Bikini Baristas: Ted Higuera Series Book 4

by Pendelton Wallace

  “Mr. Caglione sends his respects,” the man said.

  Ted felt his back. The gun Catrina had given him wasn’t there.

  Both Ted and Catrina had dealt with Caglione in the past. Ted had done a network penetration test for him several years ago. It was a legitimate business contract, but Ted’s work had helped Caglione stay a jump ahead of the US Attorney. Caglione told Ted that he owed him a favor.

  Catrina collected on the favor.

  When she went to Mexico to capture and return the drug dealer who left his wife in Seattle holding the bag, she went to Caglione for help. Owning guns is all but illegal in Mexico. She was going up against some dangerous criminals and needed firepower.

  Caglione had repaid his debt to Ted by putting Catrina in touch with an arms dealer in Mexico.

  Now Caglione wanted to talk with them. Was he calling in the favor?

  “I thought Mr. Caglione was in prison.” Ted said.

  The driver opened the passenger side back door. “Mr. Lamont will speak for him.”

  Ted looked at Catrina. She nodded, and Ted slid in. Catrina followed him.

  “Mrs. Flaherty, Mr. Higuera, I’m Tony Lamont,” The heavy, swarthy man extended his hand. “Mr. Caglione apologizes for not making this meeting in person, but you understand why.”

  Ted shook Lamont’s hand. Catrina nodded.

  “I want you to understand that I speak for Mr. Caglione. Everything I say is coming from his lips. Capiche?”

  “We capiche,” Catrina said.

  “Good. I understand that you are looking for Dick Randall?” It was a question.

  “Yes, his wife hired us to find out what happened to him,” Catrina said.

  “What do you think happened to him?” Lamont asked.

  “We don’t know yet.” Catrina looked directly into Lamont’s eyes. “He could have been killed or simply disappeared. We wanted to ask you, did you ice him?”

  “Mrs. Flaherty, we’re not in that business anymore. All of Mr. Caglione’s businesses are strictly legitimate.”

  “Yeah, and I’m Santa Claus.” Ted said.

  Lamont looked at Ted like he was an ant, just asking to be squished.

  “I can assure you; we had nothing to do with Mr. Randall’s disappearance.” Lamont shifted his considerable weight in his seat. “We want to find him as much as you do. I’m thinking that we could work together, you know, pool resources.”

  “Why are you interested in him?” Catrina asked. She was a little uncomfortable with the way Lamont stared at her.

  “He has something of ours. We want it back. All we want is to reason with him. If it’s returned everyone can go home happy.”

  “What does he have?” Ted asked.

  “Do you really need to know? Let us just say that Mr. Caglione does not like for people to take what’s his. The boss gets it back and we let Mr. Randall go on with his life. You can help us with this.”

  “And if we don’t?” Catrina asked.

  “Let me just say that Mr. Caglione likes you two and thinks the world of Mr. Higuera here. Thinks he’s some kind of genius. And he really respects a woman who can make it in a man’s world. He likes you guys and doesn’t want anything to happen to you. But, I gotta say, some of the strangest things happened to people who cross Mr. Caglione. You might say that they have the worst luck.”

  Ted and Catrina exchanged glances.

  “We don’t know anything yet.” Catrina said. “You can tell Mr. Caglione that when and if we do find Mr. Randall, he’ll know about it.” She opened the car door.

  “That’s great. Mr. Caglione will appreciate your cooperation.” Lamont extended his hand.

  Ted didn’t know what else to do, so he shook it.

  Ted climbed out of the Lincoln after Catrina and pushed the button on his key fob to unlock his car.

  Catrina walked around to the passenger side and climbed in. Ted turned the key and the engine fired right up.

  “What do you think?” Ted asked.

  “I think that Caglione did not have Randall killed.” She buckled her seatbelt. “Anderson wants us to believe that Randall was laundering money for the mob and skimming it so the mob had him killed. I’m not buying. If Caglione is looking for Randall that means that they think he’s still alive. That he faked his death.”

