Predators and Drones

by Richard Herron

  Was it possible that his ‘Mr. Smith’ was the other perp... trying to throw investigations down a rabbit hole? Maybe. TBD...

  Meanwhile, Alex would investigate the Senator’s company business. Interviewing folks could shed light on how the Senator fit in the sandwich. He knew this half could become much bigger. Anytime an elected representative, active or retired, became part of a crime scene, a more-concentrated investigation followed. Just the way it is.

  The first thing to do this morning was to visit the offices of JCT, LLC. It would bring great relief to several people if, upon his arrival, he'd be ushered into the office, meet the boss.

  79. PATROLMAN RIVERA

  Officer Rivera called the Medical Examiner’s office. He felt anxious and excited to step into this side of investigation, hoped he'd glean useful information from the forensic resources at hand. A preliminary report from the lab had come back on the Mantis. He hustled over, scanned through it:

  CRIME LAB FORENSICS: MV MANTIS / BENETEAU TURISMO 44'

  Technicians identified two distinct blood types: O+ and A+. DNA tests pending, type-matching allows a preliminary report to go forward. O+ type specimens scant, possibly compromised, results pending.

  CRIME LAB FORENSICS: UNIDENTIFIED BODY

  General examination: John Doe, Caucasian, approx. 35 y.o. Cause of death, GSW to cranium, entering right mastoid process. No exit wound. Significant cerebellar damage, approx. 38 grain lead bullet, deformed, extracted. Body shows no signs of significant scarring to suggest a surgical history. The body has two tattoos, appear to be home-made. One on left forearm, one on right forearm. Photos attached. Dental condition poor for approx. age. Speculate last dental work, late childhood, early adulthood. Dental impression scheduled, possible comparative study. All distal phalanx pads disfigured, possibly by exposure to an acid.

  ◆◆◆

  Miguel studied the pictures. The first one, upper portion of the left forearm, below the elbow, the inside of the arm. It promised a heartbreak story. Apparently, Lisa and this man had gone separate ways, and the home-made tat told the tale. A poorly scribed 'Lisa', sometime later, poorly lined through to indicate they were no longer on the same terms of endearment.

  The second tat, also less than professionally applied was a likeness to a dog’s head with bared teeth. He guessed that it was supposed to be a pitbull. Not a good likeness. As for dental records, maybe they'd luck upon some historical and nasty bite wounds on a victim that matched this pitbull’s mouth. As for prints, it didn't look good. Miguel slid the photos back into the file, returned to the written report.

  ◆◆◆

  CRIME LAB FORENSICS: EVIDENCE / Tools & Weapons

  Tools/weapons on boat in process for fingerprints. Partial / smudged.

  Firearms:

  1 Marlin 'Papoose' .22 LR caliber take-down rifle. Serial #: ground down and/or chiseled away, gunpowder residue, print smudges, located in duffel, galley.

  1 Colt 'Mustang' .380 caliber pistol, Ser. # ground and/or chiseled, trace residue, print smudges, located in duffel, galley.

  1 Baretta mod. 950 .25 acp pistol, Ser. # ground and/or chiseled, gunpowder residue, print smudges, bagged evidence.

  Boxed ammunition on boat:

  matching ammo in Colt, Marlin calibers. Print smudges.

  Spent cartridges:

  Three spent cartridges: 1) one .25 acp, match to Barreta, (bagged evidence). 2) two .22 LR, match to Marlin ammo, found in boat's spray hose cabinet, aft deck. 3) one .22 LR, unknown source, located at base of step leading to galley.

  Cutting tools:

  1 machete, stamped "Made in China", blood smeared, type A+, print smudges. 1 gardener's snips/shear, stamped "Made in China", blood smeared, type A+, print smudges.

  Miscellaneous:

  Single phalanx, proximal/index, blood type A+, located on galley bench. Print collected. Initial comparisons indicate match with common surfaces and equipment on boat, including galley equipment; dishes, glassware. Presume to belong to boat owner of record, lease-holder, or regular user of boat. End of preliminary report.

