“What’s wrong?” Anton looked over at Bernadette. The airline attendant looked at Bernadette with concern as well. They were stopped just before the entry of the plane.
“You don’t see it, do you?”
“See what?” Anton’s puzzled look turned to a grin of amusement.
“This girl is drop-dead gorgeous. A total 10 and Paul Goodman is two and a half tops. I got a bad feeling about this. We better find this guy soon.” Bernadette gave the phone back to Anton as they entered the plane and found their seats.
Bernadette reclined her seat as they leveled in flight and watched the expanse of the Rocky Mountains glide by underneath. A pattern was forming. The death of Nathan Taylor was linked to an invention by students at the University of Victoria. They were linked to Professor McAllen. The next few hours would determine were the next links would lead. Bernadette did not like the feeling it gave her. Bile rose in her stomach. It wasn’t from the bad airline coffee. It was the fear of what Professor McAllen was up to.
5
A light rain fell as the aircraft touched down on Vancouver Island. Bernadette peered out the airplane window and could just make out the terminal as a fog rolled in off the ocean. The neon sign for Victoria International Airport started to disappear into the fog.
Bernadette had been on this island only once before. She was eight years old, and travelling in a van with her mother and father. The band was Callahan Country Expression. Her father, Dominic Callahan, was the lead guitarist and her mother the lead vocalist. Her mother was beautiful, with long black hair, deep brown eyes, a smile that could light up a stage, and a voice that reminded people of Emmylou Harris.
They toured the entire island from one smoky bar to another back in the days when everyone smoked in bars, and second-hand smoke was what billowed out the tavern door. Bernadette slept amongst all the musical equipment in the back of the van, wrapped in a sleeping bag. Her mother would check on her between music sets. She was never happier. It was her fondest memory of her parents.
The airplane door opened. Cool moist air filled the airplane cabin and Bernadette dropped back into the present. Anton led the way and they followed the other passengers out of the airport terminal. Standing straight, as if too attention, a young brunette dressed in navy blue jacket and pants waved at Anton as they arrived.
Anton introduced agent Samantha Graves. “Detective Bernadette Callahan, this is Agent Samantha Graves . . . the very reason that Canada is safe from terrorists is because Samantha is here on the West Coast.”
Samantha laughed and gave Anton’s arm a small punch, “Detective, as you can see our agent is the best story teller in the Canadian Intelligence Agency.”
Bernadette instantly liked Samantha. She had an open style about her, and ready smile and she didn’t have the problem of taking herself too seriously. “Yes, I admit, I have been subjected to the great Italian story teller.”
Anton looked in mock surprise. “Ladies, you wound me deeply.” He walked with Samantha as they proceeded to her car. “Have there been any more developments since we last spoke?”
Samantha turned towards Bernadette as she was opening the trunk of the car, and Anton placed their bags in the back. “From the interrogations, it seems that Martin Popowich was the one working closely with Paul Goodman. The other two, Hirschman and Campbell, were mostly drinking buddies who thought the project was a joke. They stood by to make the video for Nathan Taylor, but claim they knew little about what they were actually up to.”
Bernadette sat in the back while Anton folded his long frame into the front of the mid-size car. They pulled away from the parking lot, and joined the highway for the half-hour trip into the city of Victoria. “Has anyone located the missing Paul Goodman?”
Samantha glanced into her rearview mirror to look at Bernadette. “We have the Victoria Police Force working on it. Goodman was last seen with his girlfriend, a Natalya Smirnoff, two days ago, and hasn’t been located as yet.”
Bernadette asked, “What do you have on this Natalya Smirnoff?”
Samantha looked back as she passed a car on the highway. “No such person. That’s a fake identity, and right now we are processing her facial recognition through all North American data bases.”
Bernadette reached forward in her seat and tapped Anton on the shoulder. “See, there you go, the moment I saw her picture next to Goodman’s I knew we had a problem—and really—with a name like Smirnoff?”
