Operation: Beach Angel

by Margaret Kay

  “I’m going to guess that will come from Ruth’s online activities. I’ve got the login info for her personal email account. I’ll access that tonight after we know she’s in bed. I don’t want to be in it when she logs in,” Garcia said.

  Indigo

  At eighteen-fifteen, the alarm on Lambchop’s watch sounded. “I have to make a call,” he said as he stood. “I’ll be back in shortly.”

  He stepped outside and paced near the car until EJ answered. The parking lot was vacant. It was dark, barely lit by the single light outside of the door to the proctology office. He pulled the zipper to his coat all the way up. It was a chilly, damp evening.

  “Hi Uncle L,” EJ answered.

  Lambchop was glad that EJ answered. After the rebellious picture that Shereese painted of him, he wouldn’t have been surprised if EJ let it go to voicemail. Though, he paid the phone bill and EJ knew that unless he was in class, at practice, or playing a game, that he better answer whenever he called.

  “Hi EJ. I got a call from your momma. She told me you’ve been blowing curfew and not doing your best at school.” Best to lay it out there, man to man.

  “Momma has a curfew on me that is way too early. All the other guys are allowed to stay out an hour or two later. I tried to talk to her about it, but she wouldn’t budge.”

  “So, you just disrespected her and did whatever you wanted?” He knew he had to sound like a hard ass to EJ. He wanted the boy to understand how unacceptable his disrespect of his mother was.

  “I didn’t think about it that way.”

  “Well, that’s what it is. Your momma is doing the best she can, EJ. We’ve talked about this before. It’s your job to help her out.”

  “I know. I’m sorry Uncle L. I don’t know when it happened, but momma and I just argue these days. I try to talk to her, and she won’t listen. She just says it’s her rules and I have to follow them. That’s no reason. Like when I told her the other guys can stay out till midnight and it’s hard for me to hang out with them and have to be home at eleven or eleven thirty. It’s hard to sometimes. Like last weekend. I was at one of my friend’s houses. We all went after the game, didn’t even get there until ten-thirty, and momma said I had to be home at eleven-thirty. There was no reason to even go. By the time we got there, for me to get home, I would have had to leave at eleven.”

  “So, you blew curfew,” Lambchop summed it up.

  “I made a choice.”

  Lambchop was getting aggravated. “And when she grounds you, you just go out anyway?”

  EJ sighed loudly. “She doesn’t understand and won’t listen to me. Why should I listen to her?”

  “EJ, she’s your mother. Everything you have, and you are, is because of her.”

  “And you and grandma and grandpa. Don’t lie. You pay for my school, my phone, my clothes, and other things.”

  “That isn’t the point. She is the one there. You are only seventeen years old. She is legally responsible for anything you do.”

  “Bull-shit. We all know at seventeen you will be tried as an adult if you do anything illegal. You’re a minor when it’s convenient for them.”

  Lambchop had to wonder what they were teaching him in that expensive school. “EJ, you are so close to being an adult, to getting out on your own, and living your own life. Can’t you just go with the flow?” He wouldn’t bring up the discipline of military life. If he didn’t like his momma’s rules, he surely wouldn’t like the rules at bootcamp.

  “It’s embarrassing, Uncle L. And I don’t exactly live around the corner from most of my buddies. It takes a half hour by city bus just to get to school. A few of my friends are farther away. And let’s face it, I usually go to their houses and neighborhoods. They don’t come down to mine.”

  “Why not?” Lambchop asked. He got the meaning of EJ’s statement, but he wanted to put him in the hot seat to explain it.

  “Come on Uncle L. Their places are nicer. One of my friends has a pool. His own pool, not the city pool or at the Y. They have real houses or live in nice apartments.”

  “You’re ashamed of your home?” His voice was harsh. “Your momma works her ass off to provide what she does for you and your sisters. She’s a success story. You should be proud of her. She’s never been on welfare, got her GED despite having you at seventeen. Think about that EJ. She was your age when you were born. With an infant, she finished high school and then went to beauty school. She has a good job.”

  EJ said nothing.

  Lambchop gave him a minute to think about it. “Look, I know right now it seems like she is your enemy. But she isn’t. She wants what is best for you and for you to be successful. I’m sure she is feeling very disrespected by you, so that’s the first thing you have to fix.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. You owe her an apology for disrespecting her and her rules. And then I’ll give you the login info for my Uber account. It sounds like part of the problem of you getting home on time is transportation. If you could just take an Uber home whenever you are out, would that make it easier for you? If you didn’t have to worry about bus schedules or how much longer it takes to get home because of all the stops, wouldn’t that let you spend more time with your friends?”

  “Yes, it would Uncle L. Thank you!”

  “The price to use my Uber account is that you need to communicate better with your mom. Maybe negotiate your curfew. If it’s a night out after a game, maybe she’ll let you stay out till midnight, but the next night or two, you propose that you will get in a bit earlier, say eleven? I think you’ll find if you are willing to work with her that she’ll be more reasonable.”

