Hades

by Russell Andrews

  “This is unbelievable,” Reggie said quietly. “He got us everything we need.”

  “So let me get your take.”

  “Why don’t we go through it separately? So we get separate takes. Then we can merge what we each come up with.”

  Justin agreed and they spent the hour or so—Justin on the couch, Reggie with one leg tucked under her as she nestled in the easy chair, as Ben worked, silently engrossed, sitting at Justin’s desk—trying to organize the new mass of information. When they were done, they compared their lists and the connections they’d come up with. They winnowed out anything they both agreed was irrelevant—companies that didn’t seem to have any possible connection to the investigation, names that popped up that also were removed from any personal or business dealings that might connect to the murders—but if one disagreed, the information stayed in. Then they merged everything they had onto a master list.

  Justin turned to Ben. “How much longer you gonna be?” he asked.

  “I’m done. I was just kinda listenin’ to you guys. That’s how you work, huh? Pretty cool.”

  “Were you able to get into St. John’s computer?”

  “Nope. Rockworth’s security’s good, much better than Ascension. They got a serious system.”

  “So nothing, huh?”

  “Not exactly nothing. I mean, I couldn’t get into any of the financial stuff, like I did with Ascension. I think I could if I had more time, but I don’t think it’ll do any good. At least for the guy you want. I don’t think this guy St. John is still in the system. I think all his info’s been wiped out. Once I downloaded all of this chick’s stuff”—he nodded at Belinda Lambert’s BlackBerry—“I could do a basic hack and get into his Outlook. But there’s nothin’ there.”

  “E-mails?”

  “Gone. And I can’t find ’em without having access to his hard drive. I can’t recover that from outside.”

  “Did he have a calendar in the system? Maybe an address book?”

  “Yeah. But someone wiped it, too.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Definitely. A few days ago.”

  “So you can’t retrieve any of it?”

  “I didn’t have to.”

  “I’m afraid you did. It’s pretty important.”

  “No,” Ben said. “That’s not what I mean. I didn’t have to. It’s like you said—everything on his system was automatically carried over onto this Belinda person’s computer. I looked at some of her stuff, too, and man, did she have some crazy e-mails. Is she hot?”

  Justin ignored the last question. “The stuff on St. John’s computer is still saved in Belinda Lambert’s BlackBerry?”

  “Yup.”

  “And you can access it?”

  “Yup. Already did.”

  “Ben, I’m sorry, but I want to make sure I have this straight. When St. John’s calendar book and address book were erased, that didn’t erase what was transferred to Belinda’s BlackBerry?”

  “Yeah, I’m tellin’ you, it wasn’t erased. I mean it was, but whoever did it didn’t understand the way this St. John guy set his work up. Everything entered into his Outlook system or anything sent to him on e-mail was automatically transferred to her name and became a separate entity. It was like it was automatically cc’d to her—you know what I mean? It didn’t just put his system onto hers, it created a separate entity.”

  “And St. John had to have known this, right?”

  “I think so. You said he’s the one who set it up, right?”

  “Right.” Justin looked at Reggie. “It means St. John wasn’t the one who erased the material. If he had, he would have figured out a way to erase Belinda’s, too.” He turned back to Ben. “Right?”

  “Yeah. I mean, that’s what I’d say. But I’m just the computer geek. You’re the cop—you know what I mean?”

  Justin smiled. The broadest smile he’d managed in quite some time.

  “I transferred it all to your computer,” Ben said. “Filed under St.John. It’s a cool name. You want to see it?”

  Both Justin and Reggie dashed over to the computer screen. They said “yes” in unison.

  “What do you want to see first?” Ben asked. “How about his task list?”

  “Sure,” Justin said. “And then go to his calendar book.”

  Ben scrolled through Ellis’s current task list and the past month’s worth of his appointments. Nothing jumped out at either Justin or Reggie. His list of things to do was fairly mundane. And most of the names on his calendar were either unknown to them or seemed reasonable to be there. Until Ben got to the date that Harmon was killed. It was a Thursday. That morning’s typed-in notation said “EH/EEH.” In parentheses—even this guy’s calendar was perfectly organized and arranged—it said “See directions/adbk.”

