by Steve Richer
“You have ticket?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
She gave him the strip of paper and he scanned it. “Not ready. Christmas, come back tomorrow.”
“Are you the owner of this business?”
“No, employee. What you want? Order not ready.”
Bailey didn’t want to have to do this, it was against her personal ethics, but Lawson’s life was on the line.
“I’m a federal agent, United States Secret Service. I need access to your surveillance system.”
The man frowned. “You talk to owner.”
“Sure, I’ll talk to the owner. Where is he?”
“Vacation, Aruba with family. He not here for two weeks.”
“I can’t wait two weeks, sir. This is important. I need access to your surveillance footage. Where is it, back there?”
She pointed beyond him where a door was marked Employees Only.
“Come back two weeks.”
“It’ll just take a few moments.” Before he could reply, she went around the counter and headed to the back office. “This way, right?”
“No, no, no! Stop, you no right!”
“I’ll do this very quickly,” Bailey said as she entered the office.
The place was cramped. On one wall, shelves were filled with cleaning products and extra paper rolls for the register. Against another wall was a beat up loveseat where the stuffing came out in places. Awesome employee lounge, she thought.
But on the third wall was a desk with a computer. There were two monitors. One was a regular screen showing a basic Windows wallpaper and the other was split in four, displaying surveillance footage from the entrance, this break room, and two areas in the back.
“Leave now! You not okay to be here. Out!”
“Sir, this is a matter of national security,” she said in her most authoritative voice. “Please step back.”
“This illegal. I call my boss.”
“That’s your right, sir. But I need to access the computer.”
She came closer and pulled the keyboard and mouse toward her. She searched a little bit to get acquainted with the system but it didn’t take long to find the surveillance software. She had never played with this particular brand but these things were essentially all the same.
With hope surging, Bailey looked at the ticket. It was dated two days ago. She scrolled through the video archives on the computer and was relieved to find that the time lapse system kept two weeks’ worth of footage.
She pretended not to see the employee next to her punching numbers on the phone. He was talking in some sort of Slavic language. At least he wasn’t calling the police.
Come on, come on…
She inspected the time on the stub and fast forwarded to the exact time. She couldn’t breathe as the images unfurled on the main monitor. The quality wasn’t bad but the camera angle made it impossible to see people’s faces clearly. At last, she slowed the video down.
There was a customer. He was at the counter getting what looked like a shirt and handing over something else. He waved, turned, and headed for the exit. The face was never clear but there was no mistaking the bomber jacket.
It was him, the killer she had chased yesterday.
It was unfortunate there was no shot of his face though. She played the video again to see if she could get a shot of the street, trying to glimpse where his car was. Again, no dice.
“Agh!” the employee growled as he hung up, clearly not being able to get the owner on the phone. “You! Leave now, out!”
Bailey paid him no attention. Her mind was on the killer. He had given new garments to be cleaned. If anything, that meant he was a regular customer. He had to live nearby.
She pulled out her phone and brought up a map of the area. Instantly she was crestfallen. The area was spread out and dense, there were too many places where someone could live, not to mention that she had no idea whether the guy had turned right or left on his way out.
“I want to see warrant.”
“What?” she said, being pulled back to reality.
“Police need warrant in America. No warrant, no right!”
Not knowing exactly why she did so, she dropped her eyes to the ticket once more. What was she missing? There was the name of the business on top, the address, the order and price, the ticket number. But what was this other series of numbers along the bottom?
“Of course,” she whispered.
In the video, the guy hadn’t paid. He was a regular customer which meant he had an account here!
She flew back to the computer, snapped a picture of the surveillance footage with her phone, and then minimized the window. After that, she searched for the accounting software the business used.
“I want to see identification,” the guy demanded.
“It’s in the car, I’ll show you after.”
“No, you show now! Kurvo!” he spat.
It sounded like a Serbian insult but she didn’t care, having heard worse. She blanked him out when she found the customer database. With her heart beating faster, she typed the customer ID.
“Yes,” she whispered to herself.
There was no name, just initials, but she had a billing address and it was right here in Brooklyn.
Chapter 30
The family penthouse had never felt so strange. Even worse, it was to be Lawson’s new home for the foreseeable future. His possessions – his suitcase – had been seized by the police although Bailey had been kind enough to bring him a bag of necessities to the lawyer’s office. He would get Midori to go to his place in LA, fetching him some clothes and personal items.
On top of that, he felt abandoned because his father had elected not to come home with them. Even though it was the day after Christmas, he left Weibel’s office and went to the WWG Center to work. It was nothing but an excuse to avoid the awkwardness of his son being around.
What kind of father left in a time of need? Maybe Lawson had watched too many movies. It was skewing his perspective about what a normal family should be like. Normal was not a word that was ever in the same vicinity as Winslow.
