by Steve Levi
“Bingo. Shortly after the Jackson Land was incorporated, it began negotiations with RMD, LLC out of Colorado Springs. RMD, LLC is also a sole proprietorship. The sole proprietor is a Joseph Richiamo. I could find no links between Richiamo and North Carolina except for this land deal.”
“Oh, there is one. We just haven’t found it. How big is this land deal?”
“Adding up land values, in the range of ten million dollars.”
“Not a small sum.”
“For some reason the deal has stalled. Why, I do not know.”
“So far everything is suspicious but above board.”
“So far, yeah. Now things get goosey.”
“I am waiting with bated breath.”
“Remember you told me to check all of the names at the checkpoint set up by the state troopers outside the Pamlico Tunnel?”
“Yes, and?”
“I ran all the names through the DMV and got a hit. But it was an odd one.”
“Do tell.”
“The woman driving a heavy truck is dead.”
“She died suddenly?”
“Uh . . . no. She died six months ago.”
Noonan was silent for a moment. “The woman driving a truck who was stopped outside the Pamlico Tunnel three days ago was dead?”
“Yup. Dead six months.”
“OK. Someone assumed her identity?”
“No, just her driver’s license. There is no activity on any of her credit cards.”
“How do you know she was dead?”
“It popped up on her DMV record. I double-checked the Social Security Death Index.”
“Which means someone knew they were going to be hijacking the armored car, what, six months ago.”
“Appears to be the case.”
“Any clue who?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. I got the city of death and pulled up the death certificate. She died in a hospice.”
And before she could finish, Noonan cut in. “Let me guess.”
“You don’t have to. You’ve already figured it out.”
“Steigle.”
“I could not get a solid link because of North Carolina rules on confidentiality. But Steigle is linked with the newspaper article. And now it gets spooky.”
“All right. I’m prepared. Hit me with it.”
“While I could not establish a solid link between Steigle and the hospice, the hospice is state-funded, so I could get a list of the patients. It serviced—their term—fifty-two patients over the past year. I ran every name through the DMV and got a hit, Jerry S. Sinclair. He died eleven months ago.”
“And he has a driver’s license?”
“Eleven months ago.” She gave a long pause.
“OK, Edison, I know something is coming. What is it?”
“Jerry S. Sinclair also has a passport. And he used it. Jerry S. Sinclair flew out of Virginia Beach at ten p.m. last night. He landed in LaGuardia at midnight and took a two a.m. flight to London. He cleared Customs at Heathrow at eleven seventeen a. m. our time.”
“So our bird is in the wind.”
“If Steigle is Sinclair, yes. I won’t know for a few days. Not until I get a copy of the photo on the passport. But I’m willing to put money on Steigle being Sinclair. We’ll know for sure when we get the feds to give us copies of both passports.”
“Any other surprises?”
“You have no idea what’s coming. You said to see if any of the seven have passports.”
“Yeah.”
“Steigle and the two Jacksons do. The others do not.”
“This is spooky?”
“No. But this is. The Jacksons are listed as being on board a cruise line which left Norfolk three days ago.”
“They’re on a cruise line now? This I was not expecting.”
“I didn’t say they were on the cruise line now. I said they were listed as boarding a cruise line.”
“When did they board?”
“Saturday. The day before they disappeared in the armored car.”
There was a long moment of silence as Noonan mulled this over. Finally, he said, “Just because they checked on board doesn’t mean they were on board on Sunday.”
“Maybe not. But they might be on board now. The cruise line left Norfolk and headed south. It’s a five-day cruise to the Bahamas—round trip. If they left Norfolk on Saturday at five p.m., it puts them in Nassau at eleven thirty a.m. on day three, Monday. Then ship departed Nassau Monday at ten p.m. and arrived in Freeport on Tuesday at eight a.m. It left Freeport at three this afternoon and is now at sea. It’s due to dock tomorrow, day five, in Norfolk at eight a.m. I contacted the cruise line, and they stated they could not verify the pair was on board. There are no set schedule for passengers, so they can eat anywhere at any time. They could confirm their rooms were used every night, but it’s a verification that means nothing. If someone had a key to their stateroom, the person could have messed up the bed, thrown some towels onto the bathroom floor, and pulled toilet paper off a roll. It doesn’t take much to make a room look used.”
