Controller: Controller Trilogy, Book 1

by Stephen W Bennett

  Collier continued to look around the room, and now, by not looking his way as the eleven other customers did would make Billings stand out. He glanced towards Collier, then looked down to his sandwich and raised it to take a bite, then sipped his drink. Politely ignoring what was none of his business, as did the other patrons.

  Pretending to pick at his food for a few minutes, apparently thinking, Collier suddenly pulled out his cell phone and scrolled through a few contacts. He abruptly rose, fished for a bill from a fold of cash in his pocket, and left a tip before hurrying out the back door.

  Billings continued to eat, hoping his electronics would fill him in on what happened next. He could only monitor his audio bug and GPS tracker from his van, but he was recording. After a couple of minutes, he heard a car engine start, and the clatter of gravel as a car tried to leave the rear lot faster than traction allowed. He sat there longer as two other men left their tips and walked out the back exit before he followed them a minute later. They were pulling out as he made his exit. He felt satisfied when he saw them head down the street after exiting the lot, and shortly, a yellow Cadillac followed them. Collier was being cautious and had half expected someone to follow him, so he was following his possible watchers.

  In the van, he slowed the rapid playback of the video when it reached the part where his subject walked outside, cell phone to his ear. Collier quickly went to his car and slipped inside, so that part of his conversation was recorded on the van’s receiver by the bug under the dash. The bug’s transmitter had a range of only 400 to 500 meters, so Collier was already out of coverage, but he’d have part of what was said, and the bug would record more if he could recover that. The GPS tracker could lead him to the car to retrieve the bug, and listen to the rest of that half of the phone conversation.

  As Billings activated the GPS display, he saw on the city map where the Cadillac was, over a mile away, and he started driving in the same direction. As he did, he played back the portion of the audio he had recorded in the van, which was one side of the conversation, of course. The device in the Caddy picked up after the sound of a car door slamming.

  “…I don’t know yet. I just got to my car. If anyone follows me I’ll know he ratted me out, but he doesn’t have anything on me other than his word against mine, and I’ve been down that path several times without a problem….” He was apparently interrupted.

  “Yes, Sir, Mister Stiles. I’ll pull into an alley up the street to see who comes out.” He received another reply or set of instructions.

  “OK. I’ll follow anyone that comes out behind me. But it ain’t like my yellow Caddy blends in very well….” Another pause.

  “Right. I’ll call you back at the other number.”

  From there it was only sounds of driving on the audio until the signal broke up and faded out when Collier drove down the street and out of range.

  Billings noticed that the GPS tracker had paused on a city street, about two miles away. He drove in that direction and was nearly there before the GPS marker resumed moving. As he slowly passed the place where Collier had paused, he saw a green minivan that resembled one that he’d seen parked at the deli. It was in the parking lot of an auto parts store, across from where the Caddy had stopped. He saw a man in an auto parts company shirt smoking a cigarette outside, and Billings recognized him as one of the two men that walked out behind Collins. Suspicious, he’d followed them here and decided they weren’t in the deli to observe him after all, so he left.

  Billings continued to follow the trace of the GPS for another twenty minutes until it stopped at what appeared on the map to be inside a structure off the street. When he arrived, it was a two-level parking garage attached to a very nice residential building, which according to the sign in front was a condominium. Collier had apparently gone home.

  Collier had called someone named Stiles that he addressed as Sir, which might be his boss. The building looked like it matched with the estimated financial tier this crook probably could afford.

  Way more than I make, even with my disability pension, Billings thought sourly.

  Since Collier wasn’t in his car now, there wouldn’t be any live audio to monitor, so Billings decided to retrieve his devices. What he hoped to achieve today was some link to whoever Collins worked for, and some incriminating conversation about the warehouse fire. Those words, if spoken, were recorded on the bug’s chip. They were a small firm, with a tight budget, and gadgets cost money. He parked a half block away walked back to the garage and around the arm of the security gate. He spotted the reserved numbered slot for the flashy yellow car on the first level.

