by Bob Blanton
“That makes sense. Thanks for the info. . . .”
“Yes, you can keep the car.”
“No, take the Porsche,” Emily said. “That will tweak the jackass’s nose some more.” Emily pulled her keys out of her purse and passed them to Agent Peters.
“Thanks. And, Matt, it might be a good time for that money to disappear.”
“Already on it,” Matthew said. He was typing on the table like there was a keyboard there.
“What?!”
“Probably better not to ask,” Emily said as she showed Agent Peters to the door.
“I’ll be in touch.”
Emily waited patiently while Matthew continued to type. When he was finished she gave him a smile. “Now, what were you doing?”
“I was using a computer in the Miami City Library. I didn’t want anything to be able to trace back to me.”
“That’s clever. Can you have them run programs and send you alerts?”
“No, but I think I should do something so I have some computers around to do things like that. I’m guessing you’re going to keep dragging me into things like this.”
“Don’t blame me, but you’re right. Now, are we going to be able to watch what goes on with Agent Peters?”
“We can, but I thought I’d just monitor it a bit. I don’t really want to hear her get into trouble.”
“Maybe she’s not in trouble; maybe, it’s Whitehead who’s in trouble.”
“One can hope.”
◆ ◆ ◆
Emily convinced Matthew to watch Agent Peters’ encounter with her boss. Matthew was glad that they did.
Agent Peters met Agent Whitehead in the hallway outside the office their boss was using at the FBI building. Agent Whitehead was glaring daggers at Agent Peters. He almost shoved her out of the way as he grabbed the doorknob and forced his way into the office first.
“Sir, I told you she had screwed it up!”
“Shut up and sit down, both of you. Now, I have it on reliable authority that it is you that screwed it up. Detective Vaughn sent me a message saying that he thought you were letting your ego get in the way of the case. I ignored it and let you handle things the way you wanted to.”
“And I did, but she . . .”
“I said shut up! Now, I’ve just been on the phone with Detective Vaughn and he tells me that he’s convinced, based on what happened, that the problem occurred when you entered the plane on Catalina, something Agent Peters expressly suggested you not do for exactly this reason.”
“How can he know that?”
The boss glared at Agent Whitehead’s interruption. “Because if the problem had occurred before, the plane would have never landed on Catalina. If something had alerted Graham in Catalina or before the plane landed in Fallbrook, it would have dumped the cargo over the ocean. So it had to be something he learned when he examined the cargo.”
“But he could have examined the cargo in Catalina.”
“He could have. But nothing tipped him off to do so, so he didn’t. Detective Vaughn also tells me that you made the call not to put any surveillance cameras in the shed at the Fallbrook airport. Now, I can’t find much fault in that, but everything you did, played into Graham’s hands. We cannot clearly connect him with the drugs. We’re still waiting to hear from the Mexican Federales.”
“I suspect they won’t find anything,” Agent Peters said.
“Why?”
“Given Graham’s pattern, I would expect that he would have a failsafe set up. If he didn’t give them the all-clear after landing in Fallbrook, they’d flush the whole mess.”
“Aw, give me a break!” Whitehead moaned.
“She’s right,” an agent who was sitting in the back of the room said. “I just got word that they found bupkis.”
The boss glared at Whitehead. “Agent Peters, I want you to lead the search of his home and offices. Agent Whitehead, I want you to find a desk and write down everything about this case.”
“But . . .”
“I haven’t asked for your resignation yet, so shut up and get after it.”
After Agent Whitehead fled the office, the boss apologized to Agent Peters. “Sorry Peters, I should have listened to Vaughn, and to you. You tried to warn me, maybe a bit too discreetly, but you tried. Let’s see what we can pull out of this train wreck.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Good luck,” Matthew whispered in Agent Peters’ ear, “and the safe combination is 87-11-63-28. Text me if you need any help.”
◆ ◆ ◆
It was two hours later, while Matthew and Emily were reviewing their term papers for Mr. Ward’s class, that Matthew got a text.
“Agent Peters?”
Matthew glanced at his phone. “Yep.” He opened his portal at Agent Peters. “You called?”
“You wouldn’t happen to know where he hides the keys for his mailboxes? We only got a couple of the numbers, and it would make it easier to get the warrants.”
“Sure. I saw him putting them away once. Master bathroom. There’s an access panel for the plumbing beside the toilet. Behind it, you’ll see a black vertical pipe. It has two couplings on it, they’re repair couplings so no lip, you can slide them up or down. The keys are attached to a plastic donut that’s jammed in on the lower section. Just pull it out. I’m sure they smell a bit funky.”
“Do you know about anything else he has hidden?”
“Nope, but I could look.”
“It would help. It’d save time and we don’t really have enough to just start tearing out walls and stuff.”
“Okay. I’ll look tonight and tomorrow evening. I’ll let you know if I come up with anything.”
“Thanks. And thanks for the combination, these guys think I’m a genius.”
Matthew and Emily watched as Agent Peters further impressed her crew by telling them how to find the keys. She said she overheard one of the kids saying that the key fob smelled funky and that’s what gave her the idea.
