Deadly Enterprise

by Kevin G Chapman

  “Well, not all at once,” Michelle said, sheepishly.

  “It wasn’t her fault,” Steph piped in. “I made her tell me. I feel so bad that I didn’t do more for Christine. I didn’t reach out to her enough. I didn’t go try to help her in Seattle. If I had done more, she wouldn’t be dead now.” Steph was fighting back tears by the end of her little speech.

  “You can’t know that,” Mike soothed. “You can’t beat yourself up about not preventing what happened. I can tell you from experience that it does no good. People make their own choices. You can give advice but you can’t live their lives for them. Nothing you could have done would have made a difference.”

  “That’s not true!” Steph snapped back, between sniffs. “I know it’s not true. Now I just can’t live with myself if I don’t help you catch whoever killed her. I just have to.”

  Mike stared at Steph with a puzzled expression, then turned toward Michelle with the same what-the-Hell-is-she-talking-about look.

  Just then, a server appeared next to the table rolling a metal cart piled high with plates, tins, and bamboo steamer baskets filled with dim sum. Mike and Michelle picked out an assortment. Steph said she would eat anything so they should just choose for her. They arranged the plates on the table and ate steamed buns and dumplings with chopsticks for several minutes. Finally, in between bites, Michelle continued with the story.

  “Well, Mike, I told Steph the same thing – that she should not feel guilty about Christine’s death. But she really wanted to help. So, I encouraged her to look for more information on her end that might help with your investigation. I didn’t disclose any confidential information, but we brainstormed about what facts about Christine’s life might help us trace her movements after she came to New York. She couldn’t really think of anything, but she told me that she wanted to come to New York and try to retrace Christine’s steps – to see if she could help us find the people who killed her.”

  “What?” Mike exclaimed, breaking into Michelle’s narrative.

  “I told her she could not do that,” Michelle quickly added.

  “But I could!” Steph said excitedly, putting down her chopsticks. “That’s why I’m here.”

  “Could what?” Mike said, not entirely following the confusing story.

  “Go undercover,” Steph said confidently.

  “Undercover? We don’t – there’s no undercover operation.”

  “But I could do it.”

  Mike paused to compose himself. “Miss Barker, I think you’ve been watching too many TV cop shows. We can’t run any undercover operation here, for reasons that I really can’t go into, and even if we could, we could never have a civilian involved. That’s crazy.”

  “I’m not crazy,” Steph said defiantly. “And don’t be mad at Michelle. She told me it wouldn’t work and she told me not to come but I don’t care. I’m going to do something to help Christine.”

  “Christine is dead,” Mike said as comfortingly as he could manage. “There’s nothing you can do for her.”

  “Then it’s for me,” Steph shot back. “I’m doing it for myself. To make me feel better. I know that. I have to do this.”

  “Do what?” Mike asked rhetorically.

  “Help you by going undercover.”

  “No. That cannot ever happen.”

  “Now, Mike, I know that, of course,” Michelle broke in. “I told Steph that. But she just kind of showed up here today and I didn’t know what to do so I wanted you to come and help talk some sense into her.” Michelle reached out and squeezed Mike’s hand.

  “We can just put her on a plane home and that should take care of it,” Mike said as if that ended the discussion.

  “I took the bus,” Steph said, “and I’m not going back. You can’t force me. Even if you don’t want me, I’m going to do something.”

  “What?” Mike said, not really intending the question to be answered.

  “I can find out who killed Christine. I can go to that shelter in Brooklyn, where I sent her the Starbucks cards, and let those guys find me. I can imitate a meth addict. I’ve seen them up close for long enough. I can fool anyone. I’ll get them to give me some information that will help you and then I’ll tell you and you’ll get ‘em and they’ll pay for killing Christine.” Steph finished with her balled-up fist hitting the table.

  Mike looked at Michelle. “Did you tell her that the address was a shelter?”

  “No, she didn’t,” Steph replied before Michelle could speak. “I Googled it.”

