Overbrook Farms

by Neal Goldstein

  “You said them?”

  “A knife and a gun.”

  “Officers, we know Mr. Carson and his family. The handcuffs won’t be necessary. Secure the crime scene until the techs and the medical examiner arrive. We’ll conduct the interviews,” Benson said.

  Benson told Hunter to wait in the den as he stood at the front door and put booties on his shoes before he entered and climbed the stairs to the second floor.

  When Benson reached the top of the stairs, he waved for Loman to join him.

  The dead man was sprawled on the hallway floor inches from one of the bedroom doors. A wicked looking knife with a curved blade was near the corpse’s outstretched hand, and a 45 caliber Glock with a sound suppressor lay on the floor a few feet further down the hallway. Benson knocked on the door closest to the body, there was no response; he opened it. No one was inside.

  He carefully stepped over the body and signaled Jake to follow. “Check the other bedrooms and see who’s here. When you find the family, keep them calm, until we can remove the body.”

  Jake found Lena, Haley, the baby and Lena’s parents in the master bedroom where Hunter told him they would be. “We need you to stay here for a little longer. OK?”

  “Is Hunter alright?” Lena asked.

  “He’s fine. Don’t worry.”

  It took the Crime Scene Techs and personnel from the Medical Examiner’s office the better part of two hours to complete their work and remove the corpse from the premises. By then the media was camped outside the Carsons’ house.

  Benson and Loman had completed their initial interviews of Hunter, his father-in-law, and the other adults. Benson gave the district captain and chief inspector, who had arrived at the scene, a quick summary so they could handle the press.

  “So, it looks like a home invasion and a justifiable homicide?” the chief inspector asked Benson and Loman. They both nodded.

  “OK.”

  “Chief, we’ll bring Mr. Carson to the house and take his formal statement,” Benson said.

  “He’s not lawyering up?”

  “No sir.”

  19

  A few hours later, Southwest Detectives

  Hunter was waiting for Benson and Loman in one of the interview rooms at Southwest Detectives. On the ride to the station house the detectives told him it was just a formality; Benson had already briefed his boss and the chief inspector. The bosses had decided not to arrest Hunter upon the detectives’ assurance that he was not a flight risk. Instead they decided to recommend to the District Attorney that the shooting was a justifiable homicide-self-defense-during a home invasion. The detectives still needed to record Hunter’s formal statement in the unlikely event the DA rejected the recommendation.

  They left him in one of the interview rooms. About a half-hour later, Loman was the first to return. He was carrying three steaming Styrofoam cups on a tray. “I thought we could all use a cup of Joe,” he said as he handed one to Hunter and took one for himself.

  “Thanks.”

  “Benny’s still with the boss.

  They sat in silence sipping their coffee as they waited.

  Benson and Loman took Hunter’s statement without fanfare. The entire interview process took less than an hour. They warned Hunter to avoid the press and released him.

  After Hunter left Benson asked Loman “So, what do you think?”

  “I think Hunter knows more than he’s sayin,” the young detective replied.

  Benson gave him an affirmative nod and said, “Yeah, me too.”

  “Do you think he knows the intruder?”

  “Maybe not; but he sure as hell knows why he was there, and what he wanted,” Benson responded with a shrug.

  “Why you thinkin’ that?” Jake asked.

  “He was ready for something to happen. You don’t sleep with a piece under your bed if you’re not worrying about someone coming for you.”

  “But Hunter’s a good guy. Him and Lena and Haley. They’re good people.”

  “I know. The thing is Hunter’s hiding something. He’s always been kinda vague about his past.”

  “So, what’s our next move?” the younger detective asked.

  “After we ID the corpse, we’ll figure out what’s really going on.”

  Jake fixed his eyes on his partner and asked, “Do you have any doubts about the shooting?”

  “No. It was righteous; but in the meantime, let’s run a background check on Hunter and see what comes up.”

  “On Hunter? Why?”

