LD Gaudet put her hands over her face, and the weeping began.
63
LD Gaudet was crying softly as Heather and I slipped into the two chairs across from her desk. After a while, she opened a drawer and pulled out a Kleenex to wipe her eyes and her nose.
Finally she said, “I’m a mess, and not just what you’re seeing here on the surface.”
I nodded. I knew the feeling. “I’m not here to dig into your past, LD.”
“But you have, you must have, to say what you said just now about my past.”
“A private investigator I contacted in New Orleans knew about your family. About your father. And about Delbert Baldou, your uncle, who took you in when your father died. I just put the pieces together. But some pieces are still missing.”
She opened her mouth, and at first nothing came out.
I didn’t say a word, but I had a good idea what was coming.
LD said, “We came to New Orleans to stay for a few months over the summer with Uncle Delbert. My father had a new construction job and he would be traveling a lot. Dad took us to Six Flags down there as a treat because he was leaving the next day to head back north. I was in the girls’ room when . . . when Lucinda wandered off to look at something. And disappeared. Oh, poor Lucinda, she just vanished.”
As LD struggled to keep her composure, I gave her time.
After a moment, she continued. “My dad and I pushed the police to find out what was going on. There was talk among the detectives who were doing the investigation that her killing might involve some mysterious group. Abductions of girls. Human slavery. Even cult sacrifice. You can imagine my horror. . . .”
“Just barely . . .”
She kept talking. “I thought at the time, that if I ever do anything in life, it’s going to be in law enforcement to make a difference. To put a stop to this kind of evil. No more lives destroyed. Like Lucinda was. Like my family was.”
There were so many things I wanted to say but wondered where to start. Heather said them for me.
Heather was weeping softly, and her voice was broken when she said, “We are so, so very sorry for what happened to your family. Our hearts break for you. And please forgive us for having to bring up those painful memories.”
“I’m fine,” LD said. “I got counseling for a couple of months after it happened,” she said. “After they found Lucinda’s remains in the bayou.” She paused for a short, heavy-laden moment and added, “I’ve moved on. I guess.”
I said, “I know there’s an internal affairs team investigating the identity of the insider who’s running Chicken Fox Videos. And the possible connection between that criminal scheme and the deaths of Jason Forester and Paul Pullmen.”
Her eyes were clear of tears by then, and she was watching me closely.
I continued. “I know all the legal ropes the DOJ has tied around you in terms of confidentiality. But I also know that those rules might not stop you from bringing in outside consultants. So treat me as your consultant. You can talk to me within the scope of that consulting relationship. Right?”
LD was still studying me.
“I’m not new to this. I had that kind of relationship with Detective Dick Valentine at the NYPD.”
“Yes, I know,” she said.
“Of course, that’s right; you already talked to him.”
She tipped her head in a slight nod. “You really do have it nailed down, don’t you?”
“Not nearly enough. You mentioned ‘death by voodoo’ in your call to Dick, which is where this all started for me.”
“That’s because I knew the two of you had a relationship. I was hoping he would bring you into this.”
“But the voodoo connection . . .”
“As part of the team, I saw the actual FedEx letter that Jason Forester received. Remember, I may have been born up in Connecticut, but I spent a lot of time later in New Orleans with Uncle Delbert. I know voodoo when I see it. All the symbols. It’s all right there if you can recognize it.”
“And Paul Pullmen’s death?”
LD said, “I think you’re onto something about the manner of his death. The voodoo subcult of Palo Mayombe certainly fits.”
Heather jumped in. “But of course, nobody in the federal law enforcement field is ever going to hint about being a follower. . . .”
“Right,” LD said. “Which brings us to current status. Our team is getting bogged down. Maybe even blocked. As a result, we haven’t located the evildoer inside the federal system. Call it desperation, but that’s why I reached out to you via Dick Valentine.”
“Hence the digital voice distorter, so you could keep your distance.”
“We had one lying around in an evidence locker.”
“There’s a rush on this,” I said. “I heard the bad actors are going to ship all their female captives out of the United States soon.”
She was nodding. “And even more Internet chatter as of yesterday. We think it’s going to happen in the next twelve to twenty-four hours.”
It shouldn’t have hit me that hard, actually hearing the timeline narrowed down like that. But it did. “Anything else you can give me? Anything?”
She paused. “Okay. So, you’re here. You found me. Impressive. You’ve passed the test, consultant.”
I grinned.
She said, “Here goes. . . . I’ll share some intel with you. First, a code we’ve discovered.”
“Digital coding?”
“Yes.”
Heather jumped in. “You’re talking about the dark web? The networks that are sharing these child porn videos?”
“Exactly,” LD said. “I’ve been working with some Internet steganography experts, and we’ve located a code fragment that has appeared on the network protocols used by Chicken Fox Videos. It showed up three times. Used, I believe, as a type of kill order. It first appeared twenty-four hours before the death of Jason Forester. Then a day before the murder of Paul Pullmen. And after that, just before the very recent death of a Louisiana local that was contrived to look like a suicide.”
Heather said, “Henry Bosant. In Port Sulphur. A hanging.”
