by Jake Aaron
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Housekeeping determined room 521 had to be freshened with an ozone ionizer air purifier. This treatment was usually reserved for remediating “no smoking” rooms after a guest smoked there. The pungent smell of burned popcorn was particularly difficult to remove. Later, just after 1:00 P.M., the regular housekeepers readied the room for a reservation. The room looked used. The hotel’s housekeeper had to replace the “used” bathroom cloths and bed linens. The Eric Bentons of Indianapolis checked in after 3:00 P.M.
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The florist deliveryman had meticulously avoided leaving traceable evidence around the crime scene. In fact, he had counted on the notoriety of a public figure dying in the hotel where the dignitary met his mistress. He had not expected the additional help of Bart et al. in disposing of the body. Such is the unpredictability of life. It is the fog of war. It is why, the florist deliveryman thought later, flexibility is necessary for the successful execution of any plan.
Congress must stop overspending.
Chapter 28
November 17
FBI Headquarters
“Barb, I brought the coffee this time. Here you go.”
“Why, thank you. Sorry you didn’t like mine last time.”
“You know me: a gentleman and a scholar.”
“Ever hear the expression ‘Two wrongs don’t make a right’?… Wait, maybe you put something in the coffee… Oh, that’s right, I’m not paranoid!”
“Here we go!” Zach loved the repartee. I say ‘to-MAY-to’; you say ‘to-MAH-to.’ I say ‘EE-thur’; you say ‘IGH-thur.’… Remind me not to use you as a reference…” He fought the smile coming to his face.
After the preliminaries, Zach and Barb then filtered through the interviews of agents on scene at Ron Kelly’s disappearance. Zach scratched his head periodically. Barb steepled her fingers as she contemplated the information.
The white board had several high-level questions. Where is Ron Kelly? Was there an attack on him? How does “Allahu Akbar” fit into this equation? Is there any connection with the Custos threat? Was there a jihadist thread connecting the crimes?
“Barb, we need to look at all the data from the security cameras around the Alexandria bar’s location. Hope you don’t have a date tonight. Here at the FBI, you know, evenings and weekends are reserved for work.”
“Zach, no, I had to cancel a 5K run, but I guess all that training wasn’t wasted.”
Zach gave her a playful grin, “I guess not. You look like you’re in very good shape.”
“Don’t start!” Z-man.
Zach smiled at the parrying. “The two suspects are still being held. They deny any connection with a plot against Congressman Kelly. They claim to be an advance party for some OPEC official who is coming to Washington next week. Not on any watch lists. So far, it looks as if they are businessmen. Which is not to say businessmen cannot be jihadists.”
Barb added, “I heard we have them on camera in a strip joint the night before. In any case, that will be enough to keep them quiet about being detained.”
Zach nodded with approval, “Remind me never to underestimate you… J. Edgar would have loved you.” Even FBI agents joked about their founder’s willingness to get the job done.
Chapter 29
November 19
District of Columbia
Monday morning Congressman Kelly did not show at his office, to the surprise of all the staff except Mike Tarbox, who acted surprised. Tired of the office staffs’ questions, Mike thought he’d be clever by having the office secretary formally ask the FBI where Ron Kelly was. If I can’t talk about Ron’s absence, I’ll make them talk about it, he calculated; then I can answer questions with the FBI’s version. The call forced a reluctant FBI response: a Be-On-the-Look- Out (BOLO) for Congressman Kelly. Within minutes, 24-hour news outlets were showing Ron Kelly’s photo captioned “last seen in an Alexandria pub.” Otherwise, the news services were short on details.
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The florist delivery poser wanted to know that his plot hard worked. He expected some indication of positive results Saturday. When that did not come, he reconciled himself to begin coming up with another plan against the Congressman. With the “last seen news,” he was, however, puzzled that a body had not been found. A cynic, he thought, might guess that the hotel had wanted to avoid bad publicity by disposing of the body elsewhere. This being the District of Columbia, he reasoned, left room for all sorts of other scenarios. Now he could take the next step.
