by Peche, Alec
Jill peered over Marie’s shoulder as she discussed the journey she had been on chasing leads. She had started by following everyone on the original website. After individually following each person who had any activity on the site where the two men appeared, she had found additional appearances on additional sites. Still no identity and in fact the two men used different usernames on each site. As the suspects seemed very competent at hiding their identity, rather than looking for a real name, Marie was on the hunt through all these internet sites of where they might physically be; see if anyone ever mentioned where one or both men were at a particular time. She had no success yet, but Marie remained hopeful that the men would slip up at some point.
“I’ll continue with this methodology and see what I come up with by the end of today,” Marie asserted.
“I’m going to drop an email to the Lieutenant to let him know of your progress and your attendance at tomorrow’s meeting. You might get another job offer from one of these agencies,” Jill added cheekily.
“Yeah, right. I like the weather here, but I love my job, friends, and family back in Wisconsin, and I couldn’t afford a house here.”
“I know what you mean. Even though I’ve been in California for a while, I’m still amazed at the cost of housing here. Oh well, it will be amusing to watch them try and make you an offer. Do you need my help?”
“No, it will be faster for me to chase them down rather than take the time to explain my process to you and I’ll admit that a part of this is intuitive.”
“No problem, I’ll go back to reviewing the sovereign citizen movement. We’ll leave for Nathan’s house in about an hour. As usual, he is making some sort of fabulous dinner and pairing it with a great wine.”
“Jill, my friend, do you know how lucky you are to have Nathan? He is good-looking, fit, a great cook, and an all-around nice guy.”
“I know I’m lucky. I pinch myself some days. He is also very forgiving when I pick up a new case and cancel dinner plans with him at the last moment, and he likes my dog. What more could a girl ask for in a guy?”
“Don’t rub it in! I had better get back to my research as I would like to have all kinds of leads to show to your Lieutenant in the morning.”
Jill nodded and the room fell silent as they were both engrossed in separate pursuits to find the killer. Sometime later, Jill called it quits and they left for Nathan’s house. Marie had never been there, and so Nathan gave her a quick tour of his studio and home. Marie was fascinated by his 3D printer and had some suggestions for Nathan’s experiments with beer glasses. She also met Arthur and was entertained by the behaviors of the cat and dog.
Nathan was such a good chef that he could cater the meal to each woman. Jill liked her food bland, while Marie liked it spicy. He had made scallops in a cream sauce, jasmine rice and, asparagus with butter and parmesan cheese. For dessert, he offered the ladies a choice of fresh berries in a liqueur or an ice cream bar. Jill had the berries, while Marie started with chocolate ice cream and added fresh fruit, whip cream, and a sprinkle of nuts.
"It's a good thing I am not around your cooking more often as I would weigh twenty pounds more. That was a great dinner. Thank you. I'll just go to bed now that I am so sated," Marie joked.
"Actually you would keep the weight off because there is always my cooking," Jill offered.
"What do you mean 'your' cooking'? Your definition of cooking is ordering and then heating a pepperoni pizza," Nathan scoffed.
"That may be true, but have you ever left my home hungry?" Jill asked.
"No, but I only get two meals from you - an omelet in the morning or a pizza if it is lunch or dinner."
"Children, children! Stop fighting over food!" Marie admonished with a grin.
They both had the grace to look chagrined as Marie continued, "Seriously, Nathan, I heard from Jill about your dojo. Can we walk over there and have you both demo your crazy kung fu moves?"
"Sure we could do that, but as a Master in hapkido, I feel obliged to provide a short lesson in terms and places of martial arts. Kung fu's meaning is any skill achieved through hard work and practice, not necessarily a martial art. So I might say that Marie is kung fu in social media investigations. My martial art - hapkido, is of Korean origin and Jill's T'ai Chi, is a Chinese martial art. As for a dojo, that is a Japanese term for a place where one practices the path of a martial art. In Korean, the term is dojang. Jill practices in a wu guan or the Chinese word for a gym where martial arts takes place."
"Nathan, thanks for the explanation of terms," replied Marie."I can't wait to return to work and say that I am kung fu at social media. My co-workers will wonder what weird air I have sniffed in California."
"We are here to entertain," replied a smiling Jill. "I feel that I am too early in the practice of T'ai Chi to demonstrate anything for you, I'll leave Nathan to show you his spectacular moves; it's pretty cool. We missed seeing his bi-directional kick in Brussels, so I had him demonstrate it once we returned home. It's pretty cool and how many years of hard work did it take you to perfect that move?"
"I actually don't remember, but let's go over to my dojang and maybe I can convince you to become interested in a martial art," replied Nathan leading them over to another building on his property.
When they arrived at the building, Nathan explained his indoor and outdoor area. Inside the dojang, he had a punching bag and a couple of padded upright objects, that Marie suspected were used to imitate a man, but perhaps softer to kick or punch. He explained what was in the room and how he used it, then provided a narrative of what his workout looked like.
