2023/10/31 - Karen Coe, P.I. Ch. 01

Before Karen went home for the night, she took one last pass through the burn unit and checked on Jason Brenner. Made small talk with his wife and parents. Jason's parents were proud that he had a succesful landscaping business. He had started mowing lawns when he was 16, and never looked back. At 17 he'd met Deena, who was babysitting for one of his customers. They dated and eventually married. Deena also brought in some income and they lived well. She was an administrative assistant at Orsini Corporation, a large commercial real estate office on a large commercial boulevard. Hospital visiting hours were just about over. She'd been able to see Jason briefly. He was still unconscious and sedated. And miraculously still alive. Jason's parents left.

Before she left for the night, Deena pulled out her iPhone and put in a call to her sister Carrie in Georgia to keep her updated. While Deena was in the middle of her conversation, Karen noticed a sudden muted humming coming from inside Deena's purse, sitting a few feet away on the chair. Sounded like a cel phone. Deena's eyes went to her purse, while she maintained a conversation with her sister. Then her eyes went nervously to Karen, who pretended not to notice. Deena wrapped up her phone call and Karen offered to walk her to her car. It was dark, so it was a welcome offer. They approached a black late model BMW SUV. "Wow, nice car!"

"Thanks, Jason got it for me a few months back. It was used but low milage. I picked it out and he ponied up. That's my guy!" Then Karen walked around, admiring it, and stopped in her tracks when she got to the tailgate. There in the lower left corner of the rear window was a yellow oval-shaped sticker from Goncalves Auto Sales and Service.

**************************************************

Brack drove. Karen navigated, "OK. Slow down but don't stop.... look.... look.... look there! There it is! Orsini's commercial real estate office. Keep going past it, OK, turn into the gas station on the left up ahead." Brack pulled into a parking space at the 24/365.

"What's going on, Karen?"

"Have faith, big boy.... let... me... check..." and she looked at a few more things on her iPhone. "Alright, alright. Brack, I'll need you to head back the way we came but go slow, and be ready to turn... ok...ok. Just past Orsini's..... there! Salonika Diner! Pull in!" They walked in and grabbed a booth.

"Colangelo, I'm not a real breakfast guy... "

"You are today, hot stuff." Their waitress was Myra. Karen ordered two "Super Starters" (eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, pancakes) and told Myra to just leave the coffee pot on the table. "Now, Brack, look at this." She showed him a picture on her iPhone. "I took this last night when I walked Deena Brenner to her car."

"What am I looking at there, Karen?"

"You are looking at a sticker with the name of the auto dealer she bought her SUV from, Goncalves Auto. Now look at this". She lifted a large clasp envelope she'd carried in with her off the seat, opened it and pulled out a few glossies. She sifted through them, found the one she wanted, and threw it on the table.

"Clint Hopwood's car, what's left of it."

The explosion had done a number on the windows, but the sticker on the lower left of the rear window had held the shards together. It was slightly singed, but definitely oval in shape, and barely recognizable as a Goncalves sticker.

"Hoe-lee shit, Colangelo! Our first connection. Do you believe in coincidences?"

"Sometimes they happen, Brack. But let's remember where we are."

"OK, we are in a diner, next to the office building where Deena Brenner works. Nothing remarkable there, Karen... we sought this place out."

"OK Brack, get up and come sit next to me on this side of the table." He smiled as he slid in next to her. "Now Brack, what do you see across the road, just down a bit?" His mouth dropped as he saw the big yellow oval sign on a pole for Goncalves Auto Sales and Service. "Brack, you asked about coincidences. Yes I believe they exist, but no, this is not one of them."

The waitress came over and Karen started right up with the fluent Waitress-ese, "Hey shoog, you do a great job, you worked here long?"

"10 years is all!"

"Well honey you must know all the regulars. You get the girls from next door at Orsini?"

"Sure thing, hon, they're here all the time."

Karen pulls up a photo on her phone, "Here, howbout this one..."

"Deena! She's here a good bit. Say, she's not in any trouble is she?"

"Oh heavens no! Why, does she seem like the kind that would find trouble?"

"Oh no, not Deena. She's sweet as a peach. Can't say as I like her boyfriend much, though."

