A Taxing Death (Jill Quint, MD, Forensic Pathologist Series Book 5)

by Peche, Alec

  Dressed in the gear of a motorcycle cop, tall and probably normal weight once you removed all of the protective gear, the redhead woman in her 30s introduced herself as Officer Heather Tennyson.

  "Hello, I am Jill Quint and this is Marie Simon. Did detective Chang explain who we are, what the case is that we're working on, and what help we need? "

  "Detective Chang just indicated that you needed help from someone who knew the streets in and around the Capitol. That's my beat and since the temperature is high again today, I'm glad to be off my motorcycle and inside an air-conditioned building."

  "This is the case of the four employees of the Department of Revenue murdered over the past couple of weeks," Jill could see instant understanding by Heather. "The boldest of those murders occurred at the Capitol. We're trying to track the fake ambulance. Marie and I have isolated several views of the ambulance as the suspects performed several practice runs. What we don't know and what might be useful is where the ambulance went after those practice sessions as well as after each kill. We know it eventually ended up in an auto auction lot. We have a good picture of the suspects from the Capitol cameras, but we don't know if it is a disguise and again we don't know where they stored the ambulance. We have a program that can search for things like ambulances, but with all these separate video files, we need to narrow down our streets and we thought your knowledge of the streets might help us search faster."

  "Yes, I can help with that and since I have applied to take the detective's exam, this will be a great experience. In fact if you don't mind, I'll contact my commanding officer to see if I can volunteer my off-duty time beginning tonight to help in any way with this case."

  "Heather, we would love to have your help on or off the clock," replied Jill. "We have a fair amount of traffic work to do as in addition to this Capitol killing we also have two women murdered in restaurants well outside of your beat area. It's a lot of video work and we're not very fast with it."

  "That's ok; I'm familiar with the system as I have used it to reconstruct car accidents. Show me your object recognition system and walk me through the dates and times of the incidents and their practice session and I'll find more pictures for you."

  "The software is on my laptop and it cannot be copied or transferred. I'll open it up for you. I'll work other clues with Marie while you do your search."

  Soon there was mostly quiet in the room as everyone would have bursts of key clicking followed by silence as the typist read what was on the screen. An hour later, Heather sat back and said, "Got it, followed the trail that the ambulance took and even the location where it was parked."

  "That's brilliant," replied Jill with a grin and a high five. "Marie and I worked about a quarter of your speed and we didn't put together the details like you have. If you have the location of the ambulance, we need to tell someone about that so they can go search - perhaps Detective Chang and Lieutenant Moss. Can you put together a written summary of what you've observed? I have no desire to look at any more of that video footage and I'll trust whatever you come up with. How about the restaurants? Did you find any video footage related to the two men driving away from those locations?"

  As Heather was answering Jill's questions, Jill was dialing the detective and the lieutenant. She was highly fortunate to get the both of them together on a single phone call and she described Heather's findings with regard to where the ambulance was stored. They both took the address down clearly with the intention of investigating the building immediately. They knew they wouldn't find the ambulance there as they had seen it in the auto auction, but there might be fingerprints or other DNA evidence that would be useful in identifying the men. Done with the phone call she turned back to Heather who stated, "As you know, one of the restaurants was outside of the Sacramento jurisdiction so I can take a guess based on where the ambulance was stored, what the route that was taken through Sacramento, but I can't see them drive away from the restaurant in El Dorado County and enter the city of Sacramento."

  "I'm not sure they took the ambulance to the two restaurant locations; so it's slightly more probable to find them in their own car which might provide the clue we need to identify these two men. Can you use the facial recognition of the men crossing back into Sacramento to find them in any of the cameras?"

  "Let me try to find some video," replied Heather.

  Jill was feeling a tinge of excitement because this was the first real new information they had on their two suspects in almost twenty-four hours. She took a moment and reviewed her inbox to see if there were any e-mails with new updates from the task force. After lengthy discussion, rather than moving the thirty or so employees and their families from the hotel in Reno, the Highway Patrol instead decided to beef up their resources and protect the employees in place.

  The Capitol security had also been instructed to notify supervision if anyone appeared for an appointment or delivery or any business with any of the thirty employees from the Audit Division. One of the guards had noted the individual who appeared with a summons for one of the names on the list. Jill asked Lieutenant Moss if they had pulled the video tapes from that encounter at security. Perhaps their suspects were searching for the employees but had not known yet that they were moved a hundred miles away. Jill volunteered to review the footage to see if they had a suspect match if the lieutenant could get it sent to her.

  If indeed it was one of their suspects, had he been planning another kill in the Capitol or had he simply been trying to verify his or her location? These guys practiced their route and tactics for killing their victims. If one of them appeared at security, was this just practice for the real thing? If it was the two suspects then it would also tell the task force that there were more people on the kill list and the job was not complete yet.

  Jill received a call and the caller ID said 'Detective Chang', "Hello, this is Jill."