“That’s the one,” she said. “Meanwhile there are other code strands we think might also be kill directives. We’re still trying to decipher those.”
“What’s the code that you’ve identified?” I asked.
LD snatched up a pen, wrote something down on a small piece of notepaper, and shoved it over the desk to me.
Adj111C62
I asked the obvious question. “Any idea what it stands for, or is this just an operational cipher?”
“Haven’t the faintest. We located the code yesterday and our encryption guys are working on it.”
I wanted to know if she had something else to share, anything that would help me tag the culprit.
“Yes. One other thing,” she said. “Our foreign agents have picked up this one word in the dark net chatter. We think it’s linked to Chicken Fox Videos.”
“Just a single word?” I asked.
“Yes. The word was Matamoros.”
Heather asked, “The city in Mexico?”
“That’s one possibility,” LD said. “It popped up each of the three times that the kill-order protocol code also appeared.”
I wondered out loud if there was a deeper significance for the word.
Heather chimed in. “Matamoros is a Spanish word. It has something to do with a vision experienced by a Spanish king. As a result, during a war he ordered the slaughter of thousands of Moors.”
LD gave an admiring nod of the head. “Father and daughter. You guys make an impressive team.”
I said. “She’s the smart one. Me? I’m just persistent.”
“There’s another possible meaning too,” Heather said. “It has to do with a cult leader and drug dealer in Mexico by the name of Adolfo Constanzo. He was known as ‘the Godfather of Matamoros.’”
I asked LD whether his name rang a bell, but she shook her head no.<
br />
I had one last question. “The internal affairs task force looking into all this, is Gil Spencer in DOJ part of it?”
“Yes.”
“Anyone from the US attorney’s office for the District of Columbia part of the group?”
“No.”
“How about the attorney general himself, George Shazzar? Is he part of the team?”
“Nope,” she said with an air of certainty.
64
Before we left, I assured LD Gaudet of two things. First, that we would keep our meeting and the details she had revealed about her past and everything else strictly confidential. Second, I pledged to pray for her.
After thanking LD for her courage in speaking with us, we left the DOJ building. The note with the protocol code message written on it was securely tucked in my pocket, but I hadn’t the faintest what it meant.
I could think of only one next step. And it involved Gil Spencer, a member of LD’s internal affairs investigative team looking into the Forester and Pullmen deaths. On the other hand, Vance Zaduck had given me a dump truck full of reasons to stay clear of him.
As a preliminary, I called Zaduck at the US attorney’s office. I had something that I needed to ask him before my next move. But I was told he was in meetings and he would have to call me back. I couldn’t afford to wait for his return call before I reached out to Gil Spencer.
Heather stopped me on the sidewalk, right in front of the Nathan Hale statue. She announced, “I’ve got to get over to the Library of Congress. Right now. I’m only ten minutes away from the best information resource center in the world.”
“Fill me in.”
“Matamoros. I’ve got to research that beyond just an Internet search. There may be a deeper meaning behind that word. And I intend to find it.”
I told her that I would be running down Gil Spencer. I had no idea when, or if, I would be hearing back from Vance Zaduck, but our backs were against the wall. I still didn’t have a cell phone replacement, so I told Heather to hang on to mine, and I would pick up a cheap cell phone and try to track down Gil.
I felt uneasy about separating from Heather. On the other hand, I was proud of her initiative. And then there was that comment from LD about our father-daughter team. Amazing how great a simple thing like that can make you feel.
I told Heather, “Let’s plan on getting back together in three hours. I’ll call you.”
While we waited for a cab for Heather, I put in a call to Gil Spencer, and his secretary informed me he was in court. After explaining my past history with him and our being legal colleagues, I was able to ferret out from the secretary that he was arguing to oppose a Freedom of Information Act demand that had been filed against the Department of Justice.
“So,” I asked, “that means he’s over at the US district court?”
“Yes. 333 Constitution Avenue NW.” She gave me the courtroom number. A taxi pulled up and I wished Heather luck, gave her my cell, and shooed her into the backseat. I decided to leave my rental in the parking ramp and catch a cab myself to save time. One showed up a few minutes later.
My destination wasn’t that far away, so I knew the cabbie would be ticked off about a low fare, but I told him I would drop a heavy tip on him if he could thread the needle quickly through traffic.
After eight minutes of a hair-raising ride, he slam-parked the taxi on the other side of Constitution, across from the courthouse. I paid the fare, plus twenty bucks, and danced my way across oncoming traffic, dashing past the statue of Sir William Blackstone and into the federal courthouse building.
On the sixth floor I peeked into the courtroom. The judge was rendering his opinion. I decided to wait outside in the corridor. Ten minutes later, the door swung open. Gil Spencer’s opponents were smiling. A forlorn-looking Gil trudged out with his extra-wide briefcase.
I stopped him in his tracks. “Well, Gil,” I said, “better luck next time.”
He looked surprised to see me. “Yeah, well, you know these FOIA cases. The motion today was just a skirmish. The case itself? More like the Hundred Years’ War.”
“Since when are you doing Freedom of Information litigation?”
