by Cat Connor
Mac blanched; guess he didn’t think I’d remember about the note so soon.
“It’s in evidence,” he said.
“What’d it say?”
“ ‘I hear you knocking,’ ” Mac said. Slowly.
“Does that mean we’re getting closer or what? Before I woke up,” I said, then paused to consider the entire thought. “I saw a note which said, ‘People like you shouldn’t procreate.’ ”
“That’s not one we’ve found yet,” Mac replied.
“Can I have your phone please?”
He handed it to me. I called my father. His phone rang and rang. I’d started to think he was out when he answered, breathless.
“You okay?” I asked, foregoing the usual greeting.
“I am,” he replied. I heard a female voice in the background.
“Company?”
“Making lunch … for a lady who moved in down the street.”
“Go, Dad,” I replied, happy for him.
“How can I help you, Ellie?” Much amusement in his voice.
“I had a problem with a Marine yesterday. I need someone at NCIS. Who should I call?”
“I know your type of problem,” he replied. “Call Special Agent Noel Gerrard.”
“He good?”
“I trained him.”
I felt a TV show brewing. “He doesn’t resemble Jethro Gibbs by any chance?”
“I don’t know Gibbs.”
I silenced the NCIS episode before it took hold. “Never mind – just one of my better interludes encroaching.”
“Call Gerrard. He’s a good man.”
“That’s all I need to know.”
“All right, Ellie. I have lunch to cook. Take care; say hello to Mac.”
“Bye, Dad.” I smiled at Mac. “Dad says hi, and he has a lunch date!”
He replied, “Go, Simon. Looks like he’s getting on with life.”
It was good news. We all thought it was time dad moved forward after mom’s death. So far he’d thrown himself into running our Foundation and didn’t seem to want to date or meet anyone.
I handed the phone back to Mac. “See if you can get Special Agent Noel Gerrard over at NCIS to meet with us.”
“If he resists?”
“Tell him who my father is and, that I want to press charges against a Marine.”
Mac walked to the far side of the small room and made a call. I listened as he asked our switchboard to put him through to NCIS; that way the call couldn’t be traced any farther than the FBI. Seems he didn’t trust the military either. A few minutes later he smiled at me and nodded.
He hung up and sat on the end of my bed. “He’ll meet with you, whenever you’re ready.”
“Excellent, thank you.”
My door opened. Caine stormed in, followed by Lee and Praskovya.
“You okay?” he asked.
Mac jumped to his feet. “Caine.”
“Mac, sit. I want a quick word, then I’m out of here.”
I guess I looked bemused.
“Ellie, did you really think I wouldn’t find out where you were?”
He looked fierce. Quick, answer him. “Um, no.”
He squinted out another characteristic gaze. “You capable of finishing this?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He spun on his heels and evaporated into thin air.
I was left waiting for the other shoe to drop. The silence was deafening for almost two whole seconds, then bam, the music started in my head.
My first reaction was to slap myself upside the head, good and hard, to dislodge it. But my slapping arm was bandaged and oozing so it wasn’t an option. I was trapped listening to Bruce Willis singing ‘Swinging on a Star.’ I remembered Hudson Hawk and I knew exactly how long that song lasts. I sighed as the third verse started.
“Ellie?”
I looked up to find Mac’s questioning face. “You’re sighing.”
I wanted to tell him about the song without Lee and Praskovya hearing me, or thinking I was suffering from a head injury. They might mutiny. The thought of mutiny almost caused me to laugh aloud; that’s not Lee’s style. Mac was still waiting, and the damn song kept on.
“Ellie?”
“Remember Hudson Hawk?”
He nodded. He moved closer to my ear and whispered, “Let me guess: you have ‘Swinging on a Star’ stuck in your head.”
“Yep, and it’s just started again; thanks to you I now have another five minutes and thirty-two seconds of hell to listen to.”
“That means something, Ellie.”
He was right, mostly the songs meant something. So what was it I needed to glean from this one? Swinging on a star, Hudson Hawk, or a time value? This didn’t mean I thought Bruce Willis was an Eastern European serial killer.
Praskovya and Lee stopped their conversation and joined ours. I don’t know how much they’d heard; we kept our voices barely above a whisper.
I decided to ask the group questions.
“Do the numbers five, three, two mean anything?”
This drew blank looks.
“How about as a time? Five minutes thirty-two seconds?”
Nothing. I moved right along. Maybe it wasn’t the song length. “How about the name Hudson Hawk?”
Praskovya leaned forward and repeated the name as if he hadn’t heard correctly, “Hudson Hawk?”
“Yes.”
“You came up with the name Hudson Hawk by yourself?”
“Yes.” Parts of the movie circled slowly overhead like Leonardo Da Vinci’s flying machine. “What are we expecting here? A Vatican robbery … the CIA … alchemy … a nun? Did the fuc’n butler do it?”
Praskovya shifted his weight from his right to his left foot, he looked perplexed, and then he spoke, “A few years ago that name came to our attention.”
“Our?” And now he talks.
“FSB.”
“Carry on.”
