Cabernet Capers

by Dan Kelly

  “Well, you’re finding and turning over a lot of rocks and if you keep doing that we just might get enough to bury these bastards. How are the dogs working out?”

  “They’re terrific. I’m going to miss them when this is all over. They’re smarter than some people I know.”

  “Good. Be careful at that hotel. No confrontation inside the hotel and none without backup, you hear me?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Good. Now get out of here and scare the crap out of that hacker.”

  Julie is waiting for him at his desk so they immediately head out to Particle Laboratories.

  Chapter 35

  Particles Laboratories is a very impressive complex with eight four story buildings sprawled over some very attractive landscape. There’s a huge parking lot in front of one of the buildings, so they figure it has to be the Administration building. Sure enough, the directory inside confirms their assumption and they take the elevator to the fourth floor where the human resources department is located.

  They ask to see the manager of the department and a minute later an attractive woman large enough to be a center in the NBA comes out of a private office at the back of the area. She’s got to be almost seven feet tall and has a shape that would be considered voluptuous by most folks if she lost about 20 pounds around her middle.

  Her voice belies her size as she’s very soft spoken and she speaks with a slight accent. Her blonde hair, blue eyes and light complexion has them thinking she’s of Scandinavian descent or maybe German.

  “Good afternoon. My name is Erika Borgstrom. I manage the human resources department. How may I help you?”

  Derrick introduces himself and Julie and then asks if there’s somewhere more private where they can talk.

  “Certainly. Please follow me to my office. I’ll close the door and no one will interrupt us unless there’s an emergency of some sort.”

  As Ms. Borgstrom closes the door to her office she asks, “My curiosity is running off the charts. Why on earth is the Napa Valley Sheriff department paying Particle Labs a visit?”

  Derrick gives her a highly edited version of events and then asks, “Can you confirm that you have a Robert Sheldon in your employ?”

  “One moment.” She sits down at her desk and starts tapping on her keyboard. A few seconds later she confirms that Sheldon works there in their IT department as a programmer and information systems developer.

  “He’s been with us for a little over six years and is an exemplary employee judging by his annual reviews. I don’t know him personally. He was hired before I joined the company.”

  “We’d like to talk with him while we’re here, away from any other employees, and we don’t want him to know we’re here until we’re face-to-face. Could you arrange that?”

  “There’s a small conference room through that door behind you. I use it to test potential employees and for small office meetings. You could talk to him there. I can call his supervisor now and tell her I need to speak with Mr. Sheldon immediately about a personal matter.”

  “Please do that. We’ll wait in the conference room.”

  “I sure hope we won’t be losing Mr. Sheldon. Good help is very hard to find these days.”

  “At the moment, I don’t have an answer for you. His future is largely going to depend on him.”

  Derrick and Julie enter the conference room as Ms. Borgstrom picks up her phone to get the ball game started.

  Giving Derrick a skeptical look Julie asks, “What if Sheldon denies everything. It’s Collins’s word against his. Where does that leave us?”

  “Up the proverbial creek without a paddle if I didn’t have a little surprise to spring on him. If he takes that course, it should save the day unless this geek is the epitome of cool.”

  “What’s the surprise?’

  Before he can respond, the door to the conference room opens and Ms. Borgstrom says, “He’s on his way up now. He works in this building on the second floor.”

  “Thanks Ms. Borgstrom. When he arrives, just knock on the door and we’ll take it from there.”

  A minute later there’s a knock on the door and when it opens there’s a man standing there whose face upon seeing who is in the conference room rapidly metamorphoses into a reflection of sheer terror. He turns as if to bolt, but seeing Ms. Borgstrom standing close behind him presenting a significant obstacle to overcome, quickly changes his mind, gets control of his emotions and enters the conference room with a somewhat nonplussed look on his face. Ms. Borgstrom closes the door and leaves them to deal with Robert Sheldon alone on their own.

  Derrick’s thinking, “What about us is sending out cop vibes? Until this case crossed my desk, I never thought I had a particular look. It’s like we’ve got cop blinking and scrolling across our foreheads.”

  Telling the man who they are is probably redundant, but to keep everything legal Derrick goes through the motions which gets no response from Sheldon but an innocent stare.

  Going into attack mode, Derrick wastes no time in trying to rattle the man’s cage. “Mr. Sheldon, we’re here to talk to you about your recent hacking activities for the Paganelli brothers.”

  Sheldon reacts like he’s been punched in the stomach and like a balloon that’s been punctured collapses into one of the chairs surrounding the conference room table, but he remains silent.