  "We are at the public storage unit building where Officer Tennyson saw the ambulance parked on video. We're getting a warrant to search the premises which should come through momentarily. If our suspects have stored anything in this unit and in particular a defibrillator, we might want you on the scene to identify the equipment. I expect the warrant to come through in about ten minutes."

  "I'd be happy to help and I'll stay on standby until I receive a call from you."

  They ended their conversation just as Heather identified several pieces of video footage that contained the two men in a private car. It was excellent news and an indication that if the detective needed her on scene she was free to take a laptop with her. She was highly protective of the software that Henrik had given her. She would not violate his trust.

  Heather brought the videos up on screen and using a city map was able to show Jill and Marie some of the traffic patterns of the two suspects. She'd also run the car and its license through the DMV only to find the plate did not match the car. She had the name of the plate's owner as well as the car's registered owner as further details to follow up on. Heather had run a quick check on the vehicle to see if it had been reported stolen; there was no such report.

  "One or both of our suspects are quite brilliant with the internet and data," Jill considered. "I think one of the reasons we can't find them is that they’ve been able to hack into all of the major government systems and wipe out any evidence of their identity. I wouldn't be surprised if the owner of the car completed a stolen car report and our two suspects somehow went in and erased it. Call me paranoid, but I've never come across two men before that we couldn't find somewhere in our systems."

  "Is there anything else you would like me to find on our street camera system?" asked Heather.

  "No, but you have been enormously helpful," replied Jill. "Can you give me your contact information so that I can reach you if we have more questions?"

  "Sure and please call if you need another set of hands, I'd love to have the opportunity to work on this case."

  Before Jill had an opportunity to respond, her email ring t
one sounded for emails from Detective Chang. Opening the email, she said to Heather and Marie, "Detective Chang would like us to drive to the storage shed. He got the warrant and wants me to look at a defibrillator, and Heather, he wants your expertise on the security system at the storage company."

  All three women quickly wrapped up their belongings and followed Heather’s motorcycle to the storage unit.

  “I’ve never had a police escort anywhere, it's pretty cool, ”Jill commented.

  “As long as it is not our funeral we’re being escorted to, I’m cool with the escort,” Marie grinned.

  They soon arrived at the storage building thanks to Heather’s escort. As they parked, the detective walked over to Jill, handed her gloves, and said “We’re dusting the storage unit for fingerprints; I’ll bring the defibrillator over to you.”

  The three women looked into the storage unit to see what was there and noted what looked to be the other medical supplies used in Mr. Valencia ‘s death – a stretcher, a paramedic toolbox, the defibrillator, oxygen cylinders, and a second toolbox which was empty.

  After speaking to the other officers, Heather headed over to the office where the security footage was kept. Marie took Jill’s laptop and joined Heather, guessing that they would need to use Henrik’s software, knowing that Jill didn’t want it out of her sight for a minute.

  Another officer was already there speaking with the storage unit business employee. He pulled records on who rented the unit and how they had paid. Unfortunately it wasn't any help as the gentleman provided false identification and paid cash for a year that started two months ago. Soon Heather and Marie had run the video and noted all arrivals and departures of the two men. Interestingly they appeared to not be using disguises or were always in disguise as their features never changed in all of the views they had of them. Detective Chang and Jill arrived at the office to learn what Heather and Marie had seen on the video feed.

  "The men have not been here for three days," Heather summarized. "That's not to say they aren't coming back, but based on their history, they've been here at least once a day, every day, for the past three weeks. We could easily set-up a camera that will notify us of their next visit should they come back, but this place has a feeling of neglect to me and intuitively we should not expect them to return."

  Detective Chang nodded and Jill asked, "I wonder if any of those fingerprints that we found in the storage shed will identify the two killers. How soon will you have the results back?"

  "The actual computer will run the prints in under thirty minutes," noted the detective. "It will take the crime scene unit time to drive back to their offices and process the prints. We should have the results back in probably ninety minutes. I want to get a list of previous owners of the storage space, so we can eliminate their fingerprints. I'm sure there are many different fingerprints in that space and sorting through who our actual killers are will not be easy and that is if they have left their fingerprints behind."

  "Did you lift any fingerprints from the defibrillator machine?" Jill asked. "While there is likely to be fingerprints of the previous owner of that defibrillator, we know our killers operated the machine although from the pictures I've seen of the Capitol they had latex gloves on at the time. Because they were so well practiced as they were for these murders, it suggests that they practiced with this machine as part of that preparation prior to electrocuting the two employees in the restaurants."

  Chapter Fifteen

  Allen and Jerome sat in the apartment planning their next steps. There were two more people on their murder list that they had not succeeded in killing yet. Thanks to the news, they now knew the employees were stashed away in Reno.