"I would offer to do the kick that Jill has asked for, but unless it is a life or death situation, I don't attempt a bi-directional kick until after at least thirty minutes of warm-up. I can show you a tape from the last competition I entered which was about five years ago. I am getting too old and too busy to stay in competition form anymore."
"Don't believe for a moment that Nathan is not in the best form, heck he took down the man in Belgium that tried to kidnap Jo, and he saved us from that killer in Colorado."
"When the adrenaline is coursing through my system because one of my friends is threatened, I can do all kinds of crazy moves," Nathan admitted modestly. "That's different from being at the very top of my game like I was for competitions. Besides my age bracket doesn't have many competitors. In recent years there have been zero or less than two entrants for my age. It's no fun getting a first or second ribbon just because you showed up."
"Okay let's watch the video," replied Marie.
Soon they were watching a competition between two men dressed in white track suits, using a variety of kicks, punches, and attempts at wrestling someone to the map. The two women grimaced whenever Nathan's opponent got in a hit to his body. At the end of the short tape, there was silence.
After a long moment Marie added, "That looked really painful. I bet you had bruises the next day. Did you lose any teeth?"
"No, fortunately I didn't. You take kicks to the head as much as to the face. I didn't have any concussions, but I saw others who did. That was another reason to leave the competition behind me - I wanted to save my brain."
"Good decision as I would think that it was only a matter of time before you did take the wrong kick to the head," Jill agreed.
After returning to Nathan's living room to gather their belongings, and a quick kiss exchanged between Jill and Nathan, they were soon on their way back to Jill's house. The plan was to get in another hour or two of research before proceeding to bed. Jill expected Marie to head first to her bed as she was on a time zone two hours ahead of California, but maybe Marie adapted quickly.
Jill was exact in her prediction when two hours later they both headed for bed. They had less than eight hours to sleep before waking up, getting dressed, and making the one hour drive into Sacramento's Highway Patrol office.
Marie was a little uneasy with a room filled with California law enforcement individuals.
Unlike Jill, who had been with the group from the beginning, Marie had no sense of the interactions between agencies or the people in the room. Still, she knew she was likely the only person in the room with new information. Lieutenant Moss asked her to introduce herself with a few words about her background.
"Hi, I am Marie Simon, a resident of the great state of Wisconsin. Over the past five years I've worked as a part-time consultant on a variety of cases for Dr. Quint. My day job is that of a talent evaluator for a multinational corporation. I spend a fair amount of time every day on social media evaluating candidate behavior to determine fit with our company," Marie said describing her role and noticing frowns in the room. "While some of you may believe that candidates have a right to their privacy, what I find is there for the world to see, and the last thing we want to do is hire someone whose values are not consistent with our own. As you have all probably found out in your own hiring process, someone can have the right skills on paper, but the wrong interpersonal skills to be successful with colleagues or with the job. Thanks to our talent evaluations we have turnover that is seventy-five percent lower than any other firm in a comparable industry in the state. Those are real results that can save both yourselves and candidates from a bad experience.
"Moving on to the matter at hand which is the identity of the two suspect's pictures Jill forwarded to me, let me show you what I found," Marie said as she manipulated the internet on a big screen for all to watch.
Fifteen minutes later, everyone in the room had more of a feel about the murder suspects. They still didn't have names, but they thought they knew how they thought, who their friends were, and where they hung out. That would give them fresh material to focus the search on locating them. Marie had a few more leads to follow which she intended to do once the presentation was over. She would sit in the back of the room using the guest access to the building's Wi-Fi and research a few more leads. After that, her work was pretty much done as there were no additional suspects to investigate. Of course, she could take some of the names of some of the organizations that were on Jill's list of sovereign citizen groups and see what she turned up there. Marie tuned back in to the conversation and then decided that the meeting would go on for at least another hour so she would see what she could do with a sovereign group.
Jill meanwhile was speaking to the group about her results from the autopsy at Placer County yesterday. Mr. Valencia's death was definitely connected by evidence to the death of the third employee. The technique used on employee number four was different, but given his place of employment they had solid reasons to keep them connected to the case under discussion.
The conversation turned to letters of complaint that were sent to the department. Working with the Department of Revenue's staff paired with law enforcement, they had narrowed the suspect list down to about two-hundred citizens. As Jill had been doing a lot of research into the sovereign citizen movement and their behavior, she wasn't sure that they would necessarily write a letter of protest. Nationwide, they seemed to either try to ignore the taxing authority or on rare occasion to try to kill them. About a quarter of them made contact with the taxing office and for that reason she thought the list of suspects was likely far larger than the two-hundred developed by the Department of Revenue.
The Highway Patrol had located the ambulance used in the first three murders in an auto auction yard. They had been able to enlarge the video feed of the incident at the Capitol to find the vehicle identification number and were thus able to match it at the auction yard. They dusted for fingerprints, but the ambulance had been sanitized and no fingerprints were found. A few hairs had been collected, but all the crime scene staff could do was hold on to it for a match at a later date.