  Sheldon isn’t a very big man, he’s probably five eight, five nine and weighs about 160, 170 pounds sopping wet. There’s nothing outstanding about his appearance. He looks to be in his late twenties, early thirties, his face is clean shaven and he wears his light brown hair in a ponytail that rests between his shoulder blades. He looks and acts like the typical nerd and geek you see on TV or in the movies. His leg is beginning to bounce up and down, his small brown eyes are darting all over the room, not resting in any one place for more than a couple of seconds, and he’s having trouble finding a comfortable position for his hands. To say he appears nervous would be an accurate observation.

  Picking up on this, Derrick follows his opening comment with, “Are you aware that a heavy fine can be levied against you and you can be imprisoned for years for each hacking occurrence. That’s just California law. I don’t know what Federal laws you might have broken, but those penalties would be in addition to those of California. Plus, you may also be prosecuted for aiding and abetting in the killing of two winery workers. You are in serious trouble, but there may be some light at the end of the tunnel if you cooperate with our investigation.”

  At first, this elicits no response from Mr. Sheldon other than a cessation of the leg, eye and hand movement. After a tense couple of minutes go by he in a surprisingly cocky manner says, “Apparently all you have going for you are some groundless accusations. If you had any proof, I’d be in cuffs and on my way to jail. I don’t know what you ‘re talking about.”

  “Are you denying that you did some hacking for the Paganelli brothers?”

  “I said what I said.”

  “Mr. Sheldon, we have a witness who overheard your conversation with the twins in Bernie’s Bistro several months back where they offered you twenty grand to hack into the computer systems of ten wineries here in Napa Valley and you accepted their offer. Does that jog your memory any?”

  “No. I never had a discussion with the Paganelli twins about anything. I don’t even know them.”

  “Really? Then how do you explain the deposit of a cashier’s check for twenty thousand dollars to your checking account at Bank of America? You don’t make that kind of money here at Particles Laboratories.”

  “I do some freelance work. It was probably from one of the companies I do some consulting work for. I have a few very nice accounts.”

  “If you can’t or won’t identify the source of those funds, it won’t take us long to track down the purchaser of that check which we believe was one of the Paganelli brothers. I don’t think they would be so careless as to purchase it in the name of Paganelli Wineries. They might have eve
n used an alias, but we’ll eventually learn who the purchaser was and then you’re going to be in even bigger trouble for lying to a policeman in the course of a murder investigation.

  “So, are you going stay with your ridiculous story or own up to your arrangement with the twins for which I’ll do my best to work out a deal with the County Prosecutor to keep you out of a six by eight foot cell?”

  Mr. Sheldon is proving to be tougher than he first appeared as he comes back with, “Do what you feel you have to do, but you’re wasting your time. I have no relationship with the Paganelli brothers whatsoever and if you want to interrogate me again, I’ll want my attorney present. If you have nothing else to discuss, I’d like to get back to work.”

  “You’re free to go, Mr. Sheldon, but we’ll be talking again I assure you.”

  Sheldon leaves, Ms. Borgstrom sticks her head in the door with a questioning look on her face but she doesn’t say a word and Derrick and Julie just as silently answer her with a shrug and a disgusted look on their faces.

  As they are leaving Derrick stops by her desk and says, “We didn’t get what we came for, but we managed to plant some seeds of concern that might take root. We’ll just have to wait and see. Thanks for working with us today. By the way, do you have a home address for Sheldon?”

  “Sure, wait a sec and I’ll get it for you.”

  When she returns with the address written on a memo sheet she asks Derrick if she should be concerned about anything pertaining to Sheldon. Derrick answers with, “I don’t think he poses any danger to anyone, but he might be a security risk seeing as there’s good reason to believe he’s been hacking into the computer systems of other companies. We don’t have all of our ducks in a row where proof is concerned, but we’re getting there.”

  “Thanks for that heads up. I’ll have to talk with his department head to see how we might go about monitoring his activities until this situation is resolved.”

  Somewhat hesitantly Julie asks, Ms. Borgstrom, I don’t mean to be impertinent, but I’ve been dying to ask, were you into sports when you were in school?”

  Laughing heartily she replies with, “No, I didn’t play basketball, but I was on the volley ball team in high school and college, maintain a 200 plus average on my women’s bowling team, Harriet’s Hookers, we have a lot of fun with that name, Harriet is our captain, and I play a mean game of darts.”

  “Thanks for humoring me. Every once in a while I like to slip out of cop mode and be nosy about the sillier or even the more mundane things in life.”

  “You’re welcome. Getting in a rut and staying there is the surest way to boredom. Have a nice day.”

  Walking back to their car Derrick says, “She would have made a hell of rower on a crew team. I’ll bet she’s got a lot of Viking blood in her. She’s got to be the tallest woman I’ve ever met. I saw an engagement ring on her finger. I wonder how tall her fiancé is. There aren’t that many seven footers walking around.”