  ◆◆◆

  Miguel left the lab frustrated. He'd hoped for some type of revelation, but it wasn't coming from there, no fault of the guys whose job security was solid. Maybe Alex had better luck.

  80. OFFICE CALL

  Alex accessed city records, printed off a fact sheet for JCT, LLC. Another avenue to explore. First, the call.

  "Justified Control... This is Stephanie. How may I help you?"

  “Good morning, Stephanie. This is Detective Simmons with the Santa Barbara Police Department. Please connect me with Mr. John Turner.”

  “I’m sorry, Detective Simmons," she was so sweet, it dripped. “Senator Turner isn't in the office yet this morning. Is there something I can do for you?”

  “Yes, Stephanie. Tell me when you saw last saw Senator Turner."

  ◆◆◆

  “Please hold for a moment, Detective Simmons.” She hit the button, buzzed Mary-Anne’s private in-office line.

  "Yes, Stephanie?"

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Mary-Anne. I have a Detective Simmons with the police department on the phone, asking for Senator Turner. The caller ID says it's from SBPD.”

  “Okay, thank you Stephanie. Put him through.”

  ◆◆◆

  She resumed the incoming call, “Detective Simmons? I'm connecting you with the Senator’s personal assistant. One moment please...”

  A ring, then “Good morning, this is Mary-Anne Wheeler.”

  “Good morning, Ms. Wheeler. Thank you for taking my call. This is Detective Simmons, with the Santa Barbara Police Department. I'm calling in an effort to locate Senator Turner. Can you help me?”

  “I'd be happy to assist you, Detective Simmons." She already had name and affiliation on a pad. "I don't expect him in the office until Monday or Tuesday at the earliest. I'll make an appointment for you. And may I get your number? If you'd prefer, I'll have him call you back."

  "Thanks, Ms. Wheeler. Well..."

  "May I ask what this is about, Detective Simmons?”

  “Yes. There's been an incident on a boat that I believe is registered to Senator Turner, and it's important that I get in touch with him.”

  “Oh, on the Mantis?... I see,” she responded, adding nothing more.

  “Can you tell me when you last spoke to the Senator, Ms. Wheeler?”

  "Oh, on Tuesday afternoon, as he was leaving the office."

  "What did you two discuss?"

  "Well, he told me he had dinner plans. They were going to the Bella Vista."

  "Hmm... nice place. Who was going with him?"

  "Oh, I'm sure it was, well, just friends, not business."

  "What friends, Ms. Wheeler?"

  "Detective Simmons, is he in any sort of trouble? I don't know what... well, if I can say much without..."

  "Ms. Wheeler, it's important that you speak candidly. I'd prefer that we do this over the phone, but if needed, we could discuss it at my office."

  "Well Detective, Senator Turner scheduled dinner with a personal friend. You understand, don't you?"

  He did now. "What else did he say?"

  "Only that he was planning on working on his boat on Wednesday, and that he wouldn't be coming into the office."

  "I see. Did he come in this morning?"

  "Well no, he didn't, and he usually calls me by now, but I haven't heard... Oh, my god! Is he okay?"

  He heard anxiety building in her voice. “Has the Senator been having any problems lately? Anything happening that has caused him concerns? Anyone threatening him?”

  “Oh, dear. Now you have me worried.”

  “Why, Ms. Wheeler? What’s going on?”

  She spent the next few minutes talking about JCT in general terms, without specifying any particular products they made or sold. He allowed her free rein, and finally she got to it.

  "Detective Simmons, JCT has contracts with the government on projects, some of wh
ich, well, are classified."

  Alex nodded at the thickening soup. “Ms. Wheeler, I don’t want you to worry. I don’t know anything for sure right now, but we're trying to put some things together. Please don't say anything about this to anyone. I'd like to come over and see you at your office. Would that be okay?”

  They arranged an appointment for an hour later. At ten-fifteen, Alex was sitting down in her office. He'd provided his card, shown his I.D. and learned that Ms. Wheeler had been working with Turner for twenty years. He knew that she was both dedicated and protective of the Senator.