  Justin looked at Reggie.

  “Too good to be true,” he said.

  She nodded. “EH. The guy had a meeting with Evan Harmon. In EEH. Right here in East End Harbor.”

  “Ben,” Justin said, “I want to make sure of this. Go to the listing for Evan Harmon in the Outlook contact list.”

  Ben typed in the word “Harmon” and clicked on “search.” There was no mistaking the notation in the date book. In the space reserved for “Additional Information” under Evan’s contact listing were specific directions to Evan and Abby’s house. Seemed pretty clear. Evan Harmon was murdered on Thursday evening, six days ago, on Justin’s birthday. Ellis St. John was at Evan’s house that day—or, at least, his date book said he was supposed to be there. Justin looked at the next day’s calendar. For Friday, all that was marked was another “EH.” Same for Saturday and Sunday. Justin shook his head.

  “The secretary said he had plans for the weekend. Secret kind of plans. Said he couldn’t be reached.”

  “This guy Ellis was spending the weekend with Evan Harmon?” Reggie was incredulous.

  Justin shook his head. “Seems like. But I’m telling you, it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Wow,” Ben said. “Is this really about the Harmon murder? This is so cool I can’t believe it.”

  “Ben,” Justin said, “is everything you could find on St. John downloaded into my computer?”

  “Yeah, but like I said, it’s not much. It’s mostly just the e-mails and calendar stuff that was shifted to that Belinda girl’s system.”

  “I think you can still make a couple of classes today.”

  “You mean I’m done?”

  “Call your mom to come get you. You’re done.”

  “But you’re the hero of the day,” Reggie added.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Ben said, “but I’m still gettin’ my money on Friday, right?”

  “I’ll hand-deliver it first thing.”

  The kid turned to Justin. “And my DVD recorder?”

  “Get outta here, Ben.”

  “Lemme know if you need anything else. This is a sweet gig.”

  “You’ll be the first to know,” Justin told him.

  Their computer whiz kid was finally out the door, and Reggie and Justin turned back to the screen.

  “So what happened?” she asked. “Ellis got dumped and he went berserk? And killed Evan Harmon?”

  “And then what?” Justin said. “He killed Ron LaSalle and Wanda Chinkle and hired a Sicilian hit man to take out Bruno and got a Chinese woman to kill that guy who worked for LaSalle, Stan Solomon? Come on. Ellis St. John’s a gay Willy Loman. He’s not a mass murderer.”

  “Well, as long as you’re coming up with things that make no sense,” Reggie said, “care to explain how David Kelley’s stun gun figures into all this? You got a connection between Kelley and St. John?”

  “I’ve got a better connection between Kelley and the man in the fucking moon,” Justin said. “None of this makes any damn sense at all.”

  He paced tightly out to the living room, veered into the kitchen for a moment, then paced right back out. He pounded his hand against the wall, a short, furious punch that cracked the
paint.

  “That’s not all that productive,” she said, “but it’s a little impressive.”

  “All right,” he said, rubbing his knuckles. “Let’s see what we’ve actually got from all the stuff that Ben gave us. Let’s just look at it in black and white.”

  He spent a few minutes entering everything they’d culled through and organized into the Hades file in his computer. When he was done he printed up the lists and cross-references they’d made, as well as the sheets of information that Ben Jenkins had managed to steal, all separated into various sections. Ben had managed to tap into the Ascension travel records—and Forrest Bannister had indeed lied. All company travel was booked through one agent: conveniently enough, through the in-house travel agent for Rockworth and Williams—another service that primary brokers clearly provided. Records were also kept by Bannister’s secretary for every single trip that every employee made. Ben had also gotten a list of every client who invested with Ascension, individual and corporate. Amazingly enough, he also had a record of how much the investment was. There were also pages and pages and pages (several hundred) that, as near as Justin could tell, were records of Ascension trades. He couldn’t follow them in any kind of real detail, but he was amazed that the kid had managed to get them.

