Controller: Controller Trilogy, Book 1

by Stephen W Bennett

  Grayson switched to the internet, to search for the condominium name Roger said was on the structure.

  He found the sales and leasing company that managed that property. He read off the conveniences offered, then read about the security features, such as CCTV over the locked front entrance, cameras at the side covered entry from the garage, and one over the gated garage entry. Residents could remotely admit guests and see who it was on a special channel of their TV in their apartments. Collier must have watched as Roger entered his car and somehow identified who he was. Collier was instructed to provide himself an alibi for that Friday night. The same night that Sheffield died in an explosion, Roger died of a drug overdose, and Gil and Maureen killed each other in a shootout at home.

  Collier couldn’t have had a part in the killings, and he would have an airtight alibi and video to back his claim of being at home all night. The man named Stiles was involved, either ordering it done, or doing it himself.

  Grayson knew the motive, probably who was responsible, and he knew the cause of the deaths of his friends, but not the manner of death. He didn’t know how they were made to happen.

  Sheffield’s killing was well planned to look accidental, but it was not as complex to arrange. Somehow, Roger’s murderer arranged for him to die in bed next to his wife of an overdose, and she wasn’t aware of anything being wrong. The prints on the pill container, the whiskey bottle, and the glass were all Roger’s. Sandy never drank whiskey, preferring red wine or a fancy frozen drink if out for the evening, so not finding her prints on the bottle was reasonable. Roger’s death only implicated himself.

  Gil and Maureen each had been shot by the other’s gun, from several yards apart, except when she used her gun to end her own life, draped over Gil’s body. It wasn’t plausible that some outsider staged the murder and apparent suicide there in the living room and hallway. The gunshot residue indicated all the shots were fired from eight to ten feet away, except for the final temple shot for Maureen.

  The series of threats, then killings, to get to Habersham to end his investigation and perhaps hide what his research might reveal were also not as complex to accomplish. That is until he considered the cement truck driver’s actions. If he was as innocent as Gil believed he was, based on the notes he wrote, then his actions proved to be as inexplicable as those of the three automobile drivers who had no idea how they somehow ran down three heavily insured business men they didn’t know.

  How Stiles, or someone in his organization, managed to make seemingly law-abiding citizens do things to accomplish their criminal goals for profit was a mystery. Grayson considered what to call the drivers. Were they actors, executors, proxy’s, or operators? He hadn’t yet encountered the term Susceptibles.

  He wondered if they were willing participants, or unwilling? It was like they functioned under some compulsion implanted by a skilled hypnotist. Except hypnotized people supposedly wouldn’t do what they found to be against their morals or ethics. If they didn’t have such objections, they might go along with a suggestion, particularly if there was a reward for doing what they might wish to do anyway.

  He looked for an attachment in Gils notes as Roger had placed in his files, which might have been uploaded from his laptop that afternoon. He said he was going to visit the city traffic division to find recordings of the collision that killed Habersham.

  He didn’t find anything but decided to look through the box of electronics he’d carried home from the office. The damaged front door and file cabinet hadn’t been secured, so Barb had gathered up items that were worth stealing from the floor debris, such as an electric pencil sharpener, their coffee maker, and other small items. He rooted around in that box and found a small thumb drive with a city property label taped to it, saying it was from the traffic division.

  He placed it in a USB port and found it held four MP3 files, with names that contained case file numbers and dates that matched the accidents Gil was investigating. He played them all, and even without notes to guide him, he saw the same black sports car Habersham saw at one crash scene suddenly appear in the video of the cement truck that killed that investigator.

  The same thin mystery man was at the scene of all four deaths. Could he be Stiles? He was determined to find out who he was, but he needed to shift the source of the investigation away from himself and his now one-man-firm. If Stiles was willing to kill innocent family members of whoever tried to investigate him, Grayson wanted to stay in the shadows.

  To Hell with recovering the insurance money, he thought. I want the bastard caught. Or dead.

  He made copies of all the files to a larger flash drive, including Habersham’s files and the note additions made by Roger and Gil. Tomorrow, he would turn everything he had over to the Major Case Division, and his old boss. This time the investigators would be backed by a major police force and crime lab, and not the limited resources of insurance fraud investigators.

  ****

  Having finished his lengthy explanation, Grayson stood to shake hands with his former boss. “Captain Franklin, I won’t take more of your time. The paper copies of the files we received from Calder Business Insurance are here; the written notes that my deceased partners made from their investigations, and a flash drive with electronic copies of the same files and the audio and video files my guys acquired. I’ll admit, I want these cases out of my hands. I never feared for myself on the job, or from threats, which a few perps made to get even with me, but these cases have led to the deaths of investigators and their family members, and I believe cost the lives of three of my friends. I never feared for my wife or daughter from any case I worked. This is different.”

  “Dan, I promise I’ll assign several men to this. I knew Roger and Gil slightly, although I never met Maureen. We didn’t get to talk much at their funerals, but I had no idea their deaths were connected.”

