“It’s like this was a furnished rental rather then any kind of a full time residence. Everything is generic and void of personal touches.” Dillon stood in the middle of the living room area with a scowl on his face. “Even the entertainment system is bare bones and generic.”
“How long has she owned this place?” Lou asked.
“I’ll have to check on that. I left my tablet in the car so it wouldn’t get wet.” Dillon said as he walked back into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator as if he was looking for something specific. “Even the fridge is generic. Milk, butter, eggs, orange juice, bottled water, even the milk is organic so it could sit here a while. It all seems staged to me. What about you guys?”
“She have a garage?” Vinny wondered aloud and Dillon headed out front.
“He’s pretty sharp.” Lou decided it was time to let Vinny know she approved. “His sense of humor is a little green but I give it two days to shake that off.”
“Are you kidding? I give it until the end of the day.” Vinny grinned at her.
“Probably.” She grinned back. “He’s right about this place though. It’s too generic. The kitchen looks barely used too. All I found were two wine glasses broken in the sink and an empty bottle of Cabernet in the trash bin. No refuse, scraps, nothing to suggest any meal had been made and the pots look like they are fresh out of the box.”
“And there are only settings for four, even the silverware.” Dillon added as he walked back in. “It’s like someone did a quick run through Target and bought the basic necessities then stuck them in the cupboards.”
“Anyone check the trash outside?” Lou looked at both men.
“I just did when I couldn’t find a garage.” Dillon was frowning. “They are empty and look like they’ve been used only once or twice. I am having one of the deputies walk up and down the street to run all the cars, see if one of them is Boone’s”
“What race car driver do you know doesn’t have their own every day toy to drive around?” Vinny stood in the center of the living room with his hands on his hips. “And where are all her trophies? This stinks to me.”
“Agreed.” Lou looked around the trashed beach house. “We need to do some digging.”
“I’m going to go knock on some doors and see if any of the neighbors can tell us anything about this woman.” Dillon announced then headed back out again.
“Fifty bucks says you get the standard ‘She was quiet, kept to herself, rarely saw her’ spiel from everyone.” Lou was starting to think Angela Boone only existed for Casius Arcano.
“That’s a sucker bet but we gotta start somewhere.” Dillon waved at her as he exited the house. “Give me fifteen minutes. Don’t leave me here!”
Vinny laughed because the thought had crossed his mind that it would be an excellent joke to take off without Dillon. There were plenty of deputies around so he could have hitched a ride but the fact that the same thought occurred to Dillon was yet another mark in his favor. A big one at that.
Lou and Vinny spent another several minutes going over the first floor but both decided that it was a waste of time. If there was anything helpful it was going to be found by the forensic team and they had to get out of the way for them to do the job properly. They got to the car just in time as another torrent of rain hit. Dillon was already in the back seat tapping away on his tablet by the time they got there.
“You were right about the neighbors.” He told Lou. “This Boone lady, we need to find out why she didn’t exist before five years ago.”
“Witness protection?” Vinny suggested.
“If we get a call from the feds then we will know for sure.” Lou figured they would have heard from their captain by now if that was the case.
“I need to talk to Arcano’s sister again, and his assistant.” Dillon set his tablet aside. “They seemed to know her at least a little. Maybe they can give us something more to go on.”
“Maybe.” Lou doubted it. “I honestly don’t think we are going to get a real I.D. on this woman by conventional means. Arcano’s assistant said he broke up with her in Costa Rica?”
“Yeah, and left her there when they were vacationing together.” Dillon recounted. “He said that Arcano caught her having an affair with the cabana boy or someone like that and then he flew home without her. That was supposedly the end of that.”
“Interesting.” Lou muttered.
“Why is that so interesting?” Vinny asked her.
“Because our headless brothers made frequent stops in Costa Rica. It would be really interesting if they made one of those stops the same time Arcano and Boone were there.”
“That would be really interesting.” Dillon concurred. “How do you know that was one of their stops?”
“Probably one of her secret contacts.” Vinny grinned. “Now that she’s all buddy-buddy with Aegis International big wigs and knows the super secret handshake, she has resources we can’t touch normally.”
“What about admissibility?” Dillon was concerned.
Lou couldn’t believe she had flubbed so badly, spouting off knowing the travel routes of the Salazar brothers. It was pure luck that Vinny was thinking it was her security connections and she needed to be more cautious in the future. “Think of it as like breadcrumbs on a trail.” Lou reassured him. “We use it to point us in the right direction but we tie it all together in a nice legal and above board little bow for the D.A.”
“I’ll buy that.” Dillon shrugged. “So long as we get the bad guy and it sticks. I’ll take whatever help we can get.”
“We have a lot of work to do so I’m just gonna make a stop for us to grab sandwiches for lunch.” Vinny informed them.
“Sounds like a plan.” Lou approved, realizing her stomach was growling rather loudly. “We heading to Lost Hills?”
“Yeah, I ain’t driving to the Bureau in this rain if I don’t have to.” Vinny said as he flipped his windshield wipers to full steam.