◆ ◆ ◆
At four o’clock, Agent Peters interviewed the two pilots together.
“Gentlemen, I’m Agent Peters, I’m now in charge of this investigation. I have a few questions that I would like you to answer.”
“We’d like a lawyer first.”
“That’s your right, but if you do, then we’ll need to put this all on the record. Right now, I’m just looking for some information. We already have indisputable proof that you flew your plane from La Paz Mexico, changed its transponder code and identification markings, and landed it on Catalina Island in the U.S. All of that implicates you in smuggling, but the violations of aviation laws and border laws are enough to put you away for quite a while. Right now, I assume you don’t know what you were smuggling. We can prove that cocaine was delivered in Catalina, but as far as you would have known, it might have been a crate of coffee. Now, if we bring your lawyer in here, then I’m going to assume you knew you were smuggling drugs.”
Agent Peters paused and looked at the two pilots. She raised her eyebrows, “You still want your lawyer?”
The two guys looked at each other, then shrugged. Jack, the pilot smiled, “We probably can answer a few questions.”
“Okay, when you picked the load up in La Paz, what was the story?”
“We just loaded up, went through inspection. No muss, no fuss.”
“Where were you supposed to go after Fallbrook?”
“It depended on where we had a load to pick up. In this case, it was Santa Barbara.”
“How did Graham know that the pallets had been tampered with?”
“No clue, he just torched them.”
“Come on, you don’t expect me to believe that. Graham grabbed three flares from the toolbox. He tossed one to each of you. You dropped the flare down the second pallet, and you,” Agent Peters pointed at the copilot, Jack, “dropped the flare down the third pallet.”
Sweat broke out again on the two men’s foreheads. “How would you know that?”
“They didn’t, did they?” Emily asked Matthew.
“No, she’s bluffing, but we all know exactly what happened.”
“We didn’t see any cameras,” the pilot whispered.
“That’s because we’re good at our jobs. Now, wasn’t there some issue with the plastic wrap?”
“Okay, yeah, he told us that they injected a gel inside the plastic. If the pallet was disassembled, the gel would spread out of the bubble. The second pallet had the gel smeared. That’s when he grabbed the flares.”
“Okay. What was the normal routine after a delivery to Fallbrook?”
“Besides the flares, we did everything the same as before. We offloaded the pallets, then we would board the plane and take off. Graham would drive off in his truck as soon as we finished unloading.”
“So you don’t know who was responsible for getting the drugs out of the pallets?”
“We don’t know. And Graham was always careful to have as little to do with the cargo as possible. He just helped us unload in Fallbrook and left. He always made a point of playacting that he was just being helpful. We had to unlock the building and lock it up.”
“Okay, let’s go back to the beginning. When did you first meet Mr. Graham?”
“Two and a half years ago. He came to us with an offer to help us buy a second plane. It had to be identical to the first one we had. We were already running a freight business.”
“How did he help?”
“He made sure we got the second plane for a song. He was a silent partner. We had a private agreement. He didn’t want anything to connect him to the company.”
“And how were you compensated?”
“We got the plane, expanded our business. After six months, we started going to the Caymans. He paid all of our expenses for that trip. We also got a little under-the-table money.”
“How much?”
“Twenty K a month. But that had to cover all four of us. The other two pilots don’t know anything. They know we’re swapping the transponder codes, and they must suspect we’re smuggling, but they’ve don’t really know how Graham’s connected.”
“Anything else?”
“Not really. Graham was pretty careful with the information. He never told anyone anything but the minimum. He minimized all interactions.”
“Okay, we’ll be holding you on the other charges. You should call a lawyer and figure out how you’re going to deal with them. I’ll let the federal prosecutor figure out what they’re going to charge you with. This conversation never happened.”
“Man, she’s good,” Matthew said as he closed his portal down.
◆ ◆ ◆
Matthew and Emily made a point of tuning in to the daily briefing that Agent Peters had with her team, which meant that Matthew drove to Emily’s house, they watched the briefing, then raced off to school before first period.
“Okay, let’s summarize what we have,” Agent Peters said to the team.
“One: We have a clear path linking Graham to the money from the distributors, with the keys for the mailboxes discovered in his house.
“Two: We have the distributor, Dante Cruz’s statement that he received a shoebox with drugs every four weeks, which coincides with Graham’s trips to Catalina.
“Three: We have the planes that have been modified so they can change their identification and transponder codes.
“Four: We have the corroboration of the pilots about how the flights went.
“Five: We have the data from the search of the plane on Catalina.
“Six: We have no direct link between Graham and the pills or the cocaine.
“Jackson, do we have anything else?”
“We believe that the truck that Graham drove to Catalina belongs to the guy who breaks the pallets apart and then ships the drugs out. We’re tracing the license plate, but it belongs to a truck up in Sonoma.”
“Who in Sonoma?”
“It’s one of those wineries. The truck is there, and they can prove it was there on Saturday, so we suspect that the plates were copied.”
“What about the driver?”
