Secret Undertaking

by Mark de Castrique

  Boyce looked at Tommy Lee. “Gee, I wonder who should be wearing the sheriff’s badge?”

  “What do you mean sheriff?” Tommy Lee said. “I was thinking the same thing about your FBI shield.”

  We left the scene about six as dusk was settling in. I phoned Susan from the jeep and asked if she’d started dinner. It was one of those nights where I felt like a pizza and a couple of beers. She’d just gotten home and said a pizza sounded wonderful. She’d make the salad if I’d pick up a plain cheese on one half and then whatever I chose to pile on the other. Mushrooms and pepperoni were my leading candidates.

  It was another crisp fall evening and although we ate at the dining table, I slid open the sliding glass door to the deck and let the breeze blow through the screen. All the ambience of the outdoors without the bugs.

  I devoured all four of my slices and looked longingly at one of Susan’s plain cheese. “You know I’ve still got beer left in my glass. I try to make pizza and beer finish together. Like eating ice cream and cake. You, on the other hand, just have water, and after I bought you the nice bottle of on-sale Malbec.”

  She laced her fingers together and rested her chin on her hands. “Oh, poor dear, we can’t have that. Go ahead and take the food out of our mouths.” She gave a mysterious smile that signaled something else was going on.

  “Our mouths? Who are we now? Queen Elizabeth?”

  “No. You should make a better deduction than that.” She picked up her wineglass of sparkling water and toasted me. “My Prince Charming.”

  My throat went dry. Clues clicked into place. Susan’s sudden switch from wine to water. The Mona Lisa smile. “You’re not?” My pulse quickened with unanticipated excitement. “We’re having a baby?”

  Her smile broadened. “No, silly. We’re not having a baby.”

  And just as suddenly, my unexpected euphoria vanished, leaving only unexpected disappointment.

  Susan kept her glass aloft. “We’re having babies.”

  The rollercoaster of emotions within that ten-second span made the car jump the track. Maybe I blacked out. Maybe my mind soared to some other astral plane. The next thing I recalled was Susan standing beside me.

  “Barry, are you all right?”

  “All right? I’m ecstatic. But are you sure?”

  Susan and I had decided the past spring we were ready for a family. We’d not done anything special but rather let Mother Nature take her course.

  “I suspected it, but didn’t want to say anything till I was sure. I got confirmation today.”

  “Two?”

  She laughed. “Two strong heartbeats. That Mother Nature, what a sense of humor.”

  “How far along?”

  “About eight weeks. I’d rather wait a few more before we start telling people.”

  I scooted back my chair and stood, my knees a little wobbly. “Shouldn’t you sit down? How about the sofa?”

  “Barry, I feel just as good as I did three minutes ago. Maybe you should sit. Finish your beer and the pizza.”

  “Beer? This calls for champagne.”

  “You may call for it but no champagne will answer. The closest we have is your beer and my sparkling water.”

  “Then that works for me.” I lifted my beer. “To the most wonderful mother-to-be.”

  She raised her glass. “And to the calmest father-to-be. Either that or he might have to be tranquilized before these babies come.”

  We talked till midnight. When I was changing for bed and emptying my pockets, I found what I’d forgotten—the folded receipt I’d plucked from Janet Sinclair’s torn bag of groceries. It should have gone in with the gun and ledger, especially since the time stamp could exonerate Janet by providing an alibi for the time of Robert’s death.

  I was careful to hold the receipt by a corner edge and take it to the kitchen where we kept zip-lock bags. Before securing it, I made a closer examination. The listed items included the elbow pasta, tomato sauce, ranch dressing, and produce I’d seen scattered on the concrete. And there was another purchase, one I hadn’t seen, one that proved Janet Sinclair a liar.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  “Ice cream? You woke me up over a missing half gallon of ice cream?” Tommy Lee’s gruff question warned me that he didn’t view my discovery with the same “smoking gun” implications that I did. At least not a few minutes after midnight.

  “She clearly lied,” I argued. “She said she didn’t go into the house but I bet you dollars to doughnuts she left the other groceries for show and put the ice cream in her freezer.”

  “Did you inventory the items in the dropped bag?”

  “No,” I conceded. “But I saw them scattered and I don’t think there was enough room for a half gallon in what little space remained in the bag.”

  “That still doesn’t change the time stamp on the receipt. Unless she had someone shopping for her, she could have come home, found her husband, and gone into shock. People do mundane things in traumatic situations.”

  “And people do calculated things when they can callously step over a dead body to enter their house to save a five-dollar carton of ice cream.”

  “All right,” Tommy Lee said. “I’ll cover Lindsay in the morning. She took possession of everything at the murder scene. Be in at seven and we’ll sort out priorities. Anything else you want to tell me while I’m still awake?”

  I wanted to shout I was going to be a dad twice over, but I yielded to Susan’s wish to delay. Besides, I didn’t particularly want my news mingled with a conversation about murder.

  “No. Sorry to bother you. It’s probably nothing.”

  “What the hell, Barry. Everything starts from nothing. I’m just cranky in my old age.”

  “When were you not?”

  He hung up on me.

