She'd copied the “Disclosures” file onto her new flash drive. Thought about trying to copy the DonorSoft files but decided against it, for now. Without the password, she was only guessing what files might be useful, and she had no way to open or make sense of them.

And Michelle had plenty of material to keep her busy tonight.

She leaned back into the pillows she'd propped against the headboard of her bed and put down her iPad for a moment. Took a sip of her wine.

She'd thought over the last few years that she'd gone beyond being surprised by much of anything. She'd known that politics was a manipulation by the powerful to get what they wanted. But she'd figured in this case she was looking for something more, well,
illegal
. Money laundering, bribery, things like that. Not something so obviously corrupt that was hiding in plain sight.

Of course, donors' identities did have to be reported to the IRS. And she had little doubt that
something
illegal, in that it was against the letter of the law, was happening with Safer America. But this system just made it so easy to get away with.

No wonder they called it “Dark Money.”

Safer America Action was a 501(c)(4). A “social welfare” organization that was allowed to do political work. It could lobby, it could support or oppose candidates, thought it could not legally coordinate with candidates' campaigns. A 501(c)(4) could work for or against legislation, as Safer America was doing in California. It could also contribute funds to a 527, an organization whose only purpose was politics and that could actually field candidates. But 527s were required to disclose their donors. So a 501(c)(4) donating to a 527 was a way to get around that requirement.

There were all kinds of ways to manipulate this, she thought, to shield who was advocating or attacking. One
501(c)(4)
could donate to another, which could then donate to another, and eventually to a 527 to directly support a candidate. A tide of Dark Money could be transferred from organization to organization, and no one would know where or who it came from.

Companies and corporations could donate as much as they wanted, too. That check box for “Person” was what they marked as well. It seemed ludicrous, but she double-checked, and that was how it was done.

And how hard would it be to disguise that money? If, say, the Boys wanted to contribute something? They had all kinds of shell companies to funnel money through. Donations to a
501(c)(4)
weren't tax deductible, but why would they care about that?

They cared about buying influence. About purchasing elections.

Would an IRS auditor reviewing a
501(c)(4)
look at a contribution from, say, a Blue Sky Enterprises and bother to check where that money came from, how Blue Sky had gotten it, as long as the paperwork looked okay?

“SAF” stood for “Safer America Foundation.” It was a 501(c)(3), so not involved in political work. She'd hardly started to dig into those forms yet, so she wasn't entirely sure what Safer America Foundation did. The mission statement was almost the same as Safer America Action: “To advocate for the victims of crime in the United States and to research and implement effective strategies to reduce crime and build safer communities.”

Caitlin was president of both organizations.

Even with more time and a greater understanding of what these organizations were and how they were supposed to function, she still couldn't tell if Safer America was doing anything illegal from these forms. Things like “office expenses” and “other salaries and wages” and “total lobbying expenditures” and “other exempt purposes expenditures,” “temporarily restricted net assets,” “endowment funds” and “leasehold improvements”—none of these entries was broken out in any way. It was impossible to look at this paperwork and know how Safer America received and spent its money.

There were a couple of entries that she had to wonder about. “Land” and “buildings” listed under assets. Safer America Foundation owned some property, she could tell that much. One million dollars in land and some $650K in “buildings.”

Caitlin was receiving a housing allowance. It was listed on the Schedule J for Safer America Foundation, $50,000. And if she was reading the instructions correctly, this should have been listed in Column F, “other compensation,” for the Safer America Foundation.

But it wasn't. The numbers didn't add up.

Maybe it was included as part of the over $500K of “other employee benefits” that weren't broken out in any way that she could tell.

And why was a woman already making a nearly $300K salary receiving a housing allowance in the first place? For a house that she owned?

Safer America owned $1,650,000 in land and buildings.

How much was a house in River Oaks worth?

She did a quick Google search. That amount wasn't out of line.

Was it possible that Safer America Foundation owned Caitlin's home?

But there was no way to tell from this public disclosure what the property was. Just that Safer America Foundation owned it.

The one thing she could be sure of was that Caitlin made decent money from this charity. And so did Porter Ackermann.

“I don't know, maybe
there's some way we can work together,” Caitlin said suddenly.

“I'm sorry?”

Caitlin and Michelle were finishing up their workout on the treadmill at the fancy River Oaks gym where Caitlin had a membership. “Except I never use it,” she'd said with a laugh. “Don't worry, I'll have Porter sign you up. You shouldn't have to pay for it on my account.”

It was a nice, clean gym, not crowded, obviously expensive, with its brand new equipment and track lights and wooden lockers. A big black dog greeted them in the foyer, “the gym mascot,” Caitlin explained.

A neighborhood gym in a very wealthy neighborhood.

“Troy Stone and me. Well, Safer America.” Caitlin blushed. Or maybe it was just the cardio.

“Oh? What would you want to do?”

“I'm not sure. It's just that
. . .
” Caitlin's steps slowed down a fraction. “You know, he has a point. If we really want to build safer communities, maybe we should be looking more to what we can do to strengthen them. Instead of just locking people up for longer and longer times.”