  Mike sucked in a deep breath and tried not to make it a sigh. He put on his best soothing, fatherly advice voice. “Steph, I really appreciate that you want to help. You are loyal to your sister and I get that. But, this is a police investigation, and it could be dangerous. We could never allow a civilian to be put in harm’s way. You’re not trained, and frankly it would get me in a ton of trouble. I love your desire, but it’s just impossible.”

  Steph was quiet for a moment. Mike wasn’t sure if she was about to scream or cry. “Michelle told me you’d say that. She said that same thing. It’s too dangerous. I don’t know what I’m doing. Well let me tell you that I don’t give a shit. Christine didn’t know what she was doing either.”

  “And it got her killed,” Mike snapped.

  “I know – I’m her sister!”

  “Steph,” Michelle broke in, trying to keep a lid on the emotions. “You have already been so helpful. Really.”

  “Then I’ll just have to go find that reporter from The New York Times who wrote that story about Christine before. I’m sure he would want to write about how a civilian tried to take down a prostitution ring.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Mike asked.

  “Just what I said. I’ve been thinking about it. If you won’t let me help the police because I’m not a cop, then fine. I’ll just do it as a private person and get The Times or somebody to cover it and write a story about it afterwards. If they don’t want to, then I’ll just write a blog about it myself.”

  “They could be writing about how you got killed,” Michelle said with true worry in her voice. Michelle was not a mother, but Mike thought she sounded just like one.

  “Why should I care?” Steph shot back defiantly. “I’ve got nothing. My family is in shambles. I can’t even think about college. My mom is a wreck already. Maybe I don’t care if I get killed, as long as I’m doing something worthwhile. You can’t stop me.”

  “Listen to me, young lady, I will have you arrested for obstruction of a police investigation.”

  “Fine! Put me in jail. I’m sure that will make a good story for the papers, too.” Steph stuck out her chin and looked Mike right in the eye. He had to give her credit – she had balls.

  “Let’s just slow down,” Mike said, sitting back in his chair after noticing that he had been leaning forward. “Let’s not rush into anything. Where are you staying?”

  Steph looked at Michelle, who looked at Steph awkwardly. “Um, well, I’m not sure. I didn’t really make plans for that. I was hoping to stay with Michelle.”

  “What?” Mike looked dumbfounded as he stared at Michelle. “Is that true?”

  “Well, I did offer to put her up if she ever visited,” Michelle said reluctantly.

  “We can get her a hotel room.”

  “I don’t want to stay in some hotel. I want to stay with someone I know.”

  “What about you, Michelle? Is that what you want?” Mike tried to remember what plans he and Michelle had made for the next few nights. They had been playing it very spur-of-the-moment each day, but Mike had visions of sleeping alone while Michelle had a visitor.

  “I guess it’s okay with me,” Michelle said. “I’d rather have her with me than off somewhere else in the city alone. I can look after her.”

  “Great. Fine. Let her stay at your apartment while she’s here.”

  The waiter approached the table with their lunch check, which Mike snatched from his hand. The group gathered u
p their things and Mike walked to the front counter to pay the bill and tell owner Wilson Tang that the food was wonderful, as always. When they got outside, Mike pulled Michelle aside. “You realize how much trouble I’m going to be in if the captain finds out that I shared confidential information about this investigation with the victim’s sister?”

  “You didn’t share it, Mike. I did.”

  “That’s not going to matter. You heard it from me, so it’s my ass on the line. If that girl goes and gets herself killed, there will be Hell to pay. We have to convince her – you have to convince her – to give up this crazy idea.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Use your most persuasive voice,” Mike said, as he kissed her on the cheek and walked away to grab the subway back uptown.

  Ж Ж Ж

  Later that afternoon, as Mike was on his way back to his apartment after the end of the work day, his cell phone rang. It was another cold day and it was raining, so Mike had hitched a ride in a squad car that was heading that way.

  “Mike, she’s gone!” Michelle’s voice was frantic.

