A Taxing Death (Jill Quint, MD, Forensic Pathologist Series Book 5)

by Peche, Alec

  "We have pretty good history with these two suspects to know that in each murder they executed so far they have done surveillance on their target, sometimes multiple surveillance trips, and so far they've scheduled their kills at least twenty-four hours after the last surveillance. So based on prior behavior, I do believe they won't be back tonight or rather I should say this morning. In fact I feel pretty confident that they won't be back."

  "Okay then I think I'll go back to bed; I need to get some more shuteye. I assume you'll make enough noise when you're dressing to leave to wake me up at that time." With a nod from Jill, he headed upstairs to return to sleep. It was only when he returned to the room that he realized that Trixie had slept through the entire affair which was amazing given the number of strangers on the property. Oh well, it was like he told Jill, Trixie made a rotten security dog. With that last thought, he and the dog were both curled up in different spots of the same room, sound asleep.

  Marie and Jill were pumped full of adrenaline and coffee as they settled into Jill’s sofa with their laptops, reviewing the names that the lieutenant had emailed to Jill. The first was Jerry Lewis and the second was James Smith.

  “They both sound like fake names although I know at one time James Smith was the most popular name in the U.S.”

  “I agree with you that they both sound fake. I’ll take Jerry and you can have James.”

  Half an hour later, James was ruled out on age. There had been no picture of him to determine if he was African-American or Caucasian, but they had managed to determine that he was over the age of 65, so he was ruled out. Jill was having poor luck with Jerry and Marie joined on the search and that reaffirmed Marie’s skill set as she had a picture of him within five minutes.

  “I don’t know why I bother to do searches with you around. I just wasted a half-hour of my life; I would have been more productive going outside and watching my grapes grow.”

  “Now Jill, don't whine when you're bested. It’s unbecoming of you!” said Marie with a laugh and Jill had to toss a pillow at her.

  “Okay, show me what you found on Jerry Lewis.”

  “He works for a large retail warehouse company. He’s attended employee picnics which should give the police a business to search for him or at least his address. I can't tell from this picture which company he works for so I’m going to follow some of the other people in this picture to see if they indicate where they work and then we’ll know."

  Jill just sat back and watched Marie work her magic. It was rather like watching Jo digesting a large column of numbers and spitting out what it all meant, or Angela surgically excising critical information out of her interviewee. She was blessed not only with a great set of friends, but wow they had the best complimentary skills a private investigator could ask for.

  Another fifteen minutes of searching and Marie had the answer. "He works for Zellers department store. They have about a thousand stores throughout the U.S. with a fulfillment center in Roseville -wherever that is."

  "Can you e-mail that to the lieutenant? I'm sure he'll want to see the trail you followed to pinpoint Zellers so I think it's easiest if you e-mail him. He will likely need that information to obtain a search warrant for employee records. While you do that, I think I'll compose an e-mail for Mrs. Valencia; I haven't updated her recently about the case and she deserves to know we're closing in on these two killers."

  "It is almost four in the morning and I'm now starting to crash and burn. I'm too old to do all-nighters. Perhaps we could go back to sleep until six thirty and then take half an hour to get ready and then hit the road at seven to make the eight o'clock meeting with the task force."

  "I think that's a superb idea. I'm starting to feel loopy from the lack of sleep and when that happens, my mouth runs away from my brain and I say stupid things," Jill said clicking the send button on the e-mail message to Mrs. Valencia. "See you at six thirty."

  When Jill crawled into bed, Nathan must've been in a deep sleep as he didn't even budge at the movement of the mattress that she caused by laying on it. She set her exterior property alarms on audible and the phone alarm for wake-up tune at six thirty. Moments later, she dropped off into a deep sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The task force meeting the next morning was bristling with new information - most of that coming from Jill and Marie. Jill provided an update on her nocturnal visitors and Marie demonstrated the path she took to determine that suspect number two worked in some capacity for the Zellers Corporation. The crime scene lab in the Palisades Valley had processed the fingerprints collected in the middle of the night. Some were identified as belonging to Jill or Nathan or prior criminals that had made attempts on Jill's life. There were two sets that remained unidentified. The fingerprints were clear but whomever they belonged to had never had cause to be fingerprinted and thus their information was not in the system.

  The lieutenant went over the plan that would be staged in Jill's house every night for the next week waiting for the suspects to attack in the middle of the night. He also went over blueprints for the auditorium as well as the building at large. While he didn't think the bomb would be planted well in advance of the targeted meeting next week, he was still having a dog search and sniff for explosives, surveying the building in the evening after the employees were gone. State workers had become very sensitive about the case and the least little bit of adversity that came their way, caused hysteria. Three buildings had already been evacuated for nothing, because the employees had seen or felt something suspicious. Routine business was very disrupted and complaints were flowing into the department and the legislature over the non-responsiveness of the Department of Revenue.

