Uncontrolled Spin: The Power and Danger of Spin ( Un missable Series Book 1)

by Jerry Summers

  Jess nods and sits with her arms wrapped around Bonnie, saying nothing for what seems like forever until Bonnie suddenly bursts into uncontrollable sobbing. It’s the type of crying that racks the entire body and soul, causing hyperventilation and utter exhaustion. Jessica sits silently weeping with her friend, stroking Bonnie’s hair until her sobs subside.

  After a while, Bonnie breaks the silence with a question that stabs Jessica’s heart. “Jess… what am I going to do?”

  Jessica tightens her arms around her friend and replies, “Dear, you are going to grieve and miss him tremendously, and then somehow find the strength to go on living. I don’t have any definite answers for you, but I know you will never be alone as long as I live. I love you, hun, more than you will ever know.”

  Bonnie responds by holding Jess tighter, too, and she says in a broken whisper, “I love you, too.”

  After a short while, Bonnie falls asleep in Jessica’s arms. Jess guides her into a more comfortable position, covering her with a blanket to let her sleep and knowing it will be short-lived. Next, she goes downstairs to speak with the devastated staff, assuring them nothing will change with their employment. They are secure. She asks for their loyalty on behalf of Bonnie. All the staff agrees enthusiastically, and Jessica begins making arrangements to get Bonnie home, and to make dealing with the onslaught of details and complications awaiting them in San Francisco a little bit easier.

  Next, Jessica calls Sean back with the tentative plan for their return. Sean informs Jess of all the notifications that Evelyn has already made and asks her to text him when she and Bonnie are about fifteen minutes from the front gate of Bonnie’s home.

  “I expect a lot of media will be camped outside waiting for a chance to speak with anybody, especially Bonnie. I hired a security team already, to prevent the media from getting close to any of us until we are ready to face the circus. How is she doing?”

  Jessica peeks in on her in the bedroom, then murmurs back, “As well as can be expected, but none of this seems real to either of us.”

  “Yeah, I know. I still can’t believe it, and I’m the one that found him. Jessica, it was horrible.” His voice catches a bit at the end.

  Jess shakes her head sadly. “I can’t even imagine what you’re going through. Is there anything I can do for you?”

  Sean replies, “Yes. Please just take care of Bonnie. Evelyn is helping me arrange everything on this end. And, by the way, I might need someone to confide in after this has blown over a little more. Maybe we can talk then?”

  Surprised by the vulnerability in his voice, she replies, “Of course. I’m here for both you and Bonnie. This is just a horrible situation.”

  “Yes, it is. Thank you,” Sean says, and they hang up.

  After his second conversation with Jessica, Sean asks if there is anything else Sergeant Jones needs from him at this point and is told to go get some rest. Sean gives Jones Bob’s name explaining he is his groundskeeper and asks Jones to call him when the investigation is concluded, so he can secure the house.

  “Well,” Jones says, “it’ll be a few days, I think. And we’re going to dust for fingerprints, so you might want to have someone clean after the investigation team is done to make sure all the biohazard materials are disposed of properly.”

  Sean replies, “I believe Bob will take care of all those details. Thank you, Sergeant.”

  He heads over to the Shore Lodge. He checks into his room and immediately heads to the bar. Seating himself, he orders Jameson Midleton.

  As the bartender moves to pour his drink, Sean says, “Give it to me straight and keep pouring until I leave.”

  The bartender places the bottle on the bar and says uncomfortably, “Sir, I can only serve—”

  Sean waves a hand, interrupting him midsentence, and says, “Never mind. Just put the unopened bottle on my room tab. I’ll drink it there.”

  The bartender eyes him for a moment, then replies, “Very well. As you wish, sir.” He pushes the bottle across the bar, and Sean signs for it. Pulling the bottle off the bar, he heads straight to his lake-view suite to drink while staring out at the lake. When the Midleton is nearly gone, he passes out in his chair. Waking at two-thirty in the morning, he gets up, goes to the bathroom, and then climbs into bed. When his alarm goes off at eight, Sean’s head is heavy, and his eyes despise the warm sunlight streaming in through the window. He is dehydrated, and he knows he has to get moving to meet his pilot at the airport for his return trip to California and all the chaos awaiting him.