  “Yeah. I agree.” Ted backed out of his parking spot and pulled into the street. “If Caglione didn’t have Randall killed, and he’s dead then who did? Who else had motive?”

  “Well,” Catrina grinned at Ted, “there’s always our client. She has the most to gain.”

  “How about his son? Junior didn’t know about the new will, probably thought that Daddy was leaving him everything. Maybe he needed to bump dear old Dad before everything went to his blonde bimbo.”

  Catrina looked out the side window as they passed her favorite Thai restaurant. She sighed. “That’s presuming that Randall’s dead. I’m not ruling out the faking his death angle yet. Things were coming to a head for him pretty fast. I can picture him wanting to get out of Dodge.”

  Chapter 20

  By six o’clock in the evening, things started to wind down at Flaherty & Associates. Ted had gone home, as had Abiba. She was usually the last one out, but her daughter had a dress rehearsal for the Miss Washington Pageant. She couldn’t miss that.

  The two dozen or so other women who worked there slowly filed out of the office. There were some who came in late and worked late, but only a handful.

  Catrina sat at her desk, staring at her blotter. She held a roll-tip pen in her hand and doodled aimlessly on the pad, a Martini glass here, a bottle of Jack Daniels there. Her mind was a million miles away.

  Where was Karen? Had something happened to her? Had Caglione’s goons picked her up? Or was she in hiding?

  And was her disappearance connected to her husband’s? Had they planned this together? Had they stashed away Caglione’s money somewhere and arranged their disappearances? Were they going to meet up and laugh at their victims?

  But if so, why had she hired Catrina? What could she possibly gain? If they were faking then Catrina was the one person likely to figure it out. It didn’t make sense.

  If Karen were hiding, where would she go? Not back to Vegas. That was too obvious. Did she have friends, family elsewhere?

  Catrina pulled up her Karen Randall file. Ted was slowly bringing her into the Twenty-first century. For two decades she had done all of her work on paper, now her young computer genius had all of their files on some computer somewhere.

  At least they could share them. They could all make notations, add documents, pictures etc. Anyone with the proper authority could access them from anywhere.

  She smiled. Her young compatriot sure loved his toys, loved to use his fancy sunglasses to bring up files and search the Internet when they were out of the office investigating. Oh well, it is, after all, the Twenty-first century, she thought. No matter how much she denied it, she was living in the Information Age.

  Her phone rang. It took three rings before she came out of her reverie and realized what was making all the noise.

  “Flaherty & Associates, Catrina speaking,” she said into the phone.

  “Mrs. Flaherty,” a low, raspy voice said. “This is a friend. I have a tip for you.”

  “Who is this?” Catrina asked.

  “A friend,” the raspy voice said. “I’m gonna offer you a little piece of information. Listen very carefully.”

  “Yes.”

  “First of all, I want you to drop your Richard Randall investigation. Leave it to the cops. They’re gonna rule that he’s dead. Let him rest in peace.”

  “Who is this? Why do you care?”

  “Just listen. I’m telling you to drop the Randall case. It’s not good for your health. As a matter of fact, to prove my point, I suggest that you evacuate your building. I’m gonna show you that I’m not kidding. Get your people out. You have three minutes. Then there’s gonna be a little explosion.”

/>   The voice hung up. Catrina sat frozen for an instant, evaluating the threat then jumped up.

  “EVERYONE, OUT. NOW!” she screamed as she grabbed her coat and purse.

  “Everybody, get out. There’s a bomb in here.” She ran to her door and saw that there were only five women still at their desks. Out. Now!”

  She ran to the restrooms to check. “Anyone in here?” she screamed at the door. She dashed inside and looked under the stalls for feet.

  She opened the door to the men’s room. “Anyone here?”

  No answer.

  Back in the bullpen, she noted that everyone was filling out the door. “Quick ladies. Be quick. We don’t know when it will go off.”

  “Is everyone out?” she asked the woman in front of her as they hurried down the stairs.

  “Yes, I think so,” the short brunette said.

  “Good. Gail, you’re a safety monitor. Did you grab your checklist?”

