Of Superior Design

by Matt Rogers

  Chapter 28

  Both men knew what they had to do, they just didn’t like the fact.

  “Call him.”

  “You call him.”

  “You’ve already established a report with him.”

  “He hangs up on me!”

  “I didn’t say it was a good report.”

  They knew where they were and knew what needed doing to further their chances for success. Neither liked to admit they needed help but were not so stupid they couldn’t see the facts staring them in the face.

  “Fine, I’ll do it, but you owe me.”

  Wesson didn’t answer Smith’s statement for he felt silence was always the better answer to unsubstantiated declarations based on flimsy logic. Smith didn’t want to interact with the man because he was tired of getting shut down in mid-sentence. Still, it didn’t mean it was Wesson’s turn to take over. Why should he ruin a perfectly good non-relationship because Smith had telecommunication issues?

  “Hello, Nat?” he heard his partner say into the phone.

  “Hello, Detective Smith, have you found Mr. Johnson?” he heard back because Smith had switched it to speaker mode.

  “No, Nat, not yet ,but we think we have a lead. By the way, you’re on speaker phone and both Wesson and Joshua are here in the room with me.”

  There was a pause as the Detective-Butler digested the information. It must have been okay for he replied in greeting.

  “Hello, Detective Wesson. Hello, Joshua Stevens.”

  Both said hello back and the question posed.

  “Nat we’ve found something and we would like to know if we could gain access to a little bit of information?” Smith asked.

  They’d already attempted to run it through the normal channels but were, of course, blocked in their efforts involving anyone and anything to do with the LeTorque.

  “What have you found out, Detective Smith?”

  They didn’t really know for a fact and weren’t actually positive their reasoning had more to do with truth and circumstance or with gut instinct. It didn’t really matter, though, because they had no better lead and were fishing without a net.

  “We’d like to gain access to a family member of LeTorque.”

  The statement was left hanging in the air and the next step was up the man-servant.

  “Which family member?”

  Smith knew they were right but was a little leery in how he was going to put the revelation. One negative comment from the man on the other end of the line could sever any chance they had of following the trail. He took a deep breath and jumped in feet first.

  “We’ve got a member of the LeTorque married to the person you want found. She was last employed at a prison the LeTorque are in charge of and was the last person to see both the man found in Mr. Johnson’s closet and another man who held a strange relationship to the place of incarceration, a Mr. Steve Wazziznaim. From the video tape we enhanced it has become apparent we need information on a Melissa LeTorque, previously Melissa Ramos and we believe we have provided enough information to gain privilege.”

  The silence on the line was deafening. Both detectives and intern waited as the man who seemed to possess authoritative power over law enforcement information decided the outcome. Smith was nervous and Wesson excited. He wasn’t positive but he felt the man who went by Nat was actually doing the best he could for the two investigators. The more he thought he felt it was akin to a pair of individuals playing some weird mystery game where the rules were only known by them and the actual clue-solvers working indirectly under them. They could manipulate within certain parameters but not break the unwritten rules of the game. It seemed to him the LeTorque were actually Nat Hallowed’s opponents in some strange sort of way.

  “You are now granted privilege to the file of Melissa LeTorque.”

  The way he said it left the three wondering if they wanted the privilege after all. They asked why he said it in such a grave manner but were left in the dark once again for the phone was dead on the annoying butler’s end.

  “Did he hang up?” Joshua inquired.

  “You see what I mean!”

  “It really is rather rude.”

  They walked to their office for they were still in the back room where the digital enhancement equipment was stored. Joshua sat down at his desk and logged in to the secure database, he entered the name Melissa LeTorque and waited for the reply. It was almost instantaneous.

  “Wow!”

  “Hubba!”

  “My God that’s’ a gorgeous woman!”

  They were staring at her profile in wonderment. If she was indeed part of the family in which Miss Vivian LeTorque called her own then what they had was the best looking family in the history of families. It was with sad determination that Wesson tore his gaze from the loveliness which was Melissa LeTorque and perused down the digital file with his eyes. They lit immediately on one detail.