  While Sean was abusing his senses and liver, Sergeant Jones and the Idaho State Police forensics team have been scouring his home. From their initial assessment, it is clear this is a homicide, not a suicide. No weapon is located in the home aside from the guns in Sean’s safe—no shell casings, not even a sign anyone else had been in the home besides Mark Stevens. Multiple latent fingerprints are located on various surfaces, and while they don’t know yet, everyone on the team suspects they will be identified through elimination fingerprinting as belonging to individuals with reason to be in the home, and therefore of no evidentiary value. The team determines the fatal shot had to have come from the surface of the lake, meaning the murderer had to have made the shot from a boat or barge, thus indicating advanced firearms training and skill. They decide the killer is most likely military, former military, or law enforcement. However, this is Idaho, and many hunters also have the ability to make this type of shot. Based on their preliminary trajectory calculations, this was a three hundred to four hundred and fifty yard shot. What unnerves the investigators the most is that a .308 caliber weapon is the weapon of choice for many military or law enforcement trained snipers, not for big-game hunters. To their discomfort, Mark’s death appears to be a professional hit.

  The initial background investigation information on Mark indicates that he previously held government contracts and has international business contracts, including foreign government contracts. Unfortunately, at this point, there are many more questions then there are answers. The Valley County Sheriff’s office has requested and received assistance from the McCall fire department dive team, who has set up a grid search pattern on Payette Lake based on the forensic team’s trajectory estimates. The search area involves water in the depth range of fifty feet.

  Detectives for the Sheriff’s department and the Idaho State police have interviewed neighbors and staff members at the marina. None of the neighbors heard or remember anything out of the ordinary, and many of them express dismay that such a thing could happen in McCall. The detectives interviewing the marina staff focus on a barge moored on the east side and two pontoon boats. The staff advises that the barge had just been brought in last night for the upcoming holiday. It is owned by the McCall Chamber of Commerce and is used for the town’s 4th of July fireworks celebration.

  Both pontoon boats are owned by regulars and have not been out of the marina since last weekend, according to the marina’s records. Nevertheless, after contacting the owners to determine whether or not either vessel has been tampered with or was of any further interest, the detectives retrieve the records. Initial reports from the dive team are disheartening. Nothing has been found, but the search continues. The forensics team takes photographs with appropriate measurements of the body’s location, then finds and removes the spent .308 round in the living room wall. It had struck a thin piece of metal art, penetrating the artwork and lodging in a stud behind the drywall.

  Finally, they have the body removed by the local coroner and continue to process the crime scene. The brainstorming among the investigators keeps coming back to the possibility that this was a professional execution. Yet most of the background they have received on Mark indicates that he was an upstanding citizen, with no nefarious business associations whatsoever. Motive at this point is clearly lacking, and as is always the case, Bonnie Stevens is being considered as a person of interest, since she presumably has the most to gain from Mark’s death.

&nbs
p; The detectives quickly determine they will need additional assistance. The Sheriff’s department contacts the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Boise office. They are connected with special agent in charge (SAC), Dominic Hughes. Dominic is a meticulous guy in his early fifties who believes first appearances dictate peoples’ initial impression on the type and quality of one’s character. His mannerisms are quiet, precise, and calculated. He is the type of gentleman who wouldn’t say “shit” if he had a mouth full of it. After a thorough briefing on the events and findings so far, Hughes instructs Jones to secure the scene until the FBI’s regional forensic team out of Salt Lake City, Utah, can get to McCall. He assures the investigators already on scene that it won’t be more than six hours. Hughes also decides to send four agents up from the Boise office to conduct operations from this point forward. He instructs them to brief him on Monday morning about their findings. The FBI pulls records of known retired and active Special Forces personnel in the area, and Hughes instructs the agents from the Boise field office to begin their interviews with those records.

