Boosted Pt. 09

Sean placed his computer case on his desk Monday morning and pulled the laptop from the bag. CJ was being arraigned today and he was running out of time to get the evidence the District Attorney needed to really put her away. His computer had been working on cracking the zip file since Thursday evening, but as of ten minutes ago it hadn't succeeded.

Friday, he'd thumbed through the paper files they'd collected. He hadn't looked at everything, but his cursory glance indicated there was nothing there other than ten years of work orders, invoices, and other paperwork related to running BIGS. The paper files stopped in 2013, which probably meant there was more on the computer sitting on the service desk at BIGS. He'd considered driving over there Friday to dig through the computer files but had changed his mind. Considering the paper files were clean, the service computer files were probably clean as well.

He'd also looked through more of the files he'd pulled from CJ's computer. He'd found what appeared to be accounting files, but since he didn't have the software to open them, their contents remained a mystery. At CJ's arraignment, the Assistant District Attorney was going to ask that CJ's bail be contingent upon her providing all passwords for her computer, particularly the password for the zip file. Sean was almost sure she'd rather sit in jail than give that up. He had a feeling that if he could crack the zip file, everything the DA needed to send CJ away for a long time would be right there.

Mentally saying a small prayer, he opened the laptop. He ground his teeth in annoyance. The computer was still working on the crack. He didn't know why he expected a different result. He'd set the computer up on the bar in his apartment and let it run all weekend while he spent his time at Maggie's. He'd done that expressly, and with Maggie's blessing, so he couldn't obsessively check it every ten minutes the entire weekend. He'd stopped by his apartment this morning and picked the computer up, and since it wasn't done then, he didn't know why he even bothered to hope it was done now. The crack could finish while he was staring at the screen, or it could never succeed in breaking the password.

The news wasn't all bad. County had raided Buddy Squire Auto Salvage. Hard evidence had been thin, but they'd found two chassis, a completely stripped Chevrolet Tahoe and a Toyota Avalon that was still in the process of being dismantled, both with VINs that matched cars recently stolen in Fayetteville. It seemed BIGS wasn't selective about where the boosted cars came from. According to Lindly, Buddy had proclaimed his innocence, but the Siouan County Sheriff's Department had taken him into custody when he couldn't produce paperwork, not even so much as a bill of sale, to prove he'd purchased the cars as salvage. County was going to have a much tougher job building their case against Buddy since Buddy Squire Auto Salvage was old school and paper based. The only thing computerized was the parts inventory. Trying to determine if any of the parts in his inventory came from a stolen car wasn't a job he'd want to do. He also doubted they were going to find any more chassis. They were probably already crushed. Trying to pull a VIN tag off the mangled remains after two or three cars had been crushed together was another job he was glad he didn't have to do.

He drummed his fingers on his desk as he thought. He was at a dead-end on the investigation unless he could turn up something new. What he had wouldn't hold CJ for long. She'd had titles for the two Porsches, otherwise she couldn't have registered the cars in her name. Where she'd gotten the documents he had no idea, but he had little doubt her defense would be she'd been duped into buying stolen cars. The evidence he had, while damning, was all circumstantial, so he couldn't prove, yet, she was responsible for changing the car's VIN plates. If he couldn't find something to tie her to changing the VIN numbers, she'd probably walk.

He rapped a quick ditty on the desk and then stood. Leaving the computer to grind away on the zip file hack, he decided to go look through CJ's office again, hoping to find something that might be a password. His first stop was the evidence vault where he picked up the keys to BIGS. "Be back in a few," he said to Michelle as he walked through the lobby.

He drove to BIGS and pulled to a stop in the parking lot. He unlocked the building and spent twenty minutes looking through CJ's desk. He'd already done this once, but he was more thorough this time, looking under drawers, searching for false bottoms, and examining every scrap of paper for a hint to the password. He found nothing. "Well... shit," he muttered as he rose from behind the desk.