He was welcomed by the butler, a man who’d been with the family for ten years or so. Most of the other staff was new, Lawson having only encountered them once or twice during functions. It made him remember all the good times he’d had growing up.
He would throw parties or sneak girls up when his parents were away. Then it was always a matter of bribing the maids not only to clean up but to make sure they wouldn’t spill the beans. He got to do whatever he wanted, to live like a king. Years later, he knew that it definitely wasn’t normal.
He left his new bag by the door, telling the butler he’d take care of it himself, and walked through the lower floor. The last time he’d been here was on that fateful night. It had been filled with socialites and brown-nosers, the cream of the crop of New York high society.
Now it was empty, as if the entire city had turned on him and the family in their time of need. It was during a crisis that you found out who your friends were, right?
“Fuck…” he mouthed with despair.
“Hello, Lawson.”
He turned to the right and found his mother standing in the archway leading out of the den. Was she standing there to make sure she could perform a quick getaway? He wouldn’t put it past her.
“Mother.”
He wanted to point out that she hadn’t been in court today but he couldn’t find a way to phrase that so it didn’t sound reproachful and mean.
“I had the garden room prepared for you. I thought it would be best if you didn’t return to your old room, what with everything that’s happened.”
“Sure,” he said.
He didn’t want to go back to his old room either. The crime scene people were done with it but to know that the last occupant had been a corpse gave him goose bumps. It was just another reminder of the ocean of shit he was swimming in.
The garden room wouldn’t be so
bad. It was on the top floor, the corner made up of expansive windows. A former US President had stayed there once.
Elizabeth continued to stare at him, her hands clasped in front of her. How could she be so cold? Wouldn’t a normal reaction involve her taking him into it her arms? Ugh, there went that word again. Normal. The Winslows weren’t normal.
“You know,” he began, regretting it instantly. “I didn’t do anything.”
“I’m sure the justice system will make the truth come out.”
“What? The justice system? You mean you don’t believe me?”
“What does it matter what I believe, Lawson? Will it change anything?”
He came closer, confusion threatening to overcome him. “It would be good to know that my own mother doesn’t believe I’m a murderer. I’m innocent, I’m being framed, you have to believe that.”
“I know you didn’t kill anyone, this I believe. But whoever’s doing this to you, they must have a reason. You’ve never been an angel, Lawson. There must be something you did to deserve this. We all get what we deserve.”
She turned around and walked away. Lawson chuckled because crying at this would have been too pathetic. She was out of the running for Mother of the Year.
Instead of lingering on what he perceived as maternal betrayal, he picked up his phone and called Midori. Her number wasn’t in the new phone but thankfully his contacts were stored online and it was only a matter of accessing the cloud.
She answered on the first ring and he was happy to hear her voice. It was something familiar, something from his life before all this crazy stuff started happening, when the world revolved around getting laid and taking it easy.
She said that they couldn’t keep up with the phone calls at the office, everybody in Hollywood wanting to know what was going on. Apparently the story of his arrest had made the front page of both TMZ and Deadline. Lawson claimed his innocence again and told Midori to stick with that story. It was all a big mistake and all that jazz.
Meanwhile, they both agreed that the movie project was dead. There was simply too much heat on him right now. No investor would dare get close enough to finance the movie. And even if Lawson decided to fund it himself, which was something you never did according to every producer he’d ever talked to, no actor or distributor would want anything to do with it.
“It’ll blow over, boss,” she said.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Remember Roman Polanski? He had to fly the coop after this thing with a thirteen-year-old girl and he still managed to make movies for forty years.”
Lawson didn’t know if this was encouraging or just another proof that the world was fucked up. He thanked her again for cheering him up, asked to ship him clothes as well as his work laptop, and terminated the call.
He stuffed his hands into his pockets and wandered through the apartment. He was essentially under house arrest, having to live with his parents, which he didn’t particularly care for, and now his business was dead.
Fantastic.
He was so much lost in thought that he barely realized that he was now upstairs in front of his father’s study. His eyes were drawn to the computer on the desk and this gave him an idea. Maybe he didn’t have to be so useless after all. Bailey was working on proving his innocence but who said he couldn’t help out?
With newfound purpose, he rounded the desk and booted up the computer. He wasn’t confident in his own investigative skills but he had to get acquainted with the facts. He had to stop relying on others for everything.
“Okay, so what now?” he whispered to himself.
The one thing nobody knew about was Corpora Z. Fred Keeling and Addie Burgess had been involved with this. This could have been nothing except somebody had then killed Addie. It had to factor in somehow.
What was this, Windows 10? Lawson wasn’t really familiar with that system. He looked at the bottom left of the screen and there was a box that read Ask me Anything. He brought his cursor there and typed Corpora Z.
