by Derek Fee
O’Malley picked up the glass of premium Irish whiskey, put it to his nose and savoured the exquisite scent. ‘My captain is some kind of religious nut Polak. He finds out I’m workin’ private and I’m toast.’
‘How much?’ Shea asked.
O’Malley smiled and sipped his whiskey. ‘You really are the one with the brains, Frankie. Ten thousand should cover it.’
‘Five,’ Shea said.
‘Don’t be a mean bastard, Frankie. Remember we go way back. You went up in the world and I didn’t. I’ll do it for seven fifty, end of story.’
‘Deal,’ Shea said.
O’Malley took another sip of Midleton. ‘Three fifty now, four when I come through. Don’t think too badly of me, Frank. I got a lot of expenses.’
‘Everyone is an individual contractor sometime, Mike.’ Shea pulled out a chequebook and wrote a cheque for three and a half thousand dollars, signed it and passed it to O’Malley. He left the payee open for obvious reasons.
O’Malley put it in the breast pocket of his shirt, finished his whiskey and called for another. He took out his phone and gave it to Moira. ‘Send me the photo.’
She did as he asked. She didn’t like to deal with bent cops. She was sure that some of her colleagues in the PSNI would do the same as O’Malley, but it wasn’t right. When she was finished, she handed him back his phone. ‘It’s in your photo folder.’
‘You’ll hear from me tomorrow.’ O’Malley leaned back exposing his ample stomach. ‘It’s a pleasure doin’ business with you, Frank, don’t forget to pay the bill on your way out.’
Shea, Moira and Brendan stood up together. None had finished their drinks. Shea went to the bar. One of the patrons was half-asleep and the other two just ignored him, concentrating instead on their drinks.
‘A round for the boys.’ Shea tossed a hundred dollar bill on the bar.
‘It’s too much Frank,’ Tim said.
‘No, it’s not.’ Shea leaned forward and offered Tim his hand. ‘It’s been good to see you again.’
They shook hands. ‘Good luck Frank.’
Moira and Brendan were standing at the car when Shea exited the bar. ‘What do you think?’
‘I always knew Blue Bloods was a heap of shit,’ Brendan remarked.
They all laughed.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
A n alarm bell was ringing inside her head. She had no idea why or where the danger was coming from, but it was coming. She had been in this position many times before. All she knew was that something had changed and that whatever it was would be bad for her. The alarm had been honed over many years and proved to be her best friend. She ran back through the Marlboro scam in her mind. Had she left some trace behind? She couldn’t think of anything. There had been no word from Gattuso concerning the police investigation. The individuals who had been scammed had wandered off with their tails between their legs. For them, it was simply an investment that had gone wrong. They had been hustled and they would know better next time. The only thing that wasn’t cured would be their greed for an easy score and that would only disappear with their deaths. Some of them would be angry enough to try to find Greg, but she had been taken care of that – Gregory Gardiner didn’t exist anymore; he had vanished at Miami International Airport and would never be seen again. The marks might follow the police investigation, but that was already at a dead end. There was, therefore, only one possible source for the alarm – the investigation being undertaken by Frank Shea and the Northern Irish policewoman. What could they possibly have found? It didn’t really matter. The sojourn in Florida was drawing to a close.
