The Dish Dog

By Peter Davidson

Someone is operating the largest stock market insider trading scheme in the history of the United States that is making millions of dollars in illegal profits. Whoever it is, has access to secret information about numerous major corporations before the information is made available to the general public. Perhaps it is a nationally-known radio or TV host of a financial program, a financial journalist, or maybe even a Pulitzer Prize winner.
The perpetrator of the insider trading scheme has hidden their identity and covered their tracks through layers of elusive actions that all seem to lead nowhere. But, the perpetrator may not have planned on a brilliant FBI forensic accountant, Dr. Kimberly King, doggedly leading the investigation to uncover their identity and to put them out of business and into jail.

The Dish Dog is set mostly in New York City, with scenes in the heartland and in a tropical paradise. The story has a unique ending that many readers will applaud.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter Davidson
• Release date: Jan 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215735015

Peter Davidson

Peter Davidson is a freelance writer and has been, among other things, a restorer of antiquities from around the world, a writer and director of documentaries on World War II and related subjects for the History Channel, and a tutor on the Politics, Philosophy and History degree at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the co-author of Milestones of Civilization.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Harley Ross is a thirty-one year old busboy at the most prestigious restaurant in America, Dominique’s of New York.

Dominique’s is frequented by the power elite – bankers, stockbrokers, politicians, celebrities, literary agents, sports figures, Fortune 500 executives, and others of their ilk. If there aren’t at least two billionaires in the place, it’s considered to be a slow night.

As Ross cleans off tables, his eyes dart around the room, taking mental snapshots of the guests. And, he listens; his ears are so finely tuned that he could hear an ant fart a hundred yards away.

Most of the conversations are boring and meaningless. But, when a high-powered businessman, politician, or celebrity leans close to their companion, glances around to be assured that no one is listening, and talks in hushed tones, something big is up. That’s when his antenna goes up and he trains his bionic ears in on the conversation.

Oh really! Hmmm.

He can tell within twenty seconds if a couple is man and wife or if it’s a business trip, as some people prefer to call it. If the man says some sappy thing and she laughs her fool head off, it’s some guy with his mistress. On the other hand, if the woman looks at him as if to say, You dumb shit, it’s his wife. As some of the waitstaff says, You could have a pretty good side hustle with a camera in this place.

Ross works five nights a week, from five p.m. until closing at one a.m. He is paid eighteen dollars an hour, which may not sound like much in New York City, but the servers also give him five percent of their tips, cash. But, there is another side to Harley Ross, or two, that some people might find intriguing, or even admire.

$$$

Harley Ross returned home to his apartment at around 2:00 a.m. after a particularly busy and interesting night at Dominique’s of New York. Five members of the New York Giants football team had reserved a private dining room and ran up a tab of over $31,000, including six bottles of Chateau Le Pin at $4,000 a bottle. They tipped the waitstaff $6,000, of which Harley received $300. Another interesting table was an aging movie star with a shapely young thing that looked young enough to be his granddaughter. Well, if you’ve got it, you’ve got it.

Harley entered the front door of his apartment building, grabbed his mail from his mailbox in the entry area, and climbed the flight of stairs to his apartment. He entered his apartment, flipped on the light switch, and glanced around; everything looked in place. You don’t get much for $3,000 a month in New York City: an all-purpose room that serves as kitchen, dining room, den, TV room, and office, a small bathroom with a really small shower, and a bedroom large enough for a double bed and one small dresser. Oh, and a closet large enough to accommodate everything a single guy like Harley Ross owns, but a married couple would have a helluva fight on their hands for closet space.

Harley thumbed through the mail - bills from AT&T and Con Edison, an advertisement from a furniture store, and a distinctive green envelope that he knew at a glance was from Emerald Investment Strategies.

He threw the bills and junk mail on the kitchen counter, grabbed a knife from the butcher block and sliced open the Emerald Investment Strategies envelope. He removed the letter and unfolded it. The format was the same as always, with the bold company name embossed in gold leaf on the crisp bond paper. He held the letter in front of himself and read.

Dear Mr. Ross,

Since our last investment strategies letter, the Federal Reserve has lowered the prime rate by a one-quarter point, which has been largely responsible for the S & P increasing by nearly two percent.

ALERT: We recommend that you buy McClintok Mining (MCMG) common stock within two days of receiving this investment letter. Sell your shares when the price makes a significant price increase, expected within four days of your receiving this letter.