  Hughes then has other agents pull background information on Mark and Global Metal Refining. However, they find no suspicious activity and no connections to questionable organizations or organized crime. Hughes contacts his counterpart in the San Francisco office, who begins looking into Sean Green and SGM, and checks out financial records for the Stevens through Mark’s attorney, Todd Stoddard.

  Meanwhile, the IRS agents who had been alerted by the San Francisco office have begun tracking Global Metal Refining’s international accounts. Agents from the San Francisco office quickly learn that Mark has a personal net worth of slightly more than twenty-two billion dollars, while Global Metal Refining is valued around eighty billion. According to Mark’s attorney, there are two primary beneficiaries to Mark’s estate. Bonnie, his wife, is the first, along with his only living relative, a sister in San Diego, by the name of Wendy Stevens. Mr. Stoddard politely refuses to give any more specifics about Mark’s personal affairs, claiming attorney-client privilege with Mrs. Stevens, without first receiving a subpoena.

  The San Francisco FBI agents tell Mr. Stoddard they will have a subpoena duces tecum for him on Monday morning.

  Mr. Stoddard is agreeable. “Very well. Why don’t you come by my office around eleven that morning, so I can produce all the records you wish at that time?” The agents agree.

  The FBI forensics team out of Salt Lake arrives in McCall around eight at night. The entire investigative team—made up of members from the Valley County sheriff’s office, Idaho State police, McCall fire department dive team, FBI agents from the Boise office, and the Valley coroner’s office—is present for the final briefing prior to officially turning the case over to the FBI. The lead agent from the Boise office, Jay Mather, is a taller man approximately six feet, athletic, with an obsession for marathon running but despite his rugged appearance, he has an endearing quirky smile. He is highly perceptive and his smile often hides his brashness. Jay requests all agency reports be completed and delivered to him via e-mail by Monday at 1300 hours, so he can brief SAC Hughes.

  After the briefing concludes, the FBI forensic team begins analyzing and reconstructing the bullet’s trajectory from the data provided at the final briefing. Using laser technology, the team determines the previously searched area is too close, and the fatal shot was actually taken from a distance of more than five hundred yards.

  Agent Mather calls the McCall fire department team captain and requests assistance for Sunday morning with a new area to grid-pattern search.

  “If any potential item is located, please just mark it in place and one of my certified diving agents will accompany anyone you send to retrieve it. We don’t want to risk disrupting the chain of evidence, and two pairs of eyes are better than one,” he tells the captain. “Thank you in advance for your team’s assistance, and I’ll see you all tomorrow morning at nine.”

  Next, Mather requests assistance from the Valley County sheriff, asking her if her marine patrol deputies can block off the portion of the lake that still needs to be searched to keep the area clear of nosy boaters. With everything scheduled and the crime scene secured, the teams all get some much needed rest for the evening.

  Early the next morning, the FBI team arrives to relieve the local deputies and take control of the scene for complete processing. With the bullet trajectory established to their satisfaction, measurements, sketches, and overall photographs, as well as those that require a one-to-one scale, are taken, documenting the blood spatter. Samples of the spatter are collected, and electrostatic technology is employed to lift foot and shoe impressions off the deck, kitchen floor tile, and the entry tiles. Swabs for DNA are taken from the coffee cup on the deck and a glass in the kitchen sink. Latent fingerprints are lifted, and a video documenting the scene as well as the reconstruction is made and entered into evidence. Late Sunday afternoon, the dive team completes its grid search of the new coordinates, unfortunately revealing nothing of evidentiary value to the case. The house is finally secured for the evening and released to Sean’s groundskeeper, who decides cleanup will begin the next morning.

  Sean has already returned to San Francisco when Bob calls to inform him that the FBI forensics team has released the house back to him. Sean instructs him to have the home thoroughly cleaned, with repairs made as soon as possible, and to have the entire deck replaced immediately, regardless of the cost. The groundskeeper sounds doubtful.

  “My best friend and number one client was just killed on that deck. I want it replaced and I don’t care what you have to do to make that happen,” Sean says firmly.

  Finally, Bob agrees, promising it will be done with no hassle for Sean.

