Blood Money js-10

by James Grippando

  “I am worried. You said Rene was your source. She was the whole reason we knew about BNN’s interference and how it prevented the paramedics from transmitting information from the ambulance to the ER physicians. Don’t we lose that evidence now that she’s dead?”

  “No. Rene was our source, not our witness. Everything she told me was hearsay. Even if she were alive, I’d need to subpoena the ER doctors, the paramedics-all the people who were actually involved in treating your daughter. Don’t worry. We’ll get all that. Nothing is lost.”

  Laramore did a quick check around the cafeteria, as if to underscore the confidentiality of what he was about to say. “Do you think that’s why she got killed? Because she was the source?”

  “No.”

  Laramore paused, as if expecting Jack to say more. “That’s it, that’s your answer: ‘No’?”

  “BNN is not exactly a model corporate citizen. But I don’t think they kill people to win civil lawsuits.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” said Laramore. “They probably draw the line at putting young women in comas.”

  Jack fully understood the bitterness.

  “Sorry,” said Laramore. “Don’t mean to be so sarcastic. This whole thing is just getting. . it’s getting to be too much.”

  “I know. It’s okay.”

  Laramore sat back in his chair, breathing out. “So, of all things, we now have a social media problem.”

  “I had a tech agent from the FBI check out Celeste’s Facebook page. There is no sign of hacking into her account. Which means that whoever posted the allegations of our complaint on Celeste’s Facebook page used her username and password.”

  “Well, that puts that person one step ahead of Celeste’s mother and me. We have no idea how to access Celeste’s account. In fact, I don’t know the first damn thing about Facebook.”

  Jack spoke while pulling up Celeste’s page on his iPhone. “It has about eight hundred and fifty million users worldwide. It’s especially popular with people your daughter’s age. They constantly update their status, telling their friends that they’re going out for pizza, dumping a boyfriend, getting a zit.”

  “Getting a zit?”

  “I’m not exaggerating. Most of the stuff is utterly useless, food for online information addicts whose sphere of knowledge is forever shrinking until someday they wake up and realize that they know absolutely nothing about anything except for whatever it is that happens to be going on at the moment.” Jack laid his phone on the table, the screen facing Laramore. It was Celeste’s Facebook page with the sixty-seven status updates that recounted verbatim the allegations of the complaint.

  “But then, of course, there are things like this.”

  Laramore looked at it. Jack could tell from the look on his face that he wasn’t reading anything. He was staring at Celeste’s profile photograph-the way she’d looked just a week earlier.

  “Beautiful, wasn’t she?” he said.

  “Yes,” said Jack. “She is beautiful.”

  Ben looked up, smiled sadly, as if appreciating Jack’s respect for the rule Virginia had laid down about using the present tense.

  “I don’t really want to read this,” said Laramore. “If you say it’s all there, I’ll take your word for it.”

  “It’s all there,” said Jack.

  “But just so I understand: Anyone with a Facebook account can read a status update?”

  “This one was designated ‘public,’ so, yeah, anyone with an account can see it. Anyone on the Internet, for that matter.”

  “Still, I find it hard to believe that BNN’s lawyers are scrolling through Facebook updates. This just went up on Facebook this afternoon. How did they find it so fast?”

  Jack considered it. “That’s a good question. But keep in mind that these status updates didn’t just appear on Celeste’s Facebook page. They went out to every single one of her friends. It’s possible one of them forwarded it to BNN’s lawyers.”

  “Celeste’s friends wouldn’t do that.”

  “Well, a Facebook ‘friend’ might.” Jack took back his phone and checked the page. “I see here that Celeste has almost four thousand Facebook friends.”

  “So that means any one of four thousand people could have told BNN that the complaint was posted on Celeste’s Facebook page?”

  “That’s about the size of it,” said Jack. “There’s another possibility, of course.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Whoever stole her username and password to access her account and send out the status update also told BNN that the information was all over Facebook.”