“But on Prop. 391, on legalizing marijuana
. . .
”

“I'm not sure we're going to agree on that. But on the sentencing guidelines? I think he's right. It costs too damn much to keep so many people in prison for such a long time.”

“Oh.”

It wasn't that Michelle disagreed. If she was being honest with herself, she'd barely thought about the whole issue. It was only now, with Danny in jail, with her doing so many things that were so far from legal, that any of this had seemed relevant to her own life.

It's not my fault, she told herself. It wasn't like she deserved to be in jail.

She was just taking payoffs from drug cartels, that's all. Thanks to a black ops agent embedded with a cabal of powerful men trying to run the country from deep in the shadows.

But god forbid she should get caught with a joint in Texas.

“Something on your mind?” Caitlin asked.

“Not really, just
. . .
” She hesitated. “Are you sure it's safe?”

“Safe? What do you mean?”

“Well, I mean
. . .
Troy. What do you know about him?”

“Oh, honey, I've already started checking into him. His organization looks legit. He's gotten some nice press coverage the past couple of years, too, for the work they're doing.”

“That's
. . .
great. I'm just wondering
. . .
what will the board think?”

There was no way for Michelle to say what she really wanted to say. That going against the board might be dangerous.

Caitlin shrugged. “They can think what they want.” Her steps picked up speed. “I'm still the president and founder. If they don't like it, they can find somebody else.” She grinned. “Now,
that
would be a mess.”

Michelle had found out
a few things about several of the board members just by using Google.

Michael Campbell had been a police chief in several midsized California and Midwestern cities before he retired and took on his position at ALEAAG, the American Law Enforcement Agencies Advocacy Group. He was the Vice President of Communications there. As far as she could tell from their website and a few other hits, ALEAAG advocated for “vigorous support of law enforcement officers and agencies in their mission to protect and serve American communities,” which meant, among other things, increasing police department budgets and police officer salaries, supporting programs that supplied local law enforcement agents with surplus US military equipment (apparently local police departments really needed armored personnel carriers), lobbying for laws that empowered local police departments to seize assets from lawbreakers, particularly drug-related lawbreakers, and then use said assets to fund police programs.

Then there was Randall Gates, of Prostatis.

Prostatis owned and operated prisons, along with “other correctional facilities.”

The private prison industry was a big business. Prostatis was not the largest private prison company—it came in third—but the company's revenue last year was still close to a billion dollars. They housed around 30,000 offenders in some twenty-plus facilities, on contract with federal, state and local governments. Their annual report talked about Prostatis's business model, how they required a steady stream of income, a certain number of beds filled, reliable profits for their shareholders. It came down to occupancy rate, as much as anything else. Like they were running some kind of hotel.

A hotel with a government contract guaranteeing 90% occupancy and a certain charge per bed.

“Our fully modernized facilities and state-of-the-art technology enable us to promote staffing efficiencies,” the annual report said.

Meaning fewer guards.

Prostatis was guaranteed a price per inmate, and the lower the operating cost, the more of that money they got to keep. What other corners were getting cut Michelle wondered.

Prostatis advertised its prison labor force on the company's website.

“Correctional work opportunities promote individual responsibility by offering offenders a chance to pay back their debts to society and learn valuable new skills. We are privileged to play a part in inmate rehabilitation through labor and also to offer cost-effective, high-quality workers for some of America's best companies. Our inmate workers provide staffing for industries ranging from computer, garment and aviation manufacturing to telemarketing to farming and harvesting. We are especially honored to produce helmets, bulletproof vests and more for our armed forces.”

At nineteen cents an hour, with no benefits. She'd found that number with a little extra Googling.

The annual report also dealt with potential risk factors for investors.

“Demand for our services is greatly influenced by local, state and federal law enforcement and judicial practices. Increased leniency in enforcement, sentencing and parole policies, as well as the decriminalization or legalization of activities previously classified as criminal, could result in a decreased demand and therefore smaller than forecast profits.”

The CEO of Prostatis made $2.5 million a year. Randall Gates, the CFO, made $1.7 million.

It wasn't hard to see what stakes Michael Campbell and Randall Gates had in steering Safer America's priorities in certain directions.

What about Debbie Landry? She came across like a typical society lady—one invested in her charities and fundraisers, because that was what you did in her position.

Like I used to do, Michelle thought.

But she couldn't assume this was all there was to Debbie. She couldn't assume anything about any of these people.

Like Matthew Moss. He had to be getting something out of this beyond travel expenses to make speeches. No way he was doing all this for free.

And Steve? She didn't even know his last name.

x
x
x

The staff meeting wasn't
all that interesting. Porter was there, but there was no one else from the board meeting except for Caitlin. Instead it was the VP of Development, the Managing Director, the Director of Communications, the Events Manager, some assistants, people Michelle had met in passing or hadn't met at all, cloistered as she generally was with Caitlin in her River Oaks home.

The campaign to defeat Prop. 275 and Prop. 391 had a name now: “The Coalition to Protect Our Communities.” The event in Los Angeles was “a great success.” They hoped for great things in San Francisco, though this event would be “smaller scale, in a more intimate setting.”