  “I wanted to ask her that too, but I thought that might be too rude a question if he’s a lot shorter than she is and she’s sensitive about it.”

  “I agree.”

  “Our meeting with Sheldon didn’t go like I thought it would. He didn’t rattle much and he now knows we know what he’s been up to. How and when did you find out about that deposit to his account without a court order which you said you couldn’t get with what we had on him?”

  “He’s not the only one that can hack into a computer system.”

  “You mean you hacked into B of A’s system and found that deposit?”

  “Not me, but I have techie friends in low places and one of them did me a favor on the QT.”

  “I didn’t hear this.”

  “Nevertheless, it was a bust. I don’t think the confrontation was a total bust though. He’s got to be worried about what’s going to be coming down the pike that will put him in the slammer. He might still roll over on the twins if he gets scared enough.”

  “What if he talks with the Paganellis, tells them about our chat with him. That will put them on guard and make it even harder for us to nail them.”

  “I don’t think he will. He knows what has been going on at the wineries, including the killings. I don’t think he’ll risk the chance of them deciding to remove him from the scene so he can’t squeal on them. I think he’ll keep his mouth shut and spend a lot of time pondering over how he can save his own hide. Hopefully, he’ll realize his best course of action will be to cooperate with us.”

  Chapter 36

  Derrick and Julie agreed to meet in the lobby of the Westin Verasa Napa Hotel at six-thirty, but when they first arrive they can’t zero in on each other. After ten minutes of searching, Julie spots a guy wearing a golf cap with a green and black tartan pattern walking in front of her towards a seating area in the lobby and since he’s the only one in the lobby wearing a golf cap she figures it has got to be him. She starts to saunter over toward him, but stops when she sees two other men who are pretty much built like Derrick also wearing golf caps. One is heading for the Men’s Room and the other into a bar off the lobby, but she can’t see their faces. “Who’d a thunk?”

  She’s extricated from the dilemma by the man in the seating area turning to face her as he scans the lobby looking for something or someone.

  “Golf cap, sunglasses, beard, a moustache? That’s got to be him.”

  Approaching him from behind she whispers, “I’ll wager the only driver you’re familiar with is a cabbie.”

  Turning around to see who’s talking to him Derrick sees a stranger, a woman with shoulder length black hair with a white flower of some kind in it, dark brown eyes that are heavily made up with dark eye liner and mascara and she’s wearing dark red lipstick, the kind that looks wet all the time. She’s wearing dark gray slacks, a white pull over sweater and her feet are sensibly housed in a comfortable looking pair of low heeled black shoes.

  Derrick says, “I beg your pardon.”

  Smiling she asks, “Where did you get your detective badge, at a swap meet?”

  “Julie?”

  Fooling him has made her day. “The moustache fooled me for a second, but when I saw you scratching your face I knew it was you.”

  “Wow! You really fooled me with those contacts and wig and if you could fool me you’ll fool Mueller and DiMaggio.”

  “I haven’t seen any sign of them, have you?”

  “No, but the dinner hour is just starting. Let’s wander around and check out the bars and restaurants.”

  Around a quarter to nine they decide to call it quits. They have nothing to show for their effort but grumbling stomachs, so they head to the nearest Italian restaurant and share a pizza and a bottle of cabernet. After they have devoured a large seafood special pizza and drained the bottle of wine, they decide to have one more glass of wine and sit back and relax, listening to some Frank Sinatra recordings that are playing over the restaurants speakers before calling it a night.

  A few sips later Derrick’s cell phone sounds off. “Chandler.”

  “Sergeant, this is Sergeant Keenan in records at Chicago PD. I have instructions to call you if anything develops on a Salvatore Carolli aka Nicolas Petrillo. Something new has developed. He’s dead, shot between the eyes. It looks like a 9mm slug did the job. The estimated time of death is about three hours ago. The body was discovered in the parking lot of Bavette’s Bar & Boeuf, a steakhouse over on 218 W Kinzie Street here in Chicago.

  “According to our forensic people, there was very little blood in the car he was found in, so they’re figuring he was shot someplace else and left off there later. It looks like someone drove the body over there in the car and then split. The killer probably figures that will make it more difficult for the cops to get a handle on who he/she is. The car is registered to Nicolas Petrillo and the address on the registration is that of his sister Patricia. She’s been notified and when she was contacted said that she hasn’t seen her brother in months. He uses her address for
mail and periodically deposits money in a joint checking account with her to pay any fees or bills that are due like his driver’s license, registration car insurance, etc. She says he made these arrangements years ago because he traveled all over the country and the world a lot in his job as an independent business developer for a variety of businesses and had established no permanent residence.”