Bright Midnight

by Chris Formant

  All nodded in agreement.

  “Raphael, would you wrap up, please?”

  Melendez nodded and began his summary of the discussion in a precise fashion.

  “Peter Ham. London Metro SCU is reopening the case as an active murder. Quantico will re-create the crime scene to test the hypothesis and send an analyst to London to help test available DNA and perform chemical isotope and signature analysis, if required. SCU will perform re-interviews of persons of interest and original investigators, possible surveillance tape analysis and investigate St. Albans Pharmacy.

  “Brian Jones. SCU will re-examine the case and re-analyze the chromatography and chemical isotope analysis, physical evidence and DNA analysis. Inconclusive crime analysis to date.

  “Jimi Hendrix. Our discussion suggests a possible staged scene. SCU and Quantico will re-create the crime scene, test DNA and perform micro-photo analytics and chemical signature analysis of drugs in system and source. SCU will perform re-interviews.

  “Al Wilson. Possibly a staged suicide. Quantico will re-create the crime scene, test DNA and perform chemical analysis.”

  “Thank you, Raphael.” Bruce smiled at him. “Let me suggest that on Thursday we also review an initial analysis and recommendation on the other rock stars that Mr. Elliot received messages about: Jim Morrison, Ron McKernan, and Janis Joplin.

  “We will distribute later today a summary construct for each of us to succinctly present our conclusions on each case as well as our initial profiling of the possible perpetrator,” Bruce instructed. “I recommend we make a go, no-go call on all of them at that time?”

  The attendees all nodded in agreement.

  “Gentlemen,” Bruce continued, “what prompted this call today was the inference that we may still, even at this late date, have a serial killer on our hands. The messages anonymously delivered to Mr. Elliot have guided us to at least one cold-case re-examination. It appears likely that we may have more.”

  Turning to look at Gantry, he said, “Mr. Elliot, can you make yourself available to work over the next forty-eight hours with a joint commonalities team that Tanner will compose, and also with Hammond on the pharmacy ties? It will help us focus our investigation in those areas. Your insights can be of great assistance. I am hoping that our analyses will help us to triangulate a suspect or set of possible suspects.”

  Gantry nodded his acceptance.

  “Robert, I’ll call you back in a few minutes to discuss what we have just uncovered about the courier,” Melendez said.

  “We reconvene on Thursday,” Bruce said.

  Within minutes, Melendez called Bruce back from a private room. He’d just received some information from the lab about Hislop.

  “Robert, I have news for you. As you recall, Angus Hislop seemed to disappear after he left Coopers & Lybrand forty years ago. His last known address was in London. The team at London Metro could find nothing more, and our fingerprint analysis of the packages to Gantry proved negative.”

  “I heard,” Bruce replied.

  “One of our interns had the brilliant idea to try to find a match for his clothing utilizing our new global-photo data base. We had been testing digitally matching clothing with some success recently. We did just that and found an exact match. The chesterfield coat he was wearing was apparently made by an Italian manufacturer and was sold exclusively at Barney’s in New York City for the past five years.”

  “Really? I could have sworn it was British,” Bruce chuckled.

  “No—and we had no trouble gaining access to the store’s sales records and video surveillance footage in the men’s department for the last five years. There were only twenty-two men’s coats of that size, style and color sold during that time. We investigated each name over the last twenty-four hours and tried to match each purchase to a video image. I just sent you what we found.”

  Bruce opened the video file in which a distinguished gentleman was trying on a coat.

  “This is our guy Hislop. He changed his name to Simon Jennings. He lives in Westport, Connecticut, a waterfront town a little over an hour north of New York. He matches the Rolling Stone courier photos exactly,” Melendez exclaimed enthusiastically. “We have already dispatched a field agent to set up surveillance on him until we determine how and when to approach him. He could be the killer, not just a ‘courier.’

  “I will have to ask for your indulgence that we reconvene on Friday instead of Thursday. I think it may be a good idea for me to pay a visit to Mr. Hislop as soon as possible. Don’t you think?”

