“Well, we can revisit the scene together once you’re back on your feet,” I suggested. “But for now, I really need your help with the Kohl case. Please tell me that you have something.”
“Oh, I have lots of somethings.” Deloris started tapping the laptop’s keyboard, quickly scanning and scrolling. “The flash drive labeled AIPIA is fairly benign,” she said. “Acadia Island Property Improvement Association has been actively buying properties and renovating. They have transformed a couple of huge summer estates into boardinghouses that are leased by Acadia Lobster Products, I assume to house their employees,” she said as she continued to scroll through the pages on her monitor. “I researched assessed values from tax records and see that Midge Kohl was able to buy three estates for pennies on the dollar—she was a real bottom feeder.” I processed this as Deloris made notes on a sheet of paper. She continued. “I found email correspondence on another flash drive that indicates displeasure with Midge Kohl. It appears that she is suspected of bringing in ex-cons knowing that their presence would drive property values down, enabling her to purchase at ridiculously low prices. I also found accounting figures that indicate that ALP will have to close their doors soon—for good.”
“Are you editorializing?” I asked, hoping to not sound unappreciative of her hard work. “Is this your gut reaction or is there hard evidence?”
“Nope.” Deloris continued to sift through the flash drive, making notes while briefing me. “It’s all buried here in fragments of deleted emails, text messages, and photo files. Mrs. Kohl’s technical skills were unsophisticated. Her generation mistakenly believes that deleted means gone. Looks like wealthy investors were looking for a onetime tax write-off. This of course is upsetting to the ex-cons who have made new lives for themselves that revolve around gainful employment and comfort in a safety in numbers sort of way.”
“Good.” I breathed a sigh of relief and was grateful for Deloris’s skill and candor. “Because I had heard these theories about land transactions and who was affected. It’s nice to have real evidence of what Midge Kohl had been up to.” By the time Deloris popped the flash drive from her laptop, I understood that there were indeed many people who had been hurt financially by her scheme, and more would get in line when the plant closed.
“Can you print a list of her contacts, and the files that had been deleted?”
“Done. Some of the more encrypted correspondence was sent through the ALP system. So I think it’s from an employee with a work email address: M-R-O-D at A-L-P dot net.” Deloris quickly shifted her hands to the keyboard of a second of three laptops she had surrounding her. “I was able to hack into the ALP company directory. The email M-R-O-D belongs to Manuel Rodrigues. And here’s his company headshot.” Deloris spun the monitor so that I could easily see it.
“Manny. I met him at the plant. He’s a supervisor and was less than accommodating,” I said. “What did you see that was encrypted in his emails?”
“Well, basically he alluded to knowing something that Mrs. Kohl would not want made public. And my opinion is that the emails and texts are so similar in content, that the emailer and texter are one and the same.”
“Sure sounds like blackmail. Was he coercing her?” I asked.
“Right. And I took the liberty of checking his rap sheet. Here’s the story on Manny,” she said as she handed me a sheet of paper that listed Manny’s vast and varied criminal history along with jail time served for each offense. I noted that Manny had been very active in scams and blackmail schemes. “And he is on the sex offender list, which is how he qualified for the Acadia Island program. The case file appears to indicate that Manuel is not a pedophile. But he was willing to help friends who are. Anything for a buck,” Deloris said unemotionally. She continued. “I was able to check the plant’s security footage through their network, and interestingly, the cameras are shut off every night after the second shift, and started back up at five o’clock the following morning. Sort of defeats the purpose of having security cameras, doesn’t it?” Before I could nod in agreement, she added, “And, the only people who had access to manipulate the security system online were Mrs. Kohl and Manuel Rodrigues.”
*
I took a deep breath, realizing how much information I now had to deal with, and that I needed to rush back to Acadia to follow up on the new leads. My head was spinning with the amount of information Deloris had retrieved in a short time. She is good, I thought. She had already scanned the prints I collected through the FBI’s biometrics database. Unfortunately, the prints that were identified belonged to people who had good reason to be in Mrs. Kohl’s office. There were a number of prints that the registry didn’t identify, which was not alarming or telltale in any way. She had already sent hair samples that I collected from Mrs. Kohl’s office to CODIS with a red label, and expected DNA results within twenty-four hours.
Mulling over what Deloris had revealed, I realized that any ALP employee had motive and greater access to Mrs. Kohl at the scene of the murder then Trudy had. Who had the most to lose from an ALP closure? And who might possess the physical strength to overcome and subdue a struggling woman? Manny was now in the center of my sights. If I hadn’t been so bent on Trudy Proctor, I would have considered him before, I scolded myself.
“But this,” Deloris said triumphantly, “is far more damning.” She pushed a second flash drive into the side of her computer. “I was able to recover bits and pieces of this photo gallery. Brace yourself.” She pivoted the monitor so that I could easily see the screen. I am far from a prude. But I must confess that the first picture surprised me.
“Is that what it looks like?” I asked.
“If it looks like two naked bodies in a compromising position, it is.”
Deloris slowly clicked through a series of pictures featuring the same two bodies in a standing missionary position. The pictures had been photoshopped from the necks up; replacing the couple’s heads with those of Lucille Ball and Dezi Arnez.