Karen pulled out two 50's for a 20-dollar tab. "Here Myra, keep the change for being so helpful". Her eyes lit up. "What can you tell me about Deena's boyfriend, Myra?"

"Well he's Tony, I think his real name is Antonio Soares. Good looking. Younger, maybe 22? I think he's the nephew of old man Goncalves who owns the car place across the way. Sorta like the black sheep. He works there but they just about tolerate him. I know I can just about stand him myself. He seems like he's on something, I don't know, zonked out on some shit. I don't get it, she could do so much better."

***************************************************

Brackwell Waterhouse got a hold of Dante Washington. "Dante, I want you to dig into some names and make some connections. Bank accounts, credit cards, social media, cel phones, any sign of interaction between our victims or their families and a couple of local businesses..... Orsini Real Estate is one, and the other is Goncalves Auto Sales and Service. Run a search on their principals. Also look for anyone named Soares, either Antonio or Tony. 22 years old plus or minus a few. He may be connected to Goncalves."

******************************************************

The following morning ATF Agent Dante Washington walked into RISP like the cock of the roost. A big smile that he had to subdue once the meeting got underway, given the solemnity of the case. Washington began, "First thing to report is that we have not had a bombing since Vanessa Voight and her kids. Not sure what it means, though. More could be coming and something has slowed him down, such as arrest for, oh I don't know, being in a bar fight, or he had a medical emergency and is in intensive care. Something unforeseen that has put him off schedule. Or maybe these were targeted attacks and he has hit everyone on his list. Yes, Brenner is still alive, and he might be comng back to finish the job, but we have him under guard."

"Now.... the first headline is that Goncalves Auto seems to be the link. The car from the Hopwood explosion was bought there. So was Deena Brenner's car. The one she drives, not her husband's pickup from the explosion. The cars from the Shah and Voight explosions were not bought there, but other cars that they owned were. Now, the big news. During a period of one week, ending six days before the first bombing, all four of the bombed cars were brought into Goncalves for service work." The people in the conference room gasped as one.

"I've applied for a search warrant for Goncalves Auto. All their records including any of their indoor or outdoor video surveillance."

At that point, Karen spoke up, "Dante, it's funny you should mention that we haven't had a bombing since Voight. I'm also getting a feeling that a plan was executed and is now finished. The plan was to kill one person and the others were a smokescreen. If I had to guess in any scenario where there are four events, it would make sense that the purpose of the first two would be to both set up the smokescreen and provide some practice for the bomber. The third would be the target and the fourth would complete the smokescreen. There is no need for a fifth event or an indefinite bombing campaign. A longer campaign is more chance of getting caught. Also, when you try to hide something, you don't leave it in the front window. You bury it in a closet in the middle of the house. Here, you bury the intended victim in the middle of the pack. I'm going with Jason Brenner as our intended target. Dante, how easy would it be to get a search warrant for the Brenner home?"

"It can be done, but why would we need to? Mrs Brenner has let us into her house and we were allowed to look for hints as to who would want to try to kill her husband."

"Dante, I'm getting a bad read on her. My gut tells me that she allowed you into a sanitized environment when she let you search her home. Did your financials on their accounts show you anything about her activities or purchases?"

"Karen, we have not gone any deeper than looking to establish links with Goncalves Auto. And, as expected, we are seeing statements showing payment for repairs at Goncalves a couple of weeks before Mr Brenner's car detonated. Why are we not looking for a similar warrant to tear up the Shah and Hopwood houses?"

"Well, Agent Washington, I have some as-yet-unconfirmed news about Deena Brenner. She has been seen in the company of a man we believe to be employed by Goncalves. That is the Antonio Soares that SA Waterhouse discussed with you. Were you able to confirm that?"

"We were. Antonio Soares does indeed work for Goncalves. But he has been away in Miami on vacation since a few days prior to the first bombing."

"Miami, you say," piped Brack, "was that not where Deena Brenner flew in from when we notified her about her husband?"