  He made general inquiries about JCT, to learn what she'd share about the business. She handed him brochures that described the high-tech capabilities of Justified Control Technologies. Alex was aware of the computer chip industry’s competitive nature. He doubted foul play due to technological secrets about irrigation controls, automotive devices.

  "So, contracts with the Defense Department?"

  He left it hanging there, and if there were ever deer in the headlights, they were in her glaze for a split second. Then she focused, looked into his eyes. So, JCT was involved in D.O.D. projects, and he wasn't going to get details about this from her. Not yet.

  "Is the senator having any domestic issues that you're aware of?"

  "No, well, what do you mean?"

  "Ms. Wheeler, I'm willing to bet you know just about everything I might mean."

  No glaze this time, just eyes, controlled, locked on.

  "Have you ever been on the Mantis, Ms. Wheeler?"

  He saw her shoulders drop a tiny bit, perhaps relief at the subject change.

  "John's had me out a few times. It's a beautiful boat!"

  "When was the last time you were on it?" He didn't suspect her, wanted her to have a moment, a memory. She waxed on, smiling, relaxing. It seemed apparent that she held strong feelings for her boss.

  "Does he take her out on the boat?" re-awakened the deer.

  He had another piece of the puzzle, though its edges were ill-defined. Alex decided he had enough for now. He knew he might need to lean on her a bit, but not now. Let this settle, see if Turner shows up. If she was worth her salt, he’d hear from the Senator, if he was capable of contacting anyone. He asked that she have the Senator call him, thanked her for her time, and left the office, thinking about how this picture puzzle was forming.

  81. RETURN TO CAYUCOS

  For Dan, the drive home was routine, mechanical, without need to think about exits. His brain had much bigger fish to fry, spinning around the chain of events that had effectively shoved him into an at war status.

  Is this a god-damned dream I've plunged into? If I didn't know it was happening, a good talker'd convince me it was delusional thinking! Crazy-train thoughts ricocheted around in his head. This is all too real. One fucked up shoulder, a couple dead bodies near home... I'd swear to that! Two assholes on the boat...

  He knew the visitors at home, those mystery bodies, were two of the bad guys. Carrying U.S. government I.D. or not. Somehow, they correlated with the boat’s two bad guys. Did they carry I.D. too? He would've loved to have seen some. That roller-coaster had been traveling way too fast for such in-depth inquiries.

  The Senator must have had his fingers in some very sweet and sticky pie. Lawful pie or awful pie? That generated a chuckle out loud. Either way, smart money said that the Senator didn’t need to worry about those kinds of things any more. Dan wanted to unearth more nuggets into what was going on. That would be secondary. He'd crossed a threshold now. His first order—make contact, bring in his deep cover liaison.

  That's where the satellite phone came in. He'd need to switch out some gear at his storage unit, get that device. He never figured he'd be the one to open that channel. Of course, he never thought that his shark studies would lead to the mayhem that brought him to this point. A Pandora’s box had popped open. Some powerful help would be needed to stem the flow from that spill- over.

  As the storage business came into view, Dan called Joe’s cell phone. In the third ring, an answer.

  "Yellow!"

  “Joe, Dan here."

  "Hey, Dan. How was your drive?"

  “More exciting than you might expect. Way too exciting to tell you about over the phone! Know what I mean?”

  “Roger that! You coming back this way?”

  “Yeah, I expect to be there in about twenty minutes or so. Thought I'd pull into your garage. Is that okay?”

  “The spot's yours. You got the remote, come on in.”

  82. STORAGE ITEMS

  He pulled into the highway exit lane, glancing into the rear-view. Another car did the same a couple hundred yards back. Did I see that same car earlier? He wasn't certain, but the hairs on his neck bristled.

  At the stop sign, he slowed, turned right. Up ahead, the storage business entrance was the next driveway. He tucked in fast, veered left, bringing the car to a stop behind the business center building. Reaching over behind the passenger seat, he levered to lean back toward the back seat, see the entry.