  Benson exhaled and said, “Call it a hunch.”

  * * *

  “How’s Haley?” Hunter asked when he got home.

  “About what you’d expect. It brought back some dark memories,” Lena answered.

  “What?” he asked seeing the tears welling up in her eyes.

  “I was starting to think we were past all of this.”

  He took her in his arms. “I know.”

  She stepped out of his embrace, and wiped a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand. “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “Jarvis will be here this weekend. We’re gonna meet with Haley’s grandfather. Then I’m going to eliminate the threat.”

  20

  Saturday June 2, 2018, Hyde Park, New York

  Jarvis had set up the meeting with Michael Montgomery Jr, for Saturday morning at his estate in Duchess County, New York near Hyde Park.

  “I’ll be visiting friends in Poughkeepsie this weekend. I wondered if I could pay my respects. There’s something I’d like to share with you, if you could spare me a few minutes,” he asked.

  Jarvis continued without giving the man any opportunity to respond. “I believe you’ll find what I have to tell you is well worth your time.”

  “Jarvis, what’s this all about?” Montgomery asked

  “I’ll fill you in when I get there,” he replied. Before the man could object, he added, “Mr. Montgomery, you know I’m not a man who is prone to hyperbole. I’m asking you to trust me. I promise it will be worth your time and indulgence.”

  Prior to leaving Hunter hired a security firm to provide 24-hour surveillance at his home and for Haley. Jarvis and he made the five-hour drive to Newburgh, New York, that night. During the trip they discussed how they would approach Montgomery, and devised a preliminary strategy for eliminating the threat to Haley.

  “Len, there’s something that’s been bugging me about Montgomery since we met at Mahuffers,” Hunter said after they completed their planning.

  “What?”

  “Why didn’t he terminate Pirolli after the failed mission?”

  “I don’t know. Pirolli fired me before I had a chance to speak with him,” he paused. “But I know one thing for sure, Montgomery’s going to be mad as hell you kept his granddaughter away from him. He’ll want her back.”

  Hunter nodded, and briefly turned towards his passenger with an expression of resignation on his face.

  “Do you know how you’re going to deal with that?” Jarvis asked.

  “Not really.”

  * * *

  When they arrived at the appointed hour, Montgomery opened the door. Before he could say anything, Jarvis held a finger to his lips, signaling the man to remain silent. “Good morning sir,” he said. “Thanks for seeing me.”

  “Of course,” Montgomery responded, not certain of what was going on, and waved the two men inside.

  “Is anyone else here?” Jarvis asked.

  “No. It’s the servants’ day off.”

  “It’s been quite a while since I was last here,” Jarvis said. He continued to ramble on as he took a device out of his jacket pocket and pointed it at the lamps, light fixtures, and electrical outlets in the center hall. Lights on the device began to blink when he waved it close to a lamp that sat on a breakfront. He mouthed the word ‘Bug.’

  Montgomery’s eyebrows raised in recognition that someone had put listening devices in his house.

  Jarvis’ device blink
ed several more times as they walked through the hall and entered a sitting room with a commanding view of the Hudson River.

  Jarvis found one more listening device in there. Before he disabled it, he took a small tablet out of his jacket pocket and wrote, “Is there a radio in this room?”

  Montgomery nodded and pointed to a dial on the wall near the door. Jarvis turned the dial and classical music began to play through speakers mounted on the opposite wall, and then he pulled the wire from the bug.

  He checked his watch and said, “We don’t have a lot of time. We need to finish up here before someone’s dispatched to check out the sitting room. I think I found all of the bugs. Whoever’s monitoring them will think the device in this room failed, but in case I missed one the music will make it difficult for anyone listening in to hear us,” he said.

  “Jarvis, what the hell’s going on; and who’s he?” Montgomery asked as he looked over to Hunter.

  “I’m Charles Hunter, sir.”

  Montgomery’s face flushed, his eyes narrowed to slits, and he moved towards Hunter. “You’re the bastard who kidnapped Haley!”