  “What do you mean, gone?”

  “I mean I went out to get some supplies so I could make us dinner and when I got back Steph was gone. Her backpack is gone, too, so I think she’s not coming back.”

  “Did you speak with her about . . . the situation?” Mike said, not wanting to be specific in front of the uniformed officer who was driving the car.

  “Yes.”

  “So, how did it go?”

  Michelle hesitated and Mike’s stomach did a back flip. “I really tried, Mike. I explained how much trouble we would be in, but she is so stubborn. She said that she was going to do it with us or without us. I told her to calm down and we’d talk more over dinner. Then she split.”

  “Did she say anything about where she might be going?”

  “No. But I’m assuming Brooklyn.”

  “Great. OK, listen. You contact her by text or phone or whatever and try to get her to come back. Tell her that I’ll come down there and talk to her again. In the meantime, I’ll see what I can do to find her.” Mike hung up and told his driver, Officer Matt Barsal, that his plans had changed and that he wanted to get to Brooklyn as fast as possible. Meanwhile, he called dispatch and asked for units in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn to be on the lookout for Steph and gave her description, based on what she was wearing when he had seen her at lunch. She might have changed clothes, but he had to give something to the beat cops.

  An hour later, after fruitlessly cruising the area around the shelter in Brooklyn where Steph had sent her Starbucks cards to Christine, Mike had officer Barsal drop him at Michelle’s apartment building. Jason met him there, after Mike had filled him in on the day’s events.

  “You’re shitting me,” was Jason’s reaction to the idea that this 19-year-old civilian was going to charge into harm’s way on an ill-conceived “undercover” mission without any support or backup.

  “How are we going to stop her?” Mike asked.

  “We may not be able to,” Michelle said dejectedly. “I spent all afternoon trying to make her understand, but she wouldn’t listen. She is fixated on this idea that she let her sister down and that she needs to make up for it or die trying.”

  “Great. You got a magic wand that can control unruly teenagers, Jason?”

  “Don’t look at me. You’re the father figure here.”

  “Thanks. I’ll have to get you back for that remark, you know.”

  “What if we just let her do it and protect her?”

  Mike and Jason turned toward Michelle with matching perplexed expressions. “Are you insane?!” Mike offered as a response.

  “Hear me out,” Michelle said, holding up her hands, palms out, to indicate that everyone should calm down. “We can’t throw her in jail or tie her up and put her in my closet. But we can give her a GPS tracker and let her go out on the street and talk to some of the working girls while you guys watch her to make sure she doesn’t get into any real trouble. After a day or two she’ll realize that it’s not going to do any good. She’ll be tired and hungry and ready to say that she tried and then she can go home. Just a couple of days is all it should take, right?”

  “Why can’t we put her in jail for interfering with a police investigation?” Jason asked.

  “Because she told us that she’d contact Dexter Peacock at the fucking Times and tell him her sob story, which will probably include the fact that Michelle leaked confidential information about the case to her.”

  “I see the problem,” Jason conceded. “But how would we even run a support operation without telling the captain? And if anything goes sideways, the shit we’ll be in will be so deep we’ll need a new wardrobe.”

  Mike looked out the window of the apartment. “Nothing will matter unless we get her back first.”

  At that moment, Michelle’s cell phone buzzed and she hurriedly answered. “Hello? . . . Oh, thank God . . . Is she alright? . . . Where are you? . . . OK, that’s great. I’ll meet you at the door.” She hung up. “That was an officer. She has Steph in a squad car and was calling from her phone. They’re on their way here to drop her off.”

  “Good. Let’s see what we can do to get her to go home if we let her spend some time on the street first.”

  “You sure, Mike?” Jason asked.

  “No, but I have no better ideas.”

  Ж Ж Ж

  When Steph arrived, escorted by a uniformed officer, she was wet and shivering, but also defiant and angry that she had been forced to come back. She calmed down only after Mike and Jason tag-teamed to convince her that they were ready to let her participate in their investigation, as she had suggested. Steph agreed to accept their assistance and support, rather than go charging into the New York sex trade on her own. After a half-hour of discussion, Mike promised to be back the following afternoon to brief her about the “operation,” after he had made some arrangements.