He looked down the hallway in both directions and said in a hushed voice, “Keep it down.” Then he added, “I have been temporarily reassigned out of the Criminal Division. Get this: somebody within the federal legal establishment filed an internal ethics complaint against me.”
“Do you know who?”
“Not yet. But I will soon. I’m wondering if it is because of our off-the-record conversation at the cemetery.” Then he asked, “So what are you doing here?”
“Bringing you a question.”
“Make it quick. This doesn’t look good, my talking to you like this.”
“Okay, here it is: when I say the word Matamoros, what does that bring to mind?”
His head jerked back a bit. “You’ve been talking to someone on the internal affairs investigative team, haven’t you.”
“Sorry, I can’t confirm or deny.”
“That’s fine,” he said. “Okay. Matamoros . . .”
“Right. Let your mind wander . . . any recollection at all. Why it might be important. Whether you can see any connection to the case that Jason Forester was investigating and your boss, Mr. Pullmen, was supervising.”
“What are you looking for, exactly?”
“Anything. Everything.”
“You look a bit frantic, Trevor. That’s not like you.”
I managed a tight smile.
Minutes ticked by. Gil kept looking this way and that, like he was under surveillance.
“Look,” he finally said. “Obviously you got that word from somebody in internal affairs. And obviously we all know it’s a city in Mexico.”
“Right. I’m trying to figure out whether any of Paul Pullmen’s cases, for instance, or those of the DOJ, or cases of Jason Forester have anything to do with Matamoros. Or for that matter, any other case you’ve ever heard of in your life.”
Gil bobbed his head.
While he was struggling, I asked him a question out of left field, just to catch his response. “Gil, one more time. I need to know this. I can trust you, right?”
“Yes,” he shot back, looking me in the eye. “And I’m pretty sure I can trust you. Otherwise this conversation wouldn’t be happening.”
I nodded. He kept thinking. Then he jerked his head up like someone just jabbed him. “Wow, that’s odd.”
“What?”
“After all these years, remembering it. The human brain’s a strange thing.”
“Explain.”
“Oh, this goes back. Way back, all the way to the New York City public defender’s office. It was just after you left to join the Tobit law firm. You remember that boxer client you had? Convicted of attempted murder or something close to that? Beat up some guy who was stalking his girlfriend.”
“Carter Collins. How could I forget?”
“After he was convicted and was already serving his prison sentence, we got this letter from him, addressed to the public defender’s office and saying he wanted to talk to you. I arranged a phone call to Collins at the prison and explained you were now working as criminal defense counsel in a high-priced private firm, but that we could forward any message to you. Carter Collins said that of course he couldn’t afford private counsel but needed someone from the public defender’s office to talk to him about something. So I paid him a visit in prison.
“The details are foggy—about our meeting, I mean. I don’t recall exactly what the guy wanted, though whatever it was, it struck me as pretty strange at the time. Typical prison gossip stuff—railing against the system, that sort of thing—but my memory is that he was making some pretty outrageous claims against a government lawyer. But he wouldn’t give me the name of the lawyer unless I promised that he could strike a deal with the prosecutors for a reduction of his sentence, which I was supposed to work out for him and which of course I couldn’t d
o. The point being, the city of Matamoros came up in our conversation somehow. That much I’m sure. Anyway, your client struck me as just trying to get a free-pass-out-of-jail card, and I wasn’t buying it.”
“You’re positive about all this?”
“That’s the weird thing about it. That part just leaped out of my memory bank. So, anyway, there it is.”
I knew I had to talk to Carter Collins but had no idea where to start after all these years.
When I mentioned that out loud to Gil, he shrugged real nonchalantly and said, “That’s not a problem. He’s been out of prison for quite a while and he’s actually not far from here. I read an article in the local news section of the Post about his heading up a boys’ boxing club for underprivileged kids. You know, some kind of self-help, motivational nonprofit group with a pretty good record. His outfit is being sponsored by two congressmen who serve together on the Judiciary Committee. And they’re actually from opposite sides of the aisle if you can believe that.”
65
The Olympian Boxing Club and Gym was in the Chinatown section of Washington, only two blocks from the ornate Asian arch that stretched over the roadway at H and Seventh Streets. The gym was housed in an aging redbrick building in the otherwise-upscale section, a building that could use some fresh paint, with crumbling mortar between the bricks that needed tuck-pointing.
I stopped for a moment outside the gym because I had already picked up a cheap TracFone in Chinatown a few doors down and had texted my new number to Heather. Now she was texting me back with some research.
U.S. gov’t, over several yrs, has issued advisory for Americans not to travel to Matamoros, Mexico. They say that city & surrounding state of Tamaulipas is nest of “lawlessness,” with rampant murder, gangs, kidnapping, drug running. Law enforcement “nonexistent.” Will send U more as I get it.
Somewhere in my cerebral cortex, that word lawlessness meant something.
But I needed to get back to Heather on a piece that had fallen into place in my head on the cab ride over. It had to do with Matamoros as a code, the connection it had to Adolfo Constanzo, and its relationship to that other strange digital code they found in the Internet network protocol of Chicken Fox Videos: Adj111C62.
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