What was to become of her partner? It would be easy to call in a clean-up team from New York and allow them to deal with Greg, but she had become quite fond of him. And he had proved to be an adept pupil and partner. Should she keep him? Although twenty million dollars was an enormous sum, she would eventually need to replenish the pot and that would mean organising another long con. Greg’s financial skills would be useful. But that was three or four years down the road. In the meantime, she needed somewhere to hide out until the alarm bell stopped ringing, and the United States was not that place. Gattuso’s financial problems had been Heaven sent, but now she needed a country where all officials could be easily bribed. She would reluctantly give Greg back to his wife. He would certainly be unenthusiastic; not only because he would miss her but also because some unhappy investor might decide to cancel his ticket. He had taken to the life like a fish to water. She had furnished him with a new identity and passport while she had been extoling the virtues of Central and South America. The lease on the Florida house had been cancelled and she had taken a year’s lease on a property at Placencia in Belize. She would miss Florida. She felt at home in a state with a Latino feel and high-end shops. She was gazing out across the beach at the blue waters of the Gulf when Greg exited from the house. He came immediately to her and kissed her on the lips. She looked up into his face and could see that he wasn’t lying when he told her that he had never been so happy. For a second, she told herself that the only security for her was to call the clean-up team. Greg’s dead body would stop Shea’s investigation in its tracks. That thought should have silenced the alarm bell, but it didn’t. She smiled and lay back on the sunbed. Since she had been a young girl in Guadalajara, she had taken life one day at a time. The plane was booked and the house rented. It would be just as easy to get rid of Greg in Belize as in Florida, probably easier. Greg brought two mojitos from the house and handed one to her. He really was a sweet guy.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
J amie and Ricky were sitting on the couch in the living room of Shea’s condo when Brendan, Moira and Shea arrived back in the early evening. Moira noticed that Carmichael was at the edge of the couch and Ricky was sitting as close as possible to her. Someone was going to have to bite the bullet and tell Ricky that he was wasting his time. On the other hand, she had no idea what Ricky’s sexual preference was – he might turn out to be Carmichael’s perfect date. Either way, he should know the truth. She decided to have a word with Shea. He would have to have a man-to-man chat with Ricky soon in order to forestall an embarrassing incident.
Ricky smiled as soon as they entered. ‘Good news, folks, in Concord I downloaded the hard drives of the various computers. They included the Internet browsing history and guess what? Somebody has been browsing estate agencies in Florida.’
Shea, Moira and Brendan fell into easy chairs. It had already been a long day and it could be about to get longer.
‘Problem is,’ Ricky continued. ‘There are a lot of agencies on the list.’
Moira nodded at Carmichael. ‘Jamie, will you get the list up on the board. Put the phone number beside each one.’
Carmichael gave a smile of gratitude and walked across to the board with Ricky in tow.
Yes, tonight needs to be the night, Moira thought. It’s time for Shea to man up.
‘I need to eat,’ Brendan said. ‘My brain cells only work efficiently if my stomach has food in it.’
Shea pulled out his phone. ‘Anyone not like Chinese?’ Nobody responded. He pressed the speed dial on his phone and ordered enough Chinese food to feed a small army. He looked at Brendan. ‘It’ll be here in half an hour. Any chance that brain of yours can hang on that long?’
‘Just about,’ Brendan said.
Moira was glad to see that the recent coldness between Brendan and Shea had more or less evaporated. They were behaving like the old friends that they were.
Brendan went to the board and studied the photo of Gardiner at Miami International just before the cameras went dead. ‘We’re going to have to look at the footage for this corridor before and after the cameras went down.’
Moira stood up and joined Brendan. ‘Miami PD have already examined every frame of the footage before and after the cameras stopped operating. They can’t find Gardiner anywhere after the cameras came back.’
‘OK,’ Brendan said. ‘But Gardiner was no H
arry Houdini. He didn’t disappear and then materialise somewhere outside Miami International. He got out somehow and since the place is covered in cameras, his departure is recorded on one of those cameras, despite the fact that Miami PD didn’t catch it.’
‘What do you suggest?’ Moira asked.
‘We need to know what’s at the end of that corridor,’ Brendan said. ‘And we need some footage of that area for say fifteen minutes before the cameras went dead and fifteen minutes after they came back.’
Moira looked back at Shea, who was sitting forward on the couch. ‘Gattuso and Halliday or Sabulski?’
‘Definitely Sabulski,’ Shea said. He fished around in his pocket. ‘I’ve got his card here with a cell number on the back.’