  The car was left unlocked again. It was amusing. Collier was a crook and thief who trusted his car to be safe? The Slim Jim wasn’t needed to unlock the door, so there was no alarm to bypass, or need to hurry away if one were triggered.

  He removed his two devices and headed back to his van, reminding himself to not glance up at the small dark plastic dome above the entrance to the garage, thus not presenting a full-face view. His years on the police force taught him that most surveillance videos were low quality and seldom checked if there was no reason to look at the recording. Even then, matching a strange face to a person’s name seldom caught criminals unless the news media plastered the images on television and in newspapers to draw phone tips. An unlocked car opened without any property taken wasn’t worthy of that kind of attention.

  Billings didn’t know that this building offered a closed-circuit security channel for occupants to monitor the building’s front entrance, as well as the garage camera to admit guests with cars.

  Collier watched the intruder enter his car from his big screen TV, and then via the main entrance camera, watched him walk towards his van up the street and drive away, passing in front of the building as he did so. Using binoculars from a corner window, he managed to read the first three letters of the white van’s Kentucky plate.

  He made a call to the more secure number he seldom used. “Mister Stiles. You were right. It was a setup. A man at the deli tracked me home. He just removed a couple of what must be electronic devices from my car. One was under the dashboard, and one from inside the left rear wheel well. The two employees from the auto store were just there for lunch. I saw their name badges and company shirts when I followed them to where they work.”

  He paused as he listened.

  “Yes, Sir. I’ll leave it to you. Here are the first three letters of his Kentucky plate, and the make of his white van. Ready to copy Sir?” And he passed along what he knew, perfectly aware that it would likely lead to something deadly happening to that stranger, just as he knew Sheffield would encounter a fatal event sometime in the next week.

  There were so many possibilities for how it might happen that Collins was repeatedly surprised at the variety that Stiles somehow mysteriously managed to arrange. Garth Arnold, if he were in any way implicated in double-crossing Stiles, would find he too would become another example of why you never cheated or pissed off this dangerous man in business, or otherwise.

  ****

  Gil Anderson reached the riverside redevelopment project shortly before noon and then had to wait for the lunch break to speak with the employee he was there to meet, Charles Dayton. A man in the Site Management office directed him to the Foreman in charge of the day’s concrete pour. He, in turn, pointed out the man he was seeking, standing on the back of his truck, having just completed delivery of a load of concrete.

  He watched the wrinkled and sunburned older man as he finished cleaning wet concrete from his truck’s chute, and shut down a pressure washer. The man, in his late fifties, looked physically fit, and as he started towards one of the two food trucks, Anderson stepped forward to introduce himself.

  “Mister Dayton? I’m Gil Anderson. I spoke to you on the phone.”

  The man pulled a rag from his back pocket and wiped his right hand before offering a handshake. “Hi. I wasn’t sure if you’d show up. I gave a deposition earlier this we
ek with a company lawyer present, who said he told you what I would and wouldn’t talk about.”

  “Mister Dayton, as I told your company, I’m not investigating your accident at all. I think you may know that Gerald Habersham, the man that died, was also an insurance investigator. I’m with a smaller investigative firm that has taken over three cases that Mister Habersham was working on for his company, Calder Business Insurance. I’m looking into those cases, and I assure you I’m not involved in your accident, the funeral home’s lawsuit, or the legal charges you face.”

  Dayton stepped into a customer line at one of the food trucks. “Hope you don’t mind talking while I eat. I need to drive back to our cement plant for another load. What do you think I can tell you? I didn’t know the man, and I feel terrible that he was in his mother’s funeral procession. I lost my father earlier this year, and I can sympathize. I read in his obituary that he’d also just lost his son and his wife. Anytime I feel sorry for myself, I think of what he’d just gone through.”