They drove through the canyon at ultra cautious speed then made their stop at a small sandwich shop around the corner from the station. Lou was hoping things went smoothly for Frank and that he would be able to get back to her on Angela Boone before too much longer. It was not an option for her to head home to run the woman herself on her super system. She had to just wait and hope they came up with a lead the old fashioned way.
Max and his council had been making their home at a swanky Hollywood hotel since they arrived several weeks ago. They had a special arrangement with the owner who was well aware of their unique circumstances and made every effort to accommodate them. It was also extremely lucrative for the man, especially this time given Max had rented the entire top floor at a considerable mark-up for his trouble. After a few weeks Abby had suggested they rent a house but Frank and Niko felt that staying at the hotel was more secure until Max’s residence was finished. By Abby’s calculations, they had four more weeks to go, barring any major disasters.
When Frank arrived on their floor he was greeted by two hulking guards standing just outside the elevator doors. The heavily armed men nodded in greeting to him and Frank gave them cordial hellos before he headed straight for Max’s suite. The doors to all the rooms on the floor were kept propped open after Max decided he was sick to death of having to keep track of multiple key cards just to walk down the hall to ask a question. When he made the turn into Max’s room, Frank nearly ran headlong into Abby who was exiting at the same time.
“How’d it go?” She demanded.
“Fine.” He looked down at the diminutive redhead. “Hi to you too.”
“Hi. Sorry. So we got the permits?” She persisted.
“Yes! We got the permits. They are in my bag.” Frank rolled his eyes at her and proceeded into the suite.
“How’d it go?” Max echoed Abby as he came out of his bedroom to see Frank arriving.
“Fine! We have the permits!” Frank shouted.
“Someone is grumpy.” Abby scoffed as she waited for Frank to fish th
e paperwork from his bag.
“I am not grumpy. I am just wet and have a ton of things I have to get to.” Frank rifled through his bag and pulled out a manila folder then handed it to Abby.
“What’s up?” Max inquired.
“Besides the normal daily disasters with a side order of pouring rain which you know I hate?” Frank hung his soaking coat on the hook. “Lou needs me to run someone and do some research for her and it needs to be a priority.” Frank knew Lou was on to something. He trusted her instincts.
“Let me get these faxed off to the contractor and I’ll be right back to help you.” Abby flew out the door.
“You spoke with Lou already today?” Max appeared concerned.
“Yeah. She was at Angela Boone’s beach house which apparently had been torched.” Frank walked over to the kitchenette and fixed himself a cup of coffee.
“Who is Angela Boone?” Max didn’t recall the name.
“Casius Arcano’s ex-girlfriend.” Frank inhaled the steam from his cup. “Lou needs me to look for any reports of any cartel connections, run-ins, flags, any Sanguinostri consorting with any Colombian cartel or affiliated people. It’s a broad search but I think I understand what she is looking for.”
“Illuminate me then.” Max took a seat on the sofa and waited for Frank to explain.
It didn’t take long for Max to catch on after Frank started relaying what he knew about Angela Boone. When Abby returned they all got busy and within an hour they had already come up with several incidents that they needed to follow up with, all involving South American Aegis Council members. Max had known the Dominor, Victor Marcos, for centuries so he knew he would be the one to follow up on anything involving his Council.
Angela Boone was an enigma. This particular Angela Boone had absolutely no trace of existence before five years ago. There were several other Angela Boone’s but none of them was their girl. When they peeled back the layers it was clear that everything about their girl was fabricated right down to her being a race car driver. It was an extremely well funded fabrication with a false credit history, educational background complete with college transcripts. Everything anyone needed to establish themselves as a well to-do young woman in a jet set world. On a hunch, Abby ripped Frank’s laptop out from in front of him while hers was still scanning crime reports in Colombia.
“Hey!” Frank protested.
“Just wait, I have good reason.” Abby’s fingers clicked away at lightning speed and after just a few moments she grinned from ear to ear. “She was designed for Arcano and tossed out as bait.”
She spun the laptop around so Frank and Max could read. There on the screen she had two side-by-side windows, one showing Casius Arcano’s travel information for the past four years and the other window showing Angela Boone’s. Over a four year period, Angela Boone had conveniently been in the same location as Arcano. That was absolutely no coincidence.
“Lou needs to see this.” Max insisted.
“I’ll call her right away.” Frank pulled out his cell phone and started to dial.
“Do we know when Arcano and Boone started dating? Or when they actually met?” Abby asked.
“No, but Lou will know. Or she can find out.” Frank got up from the table while he waited for Lou to answer.
“Someone wanted Arcano and used Boone to get at him. We need to find out who she really is. Make sure we get a copy of her prints.” Max instructed Frank.
“So, we have a completely fabricated back-story with the paper trail starting five years ago.” Abby was thinking out loud. “It was almost exactly a year after that she started popping up in Arcano’s path. What was going on for that year?”
“That is a very good question.” Max pulled out his own phone and dialed.
“Who are you calling?” She asked but he only put up a finger, suggesting she wait a moment.
“Carpesh, do you have the Boone woman there yet?” Max paused a moment to let the assistant coroner answer but Abby couldn’t hear what the man was saying. “Tell Caroline when she examines the body to look for signs of plastic surgery. Have her get back to me first thing if she finds anything to suggest that her appearance had been altered.” He hung up immediately, not waiting for Carpesh to answer him.