  “Yes, I agree. Friday it is. Let me know what you find.”

  Melendez came back to the conference room where Tanner, Moxie and Gantry were still talking.

  “Gantry, you and I are taking a ride to Westport, Connecticut. Tanner, you and Moxie get back to Quantico now. Take one of the NY Learjets out of Teterboro,” Melendez ordered.

  Tanner and Moxie quickly packed up and left.

  “What’s in Westport and why are we going there?” Gantry asked.

  “Angus Hislop. I will explain on the way up.”

  Gantry was wired. As they were pulling out of the parking lot, Melendez’s phone rang. It was Robert Bruce.

  “Raphael, glad I caught you. Good news! Someone up there is rooting for us. We did preserve the original Brian Jones test material, including nail samples and hair clippings, possibly some glasses and urine samples. Not sure how much is usable, but we seem to have enough to work with. We’re scouring to see if anything from the others was maintained as well.”

  “Excellent, Robert, thank you.”

  Merrit Parkway near Westport, Conn.

  As they were navigating out of New York, Melendez explained to Gantry what had been uncovered about Hislop: his name change, his move to Westport, and the surveillance that had been set up.

  “Gantry, I am taking you with me because Hislop chose to communicate with you for reasons known only to him. I am banking on him opening up to you when you are in front of him.”

  “Do you want me to meet him without you?” Gantry asked.

  “No. I can’t let you do that. We don’t know if he is just a messenger or if he is in fact a killer. I have to go with you, but we will have backup in case of a confrontation,” Melendez explained, keeping his eyes on the road.

  The afternoon traffic on the Merritt Parkway was going to make this a much longer drive than Melendez had originally thought. This could end up being a three-hour excursion.

  Melendez was deep in thought and not very communicative for most of the ride. Because Hislop lived in Westport, both men assumed that he must be wealthy, which made his name change even more perplexing. What would drive a person like him to create a new identity? Fear? Failure? He’d been a prominent accountant with a large firm in London and been very visible. Then apparently he disappeared, changed his name, and reappeared in a wealthy Connecticut suburb. Obviously, it had something to do with this case, even though records showed Jennings had owned his home for more than twenty years. Why did he wait so long to surface?

  It was all conjecture, but Gantry was relieved that he wasn’t being stalked anymore. The roles were reversed; the hunter was now the hunted.

  Finally, the Crown Victoria turned onto Burnham Hill Road and into a neighborhood of multi-million dollar homes within walking distance of Mill Pond and the beaches of Long Island Sound. The Nantucket-style two-story house was set back about fifty yards from the road, with a long brick driveway leading to a porte cochere to the left of the house.

  “Well, Gantry, welcome to the NFL. This is where it gets real interesting.”

  Turning off the ignition, Melendez turned to Gantry. “Remember, this guy had a good reason to feed you those clues. We’re here to find out what that reason was. We can’t assume anything. He might be the killer, but we have absolutely no proof of that. At the very least, he must know who did this or at least have some very incriminating information. Either way, let me do the talking. I’ll let you know when you
can engage him. Don’t let him bait you. Don’t give away anything. We want him to talk. Got it?”

  “Yes, boss,” Gantry said. He hadn’t any intention of jumping into the conversation. That said, he was an accomplished investigative reporter and would make his own observations, but as the car pulled forward the reality of the situation began to sink in. What would he do if it suddenly became apparent that Hislop was the killer? Raphael would have to take him into custody. Where was the backup?

  Melendez stopped the car beside the house and turned off the ignition. In the sudden silence, he and Gantry looked up at the house. The curtains all were drawn, but there was light behind them.

  Before he got out of the car, Melendez instinctively checked his gun, a 9mm Beretta with fifteen rounds in the clip. He pushed off the safety and holstered it again under his left arm beneath his suit jacket. He also positively tested his monitoring device. Backup would engage if the FBI code word was spoken or if they sensed a problem. Melendez had to be prepared for any possibility.

  Gantry could feel his temperature rise. His heart began to beat faster.

