Where's Ellen? (Mystery) (MPP A JOE MCFARLAND / GINNY HARRIS MYSTERY Book 1)

by Stuart Safft

  “I’m OK, Steve. Tired and dirty and worried, but I’m not hurt. They’ve treated me pretty well considering.”

  “Ellen, don’t worry, we’re ….”

  “That’s enough,” interrupted the disguised voice. “Await our instructions.” And the call was over with the lead technician again indicating their inability to trace the call.

  Ten minutes later the doorbell rang. With an FBI agent on each side of the door, their guns drawn, Steve opened it.

  “Happy Anniversary,” said the tall, thin young man, probably early 20s, in a happy, chipper voice as he started to hand a large bouquet of flowers to Steve. And a beautiful bouquet it was: deep red, pink and yellow daisies surrounding an inner core of red, orange and yellow roses, with all the stems squeezed into a narrow glass vase. The bouquet seemed totally out of place at this tense moment.

  Martin jumped in front of Steve and took the flowers while almost simultaneously, Florio squeezed past Martin and quickly had the flower delivery boy flat on the ground with his hands behind his back. The boy was scared to death and had no idea what was going on. Florio glanced in the driveway and saw the white Ford van with “Majestic Flowers” written along its side, with each letter made to look like a different type of flower in a different color. Florio lifted the boy up and half pushed and half carried him into the house. Meanwhile, Martin put the flowers on a table and opened the attached envelope.

  Happy Anniversary.

  Send gift to First Merchants Bank, 117 Eastern Avenue, Georgetown, Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands.

  SWIFT Bank Identification Number FMEBKYGTU

  Account Name Sterling Partners, Ltd. Account Number 71134865

  Only valid if wire initiated by 11:30 AM your time.

  Martin immediately checked his watch. “It’s 11:03. We have 27 minutes to initiate the wire transfer. Even though it may take several hours for the money to be received by the Cayman Islands bank, they can contact Steve’s bank to verify whether or not the wire had been initiated. Frank, start setting up the wire transfer, but don’t have the insurance company officer authorize it until I say we’re ready.” Martin then instructed the lead technician to get the FBI office going immediately on trying to learn the ownership and other details of the bank account in the Cayman Islands.

  Ninety seconds of questioning was more than enough time for Martin to conclude that the delivery boy knew nothing; he had been given flowers to deliver and that’s what he had done. Martin called the flower shop to see if he could learn anything about who ordered the flowers. While the phone was ringing, Martin asked Joe and Ginny to go to the flower shop, about 20 minutes away driving normally, but probably less than 15 minutes with lights and siren.

  As Joe and Ginny raced out, the owner of the flower shop answered the phone. “Hello. Thanks for calling Majestic Flowers. How can we help make your day beautiful?”

  “Hello. This is Assistant Special Agent in Charge Martin with the FBI. I’m calling about a flower delivery you made a short while ago to the Sanders’ residence at 14 Oak Knoll Drive.”

  “Yes, I’m aware of that order. I processed it myself. What is it you need?”

  “We’d like to know who ordered this delivery.”

  “Sorry, but I can’t help you. I found the order under the door when I opened the shop this morning. There was no name on the order.”

  “How was payment made? Was a check included or credit card information provided?”

  “No. There was a pre-paid gift card left with the ordering instructions and a sealed envelope to be attached to the flowers. I have no idea who ordered the flowers.”

  “OK. Thank you. Two police officers are on their way to your shop. Please show them the note and pre-paid card when they get there. In the meantime, don’t touch either of those items any more than you already have.”

  “OK.”

  “Thank you for your help,” concluded Martin, hoping that Joe and Ginny might learn more by talking with the flower shop owner and employees, canvassing the neighborhood and, ideally, locating security cameras and/or fingerprints. Martin was pleased with his strategy; even if the two detectives learned nothing of value, this assignment would at least keep them out of the house and away from Mr. Sanders for the critical next hour or two.

  It was now 11:19. Martin realized that he had to get the wire transfer authorized right away or it would never be initiated by 11:30. He gave the OK to Florio, who passed it on to the insurance company officer who in turn immediately called Steve’s bank with the wire transfer password.

  Martin then prodded the lead technician, “What have we learned about the Cayman Islands bank account?”

  “Nothing yet. Our Financial Forensics Group in D.C. is in contact with their counterparts in London, because the Cayman Islands is a British Overseas Territory, and with Cayman banking officials, but no information so far.”

  “OK. Let me know as soon as you hear anything.”

  “Will do,” responded the technician.

  At 11:27, Martin was informed by his office that the money transfer had been confirmed by Steve’s bank. Nonetheless, it was almost 1:30 in the afternoon when the wire transfer actually occurred and Martin received confirmation that the inbound money wire was recorded in the Cayman Islands bank. The kidnappers were smart enough to pick a time for the transfer other than Monday morning or Friday afternoon, the peak periods for wire transfer requests, when wire transfer requests often back up for several hours. Within an hour of receipt, the money had already been wired out of the Cayman Islands bank to a bank account in Luxembourg.