  Special Agent Ortiz was listening to the situation and looking for where her agency could lend assistance, but the Highway Patrol and the Sacramento Police Department seemed to have everything under control. She couldn't think of anything to add to make Jill and her crew or the employees of the Department of Revenue safer.

  The lieutenant had someone else working on getting the search warrant for the Zellers Corporation. They had to tread carefully here as this was a private corporation that needed to make sure that any release of information was done under the direction of the search warrant. Marie had shown his officer how to follow the internet trail of the suspect as the Lieutenant predicted that the judge would want to see the evidence in this case.

  The lieutenant moved around to Detective Chang and asked, "Were you or your staff able to locate any new information on our suspects?"

  "We spent the night chasing a very complicated identification scheme developed by our suspects. Starting with the social security number on the tax return, we weaved through five identities before each one gets killed off. Each identity is used for two consecutive years and then never again. We have someone in our cybercrimes section tracking what is going on. How could someone work for a large employer and yet change their social security number every two years? I don't believe that a major employer would allow changes like that with their employee's identification. There's no legitimate reason for an employee to change their Social Security number that frequently. We checked with the Social Security Administration and there are legitimate reasons to allow a person to change their Social Security number however they keep the new number linked with the old and certainly I have to believe that if someone had five requests two years apart to change his Social Security number that they would block it. That suggests to me that these are after-the-fact changes. I mean that someone is going into all the computer systems in the country and making these changes which would lead me to conclude that all major computer systems have been hacked into."

  "In the FBI, we've had intelligence that there is a cyber-ghost on the internet who with the greatest of ease, is able to hack into multiple systems, and make changes most of the time, leaving no proof behind of their actions. This person is so ghostly that we're not sure if he or she is real or if it's a figment of our creative imaginations,"
Special Agent Ortiz shared. "Detective, I would like to connect your expert with the agent who has been chasing this phantom on our end."

  Jill asked."Beyond her capabilities, who does he or she work for? Since our suspect's data has been changed that suggests to me that he was a target of your ghost's hacking rather than perhaps a random citizen."

  After a pause, Ortiz responded, "We've been chasing him or her for three years and we believe he or she is linked to the sovereign citizen movement."

  There was silence in the room for a few seconds while everyone digested Special Agent Ortiz's news. Then there was a volley of questions at once. Lieutenant Moss had to get control of the meeting. "It appears to me, Agent Ortiz, you've had a key piece of information that you have held back from this task force. Is my perception correct, Special Agent?" Moss's words were delivered with linguistic perfection and a soured look on his face as though yet again the FBI had let him down.

  "Not really, Lieutenant, I was informed about the ghost shortly before the start of this meeting. Our cyber division is based in Quantico, Virginia, so I'm not aware of much of the work they do. Like all Special Agents, I get regular communications from our HQ on criminal developments. We were informed about this cyber-ghost perhaps eighteen months ago. At the time, it was a for-your-information message about the probability that the ghost existed and the efforts to track it down. Frankly I had forgotten about it, but when I filed a report on the situation here, I received a call from Quantico's expert who is in the air on her way here to join this group. She has been tracking the ghost for several years and would like to look at the evidence here. She did say that she hoped you were not taking meeting minutes and saving them on an internet connected computer. If you have, the ghost may have accessed them and either deleted or changed what you have recorded."

  As the agent was speaking, he searched the laptop in front of him for the minutes of the task force meeting. He pulled up the minutes from two previous meetings and was alarmed with what they said. The minutes referred to different participants as being idiots and the governor was described in even more derogatory terms. These were not the words that Moss had used to describe the meeting.

  "Agent, thank you for that warning! The minutes have been modified and for the record many of you in this room have seemingly been called idiots by me. That is the farthest from the truth and I will be deleting these minutes and strictly keeping paper copies from here on out. I would appreciate if everyone on the task force as well would revert to paper until we catch this ghost."

  "If we wanted proof of the ghost's existence, it sounds like we have it, based on what you've seen with the change of your minutes," Ortiz noted with satisfaction. "That was a mistake by this perpetrator."

  "When does your expert's plane touchdown in Sacramento?"

  "About another two hours," replied Special Agent Ortiz glancing at her watch.

  Jill had been thinking about a cyber-ghost while they were speaking and it made her think of David Gomez from a previous case in Colorado and Henrik, her friend in Germany, who ran a software security company. She debated in her head whether to say something to the task force about potential resources, but then she decided it was best to have a private conversation with each of them to understand their capabilities in assisting the task force in finding the ghost.

  Essentially, Marie and Jill had no work required today by either the task force or by Mrs. Valencia, although Jill had called her to update what was happening with finding her husband's killer. Marie was leaving the next day to return home to Wisconsin. She would see what Marie wanted to do for the remainder of the day after the meeting ended.

  The conversation wrapped up and Jill and Marie stood up to leave. On their way out the door, Special Agent Ortiz stopped them.

  "Jill, you had that look in your eye that says you have another option that you're going to pursue to help solve this case. What is it?"

