by Alec Peche
By this time, Brett and the agents were clustered around Jill.
Brett explained. "There will be another 90 minutes of blank screen if you let this attachment run, according to the person at my office. When I checked your system, the camera is recording white space even now. I'm running a diagnostic on the system. Let me go and check on it.”
Jill went to the room where Nathan was working and asked him to see if he could help her with the video clip. Given his graphic design business, she figured that he was far more skilled than she in manipulating images. He returned to the room containing her laptop. He quickly located the frame with the best definition of the suspect. He then enlarged the head shot, and a collective gasp sounded in the room.
It was a woman.
Her hair was pulled back at the nape underneath a red ball cap. She wore an overcoat and carried something in her hands. Unfortunately, the flaps of the open coat covered her hands. Judging her height against that of her grapevine, they guessed her to be close to 6 feet tall. She was lean, with blonde hair, 30 to 45 years old, and Caucasian. She appeared to have a bruise on her cheek.
Jill had a quick thought. “Nathan, do you think that she might be the intruder you fought with a few days ago? Do you think you might have hit her in the face?”
Nathan thought back to the encounter a week ago. It had been dark. He hadn’t gotten close enough to know if he was fighting a man or a woman. He had just assumed that it was a man, based on the height of the person. He remembered getting in a couple of kicks, one high and one low, and there had been grunts before the intruder exited.
“It could have been her that I fought, but I can’t confirm that due to the darkness. Certainly if she took a kick from my foot to her face, it might look like the bruise we see on the screen. I should add that she had some martial arts training as well, but I doubt that she got beyond the black belt level. She also seems similar to the driver in the silver sedan that followed us to San Francisco.”
Staring at the screen, agent Ortiz stated, “We’ll use facial recognition software to try and identify her.”
Brett came back into the room with two updates. “First, my colleague has located the film from the sniper incident a few days ago, and the same woman appeared on camera before it went to white noise. The camera went back to normal after 10 minutes. This leads me to my second point. She had some kind of device that interfered with your cameras, one that she could turn on and off. A few days ago she had more time, so she hit some kind of resume button. This time she lacked the time to hit the resume button or lost the device somewhere in your vineyard. Perhaps the K-9 dog will locate it there.”
“This woman was not one of the 2 people that confronted Angela and me at the harbor in San Juan. So there are at least 4 people hired to harm or kill me: this woman, Mr. Gonzales, his accomplice, and the silver sedan driver. At this point, we don't know if the woman was hired to kill me or if she killed Graeme." Jill was so frustrated that she could have stamped her feet.
"Brett, couldn’t someone at your security company explore the device used to block the camera in this situation? Since her device confused the security system, it would seem to be in your company's best interests to research the device and find a remedy. Personally, I think that the failure of your security system on my property is rather like driving a new car off the lot and having it stall at the first stoplight."
"I had already thought of that and called our national headquarters office asking someone there to contact our local office immediately. We have some employees at our national office whose job description is to stay one step ahead of the creation of devices such as was used on your system. Obviously in your case we were one step behind, but I have to think that our staff will have feelers out trying to find out what's new on the market for this sort of thing."
Jill nodded. “Let's summarize where we are now. My local Sheriff is running down the shell casings from the gun used to shoot at me. Agents from the FBI are using facial recognition software to try and identify the female shooter. They are also investigating Mr. Gonzales's bank accounts. Someone from the SFPD is researching whether it has camera footage from the street where someone pulled a knife on Graeme. It is also searching for the silver sedan and its driver. I'm evaluating the clients of the law firm, and my associate Marie is researching the employees."
"Jill, this brings us to your security," said Agent Ortiz.
"I'm going to assign Agents Brown and O’Sullivan to stay here and guard you. I'm going to bring additional agents in to be positioned around the perimeter of your property. You are going to be confined to your house. We are going to put black paper on the inside of all of your windows so that you won't be a target as you move from room to room within your house. If there is another attempt on your life, I am going to move you to a safehouse in San Francisco. I want to keep you safe, and I want my agents to have an opportunity to apprehend the sniper if she makes a move on your property. I would advise that Nathan return to his house with your dog. The less that both you and our agents have to worry about, the more effective we will be guarding you."
"I agree with your recommendation that Nathan and Trixie go to his house."
Lieutenant Chau added "I don’t want to speak for the FBI, but I would guess that they will join the SFPD in researching Graeme’s partners and clients. As you know from your stint at the county crime lab, we have a few more computer systems that we can access as compared to you as a private citizen."
“As the Lieutenant suggested, the FBI will also review Graeme’s clients and the employees of his firm. We’ll also take a brief look at the family, but we agree with your assessment, Jill, that this is not someone from the family.” Added Agent Ortiz.
Nathan did not appear happy with their plan, but he understood their reasoning. He wanted to stay and protect Jill. He didn’t own or know how to shoot a gun, which put him at a huge disadvantage with the female shooter. If only she had come after Jill with a sword or cane, he would be very effective with Hapkido in taking her down.