“What are you thinking?” Abby asked, although she thought she had an idea.
“I am thinking that Angela Boone was recovering from surgery for that year.” He looked to see if Frank was off the phone with his detective yet. “Her appearance was altered to suit the role she was going to play.” It was a leap, but it was worth looking into.
“That is some serious deception if you ask me.” Abby said as she sunk back in her chair. “What would be worth going to all that trouble? Plotting such an elaborate plan for?” Abby couldn’t understand it.
“What would be worth using a stealth helicopter to air-lift a man and all his possessions away undetected?” Max reminded her of the additional circumstances.
“Good point.” She conceded but something on the screen caught her eye. “I think I was looking too hard.”
“What do you mean?” He got up and walked around so he could see what she was looking at.
“According to all her hard core fabricated stuff, whoever did this started it when she turned eighteen.” Abby was calculating. “Which would make perfect sense because that’s when she became a legal adult. But that is assuming she is really is actually twenty-three as indicated by these records.”
“She was a little young for him don’t you think?” Max sat back down on the sofa. “He was what? Mid-forties?”
“She was the perfect age for a guy like that.” Abby explained why. “Having a young thing like her fawn all over a guy who’s feeling like he’s getting old too fast. He didn’t stand a chance.”
“Perhaps. I am at a disadvantage where typical male issues like that are concerned.” He grinned at her.
“Perhaps.” She grinned back as she mocked him.
“OK!” Frank plopped down in the chair. “I was able to fill Lou in on what we’ve found so she can start digging to get her team up to speed. She said that it fit with how Boone’s beach house appeared, completely staged and void of anything personal.”
“The house is in her name.” Abby informed them as she resumed clicking away on the laptop. “It was bought last year, straight up with cash. Five million.”
“Where does someone like her, the fake her, get that kind of cash?” Frank appeared to be more confused.
“I’m digging into that but it’s going to take some time.” Abby’s fingers were going as fast as they could. “This is a pretty big conspiracy if you ask me.”
“With what Lou told me about the crime scene, those heads, everything, it’s all related.” Frank rolled up his shirtsleeves. “We have to figure out what the relationship between Arcano and those men was.”
“Who takes control of the business now that Casius is out of the picture?” Max was running it through in his head.
“I’ll have to look through the corporate documents to figure that out for sure but if we go by past history, Vargas took control temporarily when Luis Arcano died.” Frank started working two terminals at once. “You think it could be that obvious? The lawyer is behind this?”
“Pull everything you can on him. I doubt he is the great mastermind but he may very well be another pawn in the game.” Max got up and headed into his room. “I need to contact Victor and get a feel for what he may or may not know. I’ll be back.”
Max disappeared into the other room while Abby and Frank continued to dig through data. It was even more convoluted now then it had been before. Five people were now dead and they were all tied together somehow.
After speaking with Frank, Lou was grateful that Dillon had already hit on the possibility that Angela Boone was a false identity. She had hung back in the parking lot when they arrived at the station so she could discuss the situation with Frank in relative privacy. Vinny knew Lou had contacts that were not exactly
above board but she didn’t need him inquiring any further let alone him dragging Dillon along for the snoop. Stuffing her phone in her bag, Lou headed into the building and found Vinny and Dillon setting up in an empty conference room. They already had their laptops out and booting up but more importantly they were sifting through sandwiches, laying out napkins like place mats and rifling through condiment packets.
“Do we want sodas or coffee?” Dillon asked as he dug out a fist full of coins from the bottom of his bag.
“I’ll take an orange soda, please.” Lou didn’t want to ruin her lunch by washing it down with burned station house coffee.
“Me too. Thanks sport.” Vinny saluted him with a pickle.
“Three orange sodas coming up.” Dillon headed out to fetch their beverages.
“So what do you think?” Vinny asked with a mouth full of pickle.
“I think you are a barbarian.” Lou grimaced at his lack of manners.
“Sorry.” He swallowed before he spoke again. “You haven’t been around to police me. Toss a purebred in with mutts and ya get a fancy mutt.”
“How long you been holding on to that nugget?” Lou took her seat and unwrapped her sandwich.
“A few weeks.” Vinny grinned. “Vera’s sister used it on me at dinner one night. But I was referring to candidate number eight. What do you think so far?”
“I like him.” Lou was not about to voice her reservations to him. She did not want to stall Vinny’s moving up to lieutenant just because she was iffy about her new partner. “He’s got good instincts and a pretty good sense of humor.”
“So you think you can work with him permanently? He was watching her face like a hawk for any telltale sign of reservation.
“Absolutely.” Her answer was a little on the chipper side which was not her style. “He seems like he will be easy to push around. Easier than you even.” She grinned then took a bite of her sandwich.
“Very funny. I’m serious, Lou. The captain is putting the pressure on me. If it’s not Dillon, he’s gonna pick someone himself.” Vinny took his frustration out on a packet of ketchup, squirting it violently on his french fries.
Shadows of Deceit (A Series of Shadows) Page 16