Exigent Circumstances Ch. 01

"Yes sir." said Halston. "I'll add that it's normal for Energy Dynamics to get their engineers Top Secret clearances, and most of the other employees, from computer programmers to accountants and such, get Secret clearances. That seemed to be standard for them."

Halston: "Mr. Cooper had no debt. His car was paid for, he paid off his credit card every month. He also had a Visa Debit Card, with which he paid most of his monthly bills."

Halston: "The only other thing I have is that a warrant was executed to search his car, home, and examine his credit card records. If he was on a date with that girl last night, he didn't pay for it with either of his cards. The dogs found nothing in his car or home. He has a concealed carry permit, and he owns one 9mmP pistol, a Beretta 92FS Inox, which is stainless steel. It was in the top drawer of his bedside table."

Chief Moynahan said "He wasn't armed while on his date, or on the landing where he was attacked?"

Halston said "That Beretta is the only firearm he's bought through normal, legal means. If he has another one, he bought it 'off books'."

"Or inherited it." I replied, remembering the Peter Frost murder case. (Author's note: 'Private Practice', especially Ch. 03.)

Roark Coleman said "I think we can deduce he wasn't armed last night. No gun on him, and it's unlikely he had one on him---"

"And just how do you assume that?" Captain Claire Michaels asked skeptically, almost venomously.

Yolanda Grissom spoke up and said "Ma'am, he's right, and I'll have more on that in a moment."

"Okay, no gun on him nor in his car." I said. "If there's nothing else on him, let's talk about her."

Halston shook his head sadly as he said "She's proving to be a lot more difficult, sir.

First of all, this 'Nat K. Cole' shows up in the DMV database. But the DMV number is way out of sequence from what it should be. They use an algorithm to create the numbers, based on the birthday and the day of issue. Those numbers are all wrong."

"Fake ID." said Captain Claire Michaels,.

Halston: "And when I drilled down into the metadata, the citation record was not created on the same day the citation found in her apartment was supposedly issued. It was created Wednesday morning."

Cindy said "And we don't need to be the Iron Crowbar to realize that -that- is too much of a coincidence, or one coincidence too many."

"So we're dead in the water." Claire Michaels said.

"No ma'am, we are not." Roark Coleman stated assertively. When everyone looked at him with various shades of skepticism, he said "There was one thing that could not be faked... her photo. If she were really stopped by the Police, or if she needed an ID to enter a facility or venue, the photo had to match her face."

"Duh." Claire Michaels said under her breath.

"That's a good thought, Roark'." I said. "Almost crowbar-worthy. Almost. Keep going."

"Thank you, sir." Roark said. "Also to this point, the DMV photo agrees with the photos of the body at the crime scene and from the morgue, except for the part that she is dead. I think it's her. And if anyone can dig out other instances of that photo, Ranger Halston can."

"I agree." I said. "Ranger Halston, get to work on that. In the meantime, when the autopsy report comes out---"

*KNOCK!* *KNOCK!* *KNOCK!*

In a prodigious act of perfect timing, the knock on the door was followed by the door opening and Martha the M.E. peeking in. I waved her in and she came inside, followed by Kendell Ramsey.

"Excellent timinnnng, Martha." drawled the Chief as Martha and Kendell got a breakfast sandwich and poured some coffee, then sat down with us.

"I just finished the autopsy of the woman." Martha said. "She was grabbed from behind and a hand clapped over her mouth. Blood was smeared on her blouse and her neck, and it was the blood of the young man was stabbed. I think he took her down the stairs with threats, though she did struggle and tried to scream."

Martha: "Probably as she was taken to the perp's vehicle, she was injected with a drug. The toxicology will have to come back for us to know what it was, but it incapacitated her. She was thrown onto a surface, like the trunk of a car or the back of a truck, which caused bruising along the left side of her body from her hip to her upper ribs."

"Let's get to the nitty-grittyyyy." Chief Moynahan said. "Was she sexually assaulted?"

"Yes, Chief." said Martha. "But here's the full story. She was taken from behind, but the physical damage wasn't all that bad, which I believe shows she was unconscious at the time. I think she was bent over the car trunk or back of the truck she'd been transported in."

Martha: "I also suspect she was assaulted by two men, both of whom wore condoms, because i found two different types of lubricants. And one of those lubricants was petroleum jelly. As you all know, petroleum jelly attacks latex and causes condoms to rupture. That's what happened here. The rape kit got a large amount of semen from the girl, which will give us a very strong DNA profile."

I said "And his death?"

Kendell Ramsey said "He was actually stabbed twice: once in the throat, then a second time in the ribcage on his right side. The second thrust to the chest knocked him down, as well. He bled out very quickly. I believe Yolanda will have more on this."

"Good, let's see it." I said.