  “What would be the point of that?”

  “What’s the point of any of this? Someone is either trying to piss off BNN or get us in trouble with the judge. It’s one of the two.”

  “Or both.”

  “Or both, right. The immediate problem we have to address is getting this information down as quickly as possible. It’s not that easy if you and your wife don’t know Celeste’s username and password.”

  “I could take a few educated guesses, but-”

  Laramore stopped, seeing a doctor approaching.

  “Mr. Swyteck?” the doctor asked. He had an urgent expression on his face, alarming enough to make Jack rise to respond.

  “Yes, I’m Jack Swy-”

  A crushing blow to Jack’s jaw not only cut off his words, it knocked him to the floor. Both Jack and Laramore were too stunned to retaliate, and the doctor himself seemed content to have landed just one good punch. He didn’t come at Jack. Jack rose up on one knee, looked up, and saw equal parts rage and grief in the doctor’s eyes. Then Jack noticed the hospital ID badge: STEFAN ROSS, MD. Rene’s boyfriend.

  “That’s from Rene, you son of a bitch.”

  Jack massaged his jaw back into place and said, “I’m sorry for-”

  “Sorry?” said Ross. “No, you’re not. You used her, and you put her in a dangerous situation that she should’ve never been in.”

  “Actually, she called me.”

  “Don’t justify it. And don’t you dare show your face at the funeral. Spare us the phony sympathy. Please.”

  Ross turned and walked away, so much anger in his step that his rubber soles squeaked on the tile floor. Jack climbed back into his chair.

  “Are you all right?” asked Laramore.

  Jack thought about it, thought about Rene, thought about the joy all this suffering must have been bringing to the sick bastard who had taken Rene’s life.

  “I will be,” he said. “I suppose.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  It had been Andie’s intention to be home for Jack when he returned from the hospital, but when the assistant special agent in charge of the Miami Field Office called and said, “Get over here now,” she didn’t even ask why.

  “I’m on my way,” she told Schwartz.

  Andie shot Jack a quick text to let him know that her tech agents had “successfully guessed” Celeste’s username and password. The FBI couldn’t lawfully remove anything from her Facebook page, but at least Jack had everything he needed to comply with Judge Burrows’ midnight deadline. Andie added a second text to tell him that something had come up, and that she didn’t know when she’d be back.

  Speed limits be damned, she flew all the way up I-95 and reached the field office around eight thirty. She found Schwartz in the observation room. With him was an assistant U.S. attorney who was junior enough to be stuck with after-hours “confession duty.” The lawyer shook Andie’s hand, then quickly turned her attention back to the other side of the one-way mirror, where a two-agent team was in the make-nice phase of the interrogation of a handsome young man who looked scared to death.

  “His name is Brian Hewitt,” said Schwartz.

  Andie, Schwartz, and the federal prosecutor were facing the glass, watching. The audio was on, which allowed them to hear everything that transpired in the interrogation room, but nothing was being said at the moment. Hewitt was seated at a
small table in the windowless room. One agent was leaning against the wall behind Hewitt. Another was seated across from Hewitt, who was eating a hamburger and french fries, compliments of the FBI. Andie could only surmise that the interrogators had already gotten what they wanted from him-or that they had simply transitioned into the good-cop phase of the age-old routine.

  “Hewitt,” said Andie, searching her memory. “That name sounds familiar for some reason.”

  “He was the foreman of the twelve-person jury that acquitted Sydney Bennett,” said Schwartz.

  Mere mention of the Bennett trial was enough to make her heart skip a beat. Jack’s connection to it-more precisely, Andie’s connection to Jack-was an ongoing headache. “We arrested the jury foreman?”

  Schwartz nodded. “Our agents followed him to a bowling alley. The subject walked into the men’s lounge empty-handed and came out carrying a bowling bag. When the agents stopped him and asked to see inside the bag, he complied. There was a hundred thousand dollars in cash inside.”