  At six-fifty the next morning, I walked into Tommy Lee’s office wearing plainclothes and carrying a bag with two egg and sausage biscuits from Bojangles’. “Peace offering. No more late night phone calls.”

  He grabbed the bag. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Any more insights strike you during the night?”

  “Nothing I can work on. I wonder if we’re missing something and the WITSEC status and food stamp scam are more closely related than we thought.”

  “How so?” Tommy Lee mumbled, his mouth full of biscuit.

  “There’s a high degree of organization to this fraud operation. What if Robert Sinclair was still tied to the mob?”

  “But he put his old man away.”

  “Yes. And there are competing factions within every family. What if someone in the family or more likely a rival family wanted old Bobby Santona out of the way? They entice Robert to give up the evidence. But they can’t guarantee his safety so who better to protect Robert and Janet than the U.S. Marshals.”

  “That’s a stretch,” Tommy Lee said. “A lot of hypotheticals. And what’s in it for Robert?”

  “Right under the nose of Brookshire and the marshals, Robert runs the food stamp scam. The mob sets up shop in the mountains.”

  “So why the hit?”

  “Robert generated too much attention. Not from his ill-conceived return for the New Jersey funeral but for the executions of Rufus and Sonny. They sever the ties by killing Robert.”

  “And walk away from the whole operation?”

  “It was probably going down anyway. Collier Crockett’s infiltrated the network. He might be able to turn Janet Sinclair. She’ll claim ignorance, of course, but he might find some leverage.”

  “Like a missing half gallon of ice cream?”

  “No. Although that does bother me. I was thinking more about money. We haven’t followed that trail. We don’t know where it leads.”

  “If the gun under Robert’s seat matches the one that killed Sonny and Rufus, then I think our case is closed. But, share yo
ur theory with Lindsay. She can get to the financials.”

  I remembered Cindy’s comments at Bank of America that Janet Sinclair also had accounts at Wells Fargo. Someone was cashing the checks Rufus had been writing to Staples Sources. Maybe that was Janet.

  “What are you planning for this morning?” I asked.

  “Back to paperwork and budgets. Nothing to do until Lindsay runs her tests and we get the M.E. report.”

  I pulled the zip-lock bag with the grocery receipt from my jacket pocket. “Pass this on to Lindsay.”

  “Give it to her yourself. Why don’t you go to her Asheville office and have a sit-down? Frankly, I think your mob theory is farfetched, but no sense shutting down a line of inquiry over my misgivings. Besides, the expense won’t be coming out of my budget.”

  “Thanks for your unwavering support.”

  He laughed. “Sure. Take an unmarked rather than your jeep. I’ll spring for the gas. You still carrying the Kimber?”

  “The pistol’s in the jeep.”

  “Take it. We still might have a killer in the area who thinks you know more than you do. Keep your gun closer than Robert Sinclair kept his.”

  Tommy Lee called his niece at home and the special agent agreed to meet me at her office at nine. The FBI’s resident agency was located in the Federal Courthouse in Asheville. Security was tight, and a little before nine I had to produce my credentials and declare the concealed Kimber before I could proceed to the second floor.

  I’d been in the FBI office several times with Tommy Lee and knew his niece would give a fair evaluation of whatever I presented.

  I accepted a cup of coffee and sat across from her in the small conversation area in a corner of her office.

  She had exchanged her navy blue pinstripe pants suit for a charcoal gray one. Her blue eyes were bright and focused on me with undivided attention.

  I pulled the zip-lock bag protecting the receipt from my jacket pocket. “I have a confession to make. I picked this up from the grocery bag yesterday and forgot to give it to you. I don’t know if the medical examiner’s time of death will be specific enough to clear Janet Sinclair, but combined with the time of her call to Luther Brookshire, there’s a good chance this will corroborate her alibi.”

  “In your possession the whole time?” Lindsay glanced at the receipt and then laid it on the coffee table between us.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Since the Bureau is heading up the investigation, we’ll get an official statement from you while you’re here.”

  “There is one thing about the receipt that struck me as strange.”

  She picked it up and re-examined it. “What?”

  I told her about the ice cream and that I suspected Janet had taken it from the bag and put it in the freezer. “That undercuts the statement she gave us,” I said. “She claimed she never entered the house after finding the body.”

  Lindsay nodded. “That’s what she told us in our interview.”

  “Why would she lie?”

  “Who wants to be known as the wife more concerned with saving her ice cream than losing her husband?” She smiled. “Unless it was sea-salt caramel.”

  “Is Janet still in the house?”

  “No. We took her into protective custody.”

  “With the marshals?”

  “No. We have a safe house. I’m keeping her away from the marshals until we make sure Brookshire’s not involved. As it is, he’s on shaky ground because of your discovery of his affair with a married witness. He’s being cooperative and I’m not looking to make him the centerpiece of a case without grounds. I’ve expedited the requests for cell records and ballistics, including Brookshire’s service weapon. I’ll also send someone by the Sinclairs’ house to check the freezer for the missing ice cream. Then I’ll raise the statement discrepancy with Janet Sinclair.”

  “What about the ledger?”