  "Am I that transparent?"

  "This is not my first rodeo with you. So what were you thinking of doing?"

  "Since the original case that you helped me with last year, I have had several more cases that have allowed me to develop a network of friends with particular skills. Both David Gomez and Henrik Klein have been very helpful in previous cases in figuring out what people are doing with computers. Henrik in particular runs a multinational computer security company. He's the one that has supplied me and several other agencies in the United States and around the world with computer recognition software that goes beyond just passports and drivers licenses and other official documents that people have. It also searches the internet and does facial recognition matches to pictures on Instagram, Facebook, and whatever social media is used by a particular country or region of the world. Because of his security software background, Henrik has extensive experience with blocking hackers from getting into a system. I've seen a demo of it and I am massively impressed. I was planning on calling him to see what kind of input he might have to help us with this ghost. He has some pretty spectacular hackers on his payroll who could be our best bet at finding the ghost. However, that is a long shot and I might be completely off base so I thought that I would call him first and see what his thoughts would be about our case. If he thinks he can contribute something, then it would be good to connect him with your lady who's been hunting this cyber-ghost."

  "Actually, Jill, that sounds like an excellent plan," replied Ortiz genuinely intrigued with Jill's contacts. "I would like to meet this friend of yours who has such incredible computer skills. If he or his company can assist in the apprehension of this cyber-ghost, we would probably want to have him on retainer for the foreseeable future in order to gain his help with other cybercrimes. Why don't you give him a call and see if he is okay with me joining your phone call. If he is, then we'll schedule a conversation in say ten minutes. Sound like a plan?"

  As far as Jill was concerned, this sense of willingness to work with people outside of the justice system was what made Special Agent Ortiz better at her job. She had worked with some people who assumed that America was the pinnacle of intelligence and that was the wrong attitude. As far as she was concerned, the software that Henrik had created and now sold was superior to anything that local law enforcement presently used.

  "That sounds like a plan. Give me a moment and I'll see what he can do to assist with this case," Jill replied as she contacted Henrik. Given the time change, it was approaching the end of day in Germany, but at least it wasn't the middle of the night there. She thought she would get his voicemail as he was chief executive officer of a major German corporation. Frequently, her cases often left him with new business in different cities of the United States.

  "Henrik, how are you doing?" Jill asked. She had learned to accept as European graciousness wherein you ask somebody how they were doing, how their family was, before you gave them your business reason for calling.

  "I'm doing well and you and Nathan and your friends?"

  "We're all doing well and in fact Nathan and I were chatting about coming to visit you in a month or two for perhaps four to five days. I wanted to thank you in person for all the help you have given me over the past year and maybe we'll visit a few wineries while we are there."

  "That's brilliant, let me know when you are coming and I'll make all the arrangements for you. I'll take some time off work to be your host and lazily tour the German countryside."

  "Henrik, you don't have to take time off work - we don't mean to burden you."

  "Jill, I haven't taken any time off since you were here last fall. I can manage a few days off, and I would love to learn a little more about wine and winemaking from you two. I'm pleased and excited that you're coming."

  Henrik sounded lonely and sad and she would have to make sure they visited him soon. She then went on to the reason she called him, "Henrik, I wondered if you would have an interest in helping with our present case?"

  "Is my facial recognition software not working?" Henrik asked sounding alarmed
.

  "Henrik, you know that is a great product and the software program is working just fine! No, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is asking if you have the expertise to assist them in apprehending a cyber-ghost. Have you ever chased one of those before in one of your systems?"

  "A cyber-ghost? That sounds intriguing. Tell me more about it and I'll let you know if I can help."

  "Thanks, Henrik. Before I say any more, the FBI would like to chat with you now; is this a convenient time to talk?"

  "Really, your FBI wants to talk with me, Henrik Klein, a German businessman? You must have an urgent problem on your hands. I am free for the next thirty minutes, so why don't you conference them in?"

  A few seconds later, Agent Ortiz joined the call and explained what they were dealing with. She then asked him if finding the cyber-ghost was something with which he had some familiarity.

  "Yes, I have had ghosts try to attack my software and when that didn't work, they went after my server farm. Neither succeeded. I employ staff to hunt for ghosts continuously in my system as that is one of the top business threats to a company like mine. Would you like some help? We can discuss our approach for searching and killing ghosts in software."

  "I would as I believe the ghost in our system has facilitated the deaths of at least four people that we know of and we believe there is a plan to kill all attendees at a meeting next week. The FBI's top cyber-ghost hunter is scheduled to arrive at a local airport in an hour. Would you be able to join a conference call with your staff in about ninety minutes?"

  Henrik agreed and arrangements were made for the call.

  "We should invite Lieutenant Moss to this call," Jill asserted. "Like me, I doubt he understands the technical details of cyber-ghosts, but his agency has been a victim of the ghost and he'll certainly want to know how to get rid of him or her. Depending on what everyone hears on this call, Henrik's company may suddenly have some new business from the United States."