Executive: A Thriller

by Leslie Wolfe

  "Not so fast, hot shot," Reyes said, leaning against Holt's desk. "So, your mind is made up, she should be arraigned?"

  "Why not? She had drugs in her car, drugs in her system. What more would you like to have before you call a case perfect?"

  "How long have you been a detective? Five minutes?" Reyes scoffed.

  "Huh? That's not fair, you know—almost six months. What am I missing?"

  "Well, the obvious. You're not detecting anything. You're not doing the job of a detective; you're being an overly zealous and over-empowered secretary, eager to fill out forms—"

  "Screw you," Holt said, punching Reyes in the shoulder.

  "—and book a dubious collar, who'll step out of court whistling free, in less than five minutes."

  Holt looked up, intrigued.

  "So, you think she'll walk? Why?"

  "Well, first of all, because you're not doing your job," Reyes said, then laughed some more, "and second, because her lawyer will do his."

  "I give up. So teach me, oh, wise one," Holt said, mimicking the respectful bow given by a martial-arts trainee to his master.

  "Hmm . . . I'm still considering not to, for the pleasure of seeing your butt kicked by the captain. The problem is my own butt would also get kicked in the process, and I'm particularly fond of my butt. I don't want any of his boot prints on it. It will ruin my reputation, as my butt's been kick-free for years, you know."

  Reyes paused, taking a sip of steaming coffee.

  "OK, so what do you have? You have a bag full of meth found in a car, and trace meth found in a urine test. That's all you've got. Out of context, it might look good," Reyes emphasized.

  He loved to teach. He had always been partnered with young detectives, because of his passion for developing skills in others.

  "In context—not so much," he continued. "What's your context?"

  "The broad lied to us when she said she wasn't using," Holt ventured the argument he thought was the key point in this case.

  "First of all, calling her a "broad" is uncalled for and clouds your judgment. Considering the cases you normally handle and the company you usually keep, I can see why you would call all women broads." Reyes stopped to receive the second fist to his right shoulder. "This lady is no broad in the sense you mean it. She's a highly paid professional," Reyes said, going through Alex's purse, extracting a business card. "This woman is a director with NanoLance, no less. What do you know about NanoLance?"

  "They're a large defense contractor, right?"

  "Right. Pay attention now. What does it mean for our case that NanoLance is a defense contractor?"

  "I-I don't know," Holt admitted, reluctantly.

  "Stringent security checks, random drug tests, and at least 'confidential' or 'secret' clearance for employees. For a director-level employee, I'd think 'top secret' clearance is more likely."

  "So, practically, what does that mean?"

  "You are more of an idiot than I had assumed," Reyes said, his smile softening the harshness of his words. "That means the employees are scrutinized periodically, and they know it. She would never willingly touch drugs."

  Silence, as Holt processed the information. "OK, I guess you're right," he conceded.

  "Let's look at the lab reports next." Reyes took the case file and browsed through it. "Someone has to, you know," he said laughing, as he was taking yet another stab at Holt's unsatisfactory work. "Her clothing—high end. Her suit is labeled "Calvin Klein." I looked it up online; it's one of the current models, sells for more than $700. Her blouse is pure silk—has this French brand name I can't even pronounce, but it must be worth a couple of bucks. Her shoes are," he struggled to read, "Salvatore Ferragamo. Did my job, sorry, did your job and looked these up on the Internet too, they go for $400 a pair."

  "So, she must be selling a lot of drugs then, or making a lot of money at work."

  "If you make a lot of money at work, would you risk it all to deal drugs? Why?"

  Silence again. Holt started to feel the blood of embarrassment climb to his cheeks. He tilted his head down to hide it.

  "Is this your typical user or dealer profile? She's a successfully employed executive, in a job requiring high security clearance, no less." Reyes waited for Holt to say something, but he didn't. There was nothing to say. "If you're not yet experienced enough to examine profiles, let's look at evidence." He flipped through the lab report. "Her clothes had zero trace of meth, or any other drug for that matter. I'd think she isn't using or dealing too much in these clothes, is she?"