  “She’s had four jobs.”

  The information wasn’t so strange for one who looked the way she did and Wesson believed the woman probably could’ve gone through life without a single paying gig and be perfectly healthy doing so. It took no neural activity whatsoever to see perfection when it was so pleasurable to stare at and he knew if the woman were to come to him and ask for the coat off his back in the dead of winter on a deserted island without food, water or fire he would do so in a heartbeat. She was that attractive. The fact she held down any employment at all made him think she was an even prettier creature. She didn’t need to, there were men who specifically went to the highest stages in life to obtain what she offered. Lawyers, brain surgeons and movie stars would break their necks to get a shot at holding the woman’s hand.

  “Okay, we’ve got her currently acting as head of LeTorque Enterprises. Let’s click on the link and see what companies they own” Smith said, Joshua complied and Wesson smiled when they were denied privilege.

  “You knew it wouldn’t be that easy” he said.

  “Yeah, but I had to give it a shot” Smith answered.

  They scrolled down to her previous employment and found the answer to one of their circumstantial deductions.

  “Hey, check it out, we were right, the LeTorque do own the Mabank Correctional Facility” Smith said.

  The Public-Private partnership was listed because of the unique nature of the relationship. The public had a right to know who was running the camp designed to keep predators away from society so they were allowed access to the fact LeTorque Enterprises were the acting supervisors using a subsidiary company, Commercial Property Management Incorporated. It just didn’t say anything else. It had no bio, no business information for investors or anything else other than under ‘Supervising Authority’ the name ‘Commercial Property Management Incorporated, a subsidiary of LeTorque Enterprises’. They could easily deduce Melissa worked for them because the prison was named as her employer but other than the little blurb of at the bottom of her employment history it was as if the LeTorque had no interest in anyone knowing they were running a successful oil-producing prison without the need for normal security precautions because the convicts were so scared of getting eaten by roving wolves they refused to even attempt escape.

  “Where’s the Warden’s name?” Smith asked confusingly.

  “Why would her name be on here?” Joshua asked.

  “Because she’s the acting supervisor and Melissa’s boss” Wesson replied.

  The information was strange because it wasn’t so much redacted as it was left out altogether. There were no fuzzy images or blackened lines with special security clearances needed. Other than the one link from LeTorque Enterprises which they couldn’t even access there was virtually no additional information about the prison whatsoever. No mention of oil, no mention of a warden, no mention of watch-wolves, no nothing at all.

  “Is this little amount of information normal?” Joshua asked.

  “No, Joshua, nothing about this case is normal” Wesson answered.

&
nbsp; They scrolled down to find the two other places of employment the sexiest fugitive alive was reported to have worked for and found a land survey company followed by a blood bank.

  “Land Surveyors Incorporated?” Smith said.

  “How long ago did she work there?”

  “Six years ago.”

  “I have a very bad feeling about this” Wesson added.

  “Why? What so bad about Land Surveyors Incorporated?” Joshua asked.

  The answer, of course, had nothing to do with the company itself but instead had to do with what the company specialized in. They’d called the company after again getting nowhere with any links on the file they were in. They even had to look up the phone number to the company from an outside website service because they couldn’t access anything from Melissa LeTorque’s file. What they found out merely reinforced their earlier suspicions.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this Land Surveyors Incorporated?”

  “Yes.”

  It seemed a little strange to Smith because it was as though he weren’t talking to a company but instead a person who just happened to pick up their phone line.

  “Um, I’ve got a question.”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, I don’t know how to ask this but suppose I have a mother with slight bit of dementia who seems to think her land is sitting on top of an oil field.”

  “Yes?”

  “Well do you have some sort of discount rate to come out and prove to her she doesn’t have any oil under her property?”