Noonan smiled. “Just to be on the safe side, we should have someone meet the cruise line when it docks in Norfolk. We should also get a passenger list to see if any familiar names pop up.”
“I already have the passenger list, and there are no familiar names. All the passengers will have to go through Customs, and the FBI has agreed to hold the Jacksons until we can question them. Which means we’ll have to go to Norfolk.”
“No reason for anyone to go.” Noonan smiled. “The Jacksons cannot be in two places at the same time. They were positively identified as the drivers, so they were not on the cruise liner. It’s a red herring. I am sure they boarded the ship in Norfolk and checked their luggage. Then they just walked off the ship. Passengers are checked when they board, not when they go ashore. My guess: they checked in when they went on board and then just walked off the ship. There was no way for their re-board because they were driving the armored truck. Clearly they had a confederate on the ship go into their stateroom and make it looked lived in.”
“But how are they going to get back on the ship so they can arrive in Norfolk with an alibi?”
“I doubt they’re on the ship. I’m betting they took a plane to Freeport. If they landed at a small airport, all they had to do was flash their passports. They still have them. All they had to do to get on board the cruise line in Norfolk was show their passports, not give them up. They have their passports in hand. They pretended to board the cruise line on Saturday but came back here for the Sunday delivery run. They disappeared on the delivery run and then went into hiding for Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I’m just guessing. They had to do something on Monday and Tuesday here in Sandersonville. Then they took a plane to Freeport. They’re probably checked into a hotel in Freeport. They will say they liked the Bahamas so much they wanted to spend a few extra days there. That will be the excuse when they re-board the cruise liner and leave with their baggage.”
“That makes no sense! The smart thing would be to re-board the cruise line at Freeport and come back to Norfolk. Then they can say, ‘What missing armored car? We’ve been on the cruise line since Saturday.’”
“Because they had to do something in Freeport. They had to stay there a few days.”
Edison’s face indicated she didn’t entirely agree with what Noonan had just said. “They can say they were on the cruise line since Saturday, but they were seen in the Swensen Armored Car garage on Sunday.”
“Really? By whom? The only one who said he saw them was Steigle, and he’s in the wind. The Jacksons have an airtight alibi. The only person who can prove them wrong is Steigle, and he’s not around and not likely to come back any time soon.”
“But they punched into the time clock?”
“Steigle could have done the punching in. He had access to the records and presumably the security camera. He was senior that day. He
was senior every day. Right now the Jacksons are in the clear. No one here can definitively prove they were driving the armored truck on Sunday. I see Steigle setting it up that way.”
“So the Jacksons are in Freeport?” Edison clearly did not want to believe it.
“If I had money, that’s how I’d make my bet. They probably flew into a small airport, flashed their passports, and rented a room in a small hotel for a few days.”
Edison nodded her head, but her face showed confusion. “But what am I missing? Why go to all the trouble of getting an alibi? And why is Steigle on the run? Where’s the money? There was not a dime in the missing armored car. If the Jacksons are on the cruise line, what’s the point? Where’s the cash? What are they running from?”
“I don’t know,” Noonan said and then added, “Actually I’ve got a very good idea. It will just take some time to flesh out the answer.”
Chapter 36
Chelsea Edison was barely out the door when John Swensen came barging in.
“Things are popping,” he said excitedly. “We’ve found the armored car.”
“You mean the one Steigle was in?
“Yeah, that one.”
“Was Steigle with it?” Noonan asked with the innocent look of a child on his face.