Yolanda plugged her laptop into the dock, and brought up her 3-D digital mockup. "Here's what the simulation suggests." she said. It showed a dark figure come up the landing. Mark Cooper's 3-D image was shown standing behind and to the left of the woman, who was trying to put her key in the lock. The figure in black stabbed Cooper twice in rapid succession as Cooper turned, then grabbed the woman and half-walked, half-dragged her down the stairs.

Yolanda: "Based upon Mr. Cooper's height of 5'9", the girl's height of 5'8" in her wedge heels, the height of the door and the rails along the walk, and the angles of the wounds, we can predict the perp's height at an even six feet tall, and we can surmise he is fit and agile to make that attack like he did."

"That is an a-maizzz-ing program." complimented the Chief.

"Thank you, Chief." said Yolanda.

"O-kayyyy." drawled the Chief. "Mister Crowbarrrrr, where do we go from here? And keep in mind what I told you, that I don't want you nor anyone giving up your Holiday working like dogs on things that'll keep through the week-ennnnnd."

I said "Yes, Chief. Okay, guys, let's get an APB out on what we know of the killer, as well as his vehicle. Ranger Halston, Lieutenant Milton, work on that partial car tag connected to a Ford Ranger pickup truck. Run that woman's face through every Facial ID program available to us. If anything pops, put out the APBs, get warrants and make arrests, and all that."

Me: "Those programs should be done by noon, so I want you guys to wrap up and go home by then. Lieutenant Parker, you and your team have done an outstanding job all night. You're on call, so keep you're phones on and with you, but I want you to stand down for the rest of the weekend and on Monday. Ditto that for everyone else. We've done what we can, so unless someone spots the truck, all we can do is wait. We'll pick it up hard again on Tuesday."

"Sir, what about the girl's identity?" asked Julia Rodriguez. "And that truck could be in California, Mexico, or Canada by Tuesday."

The Chief intervened: "Yezzzz, it could beeeee. But you sitting here at Headquarters won't stop that if it happens. It's much more like-leeee the perp or perps will hunker down and hidddde. So we have to let the process work out, let it cook. In the meantime, you guys go hommmme, get some rest. Especially yoooo, Commanderrrr."

As the meeting broke up, I realized that everyone wanted to work on the case. I also realized one thing they didn't: the Federal Agents in the room had not said anything substantive. And there was a reason for that...

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

As Team Teddy went back into MCD, Julia lamented "I don't get it. Why are they telling us to stand down on that? What did they do with the real Commander Troy?"

Teddy said "It looked like a tag-team effort between the Commander and the Chief to tell us to drop it until next week. But you're right, Julia... Commander Troy would never let a murderer get away if he could possibly prevent it. So something's up, and it may be beyond our pay grades."

Roark said "Well... I guess they're right. There's really nothing we can do beyond Intel running their algorithms. But you know something? I'd like to see the scene in daylight hours for a moment... and if the office is open, Captain Michaels did get that warrant to go in and get the data of who is leasing that apartment. Anyone care to drive by with me?..."

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

Julia and Roark pulled in to the Garden Spot Apartments parking lot. Getting out of her vehicle, they went up to the main office door.

"Aw, damn." Julia said. "They normally are open on Saturdays, but closed today because of the Holiday."

"Everything is shut down." Roark said. "Maybe that's why Commander Troy had us stand down for the weekend."

"Noooo, I think there's more to that." Julia said. "Let's go take a quick look at the crime scene again, in the daytime." They headed over to the crime scene perimeter. Officer Kevin Buchannan was holding the clipboard. "Hey, Kevin, how's Henry doing?" she asked, referring to Buchannan's son.

"That's why I'm working this weekend, and getting the overtime." Buchannan said, but with a wide grin. "I gotta pay for groceries to feed that kid." The Detectives laughed, then he said "Sorry guys, but the Chief and the Commander sent word to not let any Detectives or CSIs in. Just us security people."

"Aw, that's too bad." Julia said. "We were here all last night, and we were hoping to see it in the daylight for just one minute."

"All right, just one minute." Buchannan said. "I won't write your names down, so they won't find out."

"No no no." said Roark. "Write us down. I don't want you to take the hit. I'll take the arrows."

"Let me take those arrows, then." Buchannan said. "But seriously... sixty seconds. That's all."

The Detectives hustled over to the stairs and went up to the landing. Then Roark suggested they try going the route the killer might've took to the access road behind the building.

"That's interesting." Roark said, taking photos with his Police iPhone. "Cooper bled out like crazy, and they should've stepped in his blood. But there's no bloody spots along the sidewalk here to where the trash cans are, and nothing along the sides."

"What do we make of that?" Julia asked.

Roark said "Well, the obvious is that they did not come this way, at least not just the two of them."

"Duh." said Julia. "It's a good thing I'm used to you."

