Chocolate Diamonds (Jill Quint, MD, Forensic Pathologist Series Book 2)

by Peche, Alec

  Marie looked at the group to see if they were ready to return to the data she had on Jessica, and she got the nod to continue. She had completed most of the computer search on Jessica, with her team members adding follow-up questions to complete Jessica’s profile.

  “It appears that after the South African government issued a warrant for Mary Smith’s arrest, she went underground for a few years. I would guess that was when she had her surgery and recovery. I don’t know if you can make all of these changes in a single surgery or if it takes multiple surgeries.”

  Jill shook her head that she didn’t know either, so Marie resumed speaking.

  “Mary reappeared as Jessica, did some small acting jobs, and was occasionally photographed as Charles Taylor’s girlfriend. As he was wanted for crimes towards the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, she was also wanted for questioning. Up to this point in time, no one had reason to think that she might be more than his girlfriend as it is hard to envision a woman participating in his atrocities, let alone be an accomplice to a man raping and killing as his disciples did. But if she killed over a hundred people in nursing homes, then I certainly think she could have participated in brutalizing villagers and miners. She must know that she is wanted in connection to her relationship with Taylor, or perhaps that relationship ended because there have been no more photos or stories about the two of them for awhile.”

  “I believe he was captured and is being held for trial,” said Dubois. “I’ll check on that. It would account for the lack of pictures of the two of them. Maybe she is running his empire in his absence.”

  With a little clicking on his keyboard, Dubois had his answer in seconds.

  “Charles Taylor was arrested about a year ago and has been imprisoned the entire time. It looks like she is wanted by the Congolese government and Interpol as an accessory to Taylor, and notes on this file indicate she is presently thought to be running his organization at his direction. There is suspicion that he is passing messages through his attorney to her.”

  “I am relieved that she is not the person that held me at knife-point in the shoe store. It sounds like she would have slit my neck for the sport of it. If you give me few minutes, I’ll see what I can find on her finances and those of Mr. Taylor,” Jo offered.

  “One final comment from my research on Jessica: she stole anything of value her nursing- home victims possessed before she killed them. Perhaps that is what gave her the funds for the plastic surgery and to stay in hiding for a while.”

  “She might be nastier than a woman from our previous case in California. Her name was Lark Sumac and she was the CEO of a black ops global company that provided a wide range of security personnel services. She commanded several of her black ops helicopters to shoot up a sheriff’s station and a highway rest stop while I was in the vicinity. And she certainly didn’t kill as many people as Jessica,” Jill remarked.

  “I think we have an advantage on her since she doesn’t know that she was captured on video or that we have put the two personas together,” Willems said. “I looked into the prints that were lifted from Chloe’s body, and there is a match to Mary Smith, aka Jessica Rathbone. Since those prints were lifted from her head and neck area, I think it is safe to assume that they weren’t friends – for instance, if that were the case, the prints could have been left as a result of shaking hands with each other. Also, since some of the prints were smudged, they may have been left as part of a struggle.

  “I would issue a warrant for her arrest, but I want to coordinate this with Interpol efforts. I think we have enough evidence with the prints to issue a warrant for the questioning of Mary Smith, but leave out the connection to Jessica Rathbone. Dubois, would you agree? We could take the original picture and modify it under the guise of ‘aging it to a more appropriate photo’ and provide the photo from the hotel. Would any of the bad seeds that remain within Interpol see through that pretext?”

  “Let me check with someone else on the task force. As bad a mass murderer as she is, I hate to lose the opportunity to apprehend her. However, if we can have her and all the other criminals, that would be my preference. I think the only question is, what picture do we release? We certainly want to release the first picture as it correlates to the prints. Do we want to at least leave her second picture with any airport customs agents? Give me a moment to check –in with my fellow task force members.”

  “While, he makes that call, why don’t we all take a quick break for lunch,” Henrik suggested. “There’s a buffet set up in the dining room. Let’s grab something to eat and bring it back here so we can continue working.”

  They all stood and stretched their backs and legs. Dubois and Willems were given directions to the restrooms. Soon they were filling their plates with the feast that Henrik’s staff had laid out.

  Chapter 19

  Everyone was soon back in the conference room. Jill nibbled on her food as she rearranged some of the pictures and relationships of the characters in the case on the white board. The activity gave her time to think about next steps. Whatever Interpol did with Jessica would have an impact as either they would capture her and hopefully get her confession to Laura’s and Chloe’s deaths, or she would run free, which would allow more time to identify all of Interpol’s rogue agents.

  After Dubois returned with his plate, they would either listen to the report on the fake security guard, or hear what Interpol’s plan for Jessica was.