  Over the next few hours, Martin received updated reports every 30 or 45 minutes. It appeared that the $5 million was first divided into $1 million amounts and each wired to a different bank. $1 million each from two of these banks was immediately withdrawn as cash. The FBI, through local authorities, was trying to determine who made the withdrawals. Each of the three other $1 million amounts was then further divided into $200,000 amounts and wired to different banks.

  With his frustration clearly visible, Florio said, “Trying to trail this money will take days. Even longer to find out the owner of each account. No doubt the owners are a bunch of damned shell companies anyway. Finding out where the money and the kidnappers are will be a huge task. I hope to hell we can track these bastards.”

  Martin merely responded, “These guys sure know what they’re doing.”

  Joe and Ginny returned from the flower shop around 1 o’clock. Martin gave them an inquisitive look as they entered the house and was rewarded with both police officers shrugging their shoulders, holding their hands out palms up and shaking their heads from side to side. For the rest of the afternoon, Joe and Ginny hardly spoke. They stood near the back of the room, trying to keep out of the way of the FBI technicians. They communicated with each other through a series of looks, nods, frowns and smiles, an effective but silent language between the two of them. Ginny served coffee, water and doughnuts to everyone a few times, but otherwise stayed in the background.

  As the information about subsequent wire transfers slowly ground to a halt, the FBI agents, their technicians and the two Jasper Creek detectives eventually left the Sanders’ house.

  CHAPTER 21

  And now the worst period of waiting began for Steve. He found himself checking his work and personal e-mail accounts for messages what seemed like every five minutes. Similarly, his cell phone for voice mail or text messages and his home phone for voice mail. He walked to the end of the driveway to check the mailbox several times a day. He had expected, or at least hoped, that he’d hear something and that Ellen would be released soon after the ransom payment was made. But nothing. Not the rest of that day or evening. Not the next day. Not the rest of the week. Or the next. Or the next. Now, it was almost two months since Ellen disappeared and almost a month since the $5 million ransom had been paid
— and not a word.

  Steve was on the verge of losing it. He took a leave of absence from work. He tried to keep up his daily jogging habit, but very quickly became so lethargic that he stopped even bothering to try. Early spring had blossomed into full spring, which then started transitioning into summer. But Steve barely noticed any of this. He couldn’t sit still and yet he had no interest in going any place or doing anything. He couldn’t concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes at a time, be it work, reading a book or watching TV. Steve found himself increasingly focusing on the negative: Ellen was either dead or being subjected to terrible acts of torture. Whenever he closed his eyes, all he could think of and almost see was Ellen undergoing the most vile and deviant torturous acts, interspersed with episodes of gang rape.

  Other than his intermittent calls and e-mails with Ellen’s parents, Steve limited his contacts with others to periodic phone calls with the FBI and, to a lesser extent, the Jasper Creek police. At least twice a week, one of the FBI agents would call Steve. Despite these calls offering no new information and repeatedly asking Steve the same questions about whether he had learned anything new, Steve found the calls somewhat encouraging as they at least implied that Ellen’s disappearance was still an active case. The FBI agents continued to say that they were making progress in tracing the bank accounts used by the kidnappers, but the work was tedious and progress was slow. Each of the bank accounts was owned by a different shell corporation. Each corporation was owned by another corporation, which was in turn owned by another corporation. It was like unwinding a large ball of twine. Most of the listed officers and directors turned out to be fictitious names.

  Steve became more and more depressed, becoming increasingly convinced that he’d never see his wife again. He assumed that the kidnappers had killed her, either because she could identify them or because they saw this as safer or easier than arranging her release once they had received the ransom payment. Or, given her super-competitive nature and her need to always win, she had said or done something that had pissed off the kidnappers enough to have killed her.

  The FBI was, in fact, continuing to trace the money flows and the various corporations and individuals, mostly fictitious, associated with each bank account. An Interpol Blue Notice, a request to locate, identify or obtain information on a person of interest in a criminal investigation, was distributed to member countries enlisted to assist the FBI in its efforts. But none of this led to any useful information regarding the identity or location of the kidnappers or the location of Ellen or her body. Although not officially so classified, for all intents and purposes this became a cold case for the local FBI. The local FBI team let their Washington colleagues continue working on the money trail, but the Cincinnati office labeled this an unsolved kidnapping, and Martin and Florio moved on to other cases.

  At the Jasper Creek Police Department, Joe and Ginny pretty much put the case aside as well; there was nothing useful for them to follow up on and this was, technically speaking, the FBI’s and not their case. But Joe didn’t completely give up. One Tuesday morning in September, after discussing it with Ginny, Joe went to see the chief. “Chief, gotta min?”

  “Yeah. Sure. Come on in, Joe.”

  “Chief, I realize that the Sanders’ case has been going nowhere fast, and that we shouldn’t be working on it in any event because it belongs to the FBI.”

  “So tell me something I don’t already know.”

  “Well, Chief, if you don’t mind, I’d like to keep my finger in this one. Totally on my own time. It won’t take any time or resources from the department.”

  “Why are you so hung up on this one, Joe?”