"That's it," replied Karen, "which is another reason I think we need to look deeper at her financials... look at every can of beans she purchased, every time she pumped gas, every time she drew cash at an ATM, every damn transaction no matter how small. Then a warrant for her property and everything on it, including her vehicle and her purse. Then we just have to make sure she's home when we execute. If she gets wind that we've gone in, but she's not there, that could spook her into sanitizing her purse and car as well."

"Alright Ms Colangelo. Sounds like a plan. I'll work on the financials a bit more. You may have uncorroborated evidence of an extramarital, but I'm going to need a smoking gun of some sort to convince a judge we have sufficient probable cause to justify a search warrant. If she's involved, we can't go in flimsy. If we find evidence and it gets thrown out because we played fast and loose, we may never get a second chance to get it right. By tomorrow morning I'll try to have our ducks lined up."

Karen and Brack went back to the hospital to monitor the situation with Jason Brenner. He was awake, to the extent that he wasn't sleeping off the sedatives and painkillers. He would drift into lucidity for brief stretches. But he remembered nothing. Typical of victims who suffer traumatic injury, his last memories were of the days prior to the explosion. When asked about the state of his marriage, he went silent and closed his eyes. Whether he was drifting out of lucidity or just avoiding an unpleasant topic was hard to decipher. Perhaps it was some of each.

And Karen kept a particular eye on Deena. How she interacted with the nurses, doctors, and Jason's parents, all of whom were in and out and in and out. And how she interacted with her husband, who was also in and out. The first thing she noticed was that she was no longer quite as concerned about her husband's recovery. When he was at death's door, she said all the right things and showed all the right concerns. When she was allowed to see him, she reacted as expected.

Now that he was awake and it looked as though he might survive, she acted more indifferent toward him, she seemed increasingly more subdued. The more encouraging the news was, the more muted her sense of joy seemed. Her interaction with her husband was now not as one might expect. No putting on a happy face before walking into the room, no soft words of false optimism, very little by way of tones of endearment. His eyes responded favourably to his doctors, nurses and parents. He looked sad and defeated when she approached him.

And things were changed in the way Deena comported herself with Jason's parents. The original tears and hugging and prayers for Jason's recovery were replaced by a distance, both physically and emotionally. She tried to avoid being with them. A wall descended between them. In fact, a wall seemed to build between Deena and the world. She often had a numb and vacant look about her. She stared at the wall a lot. She gazed out the window of Jason's room. She didn't seem to eat much.

When Dante Washington looked at the activities of the Brenners, he saw that some transactions went through the joint family account, such as the car repair at Goncalves Auto. There was also an account in Deena's name only. Four things caught his eye when looking through the transactions in her solo account. Cash deposits of anywhere from $300 to $3000 once or twice a week. A purchase of two round-trip airline tickets to Miami, a purchase of some plumbing pipe, pipe fittings and electrical wiring at a Home Depot outside Providence. And the purchase of six identical decent quality disposable mobile phones, pre-loaded with phone minutes. Two were loaded with large amounts of time. The other four phones were loaded with the minimum time offered.

Surveillance video had been secured from the point of purchase at an electronics shop in Providence. The date and time of purchase shown on her transaction log matched the time stamp on the video. There stood Deena Brenner clearly in the footage, making the phone purchase. The Home Depot surveillance on the other hand was older generation and the data wiped every 48 hours, so there was no visual of her for the pipe and wire transaction.

The SKU number of the items purchased showed that all 6 phones were the same make and model. And the forensic team had identified the remnants of cel phones recovered from three of the blasts. They matched each other. And they matched the make of the phones bought by Deena Brenner. She had no background that would indicate a talent for bomb-building. But as Karen perused his records, she noticed that Antonio Soares did.

He was 21 years old and had served in the navy. He was trained in underwater detonation. He had an aptitude for electronics, developed as a teenager before he joined the navy. During high school, his after-school and weekend activities consisted of learning how to work on the electrical systems of the cars brought into his uncle's automotive business, Goncalves Auto. He also discovered the joys of seducing married women.