Since he was at BIGS anyway he stopped at the service desk to have a poke around on the service computer. The computer was on and unlocked, so he spent a half-hour clicking around in the software. He found only what he expected to find, customer records much like the paper copies he had at the station. Whatever CJ was doing, unsurprisingly, she was doing completely off the books. Maybe the guys working in the back really didn't know what was going on at night. CJ was smart, that much was certain. She'd compartmentalized her operations. A day crew worked running a legitimate business. At night, she probably brought in a second crew to quickly strip cars of the easy to remove and valuable pieces, things like grills, bumpers, hoods, trunks, fenders, head and tail lamps, doors, and the like. Those probably went to one place, the remains of the car went to Buddy Squire, and nobody, except CJ, had the whole picture.

As he clicked and typed, he noticed a postal truck stopping at the mailbox. He went back to his task, but when that turned up nothing, he backed out of the software until it was on the home screen where he'd found it. He walked through the shop, but like the public area up front, he saw nothing incriminating to indicate anything illegal was happening. With a sigh he decided he was going to have to depend on his computer finding the password for the zip file, but he was beginning to lose hope. As tightly as CJ ran her operation, she was probably smart enough to use a password strong enough that it'd take his computer a few thousand years to find. He walked out of BIGS and locked the door. He needed an officer to pull the owner information for the cars still on the premise, so they could contact the owners and have them come retrieve their property. Those that weren't registered, and there were at least two cars on the lot that didn't have plates, they'd probably have to go through the service computer to get names and phone numbers.

He opened the door to his car and started to sit down before he changed his mind. Technically, he couldn't take the mail from the mailbox because it wasn't part of the original seizure of evidence, but what the judge didn't know wouldn't hurt him. He walked to the box and pulled out three days' worth of mail. He thumbed through it as he walked back to his car. All the mail, mostly catalogs and what appeared to be sales literature, had forwarding address labels attached. The exception was an envelope with the Chase logo, addressed to Cynthia J. Bowetan and BIGS Automotive Repair. He tossed the mail into the passenger seat. He'd add it to the pile of evidence at the station.

He drove back to the station, walking in through the lobby while waving to Michelle, using his key to open the door since she was working a call. He paused in the conference room and tossed the mail onto one of the evidence boxes stacked in the corner, keeping only what he suspected was a credit card statement. He smiled as he turned away. Now the mail was part of the original seizure as far as anyone was concerned, so long as nobody looked at the printed United States Postal Service mailing date too closely.

His computer was still grinding away on the zip file as he sat behind his desk. He slid the computer to the side, ran his finger under the envelope's flap to open it, and pulled out the statement. He glanced down the list. All the charges appeared related to BIGS operations. The only thing that caught his eye were two charges, a couple of weeks apart, to Porsche of Bridgewater, for over seven hundred dollars each. He turned to his computer and looked up Porsche of Bridgewater.

He leaned back in his chair, tugging at his bottom lip. Porsche of Bridgewater was in New Jersey. Why would CJ use a dealer in New Jersey when there was one in Raleigh? He thought it over for a moment and then picked up his phone, quickly dialing the service department using the number displayed on his screen.

"Porsche of Bridgewater, Enrique speaking."

"I'd like to speak to the service manager please."

"Who's calling?"

"Sean McGhee, Brunswick Police Department."

There was a long pause. "Just a moment."

Sean waited on the phone for several long moments. He could imagine the frantic conversations that were going on while he waited. "This is Darrell Cheever."

"Mr. Cheever, I'm hoping you can help me out. I have a couple of charges here to Cynthia Bowetan, dated April eighteenth and May second, for $706.23 each. Can you tell me what those charges are for?"

"You said you were with the Brunswick Police Department?"

"That's correct."

"Where, exactly, is Brunswick?"

"North Carolina."

There was a pause. "I'm afraid I can't release customer information over the phone."

"Very well. I'll have a couple of Bridgewater officers there within the hour. You can give them the information. Thank you for--"

"Wait a minute! What is it you want to know?"

"The charges, what were they for?"

"Hang on a second. What were the dates and amounts?"