  Jarvis grabbed Montgomery’s arm and restrained him before he could reach Hunter who stood motionless. Montgomery shifted his eyes back to Jarvis and hissed, “Get your damn hands off me!”

  “Please sir. Hear me out. You’ve got it wrong. Hunter didn’t kidnap your granddaughter; he saved her life!”

  Montgomery stopped struggling and turned to face Jarvis, “But Pirolli told me he killed Elizabeth and took Haley…”

  “He lied to you. They never intended to pay the ransom and bring Haley and her mother back,” Jarvis said.

  Montgomery shifted his eyes from Jarvis to Hunter and back.

  Jarvis released him and looked over at Hunter who nodded, and then he told Montgomery what had actually taken place.

  As Jarvis spoke, Hunter looked around the room to get a measure of the man. The room looked like ‘old money.’ There was a mahogany bookshelf filled with leather bound books that spanned an entire wall from floor to ceiling. On the wall on the other side of the room was an over-sized fireplace, with portraits, probably of the owner’s ancestors, hanging over the mantel. The room smelled of stale tobacco smoke; there was dust on the furniture, signs the room was rarely used.

  When Jarvis finished, Montgomery turned to Hunter, and asked, his voice cracked with emotion, “Haley saw the man murder her mother?”

  Hunter nodded.

  “Oh my God! She was, what, eight or nine years old?”

  Montgomery’s handsome features sagged. At sixty-seven, he retained a youthful appearance. He still had an athletic build, and a full head of silver-gray hair, cut like the prep school boys, parted on the side, long on top and close on the sides. His teeth were bleached a sparkling white. He had deep-set crystal blue eyes, under bushy eyebrows, the same eyes as Haley.

  “I want to see my granddaughter.”

  “Sir, I understand, but the child just experienced the trauma of an intruder at Hunter’s house a few nights ago,” Jarvis said, his tone soft and soothing. “I think we have to consider what’s in her best interests.”

  “We could protect her here. I’ll hire guards, 24-7.”

  “Do you really believe this place is secure?’ Jarvis responded as he pointed at the listening device he had just disabled.

  “Mr. Montgomery, it would disrupt Haley’s life. She’s in school. She has her friends, she’s happy.” Hunter also maintained an even demeanor.

  “God damn it, she’s my granddaughter! You should have brought her to me when you…” He stopped in mid-sentence his voice choked, tears ran down his cheeks.

  Jarvis and Hunter waited for the man to calm down.

  Montgomery cleared his throat, “I’m sorry. I should be thanking you for saving her…Why didn’t you come to me sooner?”

  Hunter looked directly in the older man’s eyes, “At first, I didn’t know who to trust. Who was behind the plot.”

  Montgomery winced, “You thought I was responsible for my daughter-in-law’s murder? That I would kill my own granddaughter?”

  “I didn’t know what to think. All I wanted was to save Haley. Keep her safe until I could get to the bottom of it,” Hunter responded. He continued, “Until a week ago, I didn’t know that you ordered Pirolli to pay the ransom.”

  “But it’s been more than three years since…” he stopped in mid-sentence.

  “I know,” Hunter replied, his voice low.

  21

  That afternoon, Southwest Detectives, Philadelphia

  “The FBI responded to our inquiry on the intruder Hunter shot,” Jake handed Benson the printout when he sat down at the desk across from him in Southwest Detectives.

  Benson reviewed the report. It included a series of booking photos, from the National Police Force of Colombia starting in 1986 when the deceased assailant was 17 years old through 1999, as well as his rap sheet. The report identified him as Hector Ramirez; Age 50; born April 24, 1969. Among his criminal associations was “enforcer for the Medellin Cartel.”

  “So, no further arrests after 1999?” Benson asked.

  “Yeah, and nothing in the States until now. But he was a suspect in a number of homicides in both South America and Europe since then… Some of the incidents seem pretty sophisticated,” Jake said.