  “A drop and pickup?”

  “No doubt about it.”

  “Somebody tipped us off, I presume?”

  “Anonymous call came in this afternoon around three thirty. Said that the foreman of the Sydney Bennett jury was going to Bird Bowl at nine P.M. to pick up a hundred grand in cash. According to the tipster, it was payment for delivering a not-guilty verdict.”

  It was suddenly hard not to be scared for Jack, even harder not to show it. “Can we prove that?”

  Schwartz glanced at the interrogation team, then back at Andie. “There’s no denying that Hewitt was the foreman of the jury. There’s no denying that he went into the bowling alley with nothing and came out with a hundred thousand bucks. And according to his confession, he got paid to deliver the verdict.”

  “He already confessed?”

  “Yes,” said Schwartz.

  “In his own handwriting,” the assistant U.S. attorney added.

  Schwartz pulled a copy of the one-page confession from his sport-coat pocket and laid it on the table. With his finger, he skimmed past that preliminary language about the free and voluntary nature of Hewitt’s confession, all provided by the assistant U.S. attorney. Then he found his eyeglasses and read the operative language aloud for Andie’s benefit: “‘The offer to me was fifty thousand dollars in cash for a hung jury and one hundred thousand dollars for a verdict of not guilty.’ Those are Hewitt’s initials right there,” he said, indicating.

  “The offer from whom?” asked Andie.

  Schwartz turned his attention back to the work in progress on the other side of the one-way mirror. “That’s phase two of the interrogation,” he said.

  Andie sensed that she was there only to watch, but she felt the need to speak up. “Look, I appreciate your calling me in, but I can tell you right now that Jack Swyteck did not make that offer.”

  Schwartz didn’t respond. Nor did the assistant U.S. attorney.

  “Jack would never do that,” said Andie.

  Schwartz raised a hand, silencing her. At the table on the other side of the glass, Hewitt was finishing his hamburger, and the interrogation team appeared ready to get back to work. Schwartz adjusted the volume and listened.

  The special agent at the table checked his yellow notepad in front of him, then looked at Hewitt. “Let me get this straight. This guy who offered to pay you a hundred thousand dollars for ‘not guilty.’ You say you never met him?”

  Hewitt pushed aside what was left of his hamburger. “No, I didn’t say that.”

  “I have it right here in my notes,” said the agent. “Your answer was that you talked to him only by phone. No e-mails, no texts, no handwritten messages?”

  “Right. Two phone conversations. Then we met. Face-to-face.”

  “So now you’re telling me there was a face-to-face meeting. You changing your story?”

  “I’m not changing it. I forgot.”

  “Forgot about a face-to-face meeting, huh? Where did you meet?”

  “Downtown. By the Metromover station at Government Center.”

  “How many times?”

  “Just the once.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “White guy, dark hair. A lot taller than me. Maybe your age.”

  “Now, how did you get out and meet him if you were on a sequestered jury and locked up in a hotel?”

  “I told you before,” Hewitt said, groaning. “We weren’t sequestered until the lawyers gave their opening statements and the trial started.”

  “So the two phone calls and the meeting were during jury selection?”

  “Right. I was the second juror to be accepted by both sides. They had to pick a total of twelve plus two alternates. Jury selection went on for at least another week after I got picked.”

  “All right,” the agent said. “So walk me all the way through this. The first phone call came when?”

  “Let’s see. I got picked on that first day, Monday. So the first call was Tuesday night. Around eight o’clock.”

  “And what did the guy say to-”

  The lead interrogator stopped, interrupted by a firm knock on the door. The other agent answered it and stepped outside. A minute later, that same agent entered the observation room and delivered the news to Schwartz and the assistant U.S. attorney:

  “Mommy and Daddy hired Justin Bieber here a lawyer. He’s outside banging on the door right now.”

  “Shit,” said Schwartz.

  The assistant U.S. attorney hit the intercom button so that her announcement could be heard in both rooms: “Shut it down.”