  The answer to his oral question was unimportant. The answer to his unasked question was in the way she declined the invitation.

  “Mr..?”

  “Oh, sorry, the name’s Smith, Mr. Smith.”

  “Well Mr. Smith, we don’t have anything like what you’re suggesting. We can come out and do a sonar survey to verify if there’s a possibility for oil but it’s a pretty expensive piece of equipment we’re talking about and if you don’t think your mother is in the right state of mind…”

  “She’s not, she’s got early Alzheimer’s.”

  “Well I’m very sorry to hear that, Mr. Smith, but I’m afraid we cannot be of help to you.”

  “Well, thank you very much anyway.”

  “You’re welcome, goodbye.”

  The answer was in the denial of a service they most definitely provided.

  “Crap!” Smith exclaimed.

  “What?” Joshua asked.

  “Land Surveyors Incorporated can be hired to search for oil” Wesson said by way of answer.

  Joshua hadn’t been present at the prison. He hadn’t seen what the two detectives had so Wesson filled him in.

  “The prison is sitting on an oil field pumping out profit by the second. The oil field was located beneath a Wayward Youth Facility before it was torched and the prison began exploiting it. The Youth Facility was on land owned at the time by Bob Simpson’s mom. His mother’s neighbor was a man named Steve Wazziznaim. Steve bought his land because he believed it and his neighbor’s land had oil underneath it. Why do you think Steve would think that?”

  “Because he had someone do an oil survey?” Joshua answered.

  “Exactly. He had someone do a sonar survey and found oil.”

  “And you think it was Land Surveyors Incorporated?”

  “I’m not one-hundred percent positive but I’m pretty certain there are a lot of things which need to be incredibly spectacular coincidences if it isn’t” the pudgy investigator replied.

  “Like what?”

  “Well, for starters, the fact the person who is now listed as the chairwoman for the company running the prison was once employed by a survey company which performs oil exploration services.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. Hey, run a check on the Wayward Youth Facility” Wesson said.

  “What am I looking for?” Joshua asked.

  “Um, the parameters of the contract. Just he overall design of how long it was to be funded, what its population was going to be, what kind of deal Bob’s mom got on the thing, stuff like that.”

  Joshua nodded his head and began his computer search. Meanwhile smith and Wesson began comparing notes.

  “We’re screwed.”

  “I know.”

  The principle was the problem, both morally and monetarily. Craft and Sons held to an ethics code which long-term would serve the company well; if they came across criminal activity which involved their clients they were to sever their ties and withdraw their services. The dilemma was short-term. As of that moment they didn’t know if Jonathon Johnson was engaged in criminal activity or not but it was beginning to appear his family was. If they delved any deeper they were fairly positive they were going to come up with some deviant behavior and unless Johnny had nothing to do with it they would need to quit. Quitting was never a favored action and it was fouler when the result would be a loss of income they had not yet determined the sum to be.

  “Got it” Joshua said and the two went to stare once again over his shoulder.

  “How long was the lease?” Smith asked.

  Joshua scrolled down to the answer.

  “Ninety-nine years.”

  They were not surprised. Most private-public ventures were done with the century mark minus one for the general idea of the ventures being both for the public good and private profit. When income was split the private sector generally enjoyed a little latitude on the time-frame needed to recoup their investment.

  “How much was the payment to Bob’s mom?”

  “Three-thousand a month.”

  It wasn’t an overwhelming amount considering the size of the Youth Center but, then again, it wasn’t as though a little old lady with a son going to prison for tax fraud through migrant workers had a whole lot of other income opportunities.

  “Who ran the Youth Center?”

  Joshua scrolled down and even though they been surprised the realization came as a shock.

  “Commercial Property Management Incorporated.”

  “Seriously?” Smith asked incredulously.

  “Hey, is that…?”

  “Yes, Joshua, it is” Wesson answered.

  “And aren’t they the ones…?”

  “Yep, they’re the ones pumping prison petroleum.”