  “I could do that,” EJ agreed.

  “And EJ, get your grades back up. That’s your job and there is no slacking.”

  “Yes, sir,” EJ said.

  “I mean it. I’m paying a lot for you to go to that school. The Navy will be what you make of it, just like school. The better the score you get on the ASVAB, the more doors that will be open for you. The next year is the final stretch. Keep your eyes on your goal.”

  “I will, Uncle L. I’m sorry I disappointed you.”

  “You haven’t yet. Turn it around.”

  After Lambchop and EJ said their goodbyes, he placed a call to Shereese. He got her voicemail. He left her a detailed message and asked her to call him back that night, no matter what time it was. She would need to lighten up a bit on EJ and meet him half-way. He suspected Shereese was using the curfew to try to keep EJ away from the guys she didn’t want him hanging with. She had to know that wasn’t going to work and was only setting them up for more conflict. He wondered if she even knew them. If they hadn’t been around the house much, what was she judging them on?

  The next morning after a long run, a shower, and a quick stop to pick up breakfast for the team, Lambchop came into the proctology office to a tense atmosphere and sullen expressions adorning his teammate’s faces. “What’s up?”

  “We just got word. Mikey O’Conner died last night,” Madison said.

  “Damn,” Lambchop muttered. He said a silent prayer for his soul. Mikey had struck him as a good guy.

  “We got the report from the FBI on the voice samples. The deleted message on Patrick Keeling’s phone matches to Dalton. Peter Keeling also identified his voice as who he heard through the phone while his cousin was on a call, though his testimony is not as strong as the digital comparison. I’d say we use this news and O’Conner’s death to go at Dalton without his attorney present,” Cooper said. “We ambush him at his ex’s.”

  “We got confirmation from our federal inquiries that his ex-wife and her parents are here illegally,” Madison chimed in. “Mother, we’re going to need your ICE Badge on this one.”

  “Can you say deportation?” Mother said with a smile.

  “What about Napolitano, Paulo, and Arnold?” Lambchop asked.

  “Arnold’s personal email account is a repository for six months’ worth of work emails. I was up mos
t of the night going through them. The lady was definitely covering her ass. There were several from Napolitano and Paulo threatening her with divulging all if she didn’t stay onboard. There was also mention of a lot of money riding on this, and that she didn’t want to give that up, did she?”

  “Divulging what and onboard with what?” Lambchop asked. That was indeed interesting and damning.

  “It didn’t spell it out, didn’t expect it to. But it gives us a starting point for the conversation,” Garcia said.

  “Let’s go at Dalton first and see what we get. Hopefully, he’ll give at least one of them up,” Cooper said.

  “I want an attorney and a deal,” Dalton said with his twangy accent. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against his beat-up pickup truck. His ex-wife peaked out of the window from her trailer.

  Lambchop was glad his little girl was at school. She didn’t need to see her father surrounded by four federal agents. “Is that something they teach you guys during your first day of employee orientation at Carstairs?” Lambchop asked.

  “How about you start talking or I’ll have your ex-wife and her entire family on the next deportation bus back to Mexico?” Mother threatened.

  “You want to deport her too? Get in line. Napolitano has been holding that over my head for years. Look, I’ll cooperate, but I want them protected. Our divorce wasn’t Juana’s fault. It was all on me and I love my little girl. I owe her and will do anything to keep her mother and grandparents in this country.”

  “Anything, including causing twenty deaths on oil rig C-Three?” Lambchop asked.

  “My actions didn’t cause anything. That leak was tiny compared to many I’ve seen. That’s normal business operations at Carstairs.”

  “But you lied about the status updates,” Lambchop charged.

  “I did what my boss told me to do.”

  “Which boss exactly?” Cooper asked.

  “I’ll tell you, but I won’t give it up in a deposition. It was Devlin, but the orders came from Napolitano.”

  “We need you to go on the record about that,” Lambchop said.

  “And end up DOA after a DUI like Aaron. I don’t think so. That guy was as straight as they come. He did not overdrink, get in his car, and have an accident. I don’t know how they arranged it, but I’m sure they did.”

  Lambchop exchanged glances with Mother, Cooper, and Sloan.

  “We can protect you,” Cooper said.

  Dalton rubbed his forehead. “Fuck,” he swore. “Fuck!” He repeated, yelling it. “I’ll never get another job on a rig again if I’m a whistle blower, and I don’t know how to do nothing else.”

  “You have real, transferable skills. It’s not like you’re a laborer. You have computer skills and management experience. Those two skills translate into other industries,” Lambchop said.

  “And we can help you with that,” Mother said. “Hell, we can even put you and your family into the witness protection program, if need be.”

  Dalton nodded.

  “Now tell me. Why would Ruth Arnold go along with the coverup?” Lambchop asked.

  “They probably have something they’re holding over her head too. That’s their M.O. They suck, man,” Dalton said.