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Asking for a $1000 “reward,” the security guard at the Capitol Escape hotel contacted the Washington Diogenes. Sharon Eielson got the referred call. She offered the full amount before even checking with the editor, thinking she’d pay it out of her pocket if need be. She was accustomed to such unsolicited “pay-to-play” demands. Pretty cheap for a Pulitzer, she calculated and indulged every reporter’s fantasy.
“Let’s meet at the Starbuck’s near you. I’ll have my notebook and your money.” Sharon did not tell him about the recorder she always carried and used.
The security guard was a good lead: “Yes, I saw him Friday night coming into the hotel from the rear entrance. Good tipper. That’s all I know. As I told you, I’m a security guard at the Capitol Escape hotel. You said you could keep my name out of it, right?”
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As the story blossomed, Sharon’s call to authorities from the Diogenes brought Zach and Barb to the hotel. She had wanted to avoid another chat from Special Agent Barb Symanski. The hotel manager gave a chronology for room 521: “Mr. and Mrs. Tom Herman checked in Friday evening. They ordered room service at 7:12 A.M. They did an express check out Saturday. At 3:22 P.M. on Saturday, Eric and Rhonda Benton checked into the room. They’re scheduled to check out Tuesday by 11:00 A.M.
“The security cameras from the hotel showed room service arriving at room 521 at 7:42 A.M., leaving at 7:44 Saturday. At 8:47 A.M., there were intermittent camera failures on different floors at different times. We’ve had several days now with glitches on the security cameras…The security company says they can’t fix what they can’t duplicate… Mr. and Mrs. Tom Herman left the room at 8:53 A.M. and walked out of the hotel lobby at 8:56 A.M. At 9:42 A.M. there were again intermittent camera failures on different floors. There was a false fire alarm at 9:43 A.M. for burned microwave popcorn.”
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Zach observed security footage, “When ‘Tom Herman,’ aka Congressman Kelly, arrived at his room at 6:21 P.M. Friday, he was not wearing a Stetson hat or sunglasses. When he leaves with the woman, he was wearing both. Of course, Stetson makes some roll ups. Both could have been in his briefcase on arrival.
“Ron Kelly’s Chief of Staff Mike Tarbox gave us the name of the woman coming out of the hotel room: Michelle Lindquist. She’s — surprise, surprise — a lobbyist. She and Mike have the same story, according to our agents’ preliminary investigation. They’re both used to weaving tales, so it’s hard to tell whether they’re telling the truth. She says the Congressman and she were checked in as Mr. and Mrs. Tom Herman. She claims she left the hotel with Ron Kelly and that he left in a taxi to fly home to New Jersey,” Zach summarized.
“I vote we bring Mike and Michelle in at the same time. Grill them separately. Lead each to believe the other has talked… We just need to come up with a notional motive… though each seemed to have a reason to keep Ron Kelly alive… Given the mistress, there’d be motive enough for Ron’s wife,” Zach finished.
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When Michelle and Mike were brought in for interrogation, they were separated as planned. Zach took Mike, and Barb took Michelle. Initially Barb and Zach spent a seemingly inordinate amount of time on small talk and tip-of-the-tongue facts like name, age, address, birthdate, education, etc. They did this to establish a baseline on the subjects’ behavior. From this, tells on stressor questions could be determined.
Barb no
ticed Michelle started to bite her nails each time departure from the hotel came up. Michelle twirled a wisp of her hair with her right hand when asked about calls to Mike.
Zach observed Mike rubbing the top of his head when asked about any conversations with Michelle. Each denied calling the other. Michelle’s and Mike’s cell phone logs showed no contact. In the age of burner cell phones, some conversations were difficult to prove.
Later each suspect was told the other had turned on him or her. With few exceptions, interrogators can lie to suspects in this manner. Neither Michelle nor Mike succumbed. Neither felt the need to request an attorney. Both interrogators accused their subjects of having throwaway cells. Michelle and Mike denied that. Michelle could not explain how the Stetson hat got into the room and glommed onto the interrogator’s roll-up explanation. Neither Michelle nor Mike seemed capable of pulling off a large clever conspiracy at the hotel. Absent a motive, there was not much to go on.