  Dubois entered briskly a few minutes later and announced, “We decided we are moving out and trying to detain Jessica Rathbone, aka Mary Smith. My superior in Lyon is speaking with Willems’ superior to gather the resources of the Belgian police and Interpol to find and detain her. She is simply too much of a risk to the rest of humanity. We have enough evidence on the major players in this case, except the rogue Interpol agents. We may still be able to figure that out with some financial sleuthing. I hate to mass-search all of the employees worldwide, but we will design an algorithm to find any employee with an unexplained addition of ten thousand euros or more to their bank account. Hopefully no one would sell out the agency for less than that amount.”

  “That is good news indeed,” said Jill. “I think it is important to get her into custody. At the very least, the nursing home patients deserve justice.”

  Willems held out his smartphone and said, “A wanted notice has been issued for the search and capture of Jessica Rathbone/Mary Smith and includes her picture from the hotel room.”

  There seemed to be an air of satisfaction that the work they had done in that room today led to the identity of a serial murderer, as well as perhaps the identity of Laura’s and Chloe’s killer.

  Jill, always wanting to keep the case moving forward, said “It feels good to have identified Mary/Jessica. Let’s move on and discuss our fake hotel security guard. He has an interesting background, though not nearly as gruesome as Mary/Jessica’s. He is an employee of the consortium, has been on their payroll for fifteen to twenty years, and carries the title of corporate/regulatory director. His name is Michael Williams and he is from Belgium. I’m guessing that it was his job to track changing regulations throughout the world and use the power of the industry to avert any changes that would hurt the diamond industry. I think he was likely behind arranging the contributions to the politicians on Laura’s list.”

  “Did you locate any criminal history in his background?” Willems asked.

  “No criminal history, not even a speeding ticket,” Jill replied.

  “We could issue a notice that he is wanted for questioning,” said Willems. “Between the smoke grenade and capturing him on film, we have enough to hold him. I am sure he will have the fanciest of lawyers to argue his way out of trouble and he will try to claim some sort of diplomatic immunity, but the video is pretty hard to argue with.”

  “I wonder what, if anything, Williams knew about Smith,” reflected Angela. “Are they working together? With Laura gone and her spreadsheet available to the wor
ld, is the balance of power now gone? Did the threat of all she could reveal keep everyone in check? Was Jessica, on behalf of Taylor, trying to get the spreadsheet from us so they could use it to blackmail the consortium members and the politicians? They had the deepest pockets and the most to hide. Taylor’s organization already had a low reputation in the rest of the world.”

  “Officer Dubois, can you get us a copy of the information on the computer chip?” asked Marie. “I would like to look at the names and transactions on it in light of the new information we have about Taylor, Jessica, and Interpol’s agents. I know you were planning on a global round up of the people on the list, but it would help to see them up on Jill’s whiteboard.”

  “Actually, I distributed a flash drive to each of the secret task force members with the requirement that they carry it on their person at all times. I simply could not afford any additional leaks. So I will load it on to the screen now.”

  Jill stood at the whiteboard while Marie and Dubois called out names and where they belonged on her diagram. In the end it was like viewing an incestuous family tree, given the crossovers in relationships among all the players on Laura’s chip. The diagram really helped them understand the balance of power and how it had shifted over time. Obviously, Taylor’s power had peaked just before his arrest.

  Jill said aloud “He had started by controlling the miners in just his native country of the Congo, but once he found the trick of requiring the diamond company to pay him to allow their workers safe passage to the mines, he recruited other mercenaries and duplicated his behavior at the other five mines owned by the consortium including the one in Russia. Every time the mine owners threatened to end payment, he would counter with the threat of exposing the still-harsh conditions of the miners, information that would hurt their sales.”

  Marie picked up Jill’s line of thought. “The consortium members had no leverage with Taylor, as he could also hire more workers and he wasn’t trying to protect his reputation. Laura could continue stealing conflict diamonds and force payback percentages because she had the leverage of the public release of the bribes and the reimbursement for her stones from the thefts. Laura hated Taylor because as bad as the mine owners were, he was ten times worse.”

  “Let’s circle back to Mr. Bok,” said Angela. “If Jessica was Laura’s killer, then she had to know when Laura got the tainted chocolate, and that makes me think she was in the restaurant that night. I don’t think I took any pictures of the crowd, but let me go check.” She started to make her way to the door.

  Dubois halted her, saying he could have his lab send him the first fifty pictures from when she had downloaded her memory card a few days ago. She returned to her seat, and Dubois had the email about five minutes later.

  Angela was correct; she had not taken any pictures of the crowd overall, but she did get one of the Brabo Fountain in the Grote Market shortly before they entered the restaurant. Jessica could be seen in the background leaning against a building, holding a map.

  “It’s just too coincidental that Jessica was this close to where Laura was planning to dine that night,” Henrik said. “I want to make sure that when this woman goes to trial, she can’t be found innocent. Do we have any word on where she is at this moment? Any update from your officers?”

  Both Dubois and Willems viewed the status of the hunt for Jessica on their smartphones. Willems looked up and said, “We have many cameras in major public places in Belgium. We’re running her latest picture against what cameras are seeing across the city to no avail. So we are going back and trying to trace her exit from your hotel yesterday. Of course, by now she could be back in the Congo.”

