HAROLD smells a rat, so he sends a communiqué to A-Cell and alerts the rest of H-Cell. H-Cell’s leader, HANNIBAL, having spent a week or so in Groversville with nothing much to show for it, has been transferred to the Phoenix branch of the U.S. Marshall’s office. His agency-ordered psychiatrist suggested he take some time off, so he is en route to San Diego to visit his old haunts when he receives a call from HAROLD.
“I knew something about a guy who was supposed to be dead but wasn’t,” he recollects. He puts in a call to MALCOLM at the CDCP to see if Fish & Game ever turned anything up in connection with the strange blobs in the trunk of the car of Henry Winkler, an old perp whose continued appearances have a lot to do with HANNIBAL’s current affection for drink. MALCOLM finds that by the time the Fish & Game people arrived there was not much left but a strange algal slime, and this soon deteriorated to an unclassifiable scum. The report was inconclusive but MALCOLM requests a copy anyway.
HAROLD reads the police report. The fingerprint they lifted was a likely match with a certain Henry Winkler. He relates this information to HANNIBAL, who promptly pulls over at the next liquor store.
HAROLD looks into the Henry Winkler case. Winkler was a high-powered international drug/weapons dealer, with lots of customs and law enforcement agents on his payroll. Five years ago U.S. Marshall Harv Cole tracked him down. Winkler was in jail awaiting a court date when he was stabbed to death by his cellmate with a sharpened toothbrush. The death certificate was signed by a Dr Elias Hancock, who was the physician on duty at the prison.
HAROLD looks for information on Hancock. Not long after the death of Henry Winkler, Hancock was fired from his position for smuggling hydrocodone to inmates after accepting bribes from relatives on the outside. Following this his license was suspended, and he found work in a research lab called JRD Research LLC. HAROLD calls the DMV and finds that he drives a Chevy Cobalt. He goes to JRD Research and waits in the parking lot for Hancock’s arrival.
It is now around lunchtime on Monday, the day after Edith discovered her ex-husband was missing. HANNIBAL arrives at the local restaurant Godfather’s where he is met by HECTOR. HANNIBAL is on his second bottle of wine, and has ordered variously the Cannelloni, Cannoli, Calamari and Calzones. (“Hey, look… This menu has a second page.”)
Hancock arrives at work with a take-out bag under his arm. HAROLD approaches him and questions him concerning the Winkler case.
“Sure I remember it,” he says. “He had such a funny name.” He declines to say much more about it, giving no more information than the official report. HAROLD can tell that he is not comfortable with the line of questioning, and perhaps withholding information. He leaves the man his card and goes to meet with the rest of H-Cell.
The police report states that Horvath was an employee of Inovio, a bio-tech firm that develops oncology equipment and gene therapies. It is not far from Horvath’s house, so they visit his work before investigating his home.
At Inovio they meet with Horvath’s supervisor who shows them to his workspace. His work email extends only back about one month. The supervisor says this is because he has only worked at the company for that long; in that short time, however, Horvath impressed his boss with his work ethic and abilities. They look at his web history and see that he was planning a trip to Puerto Vallarta with his two children in several months. He has a personal RoadRunner account, but his password is not saved. It occurs to them to call on the talents of co-worker and DG Friendly Harley O’Brian, who drives up from headquarters.
O’Brian manages to access his personal account and sees that many of the emails came from another biotech firm, BioGenesys. The supervisor corroborates that Horvath came to them from that company.
The agents head to his home, which is cordoned off with police tape. An officer is still posted here to make sure the scene is secure. The agents present their badges and begin an investigation. There is no sign of break-in or struggle, but Horvath’s home office has been ransacked. The computer is missing from the desk but all the peripherals remain; there are papers and file folders scattered around in the office and the living room. There is no sign of foul play in the bedrooms or elsewhere in the house, and they cannot find any suspicious footprints in the back yard (although the patio is paved and extends around to the driveway out front). The printer remains, and is still powered on. The agents call O’Brian again, who had gone to the vending machine and was inadvertently left at Inovio. He arrives some minutes later.
“Sometimes printers keep the last few jobs spooled on their internal memory,” he says as he examines the three-in-one printer. He connects his laptop and locates a diagnostic program on the internet, and suddenly the following message is printed:
July 15, 2007
Dear Mr Dyer,
I am sorry, but I cannot in good conscience continue with this work. I have secured another position elsewhere, and my resignation is effective immediately.
Sincerely,
Blayne Horvath, PhD
The date on the letter is about five weeks ago.
BioGenesys is a large company (about 1500 employees at its world headquarters in San Diego) with campuses in Carmel Valley and UTC. Its CEO, Joseph Dyer, is a high-profile San Diegan, regularly featured on the covers of business magazines and a well-known local philanthropist. He is among the Forbes 400 Richest Americans 2007 with an estimated net worth of $1.2 billion.
HANNIBAL steps outside for a cigarette, and sees an old woman appear briefly in the window across the street. She sees him, and shuts the blinds. HANNIBAL strides over and raps on the door.
The door cracks open and she peers at him from under the chain.
“U.S. Marshall, ma’am. Please open up, I have some questions.”
The woman, Mildred Castaigne, tells him that she saw Horvath last Friday leaving with two men. “It was around 4:30… My stories are over by three, and I had just got back from the beauty shop. Two men I had never seen before, and they got in one of those big Cadillacs. What do you call them?”
“Escalade?” suggests HANNIBAL.
“Yes, a big black one. The one man had a nice leather jacket on, and the other was a bald man, with strange clothes and darkish skin. The man in the jacket had a computer with him.”
“Did Mr Horvath look like he was… happy to be going with them?”
“Well, I don’t know. He didn’t look unhappy, I guess.”
“You didn’t happen to get a license plate number, did you, ma’am?”
“No, I don’t take everyone’s license plate numbers. Only people who are speeding.”
HANNIBAL thanks her for her time. HAROLD calls the DMV, and asks for a list of all the black Escalades registered to companies and individuals in the last two years. In San Diego, there are nearly 1100 black Escalades registered, with thirty of them registered to businesses, mostly realtors. HECTOR discovers that BioGenesys has some company cars as well, a small fleet of Lexus sedans.
“That’s a start,” says HANNIBAL.
The agents adjourn to the sports bar at the Carmel Mountain Doubletree Hotel to discuss their options. They agree to visit the BioGenesys office, but as it’s nearly 7:00pm they will have to wait until tomorrow.
“We could attempt a sneak ‘n’ peak,” suggests HECTOR.
“We don’t know what we’re looking for yet,” says HANNIBAL. “We may not even have a crime, if he left with them willingly.”
The agents decide to call it a day, and to reconvene in the morning.
1 comment:
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