"April eighteenth and May second, for $706.23, each. The charge was to Cynthia J. Bowetan. I can give you the credit card number if you want it."

Sean heard some clicking as Darrell typed on a computer. "The charges were for keys, two for each transaction."

Sean smiled and gave his fist a small pump in victory. "If I give you two VINs, will you confirm it was for the keys purchased?"

"You already have the VIN?"

"I do," Sean said, calling up the case in PISTOL to get the VIN numbers for the stolen cars.

"Give me the first VIN."

"This is for the 2017 Panamera." He read off the number.

"Yes," Darrell confirmed.

"The second is for a 2018 911." Again, Sean read off the seventeen-digit number.

"That also matches. What's this about?"

"Those two cars were reported stolen in the Raleigh area. It appears your dealership provided replacement keys."

"Impossible! Before we will provide replacement keys based on a VIN, the owner has to present proof of ownership, such as a title, and a photo ID. The name on both documents must match. Not only that, but the keys must be programmed to the car before they'll work. The charge was for the replacement key and programming, so the car had to have been here." There was the rattle of more typing. "In fact, I have the service document right here that says we programmed the keys."

"I understand what you're saying, but can you give me another explanation for how you provided four keys for two cars stolen in Raleigh? Further, I'm relatively sure the cars haven't been there. I've been investigating a car theft ring and I know the Panamera wasn't in New Jersey when the charge was made because we had the vehicle under surveillance." That last statement was a bit of a stretch, but he'd seen the Panamera in the shop and he was pretty sure it didn't go anywhere. How could it? BIGS didn't have a key.

Darrell was quiet for a long time. "I don't have an answer for that."

"I'm not interested in causing you trouble. The people running the ring knew what they were doing, but I'd suggest you find out how this happened to prevent it from happening again. I suspect as I build my case, I'm going to find several more charges from your dealership for keys. If I do, it's almost certain someone there is providing keys under the table."

There was another short pause. "Thank you, officer. I'll certainly look into this," Darrell said, his voice hard.

"Thank you for the help." Sean banged the phone down and bounded from his desk and grabbed BIGS keys from the evidence room. He needed to go back to BIGS. "Be back in half an hour," he said as he hurried through the lobby.

He threw himself under the wheel of his car and raced out of the station's lot. He didn't run the car's emergency beacons, but he didn't pay close attention to posted speeds either. He wheeled his car to a stop in BIGS' parking lot, unlocked the front door, and went directly to the service computer. It took him a moment to find the screen he was looking for, and then keyed in 2017 Porsche Panamera. A listing came up, indicating the car was owned by Mr. Jay Hall. He smiled. That wasn't the actual owner's name. The car was supposedly in the shop for routine maintenance. His smile spread. There were notes that Mr. Hall had forgotten to leave his key and was out of town for a week. It was all coming together. He next looked up the 911. Mr. Rodney Letterman wanted the car serviced and wanted two extra keys programmed for the car. The keys to be programmed were provided.

"Gotcha!"

He printed off the two service tickets and took them with him to add to the mounting evidence against CJ. He still didn't have anything conclusive. All he had were the two stolen cars that had, probably, been in BIGS shop. He didn't know the VINs for the cars in the shop because that wasn't stored in the software... even though there was a place for it. He quickly picked three other cars at random... and all three had VINs attached to their service record. Even if the two Porsches had their VIN in the system, and the VINs matched, it didn't prove CJ had stolen the cars, but it was another piece of the puzzle.

He returned to the station, scanned the two service documents into PISTOL, and attached them to the case. He was certain if he called enough locksmiths in the area, he'd eventually find one, or more, that had programmed the Porsches keys... unless someone was doing it on the side and under the table. It was probably the latter because someone would get suspicious if they were continuously having to program new keys at one location. If CJ was providing the keys, there'd be little, if any, evidence that someone was programming keys on the sly.

He'd just closed out PISTOL, and was wondering what his next step would be, when his computer dinged and the minimized window in the task bar popped open. The crack had finished.