  “I don’t know. I just still have this gut feeling it’s not the so-called normal kidnapping that it seems to be. I still smell something fishy with the husband, and I wanna keep an eye on him just in case my gut is right. Hell, maybe the Feds are onto something with their espionage theories. I’m not even sure that the wife didn’t fake her own kidnapping or murder.”

  “OK with me. But two conditions. One, you do this totally off the books and on your own time. And, two, you don’t do anything, and I mean anything, to piss off our FBI friends.”

  “Works for me. And thanks, Chief.”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  CHAPTER 22

  For Steve, time continued to drag on. One month had slowly rolled into two months, and then two months had rolled into three. Contrary to the popular cliché, time did not heal anything for Steve. It made him a bit more numb to the pain, but it did nothing to relieve his anger, loneliness, sadness or bewilderment. Day and night, he couldn’t turn off the questions swirling through his mind. What happened to Ellen? Is she still alive? Had they hurt her? Had they killed her? What did they do with her body? Will I ever find out what happened? When?

  Although now down to perhaps twice a month, Steve continued to call or be called by either Martin or Florio. He also occasionally received a call from the local police, almost always Ginny. They were always friendly and sympathetic, but the authorities clearly had not made any progress nor developed any new leads. Although they never confirmed it to him, Steve was certain that both organizations had filed the case away, most likely someplace in their basements, and moved onto more current ones. He always ended the calls by pleading with them to keep working on the case and to contact him as soon as they found out something. Not surprisingly, he was always assured that they were and they would.

  Mostly out of some inexplicable feeling of guilt, as well as wanting to treat them well because they had always been pleasant to him and he knew Ellen would want him to, he kept in somewhat closer contact with Ellen’s parents, calling them perhaps once every 10 days or so and e-mailing them once or twice a week. The calls and e-mails were short because of their limited English and they stuck to the same few statements: “How are you doing?” “Have you heard anything?” “We have to hope that she is OK and will be returned to us.” “Please let us know the minute you learn anything.” “Take care of yourself.” “Thanks and good-bye.”

  But then during one Friday evening phone call, the script changed. “Steve, please you come to visit us?” asked Ellen’s parents.

  “Well, uh, I ….”

  “Please come, Steve. We would come to you, but it is not possible to make such a long plane trip. We are too old. We think your visit will help you to adjust and to accept things. We know it will help us.”

  After a few minutes of further dancing around the question, Steve agreed: “Yes, sure, OK. I’ll come to visit you. It might, in fact, be good for all three of us. Give me a few days to check the flights and make my reservations and I’ll e-mail you the details. My visit will probably be the week after next, and only for a few days.”

  “That is very excellent, Steve. Thank you. We wait to hear about your flight details and then to see you. Good-bye and take good care of youself.”

  “Uh, yeah. Thanks. You too. See you both soon.”

  Steve normally hated to travel and did so only a few times a year: a very occasional business trip, once or twice each year for vacations with Ellen and every Christmas through New Year’s to Belgium for festivities with Ellen’s extended family there. He was not afraid of traveling; he just hated the hassle. He usually was fed up with the trip by the time he’d researched all the airlines, their schedules, their fares and their unintelligible charges for taxes, surcharges, baggage fees and preferred-seat fees. Then it normally was similar battles selecting the hotel and the rental car. And only then did the physical hassle of getting to the airport, winding through the security checkpoint and being subjected to the airline’s sardine-like seating get underway. And that assumed no flight delays or cancellations.

  But this time was a bit different. On leave from work and sitting home with nothing to do, Steve had all the time in the world to fuss. In fact, it gave him something to do and, for
a few minutes, it took his mind off Ellen. Plus, as he’d be spending his few days in Europe with Ellen’s parents, he didn’t need to research rental cars or hotels.

  Once he determined the dates and flights he wanted, he called both the Jasper Creek Police Department and the FBI.

  “Hello. Jasper Creek Police. How may I help you?”

  “Hello. Detective Harris or McFarland, please.”

  “Hold on a second. I’ll transfer you.’

  “Thanks.”

  “Hello. This is Detective Harris.”

  “Hello. This is Steve Sanders.”

  “Hello, Mr. Sanders. It’s nice to hear from you. We hope that you’re holding up as well as can be expected. What can I do for you? We don’t have anything new to report. Have you checked with the FBI recently? Perhaps they’ve made some progress.”

  “Yes, I do stay in touch with the FBI. They remain optimistic but say it’s a very slow process. But the reason I’m calling is that I’m planning to go to Belgium for a few days to visit my wife’s parents.”

  “Yes, and …?”

  “You had told me not to leave the area without telling you first and I ….”

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Sanders. I remember that. Thank you for remembering to notify us, but that’s no longer necessary now that the case has ….”

  “Has what? interrupted Steve, “Were you going to say ‘gone cold’? Jesus, you keep assuring me that you’re still actively working on finding my wife — or finding out what happened to her.”

  “No, Mr. Sanders. I was going to say that now that the case has entered another phase.”

  “What the heck does that mean?”

  “It simply refers to the fact that the FBI is focusing on trying to identify and locate the kidnappers by tracing the ransom money. As you know, the FBI is running lead on this case. Therefore, although you should tell the FBI, you no longer need to advise us when you plan to travel.”