Before releasing them, Zach was again struck with the unrelenting nervousness of Mike Tarbox. Barb was troubled by Michelle’s frequent lip compressions — pressing her lips together enough to have them almost disappear from view. These other behaviors stood out from the subjects’ baselines. Zach found their behavior guilty; Barb stopped at suspicious.
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“Zach, we have time on our side. We don’t really have enough for warrants on either Mike or Michelle. We can turn up the pressure bit by bit. Start out with asking to search their homes. If denied, we’ll tell them we’re getting warrants.”
“Barb, sounds good to me. We might make an FBI agent out of you yet, Secret Service lady.”
“So, no barbs for the Barb?” she laughed. “We’ll civilize you yet, Mountain Man.”
“If my mom and Annapolis — in that order — couldn’t do it, I don’t think there’s much hope, do you?”
“I think a wife might do it,” Barb grinned with hands consciously on her hips.
“Is that a proposal?” Zach needled.
“You tell me how smart I am and then ask that? How intelligent would that be?” Barb dismissed the idea.
“You can always dream…,” Zach smiled with what he thought was the last word.
“In your dreams!” Barb closed.
Chapter 30
November 19
Washington DC Vicinity
Monday at 4:30 P.M. USA Daily got a text:
R.I.P. KELLY. YOU HAD A CHOICE. CONGRESS MUST STOP EXCESS SPENDING OR ELSE, OTSCUS
The USA Daily editor In McLean, VA, looked at the message received by his news desk. He called the FBI based on the history of similar texts arriving at other newspapers. Again, the source-and-cell-phone-withhold dance with the FBI. The newspaper’s headline soon followed: “Third Congressman Assassinated!”
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NSA had contacted the FBI even before the USA Daily editor called. NSA’s algorithm for Custos was being refined. “NSA’s amazing! The speed of violating our civil rights makes me proud to be an American,” Zach laughed wryly.
Barb: “Given the Custos claim, I’m even more uncomfortable with the confluence of events at the hotel where Congressman Kelly was staying. Security camera glitches, fire alarm, and burned popcorn in his room: a suspicious convergence of oddities the day he disappeared. Doesn’t that bother you?”
“It does, Barb. I’ll send a team back to the hotel to go over everything. Since the Congressman apparently left the hotel alive, it might also mean those were distractions or random events — noise… Does the letter scramble of Custos in the message disturb you?”
“I’m not disturbed, are you?” Barb shot him a quizzical look.
“Here we go again!… Let’s get back to the case. I apparently didn’t get as much sleep as you did last night,” Zach surrendered.
Barb was gracious in victory and adopted a more conciliatory tone, “Zach, the scrambled letters of the sender were probably designed to elude electronic surveillance. Didn’t work. Still some techie processing going on to give us more information. I’ll bet we don’t find a sender location. What do you bet?”
“If you win, I buy coffee. If I win, I buy coffee,” Zach offered, still remembering he should fear her revenge coffee. “I’m with you. Custos is a smart son-of-a-bitch… He may be almost as smart as you are, Barb.”
Barb waited for some snide giveaway. No, Zach was serious. “I think that was a compliment. You’re not getting soft on me, are you, Zach?”
“I give you a lot of jazz. That’s because you’re a good partner. You do have it going on, too. I thought you might just be book-smart. You’ve got that emotional-quotient thing and common sense besides the MENSA thing… Well, enough about my being a great judge of character… How’s your application to the FBI coming along?”
Chapter 31
November 20
District of Columbia
Mike Tarbox and Michelle Lindquist both denied investigators the right to search their homes. The threat of warrants being in progress caused them both to feel great anxiety. Michelle’s attorney told her not to worry — very unlikely there’d be a warrant. While Mike’s attorney told him the same, too many conversations with his best friend, Jack Daniel’s, relaxed his self-control. The drunken Mike Tarbox called the law firm of Ridley, Mark, and Kelly. He began spewing names, facts, and other incriminating evidence from his burner cell.