  He and Reggie started their organizing with the names. The first group of names needed no descriptive heading. It listed the three people who had been murdered up to this point (they didn’t include Stan Solomon because they both felt he wasn’t a target; he was an incidental victim, someone who’d just managed to get in the way during the course of a robbery): Evan Harmon, Ronald LaSalle, and Wanda Chinkle. Under each name, they listed any other names—of people as well as companies—that had a direct connection and could be deemed relevant to the investigation. Then they listed names that had surfaced to which there was no known connection, trying to pinpoint any gaps in the various chains.

  Next, because of the folder prepared by Ellen Loache and the work that Ben had done, Justin and Reggie were able to compare the companies that Ascension did business with that also did business with the LaSalle Group. There were fifteen overlaps:

  Cates and Herr (mining company in South Africa)

  Charles Chan & Associates

  Eggleston Catalytic Converters

  Flame Bros. Ltd.

  Goldman, Inc.

  Maroon Group

  Menking, Inc. (international company that trades in precious metals, particularly platinum)

  Myles Johnson International

  The National Beet Growers Association of America Pension Fund

  Noodleman America Corporation

  Pinkney & Associates

  Rossovitch and Sons

  Scarlet Knight, Inc.

  Silverado Jewelry Association

  The Tintagel Group

  Next, Justin and Reggie listed all the other names involved in the case, however tangentially, and lumped them together when connections were already known to exist.

  So the first group listed was:

  Forrest Bannister

  Lincoln Berdon

  Hudson Fenwick

  Daniel French

  H. R. Harmon

  Carl Matuszek

  Ellis St. John

  The second group was smaller:

  Pietro Lambrasco

  Bruno Pecozzi

  Leonardo Rubenelli

  The third was smaller yet:

  Abigail Harmon

  David Kelley

  And the final name wasn’t even a name, just a figure that Justin insisted on adding to the compilation:

  Unknown Asian woman (seen at LaSalle Group break-in)

  Next, and perhaps most interesting, they traced the travel records of all the Ascension employees as well as Ronald LaSalle’s movements. There was an early overlap: both LaSalle and Evan Harmon had traveled to Johannesburg, South Africa, and to Palm Beach, Florida. When Reggie checked the time line for both trips, she struck gold: the two men had traveled on the same dates to both places. A firm connection: On the third weekend in March the previous year, both LaSalle and Harmon had been in Palm Beach. Two weeks after that, they both went to Johannesburg.

  More direct hits followed. While Evan Harmon had not done more traveling to any places that corresponded to LaSalle’s travels—Evan had made two trips to Detroit that didn’t seem to match up to any other information they had—Hudson Fenwick’s travel itinerary was almost identical to Ron LaSalle’s. Their dates did not correspond, but their destinations did. Both men had, over the past fifteen months, been to Moscow, Vancouver, Colombia, New South Wales, New Zealand, Australia, Anchorage, and San Francisco.

  The only difference was that Fenwick’s travels had been curtailed about five months earlier. Ron LaSalle had continued to travel, making repeat appearances in many of the cities, up until a week or so before he was killed.

  Reggie and Justin then listed the people and things that were physically missing. This list wasn’t long but it was daunting:

  Murder weapon used on Evan Harmon (blunt, clublike instrument)

  Ellis St. John’s computer

  Ellis St. John

  Reggie had wanted to include Bruno on the missing list but Justin pointed out that he couldn’t be truly considered missing because they had yet to make a concerted effort to find or even contact him. Reggie concurred, and they agreed to leave him off the list for the time being.

  And finally they listed the things they just plain didn’t know or understand and couldn’t connect to any other facts or events:

  Who stole Kelley’s stun gun to use in Harmon’s murder?

  Meaning of Wanda’s final message: Hades and Ali

  Who is the Asian woman? What is her role?