Anton looked over his shoulder, “What, you don’t believe in the power of love, or that an ugly man can attract gorgeous women?”
Bernadette looked out the window and said, “Sure, I believe in the fairy tale stuff all the time. But in real life—no. Real life says gorgeous babes go after men with money or good looks. What do you think, Samantha?” Bernadette turned and looked in her direction.
Samantha laughed. “Well, I remember the old saying you can love a rich man just as well as a poor man, but I’m with Bernadette—good looks carry a lot of weight.” She smiled in Anton’s direction. Her eyes did a quick tour up and down his handsome frame.
Anton, slide down in his seat. “You know, you ladies are a disgrace, and here I thought you had a higher moral code.”
Bernadette shifted more upright in her seat. She decided to change the subject, “Samantha, have you been able to access our university boys’ laptops and cell phones yet?”
Samantha slowed behind a motor home in the afternoon traffic, and looked only briefly into the review mirror as she focused on the road. “We have court orders for all their computers, cell phones and any documents in their dormitories, and we have all of them except Goodman’s. There’s already several defense lawyers at the law courts building trying to make any information we obtain inadmissible, but we doubt they’ll get far with that.”
“How so?” Bernadette asked.
“The heads of the Canadian Intelligence Agency in Ottawa have decided the only way the students could have devised this virus that attacked the pipeline was by using university computers. They have thrown section 342.1 of the Criminal Code at them, which makes it an offense to use a computer to commit a crime,” Samantha said. Her eyes widened as she threw out the criminal code.
“Doesn’t that sound a bit thin?” Bernadette countered.
Samantha laughed, “I know, but it’ll hold them for now. A team of Crown Prosecutors is in the process of issuing a Security Certificate, which will have the Defense Lawyers worked into a lather when they file it.”
“Isn’t that only used on foreign nationals or foreigners who’ve become permanent residents who are suspected of committing terrorist acts?” Bernadette said.
Anton turned his head towards Bernadette in the back. “The security scare over Canada’s oil has escalated the use of Security Certificate measures into a wider range. Al Qaeda has scared the oil industry with their announcement they wanted to shut down Canada’s oil supply to affect American Industry. An anti-terrorism squad was set up in Alberta back in June, called the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, or INSET. Of course, environmentalists and other groups are worried they can now be labeled terrorists,” Anton smiled broadly as he added, “and it looks like they were right.”
They said nothing more until they reached the Victoria Police Department Headquarters in downtown Victoria. Bernadette let a thought roll around in her head. The thought was of something else that surfaced. About a death here many years ago, but she submerged it; it was too painful.
They followed Samantha into Department Headquarters and were introduced to the person who had been leading the interviews of the three university students. Bernadette remembered the rooms being called Interrogation, but now the more politically correct “Interview Room” was used. The results were the same. “Keep them till they cracked,” was the motto.
The lead interviewer was Agent Assad Mohammad, a slight, well-dressed man in his late 30s with well-manicured hands. Bernadette had never seen a man with such good-looking
hands. He could have modeled rings for men in a jeweler’s catalogue. She tried to remember the last time she had a manicure; she couldn’t, so let it go.
Anton shook Assad’s hand. “Assad, good to see you, we haven’t crossed paths since training days back in Ottawa. Anton turned to Bernadette. “Assad here was one of the key interviewers who cracked the terrorist plot to attack Ottawa some years back. He looks smooth, but his powers of persuasion are legendary.”
“Glad to meet you Mohammad, and good to know you’re a force to be reckoned with,” Bernadette said as she took his hand. Hand lotion, Oil of Olay . . . the thoughts bounced in her head as she shook his hand.
Assad said, “Detective Bernadette Callahan, I am delighted to meet you. I have heard some stories of your powers of perception. These are things that cannot be taught in school, but must be learned over time. Some never learn them at all.”
Bernadette laughed, “You mean like most of our commanding officers and superiors?”
