by A. R. Case
Jamie shook his head. “A coroner ID on a DB in an accident.”
DB, shorthand for dead body. “Are they certain it was an accident?”
“Lost control on the turnpike, hit a tree head on.”
That didn’t sound too fishy, then again… “Are they checking the car for malfunction?”
“Witnesses said he was driving too fast.”
“Crap.”
“Name matches one of the larger payroll lines that was flagged yesterday, though. Ten grand in the last month.”
“That’s an awful lot for a furniture mover.”
“That’s what we thought so we tracked down some of the other employees he worked with. Two others came up on the flag. One of them has been missing for the last four days.”
Mills leaned forward in his seat, “And the other?”
“On vacation in Florida, visiting his mother.”
“Did your team follow up on the mother?”
“Checks out. But it’s another red flag, she’s in a pretty posh retirement community down there. Now I like my mom and all, but unless it’s a holiday, I’m not spending two weeks with her playing shuffleboard.”
Mills snorted. “Me either.” His mom wasn’t the shuffleboard or gated retirement kind though. After raising him and his little brother, she waited long enough to get them out of the nest and then sold most of her possessions, bought an RV and was now happily digging in Utah or Colorado, looking for dinosaur bones and Indian relics. At first, Daniel thought it was a new man who was responsible for the shift, but then he’d gone out there. She really was enamored with the whole process. She claimed then and there that it was only a matter of time before she joined a dig in Egypt or Peru.
He worried, but she was much happier now, and healthier than she’d been when he was younger and she faded into nothing while trying to make ends meet in an office every day.
“Is the mom ill?”
“Fit as a fiddle.”
Very interesting. “Do we have any reason to bring him in?”
“Nothing we can make stick yet. Still digging though. It’d be nice to find out if he remembers anything about his whereabouts the last couple of weeks.”
“Has there been a report filed for the other guy?”
“Local has it. We can’t touch it yet.”
“Damn it.”
“Do you mind if I brainstorm a bit with you?”
“You bored over in accounting?”
Jamie laughed. “To be honest, yeah. I’ve always loved detective shows, but Mom wanted me to get something stable.”
“Our gain. What’ve you got?”
“Here’s the timeline…” He got up and flipped to a clean sheet of paper on an easel pad Mills always kept in his office. “You have the incident, where Ricky gets into Conrad’s computer.” He drew a circle with the word “Ricky” in the center.
“Then you have a reason for them to suspect him. Jamie drew a couple of circles, in one he wrote “camera” then he wrote “person.”
“Possible audio surveillance?” Mills added.
Jamie drew another circle and added “audio” then connected the circles to the center.
“So the next step, grab Ricky. We figure that happened after 3 p.m. on Sunday because we found camera footage of him in a grocery store then.”
“That was where he picked up flowers, right?”
“Yup. But the date’s not until 6, and since he didn’t show, we figure they caught him before then. Records didn’t find additional phone calls between that time on his account.”
“None after either.”
Jamie drew a small circle and wrote “Sunday 1500” in it and connected it to the center. “Did you remember when you gave him the drive?”
“Friday night, 5 p.m.”
Jamie wrote “Friday - 1700” in a small circle next to the other one. “46 hours.”
“Twenty-nine.” Mills corrected. “He went straight to, and stayed with Lisa until 10 a.m. Saturday, according to her testimony.”
“Saturday 1000” was added to the board. “We have him at the warehouse in Margate around 1 that afternoon. He showed up on DMV camera two blocks away at a stop light.”
“Lisa thought he went home to change before he had to be to work. She said his shift was from 2 to 10. She wasn’t expecting him until Sunday dinner, because he usually worked late.”
“So let’s assume he got the information from the Margate warehouse?”
Mills tapped his fingers together. “He was delivering most of the day, I don’t know. It’s a lot of ground to cover. Did the unit get the delivery records for that day?”
“The police still are sitting on it.”
“Crap. We need that.”
“If I may, I think there’s a connection there.” He wrote “police” then “evidence” and circled them both. “We’ve been getting push back from at least two different divisions on this. They haven’t been sharing information well.”
Mills mulled that over, then spoke, “More than usual, considering the murder isn’t our jurisdiction?”
“More than usual, I ran statistics on it.”
That got Mills laughing. “I think your mother pushed you in the right direction.”
“How so?”
Mills wiped his eyes, but didn’t say anything. The world needed geeks like Jamie, more so now, because they spotted things like this and could back it up. “Never mind, you’re on a roll. So the cops are dirty.”
“Yes, and there’s significant charity donations in the evidence that on the surface looks legitimate but really isn’t.”
“No?”
Jamie nodded.
“How bad is it?”
“The amounts aren’t enough for more than one or two assets at any particular location. I’d say all totaled, barring extreme cause, he probably is running four full time assets, maybe a fifth, but I’d almost bet that the money is being used for minor hush money instead.”
Up to five bad cops. AC wasn’t that big. “What do they have, about two hundred on payroll?”
“Three hundred and thirty three as of August.”