  Melendez’s knock was answered by a Hispanic woman in a housekeeper’s uniform.

  “Buenos tardes. Es Simon Jennings en casa?” Melendez said.

  “Si. Uno momento, por favor,” the woman answered as she closed the heavy door.

  In a moment, Jennings appeared in the doorway looking exactly as Gantry pictured: natty, Burberry suit sans jacket, and a buttoned-up vest.

  “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” he said. “How can I help you?” He was self-assured and polite—to a point. He looked at them with a condescending expression that also expressed curiosity and, Gantry thought, a touch of apprehension.

  Melendez reached into his suit jacket, withdrew a leather wallet and flicked it open with two fingers, displaying his gold FBI badge.

  “FBI, Mr. Hislop?” Melendez said. “May we come in?”

  “By all means, gentlemen. Please come in. I don’t think I’ve ever met an FBI agent,” he said with a light British accent, not showing the least hint of surprise that the agent knew his real name.

  “Well, I guess that’s history now, isn’t it?” Melendez said sternly. Gantry was a little surprised. He’d never seen Melendez in an aggressive stance. But of course, he’d been involved in hundreds of murder cases—and was a trained agent.

  “Please follow me,” Hislop said, leading them into a large room filled with art and furnished with two heavy brocaded sofas and overstuffed antique chairs. A window displayed the large backyard framed by wooded areas on both sides of an unobstructed view of Mill Pond. Gantry walked closer to the floor-to-ceiling window and surveyed the bucolic setting that centered an ancient Irish stone cross.

  “Please, sit down. Can I get you some tea or coffee?”

  “No thanks,” Melendez said.

  Their first impression was that Hislop was one cool customer. He had the perfect physique for a James Bond role, about six-feet-two and around a hundred ninety pounds. He walked ramrod straight with great bearing. And he smelled like money.

  But then, if he were a serial killer, Gantry thought, he would probably be stoic and prepared. He must have known we’d come eventually, and wasn’t that the point of all the clues anyway?

  Hislop had been a classmate of Prince Charles, and ran in fast, lofty circles in swinging London during the 1960s. At night, he wore Carnaby Street—the hippest of the hip. Now, almost seventy, he came across as refined, almost regal. He had been a creative tax accountant for Coopers & Lybrand and on the fast track to making partner, a very prestigious position in London at the time. But his real expertise was his uncanny ability to creatively and legally move money around and hide it in every corner of the globe. And he was a born salesman.

  Hislop took a large chair next to the window and waved Melendez and Gantry toward a sofa. “Well, gentlemen, I see you’ve done your research. You know who I am.”

  “Yes, Mr. Hislop. My name is Raphael Melendez. This is my associate, Gantry Elliot. Allow me to explain why we are here.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Agent Melendez. I know who both of you are and why you’re here, and you obviously know who I really am.”

  “Okay, then, let’s cut to the chase, shall we?”

  “Be my guest,” Hislop said extending his arm.

  “Clearly, we originally identified you as Angus Hislop, then we discovered your identity change. Further, we have video surveillance of you delivering packages for Mr. Elliot. Why did you want him to have those messages?”

  “How much time do you have, Agent Melendez?” Hislop quipped.

  “As much time as you need,” Melendez brusquely answered.

  Hislop appeared to collect his thoughts. “Well, there is a little history involved, but I’m sure you expected that,” he explained and continued.

  “My job in the old days was to handle complex tax issues. I was young, but smart, and I landed a great job at Coopers after I got my degree from Cambridge. It was my responsibility to come up with tax minimization strategies—you know, the kind where our clients could forego the formality of paying taxes. In those days, the income taxes in England were astronomical, in the seventy-five percent range. I was the one who perfected offshore accounts and special purpose companies as a way to transfer funds to enable our clients to, shall we say, legally lower their tax obligations. Not much in those days was generally known about offshore shelters, but I had studied them thoroughly, and I became quite accomplished in their use. To my way of thinking, a seventy-five percent tax was, and still is, immoral and obscene.”