  ‘Yes, I got it.” The skinny woman with blonde hair waved a brief case at Catrina. “I have the whole kit. I’ll start calling everyone just as soon as we’ve done a head count.”

  The women crashed through the door into the parking lot and ran for the far corner. Gail opened her briefcase and took out a clipboard. She noted the people present then began calling those not there to make sure they were safe.

  Catrina watched, nodded, pulled the cell phone from her purse and dialed 911.

  “911, what is your emergency?” the operator asked.

  “A bomb threat. This is Catrina Flaherty of Flaherty & Associates. Our office is at Sixth and Massachusetts. Someone just called in a bomb threat.”

  “Are you evacuating the building, ma’am?”

  “Yes, I think we’ve got everyone out. We’re just doing a head count now.”

  Catrina heard a soft buzzing sound behind her. She turned and looked for the source. It was above her.

  There it was, one of those four bladed drone things. It was probably a news camera. How had they gotten here so fast? Did someone call the TV station with the threat too?

  The small helicopter had something hanging underneath it. That wasn’t a camera. What was it?

  The drone flew over Catrina’s head and straight into the doorway to her building. When it hit the glass, there was a loud explosion.

  ****

  “Good afternoon, boys and girls, this is Dave Lawrence and welcome back to Crime Beat, the show that focuses the harsh light of day on Seattle’s seamy underbelly. We’ve been talking to Seattle Chief of Police, Antonio Diaz, about racial relations and racial profiling in the Seattle Police Department. This is the part of our show where you get to participate.”

  Dave took a moment to collect his thoughts. This was his favorite part of the show; he never knew what would happen. “Our phone lines are open. Give us a call. What do you think about racial profiling? You can ask Chief Diaz about anything. Go ahead. Give me a call.”

  Dave Lawrence pushed the button and phone lines started to light up. Good, they were out there, listening. The last few years had been particularly difficult for the Seattle Police Department. The U.S. Department of Justice had stepped in and mandated changes.

  “You all know the score,” Lawrence said into his microphone. “The SPD shot and killed a Native American wood carver for refusing to put down his knife, we’ve all seen the video tape of officers kicking a Hispanic male, who, it turned out, wasn’t even a suspect, and then there’s the video of an SPD officer punching a black woman who he stopped for jay walking. The phone lines are open. Give me a call, tell me what you think.”

  While Lawrence was talking, his engineer waved a piece of paper at him. The engineer held the paper up to the window for Lawrence to read.

  “Just a minute folks. We have some late breaking news here,” Lawrence said, straining to read the page.

  “Holy mackerel. Folks you’re not going to believe this! We have Clayton Johnson-White, the Fly Away Bandit, on the line.”

  He pushed the button for line one.

  “Clayton Johnson-White, you are live, on the air. Hello. Welcome to Crime Beat.”

  “Hi, Mr. Lawrence. Can you hear me?”

  “Yes. Just fine. Where are you Clayton?”

  “I’d rather not say. I’m not in Washington anymore. I decided it was getting a little too hot, so I beat feet for friendlier climes.”

  “What can you tell us about your adventures, Clayton? How did you get where you are?”

  “I like to fly, you know. I’ve been teaching myself. I’ve read a bunch of books and spend a lot of time on-line learning about airplanes. I played a lot of Microsoft Flight Simulator, but there’s nothing like the real thing. I’ve gotten in quite a bit of ‘stick time’ now. I’ve flown almost two thousand miles so far and I’m not at my destination yet.”

  “Where are you headed, Clayton?” Lawrence’s pulse was throbbing in his neck.

  “Out of the country. There’s a whole big world out there and I’m going to explore it.”

  “Clayton, you posted a live Webcam feed on your Facebook page a few days ago. You really shoved it to the police. Are you going to do that again? To keep your fans informed about your progress?”

  “Hell, yeah. Oops. Can I say hell on the radio?”

  “H-E-double hockey sticks no. The FCC will probably bust us for that little outburst. Try to keep it G-rated.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Lawrence. But yes, I’ll keep up my Facebook page, to let everyone know how I’m doing. I like the Go Pro camera. I’ll keep posting videos and do some live Webcam feeds. This is getting to be a lot of fun. I’m getting lots of fan mail.”