Mail your $5,000 fee to Emerald Investment Strategies, P.O. Box 1497, United States Postal Service, 185 Clinton Street, New York, NY 10002.

Remember, if you do not submit your fee within two days, you will not receive another investment letter. Happy Investing. And remember, Loose Lips Sink Ships.

Harley smiled to himself when he finished reading the letter. The first paragraph is the same stuff you could read in any newspaper or on the internet, thrown in for fill, no doubt. The real purpose of the letter was the Alert, which had never failed and was worth the $5,000 fee.

Harley poured himself a Crown and Coke and sat down at the folding chair next to the card table holding his laptop. After about ten minutes of checking the news, Harley grabbed a spiral notebook from a stack of them on the corner of the card table. He flipped to a blank page and spent twenty minutes writing furiously.

He sorted through a half dozen 9 x 12 manila envelopes in a paper box on the floor beside the card table, his version of a file cabinet. He found the envelope with the heading, Emerald Investment Strategies, and inserted today’s letter. Within ten minutes Ross was headed to bed. The stock market opened in seven hours and he wanted to make his trade before the McClintok Mining stock started its meteoric rise.

$$$

Harley Ross awoke at 9:15, pulled on his pants, shirt, and socks, threw some water on his face, and went straight to his laptop. At 9:32 he signed into his brokerage account and checked the price of McClintok Mining stock. It was at $20.26 a share, up four cents from the previous day’s closing price. He checked his account. There was no investment in stocks, bonds, or other securities, just a cash balance of $268,758.95. He entered the price per share, $20.26, into his calculator and multiplied it times various numbers, seeking the perfect number of stocks to buy.

Finally, he decided on 8,000 shares. He entered the information and clicked on Place Order. Within seconds, Harley Ross was the proud owner of 8,000 shares of McClintok Mining stock purchased at $20.26 per share for a total cost of $162,080.

Harley pulled his checkbook from the paper box on the floor and wrote a check for $5,000 to Emerald Investment Strategies. Worth the money, he said to himself as he addressed the envelope exactly as the investment newsletter had instructed. Technically, he had two days to mail the letter, but he always mailed it promptly in case there was a mail glitch or delay. In no way did he want to sever his tie with Emerald Investment Strategies.

$$$

Four days after Harley Ross received the Emerald Investment Strategies newsletter, McClintok Mining Company announced that it was merging with Allegheny Mining Company, to take place in one month. The price of McClintok Mining stock jumped to $25.87 per share, up over $5.00 from his purchase price of $20.26 per share.

Harley sold his 8,000 shares immediately, receiving $206,960. After deducting his cost for the stock of $162,080 and his $5,000 Emerald Investment Strategies fee, he still netted $39,152. Just the way Harley liked it, a nice profit, not greedy, and not drawing attention.

CHAPTER 2

He stepped out of the taxi and told the driver, Wait for me; I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.

In any other city or town in America, he would have looked suspicious with the over sized dark sunglasses on a cloudy day, the brim of his ball cap pulled low over his face, and the collar of his jacket pulled up high, covering half of his face. But, in eclectic New York City where two-thirds of the people on the street look suspicious, he fit right in.

He walked into the U.S. Post Office on Clinton Street, slowly, casually, like he didn’t have a care in the world, but his eyes swept the area for anyone who looked out of place. Inside the post office, he made his way to the post office box section and looked at a few posters on the wall while he nonchalantly looked around to see if anyone seemed to be checking out people coming and going from the section. When it seemed that the coast was clear, he walked directly to Box No. 1497, quickly inserted the key, opened the box, and grabbed the envelopes from the box without looking at them. He stuffed the envelopes into the inside pocket of his jacket, closed the door to the box, and headed straight for the door he had entered less than a minute before, all the while keeping his head low, the cap’s brim down, and the jacket collar up.

He got into the taxi and said Harmon Hotel on Stanton Street.

He put the sunglasses in his pocket, turned the collar of his jacket down, and folded the ball cap and stuck it in a jacket pocket.

The taxi pulled into the taxi lane at the Harmon Hotel, he handed the driver $40 and told him to keep the change, and got out.

He walked into the hotel lobby and settled into a chair along the wall. He appeared to be checking something on his cell phone but he was more interested in the people coming and going from the hotel. After a few minutes, and being convinced that no one had followed him, he walked down the street a few blocks, hailed a taxi, and said Houston Street Public Library Branch on East Houston.