  Hislop described how he could layer corporations on top of trusts twisted within other sub-corporations and partnerships so deep and complex that even Her Majesty’s Revenuers and the IRS could not piece it together—and of course, that was the point.

  “I was invited to lunch one day by one of our potential clients, a record producer and his attorney, at the Savoy Hotel. They explained that their business was expanding exponentially as the British and American rock scene was exploding, and that UK taxes were killing them. They needed an effective tax-minimization strategy, and I was the man they were told could help them. But they didn’t want Coopers. They only wanted me.

  “They offered me a job on the spot at almost three times what I was making at Coopers. I was single and without real responsibilities. And it was rock and roll, considerably more exciting and much more money. So I accepted the job the next day.”

  Gantry and Melendez listened intently.

  “We had a small office in London, one in Los Angeles, and one in New York City,” Hislop explained. “My boss had become incredibly successful and very powerful. He had his hands in most of the major music groups and rock stars at that time but, surprisingly, he rarely met any of them. He approached the business like how a stock-and-bond investor would manage his assets.”

  “Who was he?” Melendez asked.

  Hislop ignored the question.

  “We set up an elaborate set of companies and partnerships and maintained bank accounts in more than thirty different countries. Only the three of us knew where everything was. The elaborate construct made it virtually impossible to see the whole picture, and equally as impossible to see who was pulling the strings.

  “One evening, I was at my boss’s home office outside London reviewing a rather large monetary transfer. He’d received a phone call and dismissed himself to an adjacent room for a moment. I could not help but overhear the heated conversation, at least from my boss’s perspective.”

  “What was it about?” Melendez asked.

  “I’m getting there. He was physically a very powerful fellow, stern, quick Irish temper, and prone to outbursts about business, religion, or money especially when things deviated from his expectations. I could hear him getting very angry with a partner about someone in a band—someone I took to be Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones.”

  “Are you certain?” Melendez asked.

&
nbsp; “As I said, I made an assumption. From what I heard of the conversation, it sounded like they had kicked Jones out of the Stones. I remember it vividly, in spite of it being more than forty years ago.

  “Then I heard my boss scream that ‘This Jones, this ungrateful Judas—’ that’s what he said—was out of control. His partner apparently told my boss that he thought Jones was trying to take the Rolling Stones’ name and start a new band. The last thing I heard him say was, ‘His bandmates can’t control him. You know what to do.’

  “Brian Jones was found dead a week later,” Hislop said.

  Gantry and Melendez saw Hislop’s confident veneer fade, and they could sense the fear he had felt—the fear he still felt.

  “Mr. Hislop, who was your boss?” Melendez fired at him. “Is he still alive? Why did you leave those messages for Mr. Elliot and why did you bug his apartment? Who else is involved? Why didn’t you just come to the authorities?”

  Hislop slumped in his chair and looked off into space.

  “Come on, make it easy on yourself. We don’t think you killed Jones or anyone else. We just want the same as you…the truth,” Melendez sympathetically offered.

  Hislop, regained his composure, sat up straight, and said, “I can’t give you his name. I gave you all I have. That was deep in the past when he was my boss. I have moved on since then. I don’t know where he is right now, but with his power and money, he could easily reach out from anywhere in the world and squash me like an insect under his shoe.”

  “So you know that he is still alive?”

  Hislop answered in a low voice. “Yes. He’s alive.”

  “Mr. Hislop, I know this scares you. Nevertheless, you did come to us. You started this cat-and-mouse game and got our attention and now we need to move forward. It appears possible that Brian Jones was killed for business reasons, but what we have is only hearsay. We need something more to go on. You chose to stir up this pot by engaging Gantry. Why? And where did you get the objects you delivered?”

  “Look, I’m trying to right a wrong, a very big wrong,” Hislop said. “I was the one who put the pieces together for you. I’m the one who got the ball rolling. I never intended to get engaged beyond what I provided you. Now, it’s up to you two very bright fellows to figure out the rest. It’s all there.”