  “Mister Dayton, I have reason to believe that the loss of his ex-wife in a fire, his son’s hit-and-run death, then his mother’s unexpected death, are all connected. Those may have been attempts to stop his investigation of the three insurance cases my firm is now investigating. He may have been killed to eliminate something he knew.”

  “Holy shit! I hadn’t heard that. But I swear, I didn’t know him. I can’t even say why I was three miles from the damned interstate when…” he stopped. “Sorry. I’m not supposed to discuss that with you.”

  “I understand and give you my word that I’m not looking for anything that incriminates you. I think you might be another innocent party, as seem to be the three drivers of the accidents Habersham was investigating. The three cases he had that are now mine were insurance claims for car accidents that killed three men that had very large insurance policies on their lives. Then Habersham and his son die in traffic accidents within the same month. Someone killed his wife in a deliberate house fire, and his mother, supposedly dying of natural causes, may have been killed to get him to come out in public for her funeral.”

  “That’s a Hell of a lot of deaths and accidents.” Reaching the front of the food line, Dayton ordered a couple of burritos and a Diet Coke.

  “Let me buy your lunch,” Anderson offered, and he added an order of his own. When served he paid, and the two went to the covered area and sat at a table alone.

  “Damn. If I knew you’d pay, I’d have ordered more,” joked Dayton.

  Anderson grinned. “I get my expenses paid by Habersham’s company. I’d have paid anything reasonable.” He showed him the receipts as he put them in a shirt pocket. He resumed his interview with an explanation.

  “The problem Habersham was investigating is the similarity of how three men died in vehicle accidents, hit by people that can’t explain how it happened, who had clean driving records and were not under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Just like your accident. Three such coincidences had drawn Habersham’s interest, and now mine, since he and his son also were killed that way. The driver that hit his son didn’t stop, but he may still be innocent of intent.”

  Dayton burped after he washed down a bite, and seemed to be thinking. “I got tested for illegal drugs and alcohol, but I’d been drinking coffee. I got that in the office at the plant, so I don't see how it could be spiked. If it was, it must be some drug not in the police test kit. I was also way off my route to this job site. It’s only a four-mile drive from our cement plant, and I was three miles off the interstate.” He seemed to be puzzled by his actions.

  “There may be a clue,” Anderson suggested. “Habersham saw the same man in traffic camera recordings near the intersections where the three accidents happened. That man was later seen driving a rare high-priced car away from one of the accidents. He could be involved, and perhaps Habersham was killed because he was trying to find that man.

  “I’m trying to figure out how someone could cause these accidents, and how the drivers involved not be aware of how it happened. It seems impossible.” He looked at Dayton, eyebrow raised in an implied question.

  “I understand what you want from me. I truly wish I had something to explain what happened. I want this whole mess to go away. I draw a blank from the time I got on the interstate until just after the collision. The only impression I had after I realized I’d hit something was that….” He hesitated. “This will sound stupid.” He looked sheepish.

  “It was that my wife was having a baby and I needed to get to the hospital in a hurry. I’m fifty-eight, my last kid was born thirty-two years ago. I don't know why that was on my mind. I didn’t even rush to the hospitals when either of my kids was born, and my ex-wife has remarried. My girlfriend ain’t pregnant, and I had a vasectomy. Why would I think I had a baby being born? It’s nuts.”

  “Did you see any person after you became aware of where you were, someone that seemed out of the ordinary, or was driving an unusual make of luxury car?” It was a straw in the wind.

  “Hell no. I had people climbing onto the step of my truck yelling in the window at me. I didn’t even know there had been a collision, or where I was. Oh, shit! I’m not supposed to talk about that. Look, I hope you figure it out. If you do, it might help me in court. But even if it’s no help to me, I just want to know for my peace of mind.”

  He glanced at his watch. “I’m sorry, I need to pick up another load. Thanks for lunch.”

  Dayton rose and walked back to his truck and Anderson headed to his car, his cell phone out, calling his contact at the city traffic division. He wanted to see some video.