  “What kind of proof do you have on Napolitano?” Cooper asked.

  Dalton shrugged. “I’ve got a few emails of him telling me to bury the leak data. I forwarded them to my personal email address just in case I’d need them.”

  “What about the kidnappings of Annaka Sanchez and Remi Ipsen and her family?” Mother pressed.

  “I don’t know anything about the Ipsen woman and her family. But Dr. Sanchez’s on Christmas Eve was set up by Devlin and Patrick Keeling. Keeling was gaga over her, had this wild plan to win her over or some shit. I don’t know how he thought that would work, didn’t care. It wasn’t my issue.”

  “Do you have proof of it being set up by the two of them?” Cooper asked.

  “No. There were no emails or voicemails about it. I do know that Devlin was acting on Napolitano’s orders to get a favorable report. He knew that woman was going to be kidnapped, not sure if he ordered it or not.”

  “So, the only proof is the voicemail of you threatening Keeling,” Mother remarked.

  “I made that call on Devlin’s order.”

  “What about Denise Paulo?” Lambchop asked.

  “She’s a toxic bitch who has her hand in everything. If Napolitano was running this, you can believe she was right there planning it with him.”

  “Proof?” Lambchop asked.

  “Nothing that will stand up in court,” Dalton said.

  Cooper’s gaze swept over his teammates. “Let’s get him and his family to the FBI safehouse,” Cooper said with disgust. Besides admitting he was involved and providing little or proof regarding who else he implicated, they really didn’t get anything else from him. His vague accusation that someone at Carstairs arranged Aaron Pence’s DUI and death was another interesting fact that they could not prove.

  After they turned him over to the FBI, the entire team regrouped at the proctology office. Shepherd was online from his office. “Garcia, check building entry data and outgoing calls from Carstairs to Pence? If he was ordered to keep quiet, I have to believe that would have been done in person. I will attempt to obtain a warrant for his, Napolitano, and Paulo’s cell phone records. Besides ordering the cover up, if Pence’s death was planned, they may have discussed it with someone from their phones.”

  “Will do, Shep. I’ll look at all emails from their Carstairs accounts to Pence too,” Garcia answered.

  “If Pence was as much of a straight shooter as Dalton said, it’s unlikely he would have agreed to go along with a coverup. He probably would have communicated back with them after the order was given, might even have bitched to friends or family about it. Most good people don’t stay silent about something like that. We’ll talk to his friends and relatives and see if he mentioned anything,” Cooper said.

  “I’ll have his autopsy report pulled and reviewed. We’ll see if anything jumps out,” Shepherd said. “Go at Ruth Arnold this afternoon. Push hard and see what shakes loose.”

  After the video call was terminated, the team went back to their lunches. When Lambchop finished his, he stepped towards the door to one of the other vacant offices in the suite. “I need to make a quick call before we head out.”

  Cooper nodded.

  He dialed. His momma’s voice came through the phone, filling his heart. “Landon, I was hoping you’d call.”

  “Hi, Momma, of course I’d call today.” He paced near the window and gazed out into the bright blue sky. It was a gorgeous day.

  “I know. You always do. I love you, son.” She paused and when she spoke again, her voice sounded sad. “Another birthday. I often wonder what kind of man he would have become.”

  “I know. Me too, Momma. I still miss him.”

  “EJ reminds me so much of him. I understand Shereese called you about the trouble she’s having with him.”

  “Yes. I talked with him. Shereese is doing her best, but they are not listening to each other.”

  “I told Shereese that EJ is nearly a man. She needs to loosen the reins. She raised a good kid. Now she needs to trust him.”

  “I’m glad she’s talking with you about it too. Maybe you and dad should have EJ come stay with you for the weekend and you can talk with him. Sounds to me like he’s needing some time with you. Take him to church and let him know you love him.”

  His momma laughed. “You have him in a religious school. He goes to church every day.”

  “There’s school church and your real church. I guarantee you he is not getting as much out of his school church as he would your church.”

  “Old Reverend Wilkins does preach a mean sermon!” Momma agreed.

  Lambchop smiled into his phone. Cooper stepped into the room and signaled him. “I have to get back to work momma. I love you.”

  “I love you too,
son. Thank you for calling.”

  Lambchop stepped back into the room with the others.

  “Okay, time to press Ruth Arnold,” Cooper said. His gaze swept between Lambchop and Garcia. “She’s yours. If they have something on her and she’ll testify against them, offer her a deal.”

  Garcia grinned. This was the part he liked best, confronting the guilty.

  The four of them drove to the Carstairs building. Once inside, Madison and Cooper went up the stairs to the conference room they were working out of. Lambchop walked down the stairs with Garcia to Ruth Arnold’s office. She sat behind her desk when they entered without knocking. Her surprise stare focused on them. Her mouth hung open. “Don’t you know how to knock?” She demanded once she’d regained her composure.