“Thank God, no!” said Swensen, wiping his brow in mock relief. “If his body had been there, I’d be court for the rest of my life! He’s got three ex-wives, and not one of them knows the meaning of fiscal restraint.” He stalled for a moment. “Forget I said that. I’m concerned about Steigle. He’s one of my longest-term employees. But we’ve got the armored car, and he’s got to be close by.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” said Noonan dryly.
If Swensen caught the irony of the remark, he didn’t show it.
Within half an hour, Noonan and a forensic team from the Sandersonville Police Department were on the scene.
But there was a problem.
No crime had been reported, so the police had to wait for a search warrant. It was close to 7:00 p.m. before anyone could get into the warehouse garage.
“How do you know this is where the armored truck is?” Noonan asked a police captain. “I thought the GPS for the truck had been turned off.”
“You are correct, sir. We assume it’s here. We backtracked the GPS to noon. The armored car came here directly from the Swensen garage. That was at about three p.m. It stayed here for a good hour and then went straight to the airport. It was there for an hour, until four twenty-seven p.m., and then it went back on what we have been told was the regular schedule. It made a few stops and then went ghost.”
“You’re beginning to talk like the armored-car people,” Noonan told him. “But it doesn’t tell me why you think the truck is here.”
“Educated guess, sir. It was here for an hour. Why? We don’t know.”
“Well,” Noonan pointed to a line of warehouse garages, “there are a lot of garages here. How do you know which one to get the search warrant for?”
“One of our people got a list of names of possibles. One was a hit.”
“Who was the source?”
“Sgt. Chelsea Edison, sir. She’s on her way here now.”
“A quality lead from a quality person. What was the name on the warehouse rental agreement?”
“I’m not sure. It was a legal office.”
“Inganno?”
“Could have been. I’m not sure. But it’s a solid lead, sir. Whatever it was, it was good enough for a search warrant.”
“That’s justice for you. I need to go in first.”
“Not without these, sir.” The captain handed Noonan a pair of vinyl gloves. “This is reasonably a crime scene.”
Noonan grunted and slipped on the gloves.
A patrolwoman snipped the lock on the warehouse entrance and raised the sliding door. Noonan was handed a flashlight as he stepped inside.
“Please don’t—” the officer began to say, but Noonan cut him off and finished his sentence.
“. . . touch the light switch. I know. Light switches have a lot of fingerprints. I’ll let the forensic people turn the switch on. They usually use a key or piece of wire.”
“Sorry, sir. I didn’t know you were familiar with crime scenes.”
“Not a problem. Nothing wrong with being doubly careful at a crime scene.”
“Is this a crime scene?” The officer let the beam of his flashlight bounce around the empty warehouse garage and the armored car. “I don’t see any blood.”
“Right now we don’t know what we’ve got. Ah,” Noonan said as the overhead lights popped on, “let there be light!”
The garage itself was large, twice the size of a residential three-car garage. Unlike a residential car garage, it was not stacked to the celling with boxes, crates, fake Christmas trees, dog kennels, ladders, old filing cabinets, and garbage cans. This one was positively vacant. There was a rickety card table against the back wall with a rusted metal chair beside it. On the card table was an open box of vinyl gloves. There was a garbage bag frame next to the table, but it was empty.
Noonan spotted a pile of what looked like boxes and nudged them with his shoe.
“What are they?” Edison asked.
“You’re sneaking up on me, Chelsea,” Noonan said. “Come on in and take a look.”
Edison came around Noonan and poked the pile of flat cardboard with her flashlight. “FedEx boxes. Hmm.” She carefully lifted some of the flats. “And there are some UPS boxes too.”
“I’ll bet you find some If it fits, it ships United States Post Office boxes too.”
“You are correct,” she said as she kneeled on the ground. “How’d you know that?”
“It half answers your question of ‘where’s the money?’ My bet? Steigle got money out of the vault. He could because he had access to the vault. While everyone was concentrating on the missing armored car that showed up unexpectedly, he was loading this armored car,” Noonan pointed his flashlight toward the parked truck, “with cash. He drove the cash here and met the Jacksons.”