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
C aptain Joseph Sabulski was on the late shift. He wasn’t a night person. He was getting too old to be spending the night dozing in a chair waiting for something to happen. Especially while his wife, Katia, had to sleep alone. The airport was pretty quiet at night. While flights continued on a twenty-four hour basis, the pace was slower at night and the passengers a lot fewer. He was just settling in to his administrative tasks when his phone rang. He looked at the caller ID but didn’t recognise the number. He answered, ‘Sabulski.’
‘Hi, Captain, it’s Moira McElvaney,’ Moira had drawn the short straw. She was hoping that Sabulski remembered her.
‘Hi little lady,’ Sabulski’s voice lightened. ‘You still hangin’ around with that no-good Patriots fan?’
‘He’s right beside me.’ In fact, Shea was taking possession of three plastic bags of Chinese food that had just arrived from the Gourmet Dumpling House.
‘What can I do for you?’ There was a tone of caution in Sabulski’s voice.
Moira explained their new theory about Gregory Gardiner’s disappearance. ‘We have a few questions that only you can answer.’
There was a sigh on the other end of the phone. ‘You got many amateur detectives in Northern Ireland?’
‘Not too many,’ she replied. ‘The population of the province is actually quite small.’
‘They don’t give you so much bother?’
‘We’re really sorry to bother you, Captain. However, there’s a wife and two children who go to bed every night wondering where their husband and father is. Miami PD is overloaded with missing person cases and we’re just trying to supply these three distraught human beings with a little comfort.’
‘And you guys ain’t being paid?’
‘The wife is Shea’s cousin, and I’m Shea’s best friend’s partner. Anyway, I’m not allowed to be paid on the kind of visa I’ve got.’
‘So this is like a lawyer doin’ somethin’ pro bono?’
‘Absolutely.’
Again the deep sigh. ‘What can I do for ya?’
‘We have a frame from the Miami PD video of Gardiner just before the cameras went dead. What’s at the end of the corridor he was walking along?’
There was silence on the line for a few moments as though Sabulski was thinking. ‘On the left hand side there are male and female rest rooms and on the right a corridor leading to a transfer area for international flights.’
‘Do you have a camera on those rest rooms?’
‘Yeah, I’m pretty sure we do.’
‘Would it be possible to view the footage of those rest rooms for fifteen minutes before the cameras went dead and fifteen after they came back.’
‘I really like you, little lady, but you know I’m not supposed to give out CCTV footage. Now if you were workin’ for Miami PD that would be a different matter.’
‘I promise if we find something it will go immediately to Halliday at Miami-Dade.’
‘Gattuso and Halliday already have that footage, why didn’t you ask them?’
‘Have you met Detective Gattuso?’
Sabulski didn’t reply.
Shea dropped the plastic bags on the table. He saw the look on Moira’s face and took the phone out of her hand. ‘Hi Captain, it’s Frank Shea. The Dolphins are in town in early October and I’ve already booked a room for you and Mrs Sabulski at the Marriot in Copley Place. You’ll be my guests for the game. My box is on the halfway line. I’ll be in touch with the arrangements. I’ll hand you back to Moira.’ He handed the phone to Moira without giving Sabulski the chance to reply.
‘Looks like Shea came through for you, Captain,’ Moira said.
‘Just the CCTV of the rest rooms,’ Sabulski said with an air of resignation.
‘That’s right,’ Moira said.
‘I’ll e-mail the digital files within the hour. Don’t ask me to do anything else, OK.’
‘Thanks, Captain, you’re one of the good guys.’
Sabulski didn’t feel like one of the good guys. He had just agreed to break the rules and he was essentially an honest man. Then he imagined telling Katia that they were going to have a weekend in Boston at a five-star hotel and that they were going to watch the Patriots–Dolphins game in style. Thinking about the pleasure it would bring his wife did a lot to salve his conscience.
CHAPTER FIFTY
‘N o fucking way.’
Moira and Brendan looked at each other and laughed. They had been waiting for the reaction since Shea had taken Ricky out to the balcony after dinner to explain Carmichael’s sexuality. They were still smiling when Shea and a crestfallen Ricky came back into the room. Carmichael was in one of the easy chairs flicking through a copy of Vogue and utterly oblivious to the look that Ricky was giving her.