Mills got up and wrote his own circle “5” and then wrote “333” next to it. “Does the number seem excessive?”
“Which one, five corrupt cops or three hundred plus police?”
“Three thirty three.”
“Not really. Population is only forty thousand, but it gets about 29 million visitors every year.”
“That many?” Mills whistled. “No wonder…”
“There’s also an established history of animosity between the city government and the force, too.”
“Nice, a fucking breeding ground from someone to get their hooks in.”
“And Whitehead made it clear he didn’t support Lorenzo Langford.”
“He’s the one who called them selfish, spoiled brats, wasn’t he?”
“The one.”
Mills shook his head. “Probably unrelated to this case, get those stats to Ben Harrison. Back on this track, Giofreida had opportunity either during his shift or after if he came back to the warehouse. Right?”
“Or Sunday. Maybe he was caught going in after 3.”
“That’s still a pretty big window, in the scope of things. Still, you’re seeing things I am, like the police connection.”
“How’d you see it?”
“The kid who found Giofreida, picked up a flash drive. Trouble was, his name shouldn’t be public.”
“So who was on scene? I’d look at them first.”
Damn. Mills had been so busy expanding the scope, he’d forgotten to check on the narrow view. He picked up the phone and requested asset checks run on the names he’d written down in his notebook, and that they be sent to Ben. When he finished, he turned to Jamie. �
�I’m sending a recommendation your way for that one. Thanks.”
“I’ve got one more thread.” He detailed it on the paper and Mills knew that he’d be more than writing a thank you. He’d be writing a recommendation to move this kid to field work.
Chapter seventeen
Halloween wasn’t as cool of a holiday here as it was in Ohio. When they’d first moved here his mom made Jonathan attend youth functions at the church on the end of the block. In his head, church and Halloween just didn’t get along. Luckily, it wasn’t one of those big water tank kind like the one his nana B went to that banned Halloween altogether. It was laid back, kind of fun, but mostly had overtones of “do this, don’t do that, which was how most Catholic churches went. He actually missed that a little. His mom had “converted” from Catholicism to his dad’s side Baptist, but didn’t go to church for as long as he could remember. When they moved, she made a point to go to service at the church at least once a month.
Of course, since meeting Tony, he hadn’t seen her go to church. It was funny how often they went out now. He knew they were doing it, despite their sneaking around. Whatever. They were both adults and he liked Tony. Also, Tony was Catholic so she wouldn’t have to choose this time, which was kind of cool.
He always thought it was a dick move for his dad to insist she go to the Baptist church with his parents when half the time, he managed to work on Sundays so he wouldn’t have to go. Once Grandpa passed, Nana lost interest for a while and his mom never went back.
On mornings he stayed at Scott’s there was no church. Which was awesome because both of Scott’s parents were agnostic. He remembered the whole at dinner table discussion of whether Thomas Jefferson really was a deist, or whether it was historical error. He’d never thought about things like that before. It was doubly surprising to find out that Franklin actually switched from being a Quaker to being a Deist then to something else.
Church was on his brain lately. With everything that happened, Jonathan wondered if there really was anything to this religion thing. It seemed kind of stupid to believe the same things someone believed a couple of thousand years ago. These were the same people who thought the world was flat and that bleeding was an acceptable medical practice.
He was walking home from the planning meeting for the Halloween party, which was only a half block and didn’t give him time to think hard on things, but he tried. That’s how he missed the sound of a car revving up as it sat outside his house. He didn’t miss the psszing-bang bang noise that sounded too close, or the feel of very hot wind whipping past his ear. Sheer gut reaction had him diving into the neighbor’s yard and rolling next to the stone fence that edged the yard. He heard at least four more shots hit the stone before the car sped off.
Car alarms were going off and sirens sped past as Jonathan peeked over low fence. He was wet and grass-stained and his ear hurt. He pushed up, but fell back on his ass.
His mom ran outside, with her coat off. He was going to tell her she should go back inside to grab her coat, when he felt something tickle his neck. He brushed it off, but it kept tickling. He looked at his hand to see whether some spider web or bug guts were there and got woozy. His hand was covered in blood.
His mom was screaming for help and kneeling next to him. She balled up his scarf and pushed it against his head, which hurt a lot.
“Stop it, Mom. That hurts!”
“It’s supposed to hurt you’ve been shot.”
That was all it took; Jonathan passed out.
There were police in the corridor, nurses Susan knew intimate details about rushing around, and doctors she respected, trying to keep order. She stood up from the chair she had by Jonathan’s bed and grabbed of the staff nurses, gave her directions, and started giving orders to clear the hall.
The on-call COS, Jeremy, saw her directing the traffic and pulled her away. “They can do this without you. Go back to your son, okay?”
“They weren’t doing crowd control.” She complained.
He chuckled as he led her back to the curtained room Jonathan was resting in. “We’ll survive. I’ll see what we can do about getting Jonathan’s room expedited. How are you holding up?”