Roark said "What I meant was that... well, there's a couple of possibilities. The first is that there was a second perp, who wasn't on the landing above, and who carried the girl to the truck."

"If there are two perps," Julia asked, "wouldn't the killer still leave a blood trail?"

Roark said "And that's the second possibility... the killer passed the girl off to the second perp, the went his own way... possibly back into the main parking lot up there. And we wouldn't know, because some of our CSIs may have also tracked some blood..."

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

Meanwhile...

"I don't think they bought it." I said as I took my normal seat to the Chief's left in the Chief's Conference Room. Tanya took her normal place to the Chief's right, and Jack Muscone sat to her right. Tim Jenkins sat at the other end, the monitor screen behind him, and Cindy sat to my left.

"I'm surprised you even attempted to sell it to them." Cindy said.

I said "Well, there really is little anyone can do unless and until someone spots that Ford Ranger with the camper top, and until we find this woman's identity for sure... which is very unlikely to happen."

"Why is that?" asked Tim Jenkins.

"This is almost a carbon-copy of Katherine McAfee." I said (Author's note: 'Climate Injustice', Ch. 03.) "This girl 'Nat K. Cole' is -there-, but her identity and her life are shrouded in obstructions and obfuscations. We know Katherine's fate -only- because Gil Cox and Gary Fenton were observed burying Sage Garrett's body, and Katherine's body was found nearby." (Author's note: 'Mystery At Mystery Lake'.)

Me: "We also know... well, we have no confirmation, but we -knowwww-... that a woman involved in the Cardinal O'Leery case, who we call Lana, was more recently found east of where the other bodies were, but well within the timeframe where Cox and/or Fenton could've been involved... and the Swamp Frogs and Federal Government were heavily involved in all of that." (Author's note: 'Deliver Us From Evil'.)

Me: "This latest attack has a ton of similarities to McAfee, but Cox and Fenton came over all dead, so we know they are not personally involved in this most recent attack. So whoever did this latest killing attempted to take this 'Nat' girl to that old commune... where Tomoko Shimono was found dead. Mystery Lake, Cox and Fenton's favorite burial grounds, was under Police surveillance. And I surmise that that was a place familiar to this killer."

Me: "Yolanda's program showed that it's likely last night's killer was fit and agile. I agree with that. So who might it be? I'll go out on a limb and say that there are two members of Navy Lieutenant Jeff Bayport's Rogue SEAL Team left... Navy Lieutenant David Carter, and Bayport himself."

Me: "Additionally, Mark Wayne Cooper is involved with a Big Boy Elite company, Energy Dynamics. Maybe he was the target, but it is much, much more likely that -she- was. And that's because her apartment was completely cleaned out of anything that could identify her... save one little traffic citation that was prominently posted where we'd find it. And also because the vehicle she apparently was driving is an Energy Dynamics-owned vehicle."

Me: "Ergo, I think Cooper was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and instead of a nice and possibly romantic evening, he very suddenly was murdered. She was the target, and she is now dead. And to finally answer your question, Tim, about why we won't find out who she is... is because I believe she was a Federal Government Agent working within Energy Dynamics."

Tim Jenkins said "I'll buy that for a dollar. But why kill her, and maybe I should be asking why kill her now?"

I said "Well... what's happened recently that ties in with what I've said to this point?"

After a moment of silence, Cindy said "Oh... Lana's body was found."

"Close." I said. "Verrrrry close. Yes, her body was found... and another body was found at the same time." As the room filled with gasps, I said "We have no idea who the other person was, and we can't get any information at all, especially from Clark Webster. The Feds actually removed the bodies from Chief Evans's jurisdiction without so much as telling her, much less getting warrants to do so."

Me: "And I think the Swamp Frogs at the Intelligence Community level will do whatever it takes to keep us from finding out. And maybe these two cases are not related, but I don't have to be the Green Crowbar to be having this powerful vibe that they are somehow connected."

In the silence that enveloped the room as I finished speaking, I saw Jack Muscone and Tim Jenkins look at each other, Muscone's beady black eyes as wide with shock as I'd ever seen them. Tim looked stunned, also. Tanya and Cindy were looking at each other, with looks of 'Oops, I think he did it again'.

"Agents," said Chief Moynahan, "the Iron Crowbar has given you until Tooos-dayyy to find out what the hell is going on here, and get back to us."

"I'll do what I can." Muscone said. "I've seen enough of the Iron Crowbar over the years to know that he rarely even guesses wrong, and to discount what he says would be pure folly. But I don't know if I can get the answers you need by Tuesday."

I said "Whether you do or not, I'm unleashing my Detectives on Tuesday, and they will be relentless in their pursuit of the solutions to this case and the apprehension of these criminals."

"All right, then." Muscone said. "Chief, Commanders, I'll get back in touch with you as soon as I can. Come on, Tim, let's go. We've got a lot of shit to shovel..."

To be continued.