  ****

  “Arleen, if you guys have the recordings from six months ago, how long do you think it will take me to find and play the intersection tapes related to all four dates I gave you?”

  “Unless you’re a complete twit, hardly any time at all.” She gave him a mischievous grin.

  They’d been acquaintances back when he was on the force, and he would come over to this city division when looking for information that a stakeout may have missed. She’d taught him how to use the computer system to scan days of traffic camera footage of locations within their coverage. He sometimes spotted his quarry that way and found a time pattern he could use when the fugitive visited a friend or family member at odd hours.

  “Really? All but one of the dates I gave you are older than your ninety-day retention.” He assumed only the recording of Habersham’s fatal accident would still be available.

  “You said they were all for fatal accidents. If there’s likely to be litigation, lawyers will submit Evidence Retention requests if a camera recording exists. When notified of a serious accident at an intersection we monitor, we automatically save a copy of that day in a separate file system. There’s still a lot of them, but they’re cross-indexed by dates, locations, and case file numbers if legal action starts. The playback system is the same one I showed you how to use. I’ll sign you in, plop your butt in front of a computer, show you the search menu, and sign you out when done.

  “If you want copies, there’s a fee now that you’re not on the city payroll, even if you have a flash drive. The USB ports are password protected.” She laughed. “Computer bits come with a small price tag.”

  Soon, he was watching the full twenty-four hours of the first day, zipping ahead to the time he wanted. Using Habersham’s notes for the proper time, he watched a speeding car leap a curb and strike a person that he assumed was the victim. Interesting for the original case, but that wasn’t what he wanted right now. He’d noticed a case file number in the notes that he now knew were for this same record, which meant Calder Insurance had copies of this, which they didn’t give him. His focus was on evidence of fraud, and a staged accident. He saw a slender man on a diagonal corner from the actual crash site, half facing the camera.

  On a slower playback, he saw that the mystery man appeared to be looking towards the out-of-frame approaching car and that he glanced towards the vic
tim, who had just crossed with the light on the other side of the street. The car was coming from behind the victim. The mystery man’s head pivoted, following the car’s motion as it sped into the image from the right, and drifted left to cross to the other side of the street, jump the curb. It hit the victim before he moved out of sight of the corner of the building, struck from behind as he started to look back at the noise of the car striking the curb.

  The mystery man passively watched, as other pedestrians and even motorists, rushed to the scene, the body and car obscured by the corner building. The passive watcher stood there and watched a half minute, then walked back the opposite way from the crash, and out of sight.

  The second tape was a variation of the first, but different corners, a different side of the street, the victim crossing with the light, and another car, also speeding, leaped the curb, and apparently hit the man, but he couldn’t see the impact. Again, the watcher’s head turned to follow the car, then watched without any reaction for a few seconds. He then walked out of frame, but because Habersham had forewarned him to watch longer, he soon saw a car enter the intersection from the cross street, hesitate as the drive may have looked to his right at the carnage, and slowly turned left, away from the crash. The tinted driver’s window was half down, and the driver certainly resembled the mystery man. The car was a black luxury sports car of a make Anderson didn’t recognize. He couldn’t afford that level of gleaming beauty.

  The third case was like the first, with a differently dressed passive observer, who watched another car as it plowed into a group of people to reach the man he now knew was the only target. He’d make copies to keep.

  After watching the cement mixer hit the limo carrying Habersham, he had a more difficult and time-consuming task. He had to plod through other traffic tapes for that day. He hadn’t found precisely which Interstate exit Dayton had taken to enter city streets, but once he turned down the street where he would eventually encounter the funeral procession, Dayton did something not reported. He pulled to the curb a half block away from the future accident and stopped. He sat there for at least five minutes, apparently waiting. The crash was obviously planned, and Dayton must be lying. He’d waited for the line of funeral cars to cross a half block ahead of him.