The law firm called another law firm — Smith, Lerner, and Phelps. That firm called their fixer. Bart had already reluctantly broken his rule against cleaning up for high-profile politicians, but his hiring firm owed a big favor to the referring law firm. The fixer reviewed the focus being put on Ron Kelly’s disappearance. He shook his head at Mike Tarbox’s unraveling. There were two loose ends, two weak links: Mike Tarbox and Michelle Lindquist. He thought about Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance as a model — no traces. The fixer knew what had to be done. He also knew his rule about not dealing with high profile cases was a joke; that was his job.
Subsequently, a female contractor arranged to meet Mike Tarbox at Mike’s studio apartment to collect for services rendered. Lisa Shields was rock-solid steady, having taken 20 mg of propranolol just before leaving her apartment. The beta blocker took the edge off any performance anxiety by slowing the heart rate. After calling ahead, the short-skirted, model-attractive Lisa showed at Mike’s condo at 8:30 P.M. with a bottle of bourbon in her black Valentino tote.
“Let’s celebrate our success,” she said to Mike as she pulled out the fine popular bourbon.
“Great, come right in. Let me get some glasses. Make yourself at home. On the rocks or neat?”
“Straight up for me,” Lisa answered, “and bring me a large glass,” she laughed sociably.
“Chips? I’ve got Fritos, Tostitos, and potato chips.”
“Just a glass. Thanks.”
Mike poured each a generous double. Mike drank heartily, and Lisa sipped the whiskey while engaging in small talk. Lisa transitioned, “This is fun. I almost forgot why I came… Do you have it? My employers favorite color is green.”
While Mike headed for a bathroom vent to get the cash for the hotel clean-up job, she poured almost all of her whiskey into his glass. Then she stirred the powder of five pulverized 10 mg zolpidem tablets into his drink from a small envelope. That is five times the normal dose to induce sleep.
When he returned with the cash in a brown bag, Lisa put the contents into her tote. She smiled seductively, “I shouldn’t be in such a hurry with a man of your considerable charms… Pour me another!” she flirted.
As they laughed and toasted their success, health, and each other, Mike imbibed more whiskey while Lisa continued swallowing only drops. The lure of Lisa’s Salvatore Ferragamo Signorina perfume was irresistible. She smiled, flipped her hair, recrossed her legs, and slipped off her shoes. She straightened her shapely left leg and invitingly pulled her foot back toward her. Mike took the hint and joined her on the couch. Mike put his arm around her. He got groggier
and groggier. His speech slowed and slurred. His head felt heavy. Mike slumped into her lap. She rolled him onto the floor on his right side.
Lisa took a six-inch stiletto switchblade from her bag. Lifting up the back of his shirt with her left hand, she aimed the sharp knife for his left kidney with her right hand. She skillfully maneuvered the blade to inflict massive internal hemorrhaging with minimal external blood loss. She felt a tremendous release of tension from the mental box where she kept her pain.
__________________
Years before when Lisa returned to her above-the-garage room after her high school graduation class party, her drunken, six-foot-four, two-hundred-thirty pound stepfather was waiting in the dark. His drunken slap to her face stunned her. He threw her to the carpet and covered her mouth with his massive left hand. From there, he ripped off her dress, beat, and raped her.
In unstoppable tears, she disappeared that night with her cash savings, diploma, and a small backpack. She caught a bus from Cincinnati to San Diego. Within days the petite Lisa joined the Marine Corps. Her Marine MOS (military occupational specialty) 0621 was a field radio operator. Although not allowed in combat at the time, she obsessively polished her basic hand-to-hand combat skills with a male Marine sniper. He was her mentor at Kaneohe Marine Corps Air Station in Oahu, Hawaii. “You’re smaller than I am,” he coached, “but you’re also meaner and quicker… and no one will ever see you coming. You look like a lamb; but underneath, you are an angry tiger.”
Her mentor had challenged her to practice every martial art move over and over. She eventually made him rue that wisdom: She often annoyed him — wanting to practice when he was ready to relax and drink beer. Alone, she practiced her moves every day in off hours at the Marine fitness center on heavy Everlast hanging punching bags and speed bags. Falling asleep each night in the barracks, she mentally rehearsed her defense against a random series of attacks until she fell asleep. The mental imagery gave some small relief from the emotional tension she felt from her trauma. If nothing else, the concentration distracted from her trauma.