  Holt nodded his silent approval.

  "Fingerprints report," Reyes continued to the next page of the lab report. "Not only does our lady have a whistle-clean record, not even a parking ticket, but her fingerprints were nowhere on that bag of meth. Someone else's were, though. They found a partial that doesn't match any of hers. What does that tell you?"

  "She never touched the bag of drugs," Holt accepted.

  "That means she wasn't lying when she was saying that. How about her meth use? What have you noticed?"

  "The lab test came back positive; she had a trace of meth in her urine."

  "The operative word here is 'trace.' In fact, the trace was so fine that the lab decided to do a hair-strand analysis to determine the history of drug use." Reyes pushed the lab report in front of Holt. "There is none. This lady isn't a user. It was all in the file, for you to read and consider."

  "Oh. OK, but then how do you explain all this incriminating evidence? There were drugs in her car. She had drugs in her system."

  "Oh, yes, because whoever is framing her is doing a thorough job. Very thorough for you, anyway—you almost sent her to prison. Not thorough enough for me. I need to see context, to understand the motive for the crime. If there is no motive, I get suspicious, and I have a lot of questions I need answered before sending someone to jail."

  The small office grew silent again.

  After a few minutes, Holt looked at Reyes and asked. "Lieutenant, do you think I have what it takes to do this job?"

  "I think you do. These were rookie mistakes, nothing more. Remember not to jump to conclusions, always get the full context, get all your questions answered, and better let a guilty person go free than an innocent one do time."

  ...55

  ...Saturday, July 3, 2:40AM

  ...San Diego Police Department—Western Division

  ...San Diego, California

  Alex sat on the cold floor of the detention cell, crouched in the far corner. There was a bed in her cell, but she could not bring herself to come near it. Occasional tears would still run down her cheeks, but she had lost the strength to continue sobbing. Memories of all kinds ran through her mind, like snapshots from movies. Her mother saying, "You will leave here with nothing, and I expect the clothes you are wearing to be returned . . . Oh, and don't ever come back." She rarely thought about her mother anymore, but she would have loved to be able to call her now.

  Tom's voice saying, "You need to learn to trust." She had trusted him, and he'd let her down. Dr. Barnaby's desperation-filled voice, shouting, "I'll go straight to my basement, get my handgun out of my safe, and spare my wife the shame and embarrassment to see me brought to my knees and dragged in handcuffs out of our home." She had a new understanding of his anguish, seeing things through her own imprisonment experience. She was going to let him down. She was not going to be able to do anything for him, or for all those people—the dead and the wounded on Highway 98 in Florida. The enduring employees at NanoLance, going through day after day of abuse. Who knows how many more lives would be lost, out there in remote places, in foreign lands?

  A loud, clattering noise brought her back to reality. Detective Holt was jingling some keys on a ring.

  "You're free to go," he said, "we're dropping all charges."

  She stood, unsure of her legs, afraid this was her imagination playing tricks on her brain. She stepped through the open cell door and into the main hallway.

  "Are
you OK to drive?" Holt asked.

  She nodded.

  "Your car is right across the street in our impound lot. I'll get an officer to release it to you, and you're free to go."

  Forty-five minutes later, she entered her home. She kicked off her shoes and took off her clothes, leaving them on the floor where they dropped. She went straight to the kitchen and poured Martini Vermouth into a tall glass, over a handful of ice cubes, until the glass almost spilled over. She took that with her into the shower. Crouched in the tub, hot water running down over her, she took sip after sip of Vermouth and cried until her tears ran dry.

  ...56

  ...Sunday, July 4, 12:42PM

  ...Tom Isaac's Residence

  ...Laguna Beach, California

  Alex didn't ring the front doorbell when she arrived at Tom's house. Instead, she went around the house and into the backyard, where everyone should have been gathered by now. Everyone was, including the two most elusive of her colleagues, the aristocratic Brian Woods and the perfectly dressed Richard Ferguson.