“Someone by the name of Hudson Hawk was giving large sums of money to orphanages across Europe.”
“Large?”
“Millions of U.S. dollars.”
“Generous man, this Mr. Hawk.” I resisted the temptation to ask if Hudson Hawk had his pal, Tommy ‘Five-Tone’ with him.
Praskovya nodded. “Exceptionally. No one knew who he was, or is, but over a five-year span he was a benefactor extraordinaire, giving nearly twenty million dollars.”
“And?”
“The money stopped a year ago.”
“And the money, how was it transferred?”
“Always contact was made through a third party who contacted the orphanages in question to obtain bank account details. The money was transferred from a numbered Swiss account to the orphanage account overnight.”
“How did you find the name?”
Praskovya smirked before replying, “He sent cards signed Hudson Hawk. The cards arrived in the next mail delivery, always after the money. They said ‘Merry Christmas’, even though he never transferred any funds during any Christmas period. All the transfers were made during summer months.”
“Any theories as to why they stopped?”
Praskovya shrugged, “He could be dead, in prison on an unrelated matter, or he may have given away all his money.”
“Yeah … maybe.” On the other hand, he could’ve left Europe.
Praskovya leaned against the wall. “Why do you ask about Hawk?’
Now that was something I didn’t want to answer. I fumbled about in my head looking for something reasonable to say. “Call it intuition. I think someone using the name Hudson Hawk has a connection to this case.”
“And you pulled that out of thin air, with this intuition you speak of?” Praskovya radiated incredulity; even his long black coat draped over a chair seemed to confront me with a large dose of skepticism.
I watched Lee’s face contort as he considered what had been said and, probably, Praskovya’s reaction. Finally he said, “More spooky shit, yeah?”
I nodded.
One glance told me Praskovya was lost. And I didn’t want to explain to him what Lee meant. But it didn’t look like I’d need the copal or to play with voodoo and magick spells after all.
Mac spoke, “What if Hawk, Selena, Unsub, Sadler, the Marine and the mystery military man are all part of the same cell?”
I picked up on his drift. “And the money he was giving wasn’t so much a gift as insurance, making damn sure he or they had a safe house. Who would look for criminals in an orphanage?”
“You have a point,” Lee concurred. “And they’d be fairly comfortable places with that amount of cash pumped into them, if indeed it went to the orphanages and not a particular person.”
I smiled. “I thought I had a good point but it is speculation and gets us no closer to the Unsub, or even an idea of who he is. People are still dying.”
Praskovya stood up. He paced the confines of the small room. “It may.” He picked up his coat and plunged his arms into it. I thought he was going to leave but he pulled his cell from his coat pocket and punched in many numbers. Several minutes later, he spoke in Russian. I sat mesmerized by the beauty of the language. Three more phone calls followed, then finally Praskovya spoke English to us.
“A woman and four men visited three orphanages on our list, at different times, staying for approximately two weeks at each place over the course of several years. There was an increase of murders in the areas during those times, mostly vagrants and prostitutes – this was recently discovered. We have identified only one man by name.”
I was barely breathing. “A name?”
“Christos Von Crichton.”
Lee was already on his laptop, running the name through Immigration, as well as airport security. Praskovya called another number, speaking Russian again. Moments later he said, “A photograph is being faxed to your office.”
“Was anyone ever charged with any of those murders?” Questions bubbled up inside me. I wanted to know the exact details of each murder.
“No, in one town the police suspected a farmer who had a history of alcohol-related violence. His death coincided with the cessation of the murders.”
“Signature?”
Praskovya leaned back on the wall by the door, stepped forward, removed his coat and draped it casually over the end of the bed before speaking. His actions made me wonder why he’d put it on to start with. I stifled a smile: maybe it was a quirk. Perhaps it was something he felt he had to do; wear the coat to access the pockets. Could the Russian dark horse have quirks like a regular human being?
Praskovya spoke, freeing me from the ramblings about his quirky coat habits. “All the victims were women and all stabbed; the bodies were found in pools of vodka or Slivovitz, depending on the town.”
“Slivovitz?”
“A plum brandy made in Serbia from blue plums. It is quite delicious. I will bring you some when I get a chance.”
“Why use Slivovitz in Russia?” My immediate response was to wonder if the murders were in Russia, but surely they wouldn’t be in Serbia if the FSB were investigating. Hang on. Where had Christopher Sadler traveled to? “Praskovya, didn’t you say Sadler took trips to Serbia?”
“Da.”
My thoughts flowed on, verbally, “Don’t you wonder if he brought back the brandy? Unless it’s a normal drink in … where were the murders involving brandy?”
I was trying to determine if he was using alcohol that has a geographical connection, rather than it having a particular message.
Lee waved a hand to get our attention. “Von Crichton arrived in LA two months ago, flew out of JFK in New York four weeks ago to Canada and then into Dulles two after that.”
“From?”
“Toronto.”