  Why was Wanda keeping her investigation of Evan Harmon and Ron LaSalle quiet within the FBI?

  Why did Pietro Lambrasco try to kill Bruno?

  Does Leonardo Rubenelli have a direct connection to any or all of the murders?

  Who was Wanda’s inside source on this investigation?

  It was Justin who insisted on adding that last line. He knew Wanda well, he said. Knew the way she worked. She never attempted an investigation of this potential scope—something big enough to link organized crime to Wall Street—without having some sort of inside contact. He told Reggie he’d bet her everything he owned on it. She said, “No, but I’d like to bet a dinner.” When he looked up, confused, she said, “If you’re wrong you have to have dinner with me. My treat. I’ll find someplace expensive where you don’t have to wear a tie.”

  Justin smiled sadly—or maybe it was just kindly, Reggie thought—and shook his head. “No bet,” he told her. “Sorry. But . . . you know what? I don’t have to explain. That’s just not going to happen, though. I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but it’s not necessary. No dinner, no socializing. Okay?”

  She nodded, for the first time embarrassed in front of him. And then she did her best to recover, cleared her throat and said, “We’ve got to get somebody looking at the Ascension trades, see what the exchange of moneys is all about.” He nodded in agreement; she thought he was embarrassed, too. Then she said, “And we’ve got to go through Ellis’s e-mails. There are a lot of them, but they might turn something up.”

  “Why don’t you take the e-mails?” he said. “I think I’ve got the right guy to examine the trades.”

  “Your father’s guy?”

  “Roger.”

  “Can he do it quickly?”

  “I’ll try to get him down this afternoon. If he can’t, we’ll see if your guys can help. But Roger knows a hell of a lot. And what he doesn’t know, he’ll research to death.”

  “And what about you?”

  “I need a little time to think.”

  She cocked her head and both shook her head and grinned the smallest of grins. She couldn’t help herself. “You’ve got something.”

  “No,” he said, “just a few things nagging at me.”

  “What?”
<
br />   “I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t tell yet. Maybe nothing.”

  Reggie hesitated. She saw the quick look of discomfort cross his face; he was worried she was going to bring up a social dinner again, so she quickly said, “Listen, there’s something I’m supposed to do, but I want to check with you first.” He waited and she went on, “I have to report in to Zach Fletcher.”

  “Okay.”

  “Here’s the thing. On this type of case, they like to work with the local authorities. So he’ll tell Silverbush at least some of what we know.”

  “You’re asking me because . . . ?”

  “I’m asking you because I want to make sure it’s all right with you before I do it. I don’t know how you feel about information getting back to the DA. And I thought you’d want to tell me if there’s some specific information you’d like us to hold back.”

  He thought about it for a moment. “Go ahead,” he said.

  “With everything?” And when he nodded, she said, “You sure?”

  “Pretty sure,” Justin told her. “Either his head’ll start spinning when he realizes this case has moved so far beyond him, or he’ll just go blindly on and dig his own grave.”

  “An even deeper one than he’s already been digging, you mean.”

  “Exactly.”

  “If we bring him in, you realize it means there’s a chance the link between Harmon and LaSalle and Wanda might become public.”

  He nodded again. “It’s all right. Maybe it should now. Keeping it to ourselves hasn’t helped us much. Maybe it’ll bring something out we haven’t been able to uncover.”

  Her head bobbed up and down a bit in agreement. Then she gathered up the stack of printed e-mails. “Might as well go over these at the motel, huh?”

  He knew she wanted him to ask her to stay and work with him. But he didn’t. So she said she’d check in later. Justin looked at his watch. 11 a.m. He went to the phone.

  “Dad,” he said when he was put through to his father’s office. “I’m wondering if I can borrow Roger Mallone.”

  “You coming up?” Jonathan Westwood asked.

  “I was kind of hoping he’d come down.”

  “When?”

  “I thought I’d try to hire a plane to get him here as soon as possible.”