  Sean thanks him, saying, “If I forget, remind me I told you there is a ten-thousand-dollar bonus coming to you if this is all done before I have to return to Idaho.”

  “Yes, sir!” comes the excited response from Bob.

  CHAPTER 15

  FREAK SHOW

  Jessica and Bonnie send Sean a text saying, “We are about fifteen minutes from the front gate of the estate.” Sean alerts security to anticipate their arrival, reiterating that no press, not even the limited amount currently outside, is to get near either of them.

  As the women pull into the estate, there is surprisingly little commotion from the minuscule gathering of reporters. Sean thinks, the security team has done their job exceedingly well tonight, thank goodness. Still, he wonders if the same will hold true after the major news stations learn of the tragedy that has befallen the Stevens. He pauses a moment longer, thinking of how McCall will never really be the same for him again.

  When Bonnie and Jessica enter the house, they are amazed at the overwhelming smell of fresh cut flowers and visually moved by the prominent array of their beauty. It is all too much for Bonnie, who slumps to the floor and weeps, all the while cursing herself for not being a stronger woman. Both Jessica and Sean sit on the floor in the estate foyer, crying with Bonnie and reassuring her that she is, in fact, an amazingly strong woman to whom the world has delivered an immensely brutal blow.

  “You are amongst friends, Bonnie, and we’ll be here to help,” Sean murmurs reassuringly.

  Jessica agrees. “It’s safe to let down your guard and grieve. We will support you, no matter what.”

  Bonnie looks up through tear-filled eyes, mascara running down her cheeks, and asks, “Will you—will you stay with me tonight? I don’t believe I can handle being here alone.”

  Sean and Jessica agree they will both stay at the estate tonight, and maybe even for the next few nights to come. Bonnie rises from the floor, and Sean and Jessica stand with her. She gives them both a hug, then goes to the flowers to read the many cards attached.

  After a few moments, she turns and says in a wobbly voice, “You both are good friends. Thank you for the flowers and lovely sentiments.” Sean has Bonnie’s staff take his things to the guest bedroom, while Bonnie has her and Jessica’s things take
n to the master bedroom.

  She asks, “Jess, would you stay up and talk with me a little longer tonight?”

  Jessica just nods. Sean excuses himself, sensing they need some time alone, and retires to the room he is staying in. Upon entering his bedroom, he receives a phone call from Frank Dodge, president of the board of Global Metal Refining.

  “I apologize for the late evening call, Mr. Green, but I have to request your presence at the press conference tomorrow morning at eleven. Is that manageable?” Mr. Dodge asks.

  Sean agrees, albeit a little reluctantly.

  “Thank you. Also, corporate counsel was able to pull enough legal and political strings to get the Security Exchange Commission to freeze Global Metal Refining’s stock and suspend trading for Monday. The stock will be able to reopen first thing Tuesday morning, after investors have some time to consider the ramifications and options presented during the morning’s press announcement of Mark’s murder.”

  Sean asks, “Who else is going to be at the press conference?”

  Frank replies, “The initial lineup consists of SAC Dominic Hughes, who will be flying in from Boise in the morning and will start off the conference with a very brief series of events. Hughes will be followed by SAC of the San Francisco FBI office David Hill. SAC Hill will comment on what steps are being taken nationally and internationally and hopefully dispel concerns about terrorist or criminal associations on the part of Mark or Global Metal Refining. Then I’ll give the information the two of us deem is appropriate. If you wish, I’ll turn the microphone over to you so you can say something. If not, I’ll conclude the press conference.”

  Sean says, “I don’t wish to speak tomorrow. Even if I did, I’m not sure I would be able to at this point.”

  Frank replies, “I understand. I just wanted you to have the opportunity if you wished.”

  “Thanks, but not this time,”

  The two of them lay out Frank’s press statement and then say goodnight. Sean goes to speak with Jessica and Bonnie to let them know when the press conference will be tomorrow. He alerts the security team to be prepared for an onslaught of press shortly after the conference and reminds them of his instructions to keep the media away, primarily from Bonnie and secondarily from Jessica.