He found a table in the back of the library where nobody was seated within twenty feet of him. He pulled the envelopes from his pocket, all addressed to Emerald Investment Strategies. He put a pair of cloth gloves on his hands and withdrew a small penknife from his jacket pocket. He sliced open the envelopes; there were eleven of them and each contained a check for $5,000. He methodically checked off the names of the payors on his checklist. Everyone had paid. He spread out the eleven checks on the table in front of himself, face down, and withdrew a rubber stamp from his jacket pocket. He removed the protective cover and Bam, Bam, Bam…he stamped the top edge of each check with the words, For Deposit Only, Emerald Investment Strategies.

He put the cover back on the rubber stamp and put it in his pocket. He pulled an envelope from his pocket, bearing postage stamps, addressed to Deutsche Bank, 345 Park Avenue, New York City, NY 10154. He removed a sheet of white typing paper, folded in thirds, from the envelope. He inserted the eleven checks and a deposit slip for $55,000, that he had previously prepared, inside the sheet of paper and inserted it in the envelope. He sealed the envelope and slipped it into his jacket pocket.

He grabbed the eleven empty envelopes that were addressed to Emerald Investment Strategies and walked out of the library. He dropped the eleven empty envelopes into a trash container in front of the library and dropped the letter addressed to Deutsche Bank into a post office deposit box near the street corner.

That went well.

$$$

Two days after mailing the deposit to Deutsche Bank, he logged into the Emerald Investment Strategies account using an untraceable burner phone. The $55,000 deposit had been made earlier in the day.

He entered $55,000, entered a bank routing number and the 13-digit number to his offshore numbered account, and clicked on Transfer Funds. Instantly, the balance of the Emerald Investment Strategies account dropped from $60,600.00 to $5,600.00. The money was safely tucked away, far from prying eyes.

The burner phone had served its purpose and he would use a new one next time, so he smashed it to pieces. He put the pieces in a small sack and would drop it in a trash container along the sidewalk in a matter of minutes. You could never be too careful.

He believed in caution, a strict routine, and a low profile, and he had meticulously designed every move and step of the process down to the most minute detail, such as switching taxis when picking up the envelopes from the post office and using a burner phone to transfer the funds. It had served him well for nearly five years now. Perhaps someday he would quit while he was ahead, or if things got hot he might be forced to give it up. But for now, the system was running like a well- oiled machine.

One step of the process that he had struggled with in the beginning was keeping the bank routing number and the secret number of his offshore bank account available to him, yet secure, in case someone ransacked his apartment, found them, and figured out how to use them.

He had memorized both sets of numbers, but it would be easy to transpose a couple of digits or to simply forget one of the numbers. Finally, he hit upon a solution to put the numbers in code. He could even leave the numbers in plain sight and no one could figure them out unless they knew intimate details of his personal life. Here is the code to his thirteen-digit account number:

A. A number calculated by adding the first and last numbers of my social security number and then subtracting two.

B. A number calculated by adding the first two digits of the year my mother was born and adding the last digit of the year my father was born.

C. A number calculated by adding all the digits of the year my brother was born and subtracting four.

Well, it goes on like this through the letter N, which amounts to fourteen digits. Only thirteen of the fourteen digits described in this manner are used, and he knows which one of them is not included. The nine-digit routing number of the offshore bank account was identified using this same system.

Caution, and routine, that was the key.

CHAPTER 3

Kimberly King graduated from Washington High School in Sioux Falls, South Dakota with a 4.23 grade point average on a 4.00 scale.

Kimberly, who prefers to be called K.K., earned her bachelor’s degree in accounting from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California in three years. At age twenty-four she received her Ph.D. in accounting and taxation from Harvard University Business School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

K.K.’s grandfather, Harbert King, founded King Dynasty Trust Management, LLC in 1989. In 2005, K.K.’s father, Elliott, took over operation of the company.

The state of South Dakota has the most unique trust laws in the United States, known as Dynasty Trusts. In essence, these trust laws allow a person from anywhere in the United States to shield their assets from creditors, ex-spouses, lawsuits, former business partners, and just about everyone else by placing assets in the trust. Furthermore, the trust helps avoid the payment of federal and state inheritance taxes, and state income taxes on assets in the trust. In reality, the South Dakota Dynasty Trust laws are designed for the super-wealthy, the super-super-wealthy. King Dynasty Trust Management clients’ names are top secret and are guarded carefully. But, in general, they include founders of worldwide-known tech and social media companies, heirs to automobile, oil, retail, and banking fortunes, and one of the world’s most successful musicians.