Many a wife had brought the family car in for servicing, only to find themselves getting serviced by Antonio Soares. Even as a young man in his mid-teens, he was devilishly handsome, muscular and suave with the ladies. He preferred affairs with older wives to dating girls his own age. He didn't need to expend money, time or effort on wining and dining. His smile was fetching, but he was without scruple. He did dream of settling down one day, but he would do it by selecting from the wide choice of wives, and merely take her away from her husband. He preferred that she be hot, childless, and married to a rich husband. Her split of the marital assets would have to be able to support him. It had also occurred to him that widows do not have to split assets.

*************************************************

Late that night, Brack Waterhouse got a call from RISP Commander Sean Brennan. He was directly overseeing one facet of the operation. They were trying to locate Antonio Soares. He had gone off radar. They knew what he looked like. They knew he had flown to Miami with Deena Brenner days before the bombings began. Airport surveillance systems had recorded both their departure and their arrival. But Miami police and Florida State Police had not located him. If he were to sneak back north undetected, he would likely contact known associates. So Brennan had his guys doing their own stakeouts. They were sitting on Goncalves Auto, Soares' last known address, the homes of various family members.

And they sat on Deena Brenner's home and place of employment. Commander Brennan's report to Waterhouse was that Deena seemed to leave Jason's hospital room earlier than usual. They tailed her to a Starbucks. She walked out a few minutes later sipping a hot beverage. She stopped at a CVS, and walked out with a small shopping bag. She went home. The detectives sat on her house. At 5.30 her car left the garage and drove over her crumbled driveway. They tailed her to an upscale hotel in Providence. She emerged from her black BMW SUV dressed to the nines. She was dressed the way a woman would dress for a date. An elegant date. A sexy date. The kind of dress that would make a husband say "Just where do you think you're going dressed like that?"

She was followed into the hotel's restaurant, where she was observed meeting a man. They had hoped she'd be leading them to the elusive Soares. But this was no 20-something. He was a 50-ish fellow. Looked well-to-do. Wore a wedding ring. She was not wearing hers. Stakeout called for backup. They now had a second target. They flirted and dined, then he signed the tab which was likely sent to the credit card on file at the front desk for the room he'd booked. Indeed, the couple made their way through the lobby to the lift, the gentleman's hand sliding down Deena's back and landing on her ass as the door closed.

While all this was going on, one half of the surveillance team followed the waiter back to the cash drawer and flashed a badge and a little monetary incentive, to get a look at the signed receipt. John F Mahoney, Room 412. Like clockwork, two hours later, the elevator doors opened and Deena stepped out alone, quickly exited the hotel and drove home. Detective Kramer waited in the lobby for the appearance of John Mahoney. Kramer's partner, a pretty young thing called Detective Mazza waited patiently upstairs in the hallway for the door to room 412 to open.

As Mahoney stepped out, she nonchalantly made her way toward the elevators from the opposite direction, "Ooh, please hold the door for me!". She hurried up a bit. As she rode the lift down, she made small talk with Mahoney and as they reached the lobby, the door opened and she asked him if he'd join her in the bar for a drink. "Um, I'm flattered you'd ask but I do need to be getting home." Kramer stepped up and flashed a badge.

Mahoney looked at Mazza and she smiled, "Mr Mahoney, we really do need you to sit with us in the bar for a few minutes."

"So you're with the cop, I take it."

She pulled her shield, "I'm Detective Mazza, this is my partner Detective Kramer."

Kramer joined in, "You want to have this conversation here. You do not want to have this chat at home in front of your wife, er, Nancy, is it?" Mahoney noticeably paled. They sat at a table in the corner.

Mazza flashed her badge and waved off the waitress. "OK Mr Mahoney, tell us about Deena."

"Deena? I don't know a Deena."

"Fair enough. Tell me about the woman you spent an hour dining with tonight. The woman you spent two hours playing gin rummy with in room 412."

Silence.

"Now!, Mr Mahoney, or do we bring Nancy and the kids in on this conversation?"

Mahoney swallowed hard and let it spill. She was an escort. She went by Brandy. A guy he knew had told him about some of the hot girls he knew from the clubs. Girls that wanted good time, a night out, no strings. In fact, for $500 and a nice dinner, they would never call you at home or work. These girls would wait for the men to call them. This Brandy was the best of the three girls this guy had provided. He tipped her an extra $100. That's $600 for the girl, and between supper and the hotel room, the night cost him just under $1000.