  “Sir, I didn’t fit the pieces together until yesterday, when I recovered their files to resume working the investigations. I don’t know who Stiles is, or how he manages to manipulate people to do what he wants, but he’s ruthless and clever. I honestly don’t see how we can get a conviction unless he confessed or we turn some of his people, and they tell us how he arranged these fake accidents.”

  “Well, we’ll put enough resources on this to find out who he is, and how he’s connected to these cases. I’ll keep you informed of our progress. You know one of the detectives I’ll put on this. You taught Doug Blandford the ropes when he first transferred into this division.”

  “Oh yeah, a bright guy. I’m sure he’ll do a thorough job.” He could also call him unofficially to keep up with the case. He left feeling optimistic; a burden felt lifted that had him fearful for the safety of his wife and daughter. The feeling of relief lasted nearly a week.

  ****

  Without his partners to share the workload, and four of his cases now too toxic to touch, he had started working from home and was debating whether to continue leasing office space to cut expenses. He had cash reserves from two significant insurance recoveries he’d been paid for earlier this year after the court cases concluded in favor of his corporate clients. He was thinking about expanding his clientele or giving up investigations in favor of providing security advice for large businesses or to wealthy clients.

  Blandford, as he’d promised, had called him twice this week to update him on progress on the four cases. Once to tell him Homicide was reviewing the findings of not only the four vehicular deaths but had reopened the cases on the deaths of his two partners and those of Habersham’s family, motivated by Grayson’s information. In part, it was because his partners were former members of the force. As active FOP members, they were still considered part of the brotherhood of blue.

  In the second call, two days ago, Blandford said the web of people linked to suspected insurance fraud had revealed a pattern of accidental deaths. Many of the older cases involved potential witnesses connected to cases in Jeffersonville. The insurance frauds had involved
smaller sums across the river in Indiana, but once they started looking, the number of accidental deaths that ended investigations for lack of witnesses was unusual. It appeared as if a small organization had outgrown the limited market in Jeffersonville, and two years ago spread to Louisville, but it had always been lethal.

  Blandford informed him of the expanding investigation. “Dan, the captain has contacted the FBI, since this appears to be an interstate enterprise. I’ll have to relinquish jurisdiction if they take over. Special Agent in Charge, Marion Claudel, just called me. She’s been handed the case.”

  Doug had said Special Agent in Charge with a hint of derision. Local police sometimes resented having a potentially big case taken from them in a change of jurisdiction, feeling their work was being handed over to others that would claim credit for solving the case. There was respect for the FBI, but probably a bit of envy for their public prestige and level of training. For Dan, it was a welcome bit of news. He wanted the threads followed wherever they led.

  “Have you found out who this Stiles person is?”

  “The last name isn’t common, but there are enough to make it hard to narrow down without a first name. The black sports car in the two videos is a 2015 Aston Martin DB9 Carbon Edition. There are no local dealerships, but the nearest one is in Indianapolis, which might tie in with the state where the whole insurance fraud enterprise appears to have originated. There are five cars of that model registered in or around Louisville, and three are black. A rich Louisville investor and a financial investment advisor has one, and his name’s Parker Stiles. He moved to Louisville from Jeffersonville a year ago. Overly coincidental, don’t you think?”

  “Damn right. Do you know where he got his money?”

  “I asked the Financial Crimes unit to check him out. It appears to be legitimate income on the surface, but he has some very influential people as friends and clients, such as local and state politicians that he has helped get richer. I can’t bring him in for questioning just because some crook spoke his last name in an illegally recorded phone conversation, which isn’t admissible in court anyway.

  “Particularly now that SAC Claudel, of the local FBI office, has our cases.” Again there was Blandford’s annoyed tone of voice for the FBI’s involvement.

  Grayson always had a cordial relationship with the agents he’d worked with in the past, but that feeling wasn’t universal for other detectives. All he wanted was for the people responsible for his friend's deaths to be caught and punished. Besides, these had been his firm’s cases, and he had given them to the LMPD to investigate. The FBI had additional resources to bring to the table, which suited him just fine.

  Things were progressing well, from his point of view.

  Then, two days later, he was sent a surprising email confirming his termination of the cloud memory storage account for his firm, and informing him his instructions to scrub his confidential files were followed. He also was thanked for his final payment,

  When he attempted to log into his account, the screen message said either his account number or his password was invalid. When he called the contact number, he was informed their records indicated he had appeared in person to close the account and had made the final payment. Because the small company’s only office was in Denver, Colorado, his argument that he certainly had not been there in person didn’t alter their position that the man had provided proper photo identification. His account was closed, and his files were beyond recovery, despite being distributed across multiple servers.

  He hurried to verify his flash drive copy was still in his middle desk drawer, and the original paper copies of the notes and files he’d given to LMPD were also there. The flash drive was the most easily reproducible, and it held scanned copies of the paper files, so he made a second copy of that, and made it a point to hide both, one of them outside the house in a sealed protective case. As widely distributed as the case files were now, this seemed to be an overly cautious step, but that email and phone call had disturbed him. Who would even know about that cloud storage account with a small hosting company? The answer came from an unexpected quarter the next morning, a Friday.