‘How long has it been since the phone call with Sabulski?’ Shea asked.
Brendan was feeling good. He had just consumed some of the best dumplings he’d ever tasted. He looked at his watch. ‘Just over an hour, give the man a chance.’
Shea paced across the room. ‘I just want to know whether the assumption we’ve been working with might be correct. I’m having difficulty believing that good old reliable Greg dumped his wife and children for some Latino bombshell who cajoled him into being the central character in a sophisticated con. It beggars belief.’
‘We never really know what goes on behind the façade that people present us,’ Brendan said. ‘Finding out what lies beneath keeps people like me in business. I don’t know whether we’re going to find Gardiner, but if we do, I want to be present. I’m definitely going to write a case study on him for my lectures. Everyone loves a story where the good guy goes bad.’
‘Given the level of meticulous planning that went into this scam,’ Shea said. ‘I wouldn’t count on finding Greg any time soon.’
‘It’s always the little things,’ Moira said. ‘There’s no such thing as the perfect crime. There’s always some small detail that’s missing from the plan. That detail is like a loose thread in a sweater. You start to pull on it and the whole thing begins to come apart. Just a few hours ago we thought we would never find Gregory Gardiner. We didn’t even believe that he was alive. Changing our basic assumptions has led us off in another direction.’
‘Which might lead to another dead end.’ Shea continued to pace, thinking about Jean and the kids. When he started the investigation, he had hopes of finding Greg and returning him to his family, making Frank Shea the family hero. He was going to have to get over that scenario. Greg was such a prick for dumping his family. The real news was going to be hard for them to take, but if Greg had disappeared on purpose, he had planned it and there was no way he was going back.
‘Like I said before, welcome to the wonderful world of crime investigation,’ Moira said. ‘Policing is possibly one of the most frustrating professions in the world.’
Just then a low ping indicated an incoming e-mail. Ricky came forward and, carefully avoiding Carmichael, took control of Moira’s laptop. ‘Two MP4 files from a blind e-mail.’
Moira, Shea and Brendan gathered round the screen.
‘Let’s put it on the big screen.’ Ricky dipped into his bag and came up with a Chromecast. ‘That way I won’t have thre
e sets of breath on the back of my neck.’ He stuck the cast into a port on the sixty-five-inch Sony attached to the wall of Shea’s living room and did some rapid keystrokes on the computer. ‘OK, you guys can sit back and enjoy the show.’ He set up the first video and hit play.
Moira, Brendan and Shea were joined by Carmichael as they settled down to watch the black and white images. There was a steady stream of male and female passengers in to and out of the rest rooms. They watched as two women dressed in burkas entered the female rest room. One of the women was seated in a wheelchair while the second woman pushed the chair. A few minutes later the screen suddenly went blank. Ricky quickly loaded the second file and cast it. Passengers still entered and left the rest rooms. After a few minutes, the two women in burkas re-emerged and the wheelchair disappeared up the corridor. The rest rooms continued to be busy. Moira took particular interest in a young woman who departed pulling a weekend case after her. ‘Can we have the first video again?’ Moira said. ‘I didn’t notice that young woman entering.’
Ricky played the first video again. There was no sign of the young woman on it. ‘She could have entered during the period the cameras went down,’ Shea said.
‘She could have,’ Brendan said. ‘But don’t forget that Gardiner disappeared. What better way for him to get out of the airport than disguised as an infirm woman wearing a burka.’ He stood up and walked over to the whiteboard. ‘Ricky, can you zoom in on that weekend case that the young woman is pulling?’
‘No problem.’ Ricky’s fingers flew over the keys of the laptop and the picture on the TV was filled with the weekend case.
Brendan pointed at the picture on the whiteboard of Gardiner at the airport. ‘Moira has this picture on her laptop. Can you give us a blow-up of the weekend case he’s pulling.’
They watched anxiously as Ricky brought up and enlarged the image.
‘It’s the same case,’ Shea shouted.