Assad was visibly shaken by Bernadette’s comments, “No, no, I meant nothing of the sort . . . I just meant . . . the powers of perception . . . and intuition . . . how they must be . . .”
Anton nudged Assad. “Now you can see how Detective Callahan is a force to be reckoned with . . . she’s just having fun with you, Assad.”
Assad laughed, “Yes, quite right, I forgot how you people here in Western Canada like to make fun of your superiors. Not something we are used to in Ontario.”
Bernadette was about to add a bit about the nature of superiors in Ontario and how they suffered from a condition called tight ass when a police constable approached them. He spoke quietly and briefly to Assad, and then left.
Assad looked at Anton and Bernadette, “They found Paul Goodman . . . or should I say they found his body.”
“Where?” Bernadette asked.
“Just over the bridge in a place called Esquimalt, in an apartment building. The landlord was looking for rent from the tenant, and the body he found was identified as Paul Goodman from his driver’s license.”
Bernadette looked at Anton, “I think you and I need to go to the crime scene. I’d like to see if there is any sign of this Smirnoff, and where she went.”
“You think she’s gone?” Anton said.
“She is long gone and my number one suspect,” Bernadette said as she saw Samantha approach. “Samantha, they found Paul Goodman very dead, and I’m betting the former beauty once known as Smirnoff was part of it.”
Samantha stopped in her tracks. “I just got a hit on the facial recognition software. Natalya Smirnoff is Zara Mashhadov, a known Chechen Terrorist. The Russians have been looking for her for years. Zara is known for acts of terrorism in both Russia and Chechnya.
“Damn, we need to put out an all points bulletin on her right now,” Anton said.
Bernadette raised her hand. “You can put the bulletin out, but my bets are that this Zara is no longer in the country.” She looked at Samantha, “You see how a women’s intuition is always dead on? A good looking women, and especially with a name like Smirnoff—what was Goodman thinking?”
6
Anton and Bernadette rode to the crime scene in a Victoria Police car with a young police constable. The apartment building was an older three-story walkup. A police constable guarded the door; tenants peered out of their doorways, and a man that Bernadette assumed was the building’s superintendent was being interviewed by a Victoria Police Detective. Bernadette looked inside the doorway of the apartment and motioned for the crime scene investigator standing over the body to come over to talk to her. She could not contaminate the crime scene.
Covered in full white polyester coveralls with only his facing showing out of a white hood, the CSI approached Bernadette. He was mid-thirties from what showed of his face, and missing a shave by one day. “How can I help you?”
Bernadette flashed her badge. “What do we have here?”
The CSI pointed his thumb in the direction of the corpse. “From our visual, we have blunt force trauma to the head. Looks like someone bludgeoned this guy to death with a cast iron frying pan we found close by. There’s hair and blood on the frying pan, so no mystery there. We estimate time of death around 8 or 9 a.m. yesterday.”
Anton turned to Bernadette. “Maybe she didn’t want to make him eggs?” He added his devilish smile. “Back in Sicily they call it un incidente in cucina, or a cooking accident. It usually happens when an Italian man returns home early in the morning with the scent of another woman on him.”
Bernadette shook her head. “You know, sometimes your Italian humor really does escape me—as in right now.” Turning back to the CSI she asked, “Did you happen to recover a laptop in the apartment?”
“Yeah, my partner did. He’s bagging it right now.”
“Okay, can you have that processed ASAP for prints and sent to CSIS Agent Samantha Graves at Victoria Headquarters? This is part of a major investigation.”
The CSI hesitated. “I don’t know. I’ll have to clear with my lead detective, and he’ll have to clear with his section chief.”
Anton pulled out his card and his badge. “Look, I hate to pull rank, but this is now a major investigation of national importance. Have your section chief call me, and I’ll clear it with your detective.”
“Sure, you know I just have to follow protocol. I don’t want a damn lawyer reaming me out in court later saying I didn’t follow procedure. Look the detective is in the hallway. You clear it with him, and it’s fine by me,” the CSI said.