A piece of good news is that there appeared to be no more suspicious deaths overnight nor any threatening activity in the hotel where the Department of Revenue's audit division employees were stashed. Jill hated to be a wet blanket, but she suggested that Sacramento County and the surrounding ten counties be alerted to the fact that any state workers that had died in the past month or before the two suspects were captured be referred to this task force to verify the mode of death. After a little discussion the group agreed and Lieutenant Moss put it on his to-do list.
After a few additional reports, the meeting ended. While Marie had found more information on the two suspects, she didn't as yet have names for them. She had perhaps another two hours of work and then she thought she would've exhausted all avenues of investigation. Jill likewise was focused on the sovereign citizen movement and thought she likely had a few more clues to research.
The two women walked out to the parking lot with Jill looking at her watch. "We are perhaps an hour away from Yosemite National Park. We don't have time to see the entire Park or even in its major highlights. We essentially have two choices; we can hike the Nevada and Vernal Falls. It's a straight uphill climb and then a straight downhill walk that is hard on your knees and takes about six hours to complete. It's a spectacular climb next to the falls with a wonderful view at the top. If you're not in the mood for a hard hike, we can take the second option to drive and view the highlights of the Park which would include the giant sequoias, the view from glacier point, and a visit to the Valley floor to see more waterfalls and wild flowers."
"You know me; I love the chance for exercise wherever I go. Let's take the first option of a hard climb to the top. Perhaps we'll have some wise thoughts surface from our brains in the quiet solitude of nature," Marie suggested.
"Yosemite is a very popular National Park and we will cross the paths of other visitors along the way. In the beginning, about the first half mile, there will be such a throng of people that you would think you were at a mall, and by the time we reach the first waterfall and begin the ascent to the second waterfall, it will feel like a national park again."
"Sounds like we're in for a hard hike! Is Nathan planning on cooking for us tonight?" Marie asked with a grin. "I'm sure we will work up an appetite."
"Actually I'll ask if he wants to join us on the hike. Like me, Yosemite is his favorite Park. That way he'll have also worked up an appetite for a big meal. It will be the best of both worlds if he can join us."
On the way to the park, she called Nathan, and learned that he had a couple of appointments with clients today and would be unable to join them. He did invite them over to his house for dinner, planning on a high carbohydrate meal for them to refuel after their busy day.
Within the hour, Jill was paying the entrance fee at the park gates. Just inside they found a restroom to change from their business casual clothes into hiking clothes. Jill had brought two small backpacks for them to carry water and some snacks that she threw together in case they had the opportunity to hike that day. It would be a hot day and she was sure they would need plenty of water. Fortunately they could refill their bottles at the top waterfall where the water came from snow melt which somehow Jill thought was cleaner water. They made a decision not to discuss the case until at least the second half of the hike. It would be poor etiquette to discuss the details of several murders while hiking with families in a renowned National Park. Jill knew that she could give it two hours and then they would have freedom to discuss the case out loud.
They mostly walked in silence as Jill being the shorter legged of the two women had to walk a little faster than her comfort range to keep up with the taller Marie who was impressed with the number of people on the trail and the number of foreign languages she heard spoken out loud. Jill had already had that same experience on many previous hikes and thought it a shame that more Americans had yet to have the opportunity to appreciate the beauty of Yosemite.
Pointing to the large waterfall that they were ascending around, Marie said, "What a fantastic place! I wish we had time to explore those other highlights you mentioned. It would be great if we could solve the case tonight which would leave me two days to come back here and see more of the Park."
Jill had a big smile on her
face as she said to her friend, "I am so glad that you're enjoying this National Park. One of my favorite places to visit is Glacier Point." Jill pointed up at some cliffs and added, "That's it up there and I always think of the first explorers who saw this region and had the good grace to make it everybody's land. It was inhabited by Native Americans, but early efforts at logging could have done great damage to the giant sequoias that have been here for a thousand years. In the late 1850s tourists began visiting Yosemite including the famous naturalist John Muir and he made a big push with President Lincoln to set aside the land for the public. I like to think of the conversation between the first explorers going something like this, 'Hey Pete come over here and look at this view!' Today we see some of the same views as those early explorers and thankfully someone preserved the land so that a hundred and fifty years later we could still enjoy the beauty of Mother Nature here."
"Jill, if you keep this up I'm going to think that you're a poet at heart. I don't think I've ever heard you talk about grandeur of the earth before. It makes me even more impressed with Yosemite to hear how it has captured your heart over the years."
"On that sappy note perhaps we can move on to murder. Actually I brought pen and paper with me in case we think of some brilliant idea that hasn't crossed our minds before now. How else can we look for two suspects?"
"Let's start with what we have already. We have the two killers arriving in an ambulance, traveling to the Capitol building, and departing after they've killed Mr. Valencia. We have the ambulance used in this murder, but so far it has not provided us with any new information. By the way did anyone ask the auto auction place for any camera shots of these two men? I wonder if they have tried a disguise for any of their crimes versus what they look like at other times."
Jill pulled out her pen and paper and stopped to take a few notes, paper on her thigh to write. Marie was coming up with some good ideas.