  "Should we plan to eliminate them in Reno?" Jerome asked. "I'm sure we can be creative and successful. We hadn't failed until the damn territory hid the employees. I'm sure we can create a plan that will take care of these final two. Since the dead people have been discovered to be homicides, we don't need to put as much energy into hiding our actions."

  "How would you go about it? What's our plan to kill them? We thought we were going to kill them in the dark movie theater, but that probably won't work in Reno" Allen noted. "It was going to be our easiest of the six kills - two-for-one at the same time. We need to complete the mission. Let's go back and remind ourselves while we set forth this plan."

  With a nod from Jerome, Allen continued, "We are members of the sovereign citizen group. The state of California is an illegal entity not specified by the constitution. As such, it is wrong to tax any California citizen and this is why we have refused to pay taxes."

  Allen stopped and paused, taking a deep breath, pacing himself like an evangelical proselytizer, he looked over at the other man staring deep into his eyes to assure himself that Jerome was with him every step of the way. What he saw there convinced him that Jerome would follow his leadership.

  "Let's review the actions we took prior to killing. We explained to our targets many times and to each of them separately that we would not be paying taxes assessed by an unconstitutional state," Allen looked for Jerome's agreement and then continued using his hands for emphasis. "We notified them of our rights in person, in writing, and over the phone. We filed papers to sue them in court for their illegal actions. There comes a point, where a line in the sand has to be drawn and we are very, very close in this country with the terrorist cops, corrupt as hell courts and absolute godlessness of all the self-proclaimed honorable government actors. Our line in the sand was crossed when they filed paperwork to garnish our wages. Once we're done killing our targets, we can undo the damage inflicted on us and file the paperwork to stop the garnishment. They won't be able to reach us again, they'll be years recovering from all these deaths and maybe then California will see the light and abolish this division, maybe by then other sovereign citizens will convince them to end this unconstitutional state.”

  Jerome was really warming up to Allen’s perspective and statements and added, “Maybe we'll need to move on and kill additional targets. We could do research and find out who actually filed the paperwork to take money from us. I think our targets made the decision, but others have been involved with taking our wages. Let's kill them all. Perhaps we can find a meeting where they are all present and blow them up or something. Let’s take a moment to compose a list. I have to go back to work on Monday. Over the next few days we can finalize our list then kill on the weekends going forward. If we do find them in one location, I could take a single day off of work to complete that mission.”

  “That sounds like a plan,” said Allen with renewed excitement. “I was depressed with the thought of our kill list coming to an end. It's not that I have a desire to kill good people rather it is becoming increasingly important to me that we bring an end to taxation by a fraudulent state and I think the only way we can get there is by killing everyone in that department. If the state can't take in revenues, and it won't be able to if we kill all of its leadership, then it won't be able to pay its employees and it will dissolve into chaos without the usual stolen dollars from taxpayers. I don't know why we didn't think of that months ago or why no one else in the sovereign movement thought of it either. We took out the most obvious of this illegal state’s employees, but there are lots more that implement these false laws and fees. I looked up the department and there are seven other executives involved and three board members. That's ten more people we can add to the kill list and more importantly that is ten less people that can interfere with sovereign citizen rights. It's a good starting place."

  The two men traveled through a range of emotions, moving from a sense of frustration at the start of their discussion relating to the failure to kill the final two people on their list, to excitement for their bright future with the potential to do great damage to the state tax agency with a few more well-placed murders. They would become heroes within the sovereign citizen movement.

  "So how about my idea of killing them all at a single meeting," Jerome remar
ked. "I bet they have public meetings of the board and maybe we could get them all there?"

  Allen was quiet, looking at meeting information on the internet, when slowly a smile came over his face and he said "the Tax Board meets quarterly and ninety percent of the people on our new kill list will be at that meeting scheduled for a week from now. If we don't have a plan in place by next week we will have to wait an entire quarter before we can try again using this approach. I would really like to be successful next week as I think it's much more crippling to have all these deaths so close together. In three months they could hire new people to assume the positions of the people we just killed. I would rather do it sooner rather than later."

  "I agree and how do we want to go about killing everyone at that meeting? We need to do surveillance on the meeting location so that we can understand the obstacles to killing them all. Let's drive over to the building right now and look at that meeting room so we can start planning. We may want to share our plan with others in the sovereign citizen movement if we need additional manpower. I would prefer not to do that because I want the glory of these kills and I want to be remembered as one of the two men who had the courage to act on our principles. I want to be heralded for our forward thinking and tactical planning after we annihilate the California Department of Revenue!" Jerome stated.

  They went out the apartment door and got into Allen's car to drive to the building where the Department of Revenue meetings were held.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jerome looked over at Allen while he was driving and asked, "Do you have any experience with explosives? We'll need something big to kill an entire room of people."

  "I did build bombs when I was in the military. It was a terrible experience and I got out as soon as I could and joined the movement shortly thereafter."

  "You served in the military? I've never meet a sovereign citizen who served in the military. Why did you volunteer?”