  “A hit man for the Cartel and then a hired gun. What the fuck was he doing at Hunter’s house?” Benson asked.

  “Lena and her family come from Venezuela. Maybe it has something to do with them.”

  “Maybe.” Benson replied and put the report down. “I still think we need to take a look into Hunter’s background.”

  “I’m on it,” Jake replied.

  “I know you don’t like it, but we gotta run down every angle.”

  Later that day Jake came back to the division and found Benson at his desk with a stack of folders in front of him. “What’s in the folders?”

  “I followed up on the homicides where Ramirez was a suspect.”

  “Anything interesting?”

  “Maybe. There were six homicides, two in 2001 in Venezuela, and the rest between 2003 and 2015, in Italy, Kosovo and France.” Benson handed Jake a sheet summarizing the cases. “The only common element in all of them is references to ‘Global Security, Inc.”

  Jake scanned the paper where Benson had highlighted the company’s name. “What’s Global Security?”

  “I did an internet search. It’ s an international outfit; does investigative and other jobs loosely described as security services for the Defense Department, Homeland, and their counterparts in the UK and other countries. It also has contracts with Fortune 100 corporations.”

  “What’s Global’s connection to the homicides?”

  Benson scratched his chin, “Don’t know yet. Did you find anything interesting in Hunter’s background?”

  “That’s what I wanted to tell you. I can’t find anything.”

  Benson’s eyes narrowed, “What do you mean?”

  “There’s nothing before he came here three years ago,” Jake said.

  “But that’s impossible. Nothing from the IRS, Social Security, Vital Records?”

  Loman shook his head, “Nada.”

  “How about Immigration, Homeland Security?”

  “Nope.”

  “What about Lena and Haley?”

  “Lena has a Venezuela Passport. She went to school here at Penn; she graduated from Wharton 12 years ago. There’s no record of Haley or how she got to Venezuela.”

  “What the fuck?”

  They stared at each other in silence. “Do you think Nikki could run a face recognition on Hunter? I mean since the Secret Service is now in Homeland, maybe she could run one without us having to jump through hoops.” Jake asked.

  Benson shifted his eyes away from his partner. He knew Jake’s suggestion was right on the money, getting a face recognition through the feds was a real shit show, but he didn’t want to involve his wif
e in this mess. He took a deep breath and let it out. “I’ll see what I can do?”

  22

  Hudson River Valley, Duchess County, New York

  Hunter, Jarvis and Montgomery decided they needed to relocate before whoever had bugged Montgomery’s house got curious. They left the sitting room and walked into the hall where they knew the listening devices were working.

  “Mr. Montgomery, I just wanted to let you know how very sorry I was to hear about your daughter-in-law and your granddaughter. I never had the opportunity to personally convey my condolences,” Jarvis said.

  “Thank you.”

  “A real tragedy sir,” Jarvis said as he and Hunter left the mansion.

  Jarvis booked a conference room in the Grand Hotel near Marist College and texted Montgomery where to meet them. Before Montgomery arrived, he checked the room for listening devices. It was clean.

  When they regrouped at the hotel in Poughkeepsie that afternoon, the impact of their earlier meeting on Montgomery was apparent from the man’s expression and body language when he entered the room. He seemed uncertain and moved slowly, like he had aged years in the few hours that had passed since they had last seen him.

  “You OK?” Hunter asked.

  Montgomery waved his hand at Hunter in response and sat down at the conference table. Jarvis poured him a glass of water.

  They had already told Montgomery that Pirolli, the former Director of Global, was responsible for his daughter-in-law’s murder and they suspected his ex-wife might also be involved.

  When Montgomery settled in, he said, “But why do you suspect my ex-wife.”

  Jarvis looked over at Hunter before answering and replied, “The rescue mission was a black op; everyone with the exception of me and Hunter were in on it. There’s no way the colonel would have sanctioned that on his own, he must have had authorization from someone.”

  “Are you saying that Hannah told him to kill them?”