  Lindsay Boyce set down the grocery receipt and picked up her cup of coffee. After a sip, she said, “Not sure what to do with that. We weren’t involved in this food scam thing. FNS Investigator Crockett has already contacted us about needing that as evidence for his case. Given the white rose, odds are this is a payback hit from the Santona family. Joan Santona aka Janet Sinclair will get a third identity and the case will go cold. That’s my fear.”

  “Let me float one other theory, but be warned,” I said, “it’s a stretch.”

  She laughed. “At this point, I’d even look at a theory involving aliens and a mothership.”

  So, I told her my thoughts that Robert Sinclair had betrayed his father for a rival faction, used the marshals as the best protection available, and then flagrantly set up his scam with the backing of mafia organization and expertise. “We never got a chance to trace the money trail of Rufus Taylor’s checks to Staples Sources. You might want to explore that option.”

  “Isn’t Crockett doing that?”

  “I told him what we’ve found but I didn’t hand over the Taylor ledger. I guess I should give that to you or him.”

  Lindsay pursed her lips as she thought it over. “Hold onto it till we get the ballistics report. If there’s no ballistics match to the gun in Robert Sinclair’s SUV, then you might need to follow that lead yourself. We should know a lot more by the end of the day.” She took another sip of coffee. “How did you get interested in the Sinclairs in the first place?”

  I told her about Archie Donovan’s plan to enable the Sinclairs to access the cash values of the insurance policies that were still in their old names. And how, in true Archie fashion, he’d bragged about being in the cell next to Sonny McKay and that he was going to meet Sonny the next day.

  “And then Sonny turned up dead,” Lindsay said.

  “Yes. Whether that was planned before Archie talked to the Sinclairs or as a result of that conversation, we didn’t know. We had to check it out.”

  “And the ledger you found in Robert Sinclair’s car is the missing link between him and the food stamp scam.”

  “And the gun might be the murderer’s signature.”

  Lindsay Boyce looked out her second-story window and thought a moment. “Do you know if Archie Donovan’s name-change paperwork went through?”

  “I don’t. He hoped by mid-week, so either today or tomorrow. You’re looking at Robert’s death in light of the benefits that can now come to Janet Sinclair?”

  “Yes. There’s a hell of a lot in the policies’ cash values. I doubt she’ll want a new identity until she gets that money. If there’s no link between her and the crimes her husband might have committed, then she’ll collect it all.”

  “Another layer of motive,” I said.

  “Too many layers. You’re right about following the money. I guess we’ll need to work with Collier Crockett and see where this food stamp scam takes us. If you’re right, it could lead back to New Jersey.”

  “Any suggestions for what I should do in the meantime?” I asked.

  “Assume your case is still going to be open and keep working it. We might intersect, but you go with your leads and don’t worry about stepping on my toes.”

  It was good to hear her say those encouraging words, especially since that was my intent all along.

  “Then can you photocopy the ledger book I found yesterday?” I asked. “And I’ll have Tommy Lee send over a copy of what we discovered in Rufus Taylor’s safe.”

  Special Agent Lindsay Boyce set down her coffee and offered her hand. “You’ve got a deal. I’ll give you paper to write your statement while I take care of copying the ledger.”

  About twenty minutes later, I signed several handwritten pages documenting what I had discovered upon arrival at the murder scene. Lindsay Boyce handed me a thick manila envelope containing the photocopied ledger pages and walked me down the hall where we found a familiar face waiting in the small lobby.


  “Deputy Clayton.” Collier Crockett extended his hand. “I understand you broke open my case.”

  “That he did,” Lindsay Boyce said. She and the FNS Investigator also shook hands.

  “Well, I just happened to show up first,” I said.

  He laughed. “Most of the time, that’s what it’s all about.” He eyed the folder in my left hand. “That for me?”

  “No. It’s some information for the sheriff.”

  “I’ll go over what I have for you,” Lindsay Boyce said. “And I want to share some interesting theories Barry’s developed.”

  “All right.” Crockett’s tone became serious. “But the EBT fraud is still in my wheelhouse, just so we all understand.”

  “And I’ve got a dead federal witness,” Lindsay stated. “I suggest we let Barry get on with his duties while you and I discuss how to move forward.”

  “No problem.” Crockett turned to me. “I hope this wraps up your case for you. If I come across anything relevant, I’ll be sure and shoot it your way.”

  “Thanks.” I left the two federal agents to battle over their turf.

  I’d parked in the Otis parking garage across the street and before heading back to Gainesboro, I decided to follow up on the question Lindsay Boyce had posed about Archie and the paperwork. I hadn’t spoken to him since he’d joined his wife and daughters at his mother-in-law’s.

  “Barry?” He answered his cell on the first ring.

  “Everybody okay?”

  “Yes, but I’m about to go crazy wondering what’s going on. Janet Sinclair called me this morning about her husband. She’s scared to death and wants to get her money before she goes into hiding.”

  “She’s in a safe house,” I assured him.

  “Yeah. A room at the Renaissance Hotel in Asheville?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “She told me. She called from the bathroom while the shower was running.”

  “What’s the status of the policies?”