  The crowd was engaged in the typical Independence Day barbecue, gathered around the grill and the beer-filled cooler. Alex took the twelve pack of beer she was carrying straight to the cooler and grabbed a cold one for herself.

  "Hey, hey," Tom cheered her arrival, "welcome! We weren't sure you'd be able to join us after all."

  "Hello, Alex," Brian greeted her with a quick handshake, "great to see you."

  "Hey there," Richard said and gave her a quick hug, careful not to drop Little Tom from his arms.

  "Lovely to see you," Claire said, offering a smile and a warm hug. "We were worried about you."

  From across the lawn, Steve just waved at her, his distance making her sad for an instant.

  "Yes, it's great to see you all and to be here." She turned to Tom. "Most of all, I wanted to thank you for coming through for me and for getting me out of that hell hole."

  There was a moment of silence in the group, while everyone was looking briefly at everyone else.

  "Alex, well," Tom hesitated, "it wasn't me. Or any of us."

  "What?" Alex blurted, voice filled with anger. "So, then, what happened?"

  "Not sure. We never got to pull any strings. We were checking the facts—"

  "Checking the facts?" Her anger was rising, getting the best of her. The traumatic experience of her arrest was still fresh, and so was the painful memory of Tom hanging up on her, leaving her all alone to deal with the mess she was in—because of him, because of this job. "Listen to me, and listen good," she heard herself say, "you told me during my first week with you to learn to trust. You had no business teaching me that. You need to learn to trust. You know what kind of job you're giving me to do. You preach to me about how dangerous this can get. You play the nice guy, giving me all kinds of advice on how to stay safe, yet at the first sign of trouble, you don't trust me. Instead, you abandon me. I trusted you. And you let me down. You abandoned me. You left me in jail to rot in hell.

  "I don't know how I can work for you in this situation. I will finish this client, because it was me, personally, who looked Dr. Barnaby in the eye and promised to help him, but then I'll be on my way. Until you can learn to trust. Because, you see, if you don't trust me, then you don't have my back, and I can't do a job like this on my own." She stopped her rhythm of angry, pain-ridden short phrases, and took a few gulps of cold beer. It felt great to have all that off her chest.

  A heavy silence took ownership of the backyard, with the exception of birds and crickets chirping.

  "Tom, you better get this young lady another beer," Claire interrupted the silence, "and pray that she forgives you, or you won't be able to forgive yourself."

  "Hear, hear," Steve said, from a distance, raising his bottle in a toast.

  Tom reached toward the cooler and grabbed another beer. He opened it and offered it to Alex.

  "I'm sorry I didn't trust you. I hope, in time, you'll be able to forgive me and rely on me again. If it were anything else, I wouldn't have doubted you for a second. When it comes to drugs, I . . . I just lose my judgment. I am truly sorry."

  "But, we were looking into the facts about what happened to you," Brian chimed in, "and we've figured it out."

  "What?" Alex turned to him, filled with curiosity. "You know, I was positive on the drug test, but I have never touched any drugs in my life."

  "That you know of," Brian said.

  "What? What are you talking about?"

  "We found methamphetamine in your coffee filter and more meth in the coffee jar next to it. Someone in your office is rigging your coffeemaker."

  "Oh, my God! Who the fuck would do that to me? Am I already addicted?"

  "I don't think so," Steve approached, "you've taken small quantities for too little time. If you were starting to feel edgy or restless, that should go away in a day or two."

  "Just this past week, when you were here, you were acting a bit strange—on the edge," Claire said, "and you wouldn't eat your burger. We blamed it on the work-related stress that I'm sure you're experiencing, but it seems some chemicals might have been contributing to that after all."

  "Oh, crap," Alex said, "I hope I'm not hooked. Only yesterday, I had coffee from that machine. When I get back to the office on Tuesday, I will take the damn machine outside and set it on fire."

  Brian chuckled.

  "No, you can't do that," Tom said. "You'll have to pretend that you're unaware of the source of the drug. You'll have to prepare coffee and drink it every day, just like you usually do. Well, don't really drink it; pour it in down a drain somewhere, where no one sees you. The person who tried to frame you will be watching."