“Someone loves Lucy,” I said. “The woman has to be Midge Kohl. Look at the boots—monogrammed MK. The question is, who is Ricky Ricardo?” The quality of the pictures was very grainy. Deloris suggested that they had been taken from a distance with a low-quality camera. The next few pictures showed the same couple in a different position; in this one I could see the woman’s wrists, which were bound to stainless-steel posts with yellow poly bag tape—the exact color of what I had removed from the corpse’s wrist.
“Although her wrists are bound, the sex appears to be consensual. Most rapes are from behind,” I noted. “It looks like these photos were taken at ALP. The plant is full of stainless steel.” At my request Deloris flipped through the series again, very slowly, while I looked for clues as to who the man was. Deloris’s professional opinion was that photographs had been taken, printed out, and scanned into the ALP system. Copies on the scans were then forwarded to every internal company email account—of which there were only five. Five seemed like a small number of email accounts until I rationalized that there would have been no reason for the vast majority of ALP employees to be set up with such accounts. “Do you think a third party was involved?” I asked. “A photographer?”
“No way. Look closer. All of the pictures are from the same angle, like the camera was stationary. The various shots are just cut and pasted with different aspects blown up. Even the most inexpensive cameras are equipped with timers. They could even have been taken with a cell phone,” Deloris said. “Do you think Manuel Rodrigues seduced Mrs. Kohl so that he could blackmail her?” Deloris asked. “His rap sheet suggests that no job is beneath him.”
“No, that’s too easy,” I answered.
“And the last photo I have,” Deloris announced as she brought up another very grainy and dark picture. “Ta da. What do you make of that?” The picture had clearly been cut and pasted together—again very poor quality, and the work of an amateur. It portrayed the man with the Desi face photoshopped as if he were humping a cardboard box
covered in Chinese characters.
“Well, I am sure it has significance. But it only adds to the confusion right now,” I confessed. “These chemicals from China keep popping up. They have to be a key to the case. Just need to figure out how.”
“Of course I have an opinion! I thought you’d never ask,” quipped a very pleased Deloris. I was curious, but not about to beg for an unsolicited theory. I waited, knowing that Deloris would offer without being prodded. “Remember the texts that mentioned shipments? All caps? Shipments must refer to the boxes of chemicals, right?”
“Okay, I’ll buy that,” I said. “But how do the chemicals fit in with blackmail and murder?”
“Beats me. You’re the detective. What do you think the Lucy and Desi thing means?” Deloris asked as she shifted her hands back and forth between three laptops and an iPad while I mulled the possible meaning of the boxes of chemicals in the whole scheme.
“I don’t know the significance of Lucy and Desi, if any. But I think it does bring Trudy Proctor back into suspicion. She quoted the famous ’splainin’ line to the sheriff during interrogation. Just coincidence? Or is she connected to these photos? Did you uncover any correspondence between Trudy and Manny?” I asked while still puzzling over the chemicals.
“Nothing. But Trudy is clever. Her skill level in electronic evasion is higher than most. She would likely have the ability to hack into the ALP system and send email from any address,” Deloris said. “And I think Trudy is too young to be quoting a sixties TV show.”
“What if illicit drugs were being smuggled into Maine through the chemical shipments?” I blurted out.
“Yes! And Desi wants a bigger cut of the profits! I’ll bet Manny is in charge of receiving, right?”
“That is possible,” I said. “But it will be difficult to prove who the man in the pictures is.”
Deloris giggled. “Yeah, right. I must watch too much TV. Aren’t we supposed to ID the guy by a mole or wart on his private parts?” I ignored this, and continued to scroll through the photos. She continued. “You can’t actually see any of his compromising bits, but he is taking the pictures! He knows he’s on candid camera.”
“For that matter, how do we know the woman is Midge Kohl?” I ran quickly through the photos again, and answered my own question. “Oh yeah. Why would another woman be wearing Mrs. Kohl’s boots? Does anyone else have the initials MK?”
This was met with rolling eyes and a shrug. “Well, the woman in the pictures does have quite a distinct shape. And I took a look at Mrs. Kohl’s medical records, including her height and weight. I’d say it’s her. That is my professional opinion. Besides, the background does suggest this took place at the plant. And I was able to track down height and weight info for all female employees through the Department of Motor Vehicles—nobody over one hundred and forty pounds.”
I almost mentioned that most women lie about their weight, but realized that I was getting off track. It’s funny, I thought, how I knew right away that this picture was of Midge Kohl. I had never met the woman. All I had seen of her were charred remains. And my perception of her had been way off. I had her pegged as a cold, all-business type, and certainly not one who would consent to having an extramarital relationship in the middle of a seafood processing plant. Just goes to show you how wrong assumptions can be. I wondered how badly Midge Kohl would have wanted to keep this affair from her husband. “Do you have access to the financials? Maybe you can find out if money has been withdrawn that is suspicious or unaccounted for?”