  The agent shrugged and started toward the door. Schwartz stopped him and said, “You guys did great. Really good stuff.”

  The assistant U.S. attorney echoed the sentiment. “Hewitt’s looking at five years for obstruction of justice. We’ll put something on the table to get him to give up whoever paid him the money.”

  The agent nodded and left the observation room. The assistant U.S. attorney went right behind him, off to speak to Hewitt’s lawyer. On the other side of the glass, the lead interrogator took Hewitt out the door, and the interrogation room went dark.

  Andie and Schwartz were alone in the observation room. She had a dozen questions for him, but he spoke first.

  “I’m putting Cynthia Jenkins on Operation Big Dredge.”

  Operation Big Dredge was to be Andie’s next undercover assignment. It was a top-priority investigation into organized crime and corrupt politicians from south Florida to Shanghai, where deals were being cut to exploit the increase in smuggling that would flow through a newly widened Panama Canal and into an expanded Port of Miami.

  “That makes no sense,” said Andie. “I’ve been training for this.”

  “I don’t have any choice.”

  “Is that why you called me up here? You think my fiance bought off a juror, so you’re pulling my undercover role?”

  “I don’t know who Mr. Hewitt will implicate, but this decision was made when Dr. Rene Fenning was murdered.”

  “The ‘someone you love’ threat,” said Andie. “That’s what you’re talking about?”

  “Exactly. Your fiance’s old girlfriend is dead, and the standing threat-‘someone you love’-makes you a potential target. We can’t give you the added protection you need while you’re working undercover.”

  “I won’t need protection while I’m undercover. I’m no longer Andie Henning.”

  “That may be true, to a point. But I can’t send you undercover knowing that someone may be trying to track you down. That could blow the whole operation.”

  “He won’t find me.”

  “You can’t guarantee that. And he doesn’t have to find you to blow the operation. If he figures out you’re working undercover, that’s enough.”

  Andie knew he was right, and the only solution to the problem was one that she didn’t like. But she was desperate. “What if I was willing to go all-in for the duration of the assignment-no rights t
o contact anyone, including Jack.”

  “Andie, Operation Big Dredge is budgeted and approved up to five months. I’m not saying it will go that long, but it could.”

  “I understand.”

  “You really want to do that? No phone calls, no nothing for five months?”

  “It’s not my preference,” she said. “But if you pull me because I’m a threat to the integrity of the operation, you and I both know that headquarters will not view this as an isolated incident.”

  “I won’t let you be blackballed.”

  “That’s a really nice sentiment, but getting pulled from an assignment like this is huge. I’ll be damaged goods. So, please: Get on the phone with whoever it is at headquarters who’s pushing your buttons, and tell them I’m willing to go all-in.”

  Schwartz studied her expression, and Andie stared right back at him, conveying nothing but her resolve.

  “All right,” said Schwartz. “I’ll let you know what headquarters says. But before I make that call and put your offer on the table, do you want to talk with your fiance about it?”

  Andie thought for a moment. Perception was everything in the bureau, and having to check with your fiance on a decision that could define the rest of your career as an FBI agent was the wrong perception to create. Yes, five months was a long time-but not with someone you planned to spend the rest of your life with.

  “No need,” said Andie. “Jack will understand.”

  I hope.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  BNN had “the exclusive” in time for Faith Corso’s nine P.M. show.

  It began with Corso’s rapid-fire summary of the day’s events, followed by a live update from an on-the-scene reporter in Little Havana’s Tamiami Trail, “where the nude body of Rene Fenning, a beloved pediatrician at Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital, was discovered late this afternoon.” Jack was relieved to see that law enforcement had been careful not to divulge details that might compromise the investigation: Even BNN had yet to uncover the killer’s signature-“someone you love.” Still, Corso worked in Rene’s past relationship with Jack, coupled with a healthy dose of innuendo as to a current “romantic link.”