  ****

  Grayson picked up his cell phone from the nightstand and detached the charger. “Hello?” It was just after eight.

  “Dan? It’s Howard Franklin.”

  Wiping the sleep from his eyes after staying up late, he assumed the early call was to describe progress in the cases. “Morning Captain. You must have some interesting news on those cases.”

  “Interesting may be an understatement. We’ve been shut down. So has the FBI. Agent Claudel called me at home just after seven, and I didn’t believe her at first. Made an ass of myself by accusing the FBI of trying to take over the entire case, despite her assurance we would work on its local connections while they investigated the interstate links.”

  “What do you mean shut down? Claudel told you the FBI is also ending their investigation? What the Hell, Captain, we know this is a valid investigation.”

  “Don’t make the same mistake I did Dan. Claudel said only the local and FBI investigations are over. The cases aren’t closed, just our participation. They’ve been elevated.”

  “Higher than the damned FBI? Who the Hell would that be?”

  “Have you ever heard of the Bureau of International Intelligence, the BII?”

  “No, I never heard of the initials. Is it an intelligence department? One of those clustered under the Director of National Intelligence, like the CIA, DIA, or NSA?”

  “It’s new to me too, but I think it's higher than they are, or it’s at least outside of the DNI’s control. The FBI is under the DNI, of course, and they were ordered to cease investigation and surrender all files to representatives of the BII. Claudel says this order came down to her through the Head of the Louisville Field Office from the current Acting Director of the FBI, and it was reinforced by a second call from the DOJ Attorney General to assure him this was real.

  “It’s extremely serious, and national security is somehow involved. Every agent that had any involvement with the case must appear in person for an interview with BII representatives. I don’t know if they’re called agents, or what title they have. But failure to meet with them, or if you try to retain any documentation about these cases, is punishable by severe federal penalties.”

  “I take it was the FBI that passed this down the line to you?”

  “Not officially to me. Not yet. Claudel called me as a favor for a heads-up. However, the Cease and Desist Order applies to the FBI and the LMPD. I happen to know the Chief is in a telephone conference on this matter right now. They will interview everyone in the Major Case Division that has any knowledge of the cases you handed over to us. The BII asked the FBI who in the Jeffersonville PD knew of their investigations. They said they would contact Calder Business Insurance, and no doubt you’ll be included, just as soon as they discover where we obtained our information. I know this became personal for you, but don’t screw around after they officially notify you. They told the FBI that warrantless searches and arrests were authorized under a Presidential Executive Order for a National Emergency, authorizing immediate incarceration for violations.

  “Man, I don’t know how big this shit pile is that you stumbled into Dan, but that bureau has the words International Intelligence in their title.”

  “Thanks for the warning, Howard. I won’t mention your call.”

  “No!... I mean, don’t hold that detail back if they ask. They didn’t tell Claudel she couldn’t tell me, or their other agents about halting the investigation. They wanted it stopped as quickly as possible. Perhaps to avoid alerting the subjects of the investigation. I don’t know why, and I won’t ask. The less I know, the better, and you best keep clear as well.”

  “OK. Thanks.”

  As soon as the call ended, Grayson shifted into high gear. He couldn’t count on more than a day or day and a half before he was officially notified to stop investigating when h
e was ordered to do so by someone he couldn’t risk ignoring.

  He went to the local library and used a public PC to log into a database for which he paid to have access as an investigator. Someone could trace the database he used to his account, but he didn’t want the IP to be from his laptop’s home internet account. He searched for Parker Stiles in Jeffersonville for real estate or phone records, then conducted the same search for the Louisville metropolitan area. The name in Indiana had been Sheldon Parker Stiles, but in Louisville, it was only Parker Stiles. A check of Kentucky automobile registration found multiple vehicles registered to that name. One of them was the 2015 black Aston Martin that Blandford had described. He memorized the east Louisville address and recognized it as part of a gated community where wealthy people lived.

  Barb was already up, having prepared breakfast for Stacy before she caught her carpool ride to school with another mother. Cheer Leaders often stayed after school for practices, and mothers took turns driving.

  He told her what he’d just learned. “Before I’m forced to acknowledge I’ve received a legal notice to drop this investigation, I have to do something.”

  “I thought you did drop it when you passed it to the Major Case Division.”

  “I expected to be kept up to date. Now that won’t happen. A bad guy, whose name I won’t share with you for your protection, appears to be someone higher up in that criminal insurance fraud activity, who has been at the scene of what I believe were murders related to the original cases, and a later murder committed for stopping the original investigation.

  “If that man was somehow involved with Roger’s, or Gil’s and Maureen’s deaths, I damn well want to know what he looks like in case he shows up around my family or me. I want pictures of him that I can show you and Stacy, in case he ever gets near either of you.”