It was getting late. The group thought that it would have new information by the morning. A conference call was set for the next morning to share any updates. Lieutenant Chau, Detective Carlson, and Agent Ortiz left Jill's house. A few minutes later, Nathan and an unhappy Trixie also departed. Nathan had boarded up the broken window in the burnt room. Rain was due overnight, and the last thing Jill needed was rain water flowing into the already damaged room.
Jill set the two agents up in spare bedrooms. They set up 8-hour shifts between the 2 of them. Agent O'Sullivan liked to cook and offered to make the 3 of them dinner. Jill always took any opportunity to stay out of her own kitchen and gave free reign to the agent to cook for them any time she wanted.
With everyone settled in, Jill took her laptop and sat down to call her friends. This time she only reached Marie. Calls to both Jo and Angela went to voice-mail. She updated Marie on the events of the day.
"I have worked with you for what, 4 to 5 years? I have never seen your life put in danger like this before. Have you thought of retiring from this occupation at the end of this case? You know, just grow grapes and sell wine?" asked a thoughtful and anxious Marie.
"I have given retirement serious thought over the past couple of days. Retirement during this case won't help my situation now, though. The best thing we can all do is solve the murder. As to retiring after this case, I don’t know. I've enjoyed the cases I've provided a second opinion on over the past 5 years. I feel like I have used my college training and brought real value to the family members of the deceased. I find this really intellectually stimulating. However, if challenging my brain cut my life short by 50 years, then I think my friends would call me stupid.”
"Yeah, we would call you stupid. We would cry our hearts out at your funeral, but we'd still say you were stupid. So what are your options? How do you continue the work you love but live long enough to join us on 100th birthdays cruises?”
"I don't ha
ve an answer to that yet. I thought I'd wait till the end of the case. Talk to someone at the FBI and the SFPD and look up some data on the Internet. This may be a complete fluke. A once-in-a-lifetime bad case. Certainly up to now I've never had problems. I thought I'd search for the statistics for private detectives, as that is what I actually am in this case."
"That response sounds like you. You don't want to change something that you’re doing that you like without overwhelming data that it's the right thing to do. From this girlfriend’s view, I can earn spare change some other way that doesn't put your life at risk. I have a few more minutes before I have to run. Let me update you on what I found." Added a rushed Marie.
She had run a search on every one of the law firm's employees. No one was in huge debt, although a few employees were underwater with their mortgage, but that was to be expected in the poor housing market. No employees had been charged with or convicted of any crimes other than minor traffic violations. The small amount of turnover that the firm had seemed very legitimate. A few employees had stayed home after the birth of a child or had moved to another city with a spouse. She also hadn't found any inappropriate postings on any social networks. In total, she had investigated 30 employees including the partners. It was a little unusual to find zero crime amongst those 30, but then it was a law practice after all.
Jill had to agree with Marie's assessment of the research she'd completed. She had one more group of people that she wanted Marie to review. She found it interesting that the suspected murder attempts on Graeme had begun after he made the appointment to see the client in Puerto Rico. She didn't think it was coincidence.
"Marie, can you research one more group of people?"
"What do you mean by a group of people, Jill?"
"It seems to me that all the action began when the appointment was set up for Graeme to meet the client in Puerto Rico. I have the name of the client, but let me talk to Emma to see what I can find out on the family. So for now just research Jeffrey Lott while I try to locate the names of his family members. Angela interviewed Lott while she was in Puerto Rico with me and saw nothing out of whack there. I'll drop an e-mail to everyone to update them on the excitement here as well as ask a few questions about Lott."
Chapter 17
After a blissfully quiet night, Jill felt renewed the next morning. She went to the kitchen to make coffee. Agent Brown checked in with her as he made rounds. The agents had shared the shooter’s picture with the local Sheriff. Deputy Davis had checked in with Agent Brown several times during the night.
Jill was anxious for the telephone conference this morning. She had been thinking about the Puerto Rican client and was becoming more convinced that he was the origin of the problems for Graeme. She would check in with Emma to see if she remembered any offhand comment that her fiancé had made about the client.
"Emma, this is Jill. How are you doing today?”
With Graeme's estate to be settled and her own business to run, Emma had her hands full at the moment. The work was keeping her head above water, as she was immersed in grief. Talking to Jill gave her a few minutes free from the pain of Graeme’s murder. She asked Jill for progress on the case, which was exactly the opening Jill needed to ask about the Puerto Rican client.
"Emma, can you remember anything that Graeme said about the attempts on his life prior to going to Puerto Rico? I'm wondering if the attacks started after he made the appointment with and travel arrangements to see the Puerto Rican client. A second follow-up question. Do you remember any unease or misgivings that Graeme had regarding his client, Mr. Lott?"
"Graeme tried to describe the events in the hospital to tell me about the 2 attempts on his life prior to the trip to Puerto Rico. He rambled at that point, often not speaking in coherent sentences. I don't recall him saying that the knife incident or the shove down the stairs was a while ago. There was something in the way that he described the attacks that made me think that they had occurred the week before we left on the trip. I can't quote a specific statement he made. It was more an impression on my part," responded Emma, while pondering those last conversations with Graeme.