“I do. And at first glance there are no red flags. I ran the company books through a software program that I created specifically for fraud cases. The books are clean. Every penny is traceable and legit.” Deloris hit a button and a printer started spitting out paper. She reached over and collected the sheets as they fell, and handed them to me. “Here’s the general ledger. Other than payroll and lobster, the other big monthly expense is shipping. No surprise there, right?”
“Right. What else do you have for me?” I asked. Deloris reported that she had taken the liberty of pulling together a list of all of the residents of Acadia Island who were there with the relocation program initiated by Midge Kohl. Apparently there were twenty-six ex-convicts enrolled in the program. All convictions had been of Class A or B felonies, which carry five-to fifteen-year sentences. So, all of Midge Kohl’s employees at the plant had done a stint in a federal penitentiary, had all been paroled, and were all now on probation. Two of the women in the program had been schoolteachers who had consensual relationships with students, Deloris noted with a sigh. A couple of men had been caught selling child pornography. For the most part, the crimes had been of the nonviolent type, which didn’t help narrow the suspect pool. Another interesting twist that Deloris pointed out was the fact that some percentage of all the employees’ wages was being garnished and applied to fines imposed as restitution for whatever offense they had been convicted of. All employees also had monies taken from paychecks for rent, which was paid directly to AIPTA. “Wow, Mrs. Kohl had the whole ball of wax,” I remarked. “Anything unusual about pay stub records for Manuel Rodrigues?”
“No. Nothing. He receives a higher hourly rate. But he’s a supervisor, right? It appears that the only Internet access available on Acadia is through a large satellite dish owned by none other than Midge Kohl. I have been able to scan email from a number of the ex-cons and have found nothing that raises my eyebrows.”
“Isn’t that an invasion of privacy? Not that I really care. But if you found something, we couldn’t use it in our case.” I surprised myself with the use of we and our as opposed to I and my.
“Sex offenders give up their rights when they offend. This is Maine. Parolees consent to computer searches and monitoring software.” I was certain that Deloris was incorrect about this, but as I wasn’t a stickler for things of this nature, I let it slide.
“What about social media?” I asked. Deloris responded that Facebook has a policy that prohibits convicted sex offenders from having a profile. Her opinion, after doing some major snooping, was that the residents of Acadia who were there on the work release program were all playing by the book, and not involved in anything that might cost them the privilege of working and living on the island. Deloris interjected her opinion that she suspected that these convicts would even go so far as self-policing to keep the status quo.
When it seemed that we had exhausted all avenues of interest, Deloris promised to keep digging. She would call immediately with anything new. And she would hound the lab for the DNA forensics report on what they had received in the way of hair and fingernail clippings from Mrs. Kohl’s office. “You don’t have the equipment to run the hair and nail samples yourself?” I asked teasingly.
“No, but I can hack into the lab’s system and get the results quicker than they’ll contact us with them,” she suggested.
“I’m good with that,” I said as I got up and prepared to leave. I now had enough new information to head back to Acadia Island with intentions of getting to know Manny Rodrigues better. Even if I hustled, I could not possibly make the late ferry. And doing so would be pointless, as I would have no place to stay for the night once on Acadia. Something told me that Joan Proctor would not be extending any hospitality—and I really wanted to avoid seeing Trudy Proctor. One positive result of not being able to nail her on charges was the fact that I now didn’t need to deal with her. I would strike out early tomorrow morning, I thought as I folded my notes and stuck them in my coat pocket. I thanked Deloris for all of her help, and left feeling exhilarated with the prospect of a new, totally legitimate suspect.
I had spent more time with Deloris than I had anticipated. But the time had been well spent. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that Manny was guilty of murder. Now, I needed sleep badly. That and a hot shower. Oh, and food. Food first, I thought as I drove from Ellsworth back down the narrow, twisting, and poorly plowed road to Green Haven. I wondered what Mrs. V had on
the menu tonight. Mussels of some sort, I knew. It must be quite a challenge to come up with new recipes. She took pride in serving dishes that had “never been created before.” And she was unfazed if the experiment was a total failure. She would simply say, “We won’t bother putting this one in the book,” and then politely clear the plates and offer nightcaps in lieu of dinner. Remarkably, there had been only one or two nights that my belly was warmed by Scotch rather than food.
The sun had set when I pulled into my parking spot. Light pink clouds hung on the western horizon like a thin layer of cotton candy, and held the only warmth in an otherwise stark scene of snow and ice fading in the shadows of the dimming day. Sunrise would bring glistening and twinkling, I thought. And midday would bring glare. But for now, all was gray, dull, and sleepy. I was surprised and disappointed to see that the Vickersons Cadillac was not in its spot. The car, which was home to all manner of knickknacks that didn’t make the varsity squad of the house, stood as living proof that good taste is not universal. Not that I would win any prizes for interior decorating. But everyone in town commented on the V’s monthly changing of whatever occupied their dashboard. I had noticed that Alice and Henry made a point of “running errands” around Green Haven on the first of each month to show off their new display. The most recent dashboard scene included a bobble head of David Ortiz, or Big Papi, the home run king of Boston. There wouldn’t be a scene change until March 1, I knew. So my landlords must be off on other business, I thought as I hustled to get inside and out of the cold.
Shiver Hitch Page 19