Bernadette approached the detective at the doorway. He was writing notes, and sweating in the hallway. He was late fifties, dressed in blue jeans, striped shirt and a badly worn sports jacket. A necktie attempted to make him look professional. And it failed. Bernadette introduced herself and Anton while they flashed their badges and cards.
The Detective looked at their cards. “Impressive, we got a RCMP from Alberta and Canadian Security and Intelligence from Edmonton. What the hell was the deceased up to?” He stuffed his notepad in his pocket. “Detective Matt Letourneau, how long are you in town for?”
“Until we complete this investigation—this started with a suspicious death in Red Deer, and has led us here. We believe the deceased invented something that killed a person there, and has some potentially harmful implications for Canada’s oil security—which is as much as I can say for now,” Anton said.
“Well, thanks for letting me into the outer rings of the loop,” Letourneau said. “If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know.”
“We need the laptop found in the apartment to be sent to Agent Graves at your Victoria Headquarters and a positive ID on who rented this apartment,” Bernadette said.
“Sure, not a problem on both counts,” Letourneau said, pulling out his notebook again. “The person who rented the apartment was an Adalina Torres. The building superintendent said she was a cute little girl who said she was a foreign exchange student from Spain, and the passport she showed him confirmed it.”
Anton pulled out his phone and scrolled to the picture of Natalya Smirnoff with Paul Goodman. “Would you show this to the building superintendent, and ask him if this looks like Adalina?”
“Sure, just a sec.” Letourneau took the phone and showed it to the superintendent, who was still standing down the hall, wondering when he could call in the carpet cleaners, so he could rent the apartment out again
Letourneau returned the phone to Anton. “Yeah, he says the hair is different, never seen her as a blonde. Matter of fact, he said he only saw her when she rented the place about a month and half ago, and hasn’t seen her since.”
Bernadette looked at Anton, “Well, there you have it. Smirnoff to Torres to Mashhadov, this girl does some nice changes. I bet if we check the airport we’ll find out which passport she used to leave town.”
“You think she’s already left town?” Anton said as he dialed Samantha Graves.
Bernadette looked back into the apartment, �
��Yeah, I think she’s gone, and I think she got what she came for. Goodman—the poor bastard—had no idea what she was up to. I’ll bet we find out that these university kids were posting themselves and their Pipeline Killer invention on Facebook or YouTube. They got interest all right. It looks like international interest.”
Anton put up his hand as he speed-dialed his phone and connected with Samantha. “Hey Samantha, we think we have a travelling ID for Mashhadov. The apartment superintendent claims she was using the name Adalina Torres, and claiming to be a Spanish National. Yeah, see if she left through the Victoria Airport. Thanks. We’ll be back at Police Headquarters in 20 minutes. Any information on our suspects being interviewed?”
Bernadette watched Anton as he listened intently to Samantha; his face was going into contortions. “What’ve you got?” she finally blurted out when she couldn’t take the suspense anymore.
Anton closed the phone and put it in his jacket pocket. “Samantha accessed Martin Popowich’s laptop. He was hiding a mountain of cash in an offshore account in the Cayman Island
“How big a mountain?’
“A half-million US dollars,” Anton said back.
“Large Mountain, more than you and I’ll ever see unless we win the Lotto. So what’s a third year university student doing with that kind of cash? Sounds like Mr. Popowich has some questions to answer,” Bernadette said as she started down the hall, avoiding the two men pushing the coroner’s gurney. A black body bag lay on top of it.
Anton followed her down the hallway. “I think Mr. Popowich is in this very deep.”
“Yeah, this whole case is setting up to be another cluster of suspects behaving badly. I get a feeling that Mr. Popowich and his cash have lot to tell us,” Bernadette said over her shoulder. They walked into the bright West Coast sunshine. Bernadette looked up at the blue sky with wispy clouds floating by. “You know it’s a beautiful day about to turn ugly.”
Pipeline Killers: Bernadette Callahan. A female detective mystery with international suspense. (Book 2) Page 4