After a lengthy pause, Emma continued. "As to whether Graeme exhibited any uneasiness about Mr. Lott, let me think about that. He rarely spoke of his clients at home to me. He was in the habit of maintaining a client's confidentiality at all times. If we talked of work, we spoke about his partners or employees but never his clients. All I can say is that I saw him after he had visited other clients both in the city and across the world, and his utter silence about this client was extreme. It was like he was trying to work through a problem either for this client or with this client in his head, and he couldn't clear his head until he came to a resolution of the problem.”
"Did he indicate how long he had been serving this client or what kind of legal advice or paperwork he needed to provide to Mr. Lott?" asked Jill.
"When he mentioned that he wanted to go to Puerto Rico to meet with Mr. Lott, I asked him if the client had once lived in San Francisco but was now living in Puerto Rico. He gave me a vague ‘yes’, and I let it go. It just wasn't important at the time. Perhaps one of his partners can give us information as to how Graeme became his attorney. I will contact one of the partners at his firm and see what information I can elicit. I hope that he will give me some information about Mr. Lott and perhaps disregard the usual legal confidentiality afforded to clients. Let me go to work on that right away, and I'll e-mail you later with any information that whoever I speak with gives me about him."
“Thanks, Emma, the people at the firm seem more willing to give you information. The one time I called, I got the usual litany on confidentiality.
They said their good-byes and hung up. Jill thought with greater certainty that the Puerto Rican client was the one to focus on for the moment. Next she contacted Angela to get her impressions, since she had met the client in person. She got her on the first ring and updated her on the previous day’s events. Angela had a photo shoot that she needed to leave for in 30 minutes, so she could only give Jill a few minutes on the phone.
"I try to like everyone at an initial introduction. However, this man gave off a weird vibe, and I'm not sure I can tell you why. As you know, he said that Graeme had been in Puerto Rico to do a routine trust update based on new tax laws, and he seemed genuinely sad about Graeme’s death. There was something else, though. I’ve been mulling it over since I met him but haven’t come up with anything specific. Let me ruminate on it again while I'm setting up my photo shoot. I want to find the right words to describe his demeanor. I'll give you a call later when it comes to me.”
Her friend wasn't trying to brush her off, rather her day job took priority at this point. It was her art, her livelihood, and her joy. She would find the perfect words sometime in the next few hours to describe Mr. Lott.
Jill poured a second cup of coffee and settled in for her call with the people from the SFPD and the FBI. She was anxious to know if the facial recognition software had identified the shooter.
Agent O’Sullivan joined her for the call. Agent Brown was on post surveying the exterior of Jill’s home. Jill had the security camera pointed at the hillside that the shooter liked to inhabit. She dialed the phone.
“Hi, any news of the shooter’s identity? I may as well cut to the chase on what I really want to know,” said Jill in a mild but determined tone.
“Jill, there is good news and bad news there. We were able to identify the woman caught on your surveillance. She is well known to Interpol. Her name is Aleksandra Gora from Albania. She is on Albania’s most wanted list for crimes involving the use of explosives/weapons. She was arraigned in an Albanian court once but hasn’t been captured in going on 15 years. She is rumored to offer her services to anyone willing to pay an exorbitant fee. You have been very lucky to escape her attempts on your life. As a teenager in her native Albania, she trained to go to the Olympics as a shooter. Once the economy soured in that country, she began usin
g her skills to support her family. For many years, she limited her activity to gun assassinations, but for the past 3 years, she's upped her game to include minor explosives."
"According to Interpol, you're the first target that she has missed in 2 attempts. Her previous kills are evidenced by a single bullet to the head. We don't believe that her skills have declined, rather you have extreme good luck in that you moved just as she fired the bullet. We don't want to depend on your luck the next time she gets close to you. She's rumored to sell her services for $50,000 dollars a hit, so she has quite an incentive to come after you. She's not known to have any talent with knives, and therefore, we don't believe that she was the one who pulled the knife on Graeme. We've shared this information with your Sheriff's office in case she is sighted in your area.”
Agent Ortiz continued. “This is her first known job in the United States. The central office of the FBI has put additional resources on this case given her status. Agents will be arriving in a few hours to both guard you and search the area for Aleksandra. Interpol thought she was connected to the Albanian mafia known for smuggling heroin and arms across Europe. However, recently it has concluded that she was strictly a hired gun. Besides being hunted by Interpol, the Italian Mafia is after her, as she is suspected of killing 7 of its members, based on shell casings found at the scenes of those homicides. Her preferred weapon is the WKW sniper rifle made in Poland since 2001."
"She's unusual in her taste in that many of the world’s snipers prefer the SSG 3000. Tracing shell casings left at murder sites to her is made easier by the rare rifle she chooses to use. Police psychologists speculate that she considers the casings her identifying mark, left at the scene so that she can continue to generate business as others note her past success. The question is, of course, who hired her?”
Jill felt like she had been hit by a 330-pound linebacker from the NFL, flattened, lying on the ground, gasping for breath. She was in way over her head. Interpol? Albanian assassin? Sniper rifles? OMG! Was she starring in her own nightmare movie? She was a consummate professional when it came to autopsies. But seriously, she wanted to give her big-boy pants to someone else and curl up in her bed with her blanket over her head.