  “How about Williams?” asked Marie. “Any clue as to where he might be?”

  “Jo, you have been quiet for a while,” Jill murmured. “Have you found anything in the financials that will help find or hang any player in this case?”

  “Actually, I did find some information on both of them. Money is going back and forth between the two of them, which is surprising. Based on what you and Marie were talking about earlier, I expected them to be on opposite sides of the table, so to speak. Instead, Williams sent Jessica money from a consortium account, and Jessica sent Williams money privately from her account to his.

  “You also spoke earlier about Bok. His mine had better luck keeping Taylor out. You mentioned that Taylor expanded his operations to all consortium mines. That was true, but he was unable to maintain his presence in Russia. First, the mine is located in Siberia, so he had difficulty recruiting his thugs to that part of the world. There were a couple of problems with Russia. Second, Russian Special Forces didn’t take kindly to Taylor and his thugs. Then there was the problem with the cold. Guns perform strangely in the cold. Their lubricants freeze and condensation interferes with some of the components of the gun when it travels from indoors to outdoors, so their guns would often lock or misfire. Taylor and his crew abandoned the Russian mine after two winters and retreated to hassle the other five mine owners.

  “About two years after Taylor abandoned Russia; there was a single payment from Taylor to Bok. Taylor had concluded that if Laura ever went public with her spread-sheet, then all of his sources of cash would dry up. He needed the consortium members to pay his fees, and if they all went to jail, that would cease. He paid Bok five million euros, one month before he approached Mr. Jacobs. Again, is it a coincidence that the plan to kill Laura was hatched a month later? Two weeks after the payment, Taylor was arrested for crimes against humanity and has been imprisoned since his arrest. I think we have some questions to ask of Bok, and I wish we could ask Chloe some questions.”

  “Chloe!” exclaimed Henrik. “What does she have to do with the story at this juncture?”

  “Mr. Bok transferred one million euros to Chloe shortly after he made contact with Jacobs,” replied Jo.

  “I can’t believe that Chloe would ever consider harming Laura. I saw love and affection between Laura and Chloe, and it is why I wanted her final resting place close to Laura.”

  “Was she happy with the back-up role that she seemed to have?” asked Marie. “Did she have the same from-the-gut-passion’ to help the miners that Laura had? Did Chloe ever want to donate the proceeds of their diamond thefts to another cause?”

  “I will admit I have been bothered by the fact that Laura’s EpiPen was not in her purse when she first noticed her allergic symptoms,” said Jill. “Henrik, do you ever remember a time when Laura did not have her EpiPen within reach? Perhaps during your marriage, you actually saw her react to nuts that were accidentally near or in whatever food she was consuming.”

  “Yes, she had a few reactions and you’re correct that she always had her medication close by as she would have a reaction perhaps once a year.”

  Jill pondered aloud, “So who took the medication out of Laura's purse? Who was around her in the previous twelve hours? It seems likely that the medication would have been removed while she was at work that day. That question has bothered me from the start of this case.”

  “Chloe is not around to question, but Bok is in police custody,” said Angela looking at Willems and Dubois. “It would be nice to have someone ask him these questions. Is that possible?”

  Willems walked to another part of the conference room so as not to disturb the others. He retrieved his phone and called his office. They needed to understand a few more facets of what Bok had been up to the past year. So far Bok had been forthcoming in interrogation. He knew he was going to prison and had nothing to lose from telling the truth. Willems hit the ‘end’ button as he returned to the conference table.

  “My men are going to ask Bok these questions. It will take a little time to arrange as we must give his attorney advance notice of our desire to question him.”

  “Perhaps we can also question him about Jessica and Taylor,” Dubois suggested. “Ladies, I am sure you would like to give me a list of questions for him.”

  “Officer Dubois, while I can hear the
hint of sarcasm in your voice, we will give you a list of questions we would like to see asked of Bok,” replied Jill. “Angela, as our expert interviewer, do you want to take a moment to compile a list?”

  “Perhaps we all should take a moment to create the list of questions for Inspector Willems,” suggested Angela. “I would like to take a break and get a ride to the consulate to get our passports. Inspector, I believe you agreed to make a call on our behalf verifying the legitimacy of our passport theft?”

  “Yes I will do that right now.”

  Jo was still chasing something in someone’s finances. Jill, Marie, Nick, and Angela put their heads together to come up with a short list of questions for Bok to give to Willems.

  Dubois and Willems added to the list when they were done and transmitted the list to the Brussels jail where Bok was being held. Henrik arranged a ride for Angela and Marie to the American consulate in Dusseldorf to replace their passports. Henrik guessed they would be gone for an hour. Jill was ready for another walk and asked Jo if she wanted a break. As Jo was tired of staring at a computer screen, she was easy to convince. She had been trying to follow the money of Charles Taylor’s organization, which wasn’t easy, given the currency and international boundaries of where money flowed for him.