“Get a bulletin out on him: wanted for questioning, considered dangerous. Let Customs know. I want him stopped. I want the borders closed for Von Crichton. Add Hawk to that, too, for all we know they’re the same person.” I thought for a minute. “Can we get media liaison involved and get his freaking face all over the news channels? He can’t hunt if everyone knows who he is.” I stopped myself. “Scratch that. We can’t warn the public until we are sure it’s him. Unless we can prove this is a national security issue? And who is to say he’s making first contact with these women?”
Lee and Mac shook their heads. Lee spoke, “We can’t connect the dots; wanted for questioning is the best we can do.”
Mac touched my shoulder. “But you can have your dad put the photo up in the members-only area of the Butterfly Foundation website.”
That was something at least and, I could do more than that.
“Also, Mac, send a bulletin to every member with the photo of Von Crichton, with all our contact numbers. Try not to scare the kids but word it so they know something is going on; include everything we know about Selena. We know she was in the chat room. There must be a photo of her. You must have one, Praskovya. Have it put up on the website. Tell them she’s dangerous. That will make everyone take notice; then add that anyone who has seen either of them should call us immediately.” I found myself thinking we should probably get hold of that fax and get copies of the photograph made first.
“Lee, have someone pick up the fax, scan it and put the image on a flash drive; make photocopies of the original fax. I want the original added to the case file and the copies and flash drive delivered to you.”
Lee was thinking while he made notes, “You want me to have a bulletin circulated through the network with a description and the pictures of Von Crichton and Selena?”
“Yes, please. Send out a BOLO with as much information as we have. Add, ‘Considered dangerous – apprehend with caution’ and make a note: I want to be able to speak to these people – dead won’t work for me. Call the office, have Chrissy get on it. Tell her to meet you somewhere to hand over the documents and flash drive.” I was tempted to have the picture copied to CD but flash drives are so cool and small, and I love technology. Then I had another thought. “Can you ask Chrissy to please use two new flash drives, put the picture on both. I want one given to my dad.”
Lee smiled. “Wouldn’t it be easier to email him the picture?”
“Nope, we’re dealing with at least one hacker. Physically pick up those drives and I’ll have dad meet us for the handover.”
Lee didn’t look up as he scribbled some more notes. “Have you considered the hacker is already inside the Foundation?”
“Yes. Let’s make that Mac’s problem.”
“Thanks,” Mac replied, “Good thing I came along.”
Praskovya spoke, “What is this BOLO you speak of?”
“It’s a notice to all law enforcement to Be On the Look Out.” I replied, “It’s Agency speak.”
Praskovya nodded. “We have similar thing in Russia.”
Lee stepped up to the mirror over the sink. “I’m going to set up that meeting with Chrissy,” he said, smoothing his short hair and straightening his clothes. He fiddled with the collar of his shirt until it sat exactly how he wanted it, then gave his shoes a quick shine with a paper towel. He likes Chrissy McQueen. Most red-blooded men do. She brought out the man in men.
“Mac, have dad make sure everyone logging in receives a message with a photo. Splash the word ‘dangerous’ across the picture. That should get everyone’s attention.”
“I’ll write the message and add the photo myself, as soon as Lee brings us back those flash drives.”
I wasn’t done yet. “I want someone to show the photographs to the military personnel on gate duty; let’s see if they recognize Von Crichton. Scratch that: I’m meeting with someone from NCIS. I’ll have him do it. They’ll be more willing to talk to one of their own, plus he can liaise with his army equivalent.”
“What kind of name is Von Crichton?” Lee asked.
Praskovya replied, “Austrian.”
“Like Hitler?” Lee said.
I attempted to head off the evil pictures building in my own mind and said, “Like Von Trapp from The Sound
of Music.”
“Much nicer image, thanks, Ellie,” Lee replied. He looked up from his phone. “Office says the photograph is being circulated to all LEOs.”
“Go get our picture, Lee.”
Lee grabbed his jacket, threw a grin back into the room, and headed off to meet Chrissy.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Temptation
I looked around the small hospital room. Safe; yes, but also constricting. I needed to go back to the office, or I needed an office.
“We need desks, computers and a more conducive work environment.”
Praskovya stepped forward from the wall he leaned on. “There is a temporary office down the hall, it has desks.”
“Excellent.”
Mac, Praskovya and I walked down the corridor to a waiting room already converted to a reasonable workspace.
I felt stranger than I ever had, which was saying something. The whole case to date smelled of something else. I’d missed something. We’d missed something. I sat at a desk with a laptop on it. The desk I chose faced the other two desks. Praskovya and Mac slid into chairs. I could hear them talking quietly as I opened the laptop and switched it on.
By the time I had opened the case files my fingers were drumming a beat on the desk surface and my mind rock ‘n’ rolled over fresh ideas, hoping I could secure a new perspective.
Frustrated with the lack of answers I danced around inside my own brain until Praskovya spoke loud enough to shake me from myself.
“Ellie?”
“Uh-huh?”
“Can I help you?”
What an odd thing to say. I was busy – lost in my thoughts – and he thinks I need help. Meddlesome man!
“I don’t think so.”
Mac gave one of his knowing looks. As if that was necessary. I knew he knew I was struggling with this case.