It gave him one result where it said Best Match. He clicked on it and a Microsoft Excel file opened. It was a large spreadsheet with at least a hundred rows. It was filled with numbers that didn’t make much sense to him.
Lawson’s MBA was years behind and he was out of practice. In fact, upon closer inspection it was gibberish, like it was encrypted.
However, something staggering occurred to him. The search hadn’t taken him to the Internet. Instead, it had led him to a file on his father’s computer.
“Oh shit…”
That could only mean one thing: his father was somehow involved in all this!
South of Baltimore, Maryland, was Fort George G. Meade, a US Army installation which covered eight square miles and housed forty-eight thousand people. The most important tenant of the base was the National Security Agency.
Three floors under the black boxy building, which served as the headquarters for the most secret branch of the US intelligence apparatus, was a large room filled with standard cubicles. Technicians monitored the automated systems looking for certain irregular patterns.
For the young man with the shaggy hair who was on DZ duty today, it was nothing but boredom. On the other hand, it paid well and gave him enough free time to work on his Buffy fanfiction.
He was in the middle of a steamy scene between Angel and Xander when the computer beeped and flashed a number. Excited by this activity, he let go of his story and cross checked the number with the protocol document.
Jesus, this was high priority!
He picked up the phone and looked at the number on the document. This was a direct line too, no assistants or secretaries.
“Sarah Utley,” a woman answered tersely.
“Ma’am, this is an NSA alert protocol Delta Zulu Seven Niner.”
“Go ahead.”
“Ma’am, a flagged document was accessed through an unsecure terminal. It’s about Corpora Z. Someone looked at the document without first performing the security check.”
“Okay. Thank you,” the woman said.
It was in moments like these that the technician enjoyed his job. There was something that made him feel important about having to call the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center.
Chapter 31
The thrill of the hunt was a real thing.
During her training at Glynco, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, Bailey had scoffed at the instructor saying agents would feel a physical reaction as they approached their quarry. But she had eventually discovered it was true.
As she parked her car off Flatlands Avenue and made her way on foot to the address of the dry cleaner’s customer, she felt butterflies in her stomach. It wasn’t unlike falling in love, she thought eerily.
The buildings along the street were all three stories high. There weren’t many cars as life got back to normal now that Christmas was over. Some people were bound to be on vacation but a surprisingly high number had to go back to work. Somebody had to pay for those Christmas presents.
Bailey reached for her Glock and hurried down the sidewalk as her target grew larger. She could tell the address was a brick rowhouse. Actually no, it was an apartment building. Middle-class. A white door in the middle of the ground floor served as the entrance.
“You got this,” she whispered, her breath creating a white cloud in front of her.
She was on her own. Again, she couldn’t involve the police right now. They wouldn’t help her. The sheer fact that she worked for Lawson Winslow would be enough for them to dismiss her. They would think she was throwing them off his scent.
It was obvious that these blackmailers wouldn’t stop. Killing John Tilley couldn’t be the endgame. It was therefore imperative that she got to these people before they struck again.
What would she do though? A citizen’s arrest was cartoonish but she could get this guy to talk. She could make him turn against his accomplices. If she recorded the conversation, it could be enough to have the ch
arges against Lawson dropped.
So yes, she was here to talk but she still gripped her weapon tightly.
She went through the white door, grateful there was no intercom to go through first. In front of her were narrow stairs and she swiftly went up. There it was on her left, apartment two.
After a few deep breaths, she knocked. She heard some footsteps and then silence.
“Yeah?”
Bailey swallowed dryly. “Hey, it’s me from downstairs. Can I borrow some sugar?”
It was ridiculous, she was aware of that. For all she knew, no women lived on the ground floor. But all she needed was for this guy to open the door and check.
She braced against the doorframe, ready to barge in. Her finger rested against the trigger guard.
Any second now.
But the man inside didn’t say anything. He didn’t come to the door. She heard footsteps, they were fast but going away from the door. There was shuffling back and forth.
The guy was spooked. He was preparing to escape!
This was even more informative than the dry cleaner’s stub. She took a step back, remembered her training, and focused her energy in her legs. In one fell swoop, she kicked the door in. It flew aside with a bang.
The guy was there, standing on the edge of the small kitchen. He was like a deer caught in headlights, evidently not having expected this. It was the first time Bailey really saw his face. He was in his thirties, his face gaunt. He could have been anybody. But it was him, the bomber jacket was what gave him away.
“Stop right there,” she shouted, raising her gun.
But this man was faster. He lifted a weapon of his own. It looked like a 1911 and he shot twice before she could even react.
She darted to the left as she returned fire.
“We know who you are now. There’s no sense in running away.”
He replied by squeezing off two more rounds. Instinctively, she did the same. She crawled on her hands and knees, taking cover behind the leather couch. The guy was in his kitchen. He poked his body from behind the corner and fired.