  "How come I didn't see it? How come I didn't notice any white powder in my coffee?"

  "It's easy to miss, especially in the dark closet where you have your coffeemaker stashed," Brian said. "And it wasn't that much."

  "And what's going to happen when I get back to the office? Whoever set me up will see me waltz right in there . . . then what?"

  "Maybe we could use that moment of surprise to find out a few things," Richard said, approaching the group.

  "How do you think we can pull this off?" Tom asked.

  "What if we start Tuesday with an executive meeting and videotape it. Then we have Alex enter, say, ten minutes after it starts. Maybe we can catch a glimpse of surprise on the face of the person who orchestrated all this. For such an elaborate plan, there must be a connection to someone on the executive team, I can guarantee that. No smaller rank would've had the reason, or the guts, to devise such a bold and complicated plan."

  "She's got to enter from the front of the room," Steve added. "To ensure that everyone sees her at the same time. We have to use a conference room with the door in the front of the room. Most rooms have the doors behind the seats."

  "That makes sense, but it will pose issues," Alex said, "there's no such conference room that I know about."

  "I'll call Dr. Barnaby, and we'll figure out a way," Tom concluded. "It's good we have all day on Monday to set this up."

  "That's what long weekends are for," Brian said, and everyone laughed.

  "We've got something else for you," Tom added, "the analysis on the written note just came back."

  "Sure took a long time," Alex frowned.

  "Thank you kindly, ma'am," Richard bowed in her direction. "I only had to compare it with more than 950 different handwritten applications for employment or benefits, and all that was done in the dead of the night."

  "Oh, I'm sorry . . ." Alex blushed. "I didn't mean to be . . . inconsiderate."

  "It's OK," Richard said. "It did take a long time; that's true. Initially, we concluded the author of the handwritten note is most likely a woman. That's what the expert in graphology said. From that point, we moved to compare the note with handwriting samples taken from benefits enrollment forms and applications for employment. We wanted to be confident in our findings, so we compared the handwriting with the entire NanoL
ance employee population, not just the women. The author is Janet Templeton, director of manufacturing quality at the Alpine plant. This confirms the theory that the note's author rarely has the opportunity to meet Dr. Barnaby."

  "I think I met her . . . But we can't just question her," Alex said.

  "No, we can't," Richard confirmed. "However, we can create an opportunity for her to open up and have an unsuspecting dialogue with you."

  "How?" Alex wondered.

  "Her Facebook page has helped us a lot," Richard continued. "We found that she is looking at buying a Rottweiler puppy, female, and that the dog had got to be perfect. She is single, our Janet, lives alone, and she just lost her Rottweiler, named Alma, of twelve years. She is heartbroken."

  "How are we going to use all this information?" Alex continued to ask questions, still unclear on the strategy.

  "Simple. We're going to help her find the puppy dog of her dreams, the best Rottweiler there is to find. That's where you two are going to meet, at the breeder's house."

  "You have already found a breeder with Rottweiler pups?" Alex asked in disbelief.

  "Yes, the stage is prepped. We were lucky on the breeder thing, simply lucky. We didn't have to travel to buy an entire litter of puppies to set this up. No . . . We were just unbelievably lucky. There's a Rottweiler breeder with six-week-old puppies who lives a few miles away from the plant. The breeder is going to get some free advertising through the NanoLance intranet. Flyers have been already posted at the Alpine plant café. Bait is set."

  ...57

  ...Tuesday, July 6

  ...San Diego Morning Star

  ...Special Report

  Who's in Control of Our Skies? The Flying Robots Saga Continues

  By Neil Bocci, editor-in-chief

  Some of us might still remember when the first drones started flying in our skies; voices of concern rose and were silenced. No, we were not heading for a Terminator world ruled by heartless, ungraceful chunks of metal. No, we were not giving up any of our rights and liberties if the skies were to be patrolled by drones. No, the drones would not invade our privacy; they weren't meant to be spies in the skies. Finally, yes, these drones are perfectly safe and at all times under the control of a human being.