“All we saw was a Hispanic male with a hat and sunglasses. We didn’t try to follow him since we had the license number and we didn’t want to tip Graham off.”
“Marcie, where are we with the federal prosecutor?”
“Graham is not saying anything, except ‘I’m not guilty.’ He disavows any knowledge of the smuggling. He claims the pilots are lying about him being involved in torching the pallets, he was just being a nice guy and helping them out. He denies any connection to the drug distributors who were sending him money, saying he was confused about why he was getting books with money in them.”
“Great.”
“His attorney is screaming for bail. The prosecutor is claiming that Graham doesn’t have any assets that are not clouded by his receiving the proceeds from drug sales. Graham’s attorney is suggesting that a friend might be willing to post bail for him.”
Agent Peters laughed at that. “He might be surprised at how hard that will be. Jones, anything else on the house search?”
“Not much. We’ve found a book of rare stamps that we’ve seized. Also four rare books on his bookshelves. Between them, they were worth about eight million. You saw the diamonds he had in his safe as well as the million in cash. So I don’t know where he thinks he’s going to be getting money from. Of course, we suspect he has offshore accounts, so he might be able to transfer money around, but that would require him to get someone to do it for him. Does he have anyone he trusts that much?”
“The lawyer?”
“I don’t think the lawyer wants to do anything criminal.”
“That leaves his son.”
“True. The son’s staying with friends. He’s a piece of work. Nothing outright criminal, but he has a history of troublemaking and excessive partying. Word is he doesn’t get along with his old man.”
“But he is family.”
“Yes. We’re keeping close tabs on him. We have a warrant for a wiretap on his phone. I don’t know what else we can do.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“He’s going to get away with it, isn’t he?” Emily moaned.
“No. They’ve got him on receiving the money. They’ll build a case and he’ll cop a plea.”
“But he murdered Elaine Frye, and who knows who else.”
“I don’t know what we can do about it.”
“We can find more evidence.”
“Hey, I’m searching the house and so are the feds. Besides, what would he have that would connect him. He’s been very careful.”
“Let’s get to school, but we have to try and figure something out. Maybe he’ll tell his son something we can use.”
Chapter 17
Got a Nail?
“Hey, Barb, you changed your hair back.” Emily and Matthew were meeting Agent Peters to go over the case, and because for once, they could go to a restaurant together.
“I did. It was freaking some of my colleagues out. They kept making dumb brunette jokes.”
“Won’t they just make dumb blond jokes?”
“Yes, but at least I can be myself. I kept wondering who the woman in the mirror was every morning. Anyway, how are you two doing? I assume you’ve been keeping up?”
“We may have tuned into a meeting or two,” Matthew said.
“Yeah, right. Anyway, as you know we’re a bit screwed on Graham. We can connect him with some of the money, but it’s circumstantial as to how much and for what purpose.”
“That sucks.”
“Yes, it does. We’re still looking for something that will tie him directly to the drugs.”
“What about Frye’s murder?”
“Detective Vaughn is working on that, but he’s not coming up with anything.”
“Why don’t we go over what had to have happened for Graham to have been behind her murder. Maybe that will give u
s a clue.”
“Sure. Should we call Detective Vaughn?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t want to explain how I know what I do.” Matthew grimaced as he thought about what Detective Vaughn would think of his involvement.
“Oh, right. I keep forgetting. So what do we know? I can ask him to fill in any blanks.”
“Okay, well the events that transpired were:
“One: Frye stole from her employer which put her on Vaughn’s radar.
“Two: They followed her for a few days, then she went to the Starbucks where she passed Frankie the money.
“Three: The cops tried to bust them but couldn’t find any drugs, so they let them go. That means that Frye didn’t get her pills.
“Four: Three days later Frye overdosed. The search of her person and her home turned up a little under a two-week supply of pills.
“Five: The analysis of the pills showed that they had varying amounts of Fentanyl in them. Some had barely enough to get someone high and others had more than enough to kill most addicts.
“Six: Analysis of the pills that Dante was distributing show that they too contain Fentanyl, but in well-controlled quantities. Pharmaceutical quality.
“So, what questions does that raise?”
“The first one I think of is where did the bad pills come from,” Emily said.
“Yes, and how were they delivered to Frye.”
“Well, the signal was a flyer on the windshield. The buyer would then find the pills under the hood in a foil package.”
“Okay, so anyone could have dropped the pills off on Frye’s car. And it had to happen between the event at Starbucks and when she died three days later. So that’s a short window of time.”
“Right, that means the pills had to be at hand. Graham couldn’t have ordered them from La Paz and gotten them in time to kill Frye.”
“Doesn’t that suggest that Frye made contact with another dealer and bought bad pills?”
“I don’t think so. She had a two-week supply of pills, that’s eight hundred dollars. Would she have made that big a buy from another dealer? Typically it’s just a few days’ or a week’s supply. Graham made them buy two weeks to weed out lowlifes.”
“That means if he had those pills available, he has to have more. He wouldn’t just have enough to take care of one problem,” Agent Peters said. “So, that begs the question, where is he hiding them?”