  When he left Michelle’s apartment, he called Everett Forrest. Mike always said that the FBI had the best toys, and he needed to borrow a few. Everett had always said that if Mike ever needed anything, he just had to ask. It was time to ask.

  Ж Ж Ж

  The next day at the scheduled time of 2:00 p.m., Mike arrived at Michelle’s apartment. Jason was already there, chatting with Steph and Michelle. Mike and Jason had already discussed how they wanted this to go.

  “Alright, we’re going to run this as operation CB,” Mike started his official “briefing” for Steph’s benefit. “Stephanie Barker has volunteered to be our eyes and ears on the ground to see if we can gather any information from the girls on the street about Christine Barker’s murder. I have secured this,” Mike held up a slender black device that looked a little like a stapler. “This is a sub-dermal GPS transmitter, on loan from our friends at the FBI. Steph, we’ll inject a tiny transmitter chip under your skin in the back of your neck, just around your hair line. It will be totally undetectable and invisible, and you can just forget about it. We will be able to track your location no matter where you go. We’ll also install some software that our FBI colleagues have sent to me on a burner phone. When you activate the app, your phone will silently connect to my phone so that we can listen and record anything that’s happening. The open call line will suck battery life from the phone, so you should only activate it if something important is happening. If anyone looks at your phone, it will not seem to have a call in progress – it all happens behind the scenes. It will even be active when the phone appears to be powered off.”

  Mike continued, “Tomorrow, we’ll take you down to Brooklyn to the neighborhood where somebody used the gift cards you sent to Christine. Your job is to hang around the area – go to the Starbucks, walk around the neighborhood, and keep your eyes open. See if you can find a hooker and ask if she’s willing to sell you some meth. Pretend to be a user. We’ll get you some clothes from the Goodwill down on Canal Street. Don’t shower or wash your face or hands toda
y. Get into character. Got it?” Steph nodded, clearly paying close attention and thrilled to be getting instructions instead of objections from Mike.

  “One of us will be in position somewhere around you, keeping tabs. You will not know where we are and you should not look for us. If we do this properly, and we will, you will not know that we’re there, and neither will anyone else. If we see you in any trouble, we’ll move in and get you. If anything happens, you drop to the ground or hide somewhere and get out of sight. We’ll know where you are based on your tracker, and you can activate the phone app and just say that you need help and we’ll move. You got that?” Mike finished with the harsh question, like an army drill sergeant.

  “Yes.” Steph said, her voice cracking a little bit.

  “Are you sure you really want to do this?” Jason asked her sternly.

  “Yes,” Steph managed with more enthusiasm. “I have to do this for Christine.”

  “Fine,” Mike said, as if ending the briefing. “Michelle will handle the insertion of the subdermal transmitter. Jason and I have some prep work to do. We’ll meet back here at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. You understand that this is not going to be fun. It’s going to be uncomfortable for you.” Mike looked sternly at the young woman as he made his last-ditch effort to scare her into abandoning her Quixotic quest. “You’re going to have to live on the street. The people you will come in contact with will be addicts and hookers and homeless people. There’s a chance someone could get violent with you. As much as we’re going to take precautions, there is a good chance you will come out of this with some scars, both physical and emotional. Are you sure you really want to do this?”

  Steph returned a defiant, “I’m sure.”

  Everyone nodded their affirmation and understanding. Mike motioned to Jason to follow him out of the apartment. He smiled at Michelle and gave her a wink, then turned and left. Mike and Jason were going to Brooklyn to scope out the area where they would be sending Steph and establishing surveillance positions. They had much to do to make this look realistic, so that Steph would think she was really operating undercover. They talked about all the ways that things could go wrong, but agreed that none of them were likely. Mike mumbled under his breath, “Sure, what could go wrong?”