  “Who is writing to you?”

  “Girls, mostly. I did have a couple of offers from gay boys, but I don’t rock that way. I’m getting lots of offers from girls to stop at their places when I’m in their area. You know, this could be kinda fun.”

  “Have you taken any of them up on it yet?”

  “Not yet. I haven’t heard from anyone who’s where I’m going, but you never know. I should thank you, and all of the press.”

  “What for, Clayton?”

  “You guys made me famous. I see my name in the paper, on TV all the time. I’ve decided that I’m going to sell my story to the movies. I gotta call my lawyer and see if he can set it up. I think my story would make a better movie than Catch Me If You Can, don’t you?”

  “It certainly has all the elements. Have you thought about a TV series? A reality show, maybe?”

  “No. That’s a great idea. I could have a camera crew following me around, filming me making fools of the cops.”

  “I’m not sure how that would work, but I know some TV producers, maybe we can look into it.”

  Dave Lawrence, TV producer. It appealed to Dave—all those dollar signs in his future.

  “Did you know that the good people of Camano Island hired a bounty hunter to find you?” Lawrence asked.

  “A bounty hunter?”

  “Yes. They ran a KickStarter campaign and raised the money to hire James Winston, a well known bounty hunter to track you down and bring you in.”

  “Wow! I had no idea. Do you know where he is?”

  “The last time we heard a report on him, he was in Indiana. It seems he’s following your trail of crashed airplanes around the country.”

  “Geez. I never thought of that. What does he want?”

  “He was hired to track you down and bring you back to Island County to stand trial.”

  “I... I guess I better watch my back. I’m going to have to be a little more careful.”

  “Do you have any message for Mr. Winston, Clayton?”

  “Yeah. Catch me if you can.”

  ****

  Catrina kicked at the broken glass with the toe of her boot. Anger rose in her throat and tears streamed down her eyes. The bastard. Who had done this? Why?

  Well, she knew why. They didn’t want her investigating Richard Randall’s disappearance. But why blow up her office? The
y should know that it wouldn’t stop her. If anything, it would spur her on, make her more determined to find out who did this and why.

  “This is quite a mess.” Ted walked up behind Catrina. “Cat, I’m really sorry.”

  Catrina turned and saw her young partner. “Oh, Ted.” She threw her arms around his neck and sobbed. “I’m just glad no one was hurt.”

  “Yeah,” Ted felt a little awkward, but put his arms around her waist. “But why? What did they hope to gain?”

  Catrina wiped her eyes. “They pissed me off, that’s what they gained. Heaven help them when I catch up with them.”

  Police and fire investigators were still picking over the scene.

  “Have you been inside yet?” Catrina asked.

  “Yeah, I talked to Sergeant Carver over there,” Ted pointed to a huge black man in a SPD uniform. “I got him to let me up the back way. The office is intact. All the damage seems to be in the entry way.”

  “And the computers and everything are still working?”

  “You know how heavy that office door is. It seems to have kept the blast out. The entranceway and stairs are a mess, but inside the office itself, it’s business as usual. The network and servers all seem to be okay.”

  Abiba showed up with two Beach Hut coffee cups in her hands. “Good morning, Mrs. Flaherty, Mr. Higuera. I thought you might need these.” She offered the coffee to Catrina and Ted.

  “Thanks, Abiba. You’re the best.” Catrina sipped at the coffee. “I see you patronized one of our client’s coffee shacks.”

  “They’re on my way here. Drive through.” Abiba said in her upper-class British accent. “Easier than having to go to Starbucks.”

  “What did you think of the baristas?” Ted asked.

  “It looked like she was pretty cold to me. I can’t understand how they can work with no clothes in this weather.” Abiba shivered and her whole body jiggled. “She was a nice girl though, a single mom, working her way through school. She has a nine-year-old in the fourth grade.”

  “I called the insurance company,” Catrina said. “They’re sending out an adjuster this morning. They said that this should be covered by our policy.”