Susan shrugged. “Fine. I don’t think he even has a concussion, it was probably just the shock that caused him to pass out.”
“You’re lucky he’s already decided not to go into the medical field.”
She laughed. Then thought it must be wrong to laugh in the middle of an ER, but she couldn’t help herself, which only made the giggles start. Jeremy rubbed her shoulders and made her sit.
“What’s so funny, Mom?”
They’d given Jonathan fluids and his color was good. He even sounded like himself, which stopped the hysterics. Susan was afraid the waterworks would start soon so she focused on assessing his condition instead of thinking about a bullet that passed close enough to his head to trim a small section off his ear. “Nothing. How’s your ear feel?”
“It’s throbbing, but doesn’t hurt as bad as when you were pushing on it.”
“Oh, honey, sorry about that.”
He looked at Jeremy. “Ya think she freaked out a bit?”
He laughed. “I’ll leave you be for now. Hey Jonathan, keep her out of the ER, she’s off duty.”
Jonathan looked at his mom, “Mom…” It came out two syllables.
She shrugged. There was something about being here that made her just want to take over when she saw disorder. Habit probably.
“Listen to your son, and we can rearrange your schedule for the next couple of days if you need off.”
“I’ll be fine, Mom.” Jonathan cut in before Susan could answer.
The cops caught the gang in the car who had fired the shots and were holding them on attempted murder charges. From the discussion in the hall, they hadn’t found the gun, but one of the boys in the car had gunpowder residue on his hands. Unfortunately, that might not be enough to hold them because no one had gotten a good look at the car or the boys inside.
There was a uniform on hand to take Susan and Jonathan’s statements. She’d rushed them in so quickly there was no time to sit with them. He knocked on the partial wall separating the rooms. “You have a moment?”
It was one of the police officers from the night Jonathan found the body, Kirkland.
“Sure. Jonathan, you okay to answer questions?” Susan asked.
He shrugged. “I didn’t see much.”
“Just tell me what happened.” Kirkland said.
Jonathan related how he heard and felt the bullets and dove behind the wall. He tried to remember how many shots were fired, but couldn’t think whether it was six or seven. He knew from his father that the average clip for a semi-automatic used on the streets held between eight and ten bullets, if you chambered one.
Susan related her side, coming out after she heard shots and seeing Jonathan. Her hands began to shake. “He was just down the block at the church. I thought he’d be okay.”
Jonathan reached over to rub his mom’s shoulders. “I’m okay, Mom, really.”
She caught his hand and held it tight.
“Do you think it’s related to the body or the drive I found?” Jonathan asked.
Kirkland reassured him that it was probably just random gang violence. “We’ve been working harder the last few months trying to get the the major players out of Ventnor City, but it’s slow going.” He wrote something down, then asked, “What makes you think this is related to that incident in the marsh?”
“We’ve had two break ins since then.” Susan said.
“Three mom.” Jonathan corrected.
“I know, we had a patrol in the area because of that.”
“I appreciate that, you know.” Susan said.
Kirkland smiled. “Just doing the job. Any other reason?” He directed the question to Jonathan, who shrugged.
“It’s just weird that all this started after that night.”
“I think I remember you were being chased by the gang that night, before the body. So maybe this is related to that. Do you remember anything you did or said to set them off?”
“They’re always harassing people at school. I don’t think it’s just me.”
Kirkland watched him. “It probably isn’t. We’ve been getting more and more crap from these punks. Attacking old ladies, random people, it’s not getting better.”
He started to close his notebook and thank them for their time.
Susan stopped him. “What can I do to keep him safe?”
Kirkland looked at both of them. His eyes roamed over both of them, holding Susan’s gaze for a moment. Then he shrugged. “If it were my kid, I’d get him out of town, but that’s not my call.”
He paused. “I hear his dad wants him back. Might not be a bad time for a visit.” Kirkland said, then left.
Her ex showed up for the custody hearing. She could say she was surprised, but wasn’t really. He’d gone to all the trouble of getting Social Services to try to take Jonathan away. Both her and her lawyer expected this.
What she hadn’t expected was his documentation of all the hours he’d spent in anger management classes. Dayton had never filed child abuse charges against him, but she knew his department had intervened on her behalf. After she took the photos of his injuries to courts, there hadn’t been any more resistance to her obtaining custody. John hadn’t fought the change in living arrangements. But even she had to admit, her ex was really trying to change.
Both his lawyer and hers moved to accept mediation, and Jonathan’s Guardian ad litem agreed, despite Jonathan’s misgivings.
John looked hurt by Jonathan’s outburst, and for a moment, Susan actually felt sorry for taking Jonathan so far from him. Then she remembered the pain he’d inflicted, and her eyes narrowed.
Since John had come in from out of town, mediation was held immediately in one of the unused rooms in the courthouse. Susan and Jonathan sat side by side, the court-appointed lawyer for Jonathan taking the other chair near her son, and John and his lawyer took the other side. It forced her lawyer to one end, and the mediator to the other, but they were all sitting at the table.