When she was nine years old, K.K. discovered Nancy Drew mystery books and over the next three years, she read more than 100 of them. Nancy Drew was brilliant, witty, clever, resilient, and resourceful and she believed in doing what was right, exposing wrongdoing, and finding truth and justice.

K.K. loved Nancy Drew and everything that she stood for. Nancy Drew became K.K.’s role model. Even as K.K. studied calculus, cost accounting, tax law, business law, corporate law, corporate taxation, and other heavy-duty academic courses in college and graduate school, she still slipped in a Nancy Drew book for fun now and then.

It was Elliott King’s dream that his only child, Kimberly, would join the firm after college and eventually take over management when he decided to retire. K.K. had spent summers working at the firm during high school and her first four years of college. She was a natural, absorbing everything faster than most people with decades of experience in banking and finance.

That was K.K.’s goal, too, to join her father in the family business after she finished college, but having spent three years in sunny southern California and four years at Harvard, with weekend Amtrak trips to New York City, she saw a whole new world waiting for her out there.

K.K. walked into her father’s office and he jumped to his feet with a huge smile on his face. He reached her in five quick strides and gave her a tight hug. He placed his hands on her shoulders and held her at arm’s length as he shook his head in admiration. "Doctor Kimberly King! Whoever thought that somebody in our family would earn a doctorate! Your mother and I are so proud, just out of this world.

So, he continued with a smile on his face, are you ready to roll up your sleeves and help your dad run this place?

Daddy, she said, I appreciate the opportunity to work with you, but I’ve been thinking that maybe I should chart my own path, make my own way.

Elliott was silent for a moment and then took a deep breath as her words sunk in. What would you do? he asked. I really had no clear vision of what I wanted to do with my life until I took a couple of courses in Forensic Accounting at Harvard, K.K. said.

She continued as excitement rose in her voice, Forensic accountants investigate wrongful or suspicious financial activity by a company, person, government, foreign country, or just about anybody that handles money or assets of value. They investigate fraud, insider trading, drug dealers, white-collar crime, bankruptcies, and all types of wrongdoing. I could help make the world a more honest and just society for people to live in.

Nancy Drew! You want to be Nancy Drew!, her father said as enlightenment washed over him.

I could do it, Daddy, I really could, K.K. said, but I want your approval and blessing. Can I have it, Daddy, can I have your approval and blessing?

How could I say no to Nancy Drew! he said as he hugged her tightly and tears streamed down both of their cheeks.

CHAPTER 4

Kimberly King’s professor for the Forensic Accounting courses that she took at Harvard was Dr. Magnor Olson. Dr. Olson had spent twenty-six years as a full-time forensic accountant for the FBI and even now, as a tenured Associate Professor at Harvard Business School, he still handled an impressive caseload for the FBI at age seventy-three. His work was instrumental in unraveling the financial mysteries at Enron, the bribery of U.S. Senator Howard Blake, the looting of Wickett Corporation by its founder when the company went public, the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, and everything in between.

When K.K. had shown exceptional insight into forensic accounting, Dr. Olson asked her if she had ever considered the field as a career. She replied that she had thought of nothing else since the first two weeks of the course.

Dr. Olson explained that even though forensic accountants are employed in major public accounting firms, various government agencies, non-profit organizations, and corporations, the pinnacle for a forensic accountant is at the FBI. That’s where the action is, he said, big cases, mind-boggling complicated and challenging, and extremely rewarding as you provide a service to the citizens of your country. And, sometimes you even get to carry a gun!

How would I go about applying for a position with the FBI? K.K. asked. I’ll finish my doctorate in two months but I don’t have much work experience; I’ve spent the past six or seven years in college.

How old are you? Dr. Olson asked. I’m twenty-four K.K. replied.

Good! The minimum age for the FBI is age twenty- three, Dr. Olson replied. There are certain work experience requirements, which you may not have, but since you have an exceptional academic background, it’s possible that can be overlooked, or something else can be substituted for it. In the FBI, we know how to work around things to get the job done. Here’s what I think you should do next

$$$

K.K. followed Dr. Olson’s suggestions, which included taking and passing the Certified Public Accountant exam, receiving