“How do you know, or are you just guessing?” Edison asked.
“Just a guess.” He pointed to the pile of flat boxes. “I’ll bet they split up the money here. The Jacksons took their share of the cash and put them in FedEx and UPS boxes. The boxes were probably already labeled. There is enough room in this garage for two or three more cars. I’ll bet there were vehicles in here ready to be used.”
“OK, they put the cash in FedEx and UPS boxes. To send them where?”
“Freeport. The Bahamas. Which answers the question why the Jacksons are still in the Bahamas. FedEx and UPS will deliver anywhere. If I were a betting man, I’d say the Jacksons’ share of the loot was sent cash in FedEx and UPS boxes to the hotel where they’re staying in Freeport. As the boxes arrive, they are taking the cash to a bank and depositing the money. They can’t leave Freeport until all of the boxes arrive.”
“So the Jacksons put the money in FedEx and UPS boxes and then what? Went around and dropped them off in drop boxes?”
“Maybe. Probably. Most likely that’s why they had to stay in North Carolina for a few days after the armored car went missing. They had to be here to divide the money. I’m guessing they didn’t trust Steigle to do it for them.”
“A good guess,” Edison said. “If there is money missing from the Swensen vault.”
“Time will tell.”
“But what about Steigle’s share?”
“My guess, he used United States Post Office If it fits, it ships boxes. He’s on the move. I’ll bet the minute he passed through English Customs, he was headed for the Continent. He could be tracked through the airport, but after he left the building, he’d be in the clear. He’s holed up somewhere waiting for the boxes to arrive at some post-office box he set up months ago. The United States Post Office will deliver, just not always on time. Time was only critical to Steigle until he made it through Customs in England. Now, time is no
t critical to him. In fact, it’s turned from a deficit to an asset. The longer he keeps his head low, we can’t trace him. He might be in a pension on the Amalfi Coast or in a cheap hotel in Brindisi. Wherever he is, when his share arrives, he’ll deposit the money in a numbered account in Switzerland. He’ll pay his bills in cash. For seven years. Then he can do what he wants.”
“Statute of limitations?”
“He’s a lawyer and clearly a very good one. He knows what he’s doing.” Noonan pointed his flashlight at the card table. “Everyone used vinyl gloves, and there is no trash. Everyone showed up here to split the money. The Jacksons took theirs and did a tour of FedEx and UPS offices or drop boxes. Then they went to an airport and took a private plane to Freeport. I’ll bet their wives are with them. I don’t see those women letting their husbands have cash on a hot tropical island with no chaperon.”
Edison chuckled. “That’s a crude way of looking at it.”
“Maybe. But probably true.”
“For his part, I’m betting Steigle used the If it fits, it ships. All he had to do was go to any post office with an open lobby. He probably didn’t need the automated postage machines. He could have paid the postage and downloaded the labels right here. I’m betting he visited several post-office lobbies just in case we figured out what he was doing. We might have been able to stop some packages—but not all of them. The Jacksons had to get the packages to a UPS or FedEx office before they closed. FedEx has some drop boxes, but they are in buildings that close at, say, six p.m. So the Jacksons had to scamper all over town to get their packages gone.”
“But we can trace all the packages?”
“Why?” Noonan smiled. “Stop thinking like a cop. Pretend you are a clever criminal. Like Steigle. Let’s just assume—and I’m not suggesting it’s true—Steigle cleaned out the vault. That’s a couple of tons of paper money, and there is no indication here,” Noonan pointed around the garage, “that two tons of cash came through this room. The GPS on the armored car,” he pointed to the truck in the garage John Swensen and two officers were processing, “recorded a stop here for about an hour. Steigle could not load two tons of money at the Swensen garage and then unload two tons here in an hour even with the help of the Jacksons.”