  Looked like the same sedan pulling into the driveway, slowly. He spun around, darted to the far lane, up the access road alongside the units. Instead of stopping near his unit as he usually did, he went to the end of the lane, parked. He grabbed his pistol, hopped out and ducked around the corner, stood there, waiting, listening.

  The crunch of gravel told him the car was approaching down the same lane, then stopped. He pulled the slide, chambering a round. Breathe in, breathe out... Two car doors opened, then shut. Breathe in... breathe out. A few moments later, metal on metal. What was that? Breathe in... hold it... He sprang out from behind the corner, pistol up...

  A woman was bent down at one of the roll-up doors, finagling a padlock. Her adolescent son stood near, head bent in his own focus on what was probably a cell phone or Gameboy. Dan spun back, behind the corner... Jesus fuck! Get a grip, Danny-boy!

  He waited, heard a roll-up door rattle in its tracks. A peek around confirmed it as they disappeared into the unit. He disengaged the magazine on the pistol, pulled the slide to eject the round, which he pocketed. He tucked the pistol into the waistband at his lumbar, came back around, breathing a sigh of relief. Reaching into the car to snag his duffel, he walked to his storage unit's door. A quick look confirmed that his external flag was there, unmoved.

  As he entered the unit, he shook his head slowly. I really do need a vacation! He opened his currently active cell phone, exchanged the sim card and reassembled it. He pulled the satellite phone from its charging dock. From inside the safe, he withdrew five thousand dollars, along with two distinct identification packets. Each included its own set of credit cards. Two additional throw-away cell phones went into the duffel. His ammunition supply had hardly been touched from his trip to Santa Barbara. Now he had some extra goodies, thanks to Tony.

  That was all he needed for now. He re-secured the unit, got back into the car, and drove away from the business. As the car began ascent into the hills, he activated the sat phone. It didn't take long for the connection. A voice on the other end answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this Colonel Faulkner?”

  “Yes.”

  “I need some shark bait.” A long pause had Dan wondering if the connection had broken. Or maybe the colonel had drawn a blank about who was calling. He waited. Didn't want to say anything more for at least a few reasons. He didn’t expect the receiving phone to be in another’s possession but it was a possibility. As for drawing a blank in response to what Dan had said, it seemed unlikely. Nobody else would've said this, in combination with using this secure sat line. But it had been five years since Dan had gone silent... until now.

  “Mr. Hardesty," the voice returned, "to what do I owe the pleasure of your call, after so long?”

  Dan let go of a breath. “Well, Colonel, I’ll cut straight to it. There've been two recent incidents. I witnessed a murder victim’s body dump and shortly afterwards, needed to use lethal force in se
lf-defense. The icing on this cake is that the murder victim looks like a retired Senator.” The next moments were the dry, stifling air of the Mohave.

  “Those are incidents alright, Hardesty. This lethal force you refer to... was it associated with the murder you're talking about?”

  “I don’t know exactly how they're related. I have to presume they are. It seems to me that someone else was watching what I saw, decided to visit me under false pretense. That visit didn't go well. When confronted with a weapon drawn, aimed at me, I could only presume I'd be killed. I reacted with self-defense.”

  “Were they both killed?”

  “That's affirmative.”

  “Can you tell me more about the murder you're referring to?”

  “I was working on the coast with a drone," Dan was brief. "I'd been following reef shark activity. Saw a boat, saw the dump from the aft deck.”

  “So, you didn’t actually see a murder, but what appeared to be a body. Is it possible what you saw was fishermen dumping fish guts?”

  “Well sure, Colonel, if fish are wearing deck shoes. I've already watched video playback. It looks like it wore fish-size 9 or 10…”

  There was another long pause.

  “What makes you think the victim was a Senator?”

  “That gets more complicated, but the evidence is there.”

  “Hardesty, why don't you send me that video. We should get to the bottom of this. Is it on a format you can send to my private email?”

  “Yes, Sir. Give me your address.”

  The colonel gave him a secured email server’s address and Dan wrote it down. Gears spinning, high speed.