"Yes!" he hissed, pulling the computer over in front of him.

The password was '80wet@n.' He stared at the password a moment before it hit him. It was CJ's last name with lookalike characters replacing some of the letters, an eight for the B, zero for the O, and the @ symbol for the A. Or maybe '80 wet @ n' meant something to CJ. Either way, he didn't care. He quickly entered the password into PISTOL so he wouldn't forget it, but then copied the folders contained in the archive to another folder so he wouldn't have to remember it.

Before he looked at the folders, he walked to the evidence locker. After booting CJ's laptop, he tried the password on the computer. It didn't work. He had to give grudging respect to CJ. She knew all the things not to do, like using the same password everywhere.

He powered the computer off, put it back in the evidence box, and returned to his desk. He immediately opened the folder containing all the files and folders he'd saved from the zip archive. It didn't take him long to realize he'd hit the jackpot. There were 203 folders, each folder named with a date, probably the date the car was stolen or CJ received it, and the type of car. There was a folder labeled 2018-04-03 - 2016 Huracan, but the two folders he was most interested in were labeled 2018-04-16 - 2017 Panamera and 2018-04-29 - 2018 911. Inside each folder were out of state titles. The names on the titles didn't match either the name of the owner of the car that had its VIN cloned, or the one whose car was stolen. He printed out the title for the Panamera and retrieved it from the printer. He returned to his desk and called up an Illinois car title on the internet. The title in his hand wasn't embossed like an actual title, but other than that, it looked like the one on his computer. It was almost certainly a forgery, but even looking at it closely, he couldn't see anything wrong with it. There were no fuzzy lines or weird spacing to give it away as phony. If CJ had an embossing machine hidden somewhere the title would certainly pass a cursory inspection. Looking at the dates on the folder, it appeared the files went back almost fifteen years.

He looked at other files in the folder. There were bills of sale for CJ purchasing the car and selling it, a shipping manifest, export documents, container rental contracts, the works, and each folder contained the same sort of documents. He also found a folder that contained blank titles from thirty-two states. It was clear now. CJ was stealing cars, cloning a VIN, forging the documents required to title the car in her name to cover the theft, and then selling it on to a buyer out of the country with a clean title. She'd sent cars to several countries in middle Europe, a couple to Central and South America, and one to China, but the bulk of the cars went to one buyer in Russia, Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky. Никола́й Ива́нович Лобаче́вский was also in the name field. He didn't speak or read Russian, so Nikolai Lobachevsky

and Никола́й Ива́нович Лобаче́вский might be the same person, two different people, or maybe it was all one long name for all he knew. According to documents, the two Porsches were loading into a single container in Wilmington, and shipping to St. Petersburg for delivery to this Lobachevsky fellow. He assumed it was a fellow. Nikolai sounded like a man's name to him.

It was getting close to the end of the day. He first attached all the recovered documents to the case file in PISTOL and entered the facts about the keys. Once that was finished, he packaged all the evidence he'd collected, along with a detailed accounting of where and how he'd collected the information, and sent it all to the DA's office so they'd have it. With the treasure trove of information from the zip file, he was certain they'd recover at least the two stolen Porsches, if not the Huracán and the Range Rover. Even if they couldn't recover any of the cars, the DA had more than enough to put CJ away for a long, long, time.

He looked at the clock and called the number on the sale documents. The phone rang, but nobody answered. Not surprising. He wasn't sure how many hours St. Petersburg was ahead of North Carolina, but it was at least six. That would make it almost eleven p.m. in Russia. He'd call the buyer again tomorrow. He had one final task to complete before he called it a day. He'd previously issued a BOLO on the cars, but now he knew where they were. It was unlikely the Porsches were already containerized, but even if they were, they were waiting on the dock for loading. The ship wasn't supposed to sail until the end of next week. He called the Wilmington police department and forwarded all the information he had, including the shipping company's address. With the cracking of the zip file, the pieces of the case against CJ had fallen into place like dominos.