Scavenger Hunt Ch. 01

This story is part of an ongoing series. The chronological order of my stories is listed in WifeWatchman's biography.

Feedback and constructive criticism is very much appreciated, and I encourage feedback for ideas.

This story contains graphic scenes, language and actions that might be extremely offensive to some people. These scenes, words and actions are used only for the literary purposes of this story. The author does not condone murder, racism, racial language, violence, rape or violence against women, and any depictions of any of these in this story should not be construed as acceptance of the above.

There may or may not be discussion of political issues in my stories. If you are a Snowflake that feels you need to be protected from any mention of politics, then click the Back button now, and never attempt to read any of my stories ever again. You've been warned.

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Part 1 - Prologue - Successful Arrests

8:40am, Monday, October 4th. Upon returning from our trip to my boyhood hometown of Apple Grove, my wife Laura drove me directly to Town & County Police Headquarters and dropped me off. I went inside and headed to Chief Moynahan's office to check in with him. I'd already texted Lt. Commander Teresa Croyle and given some instructions.

"Welcome home, Commander." the Chief said when I went inside. "Sheriff Griswold and I received phone calls from Sheriff Hall in Fillmore County, singing your praises for solving that attempted murrrr-derrr. So much for actual 'R & R' during your high school re-yoooon-yun festivities, eh?"

"It was an interesting case, Chief." I said. "And I think we did some good for some kids. Meanwhile, I understand the plan to capture the Toyota Gang bore fruit."

"Yezzz. Yes it did." said the Chief. They're all in Classroom 'E' now, waiting for us to join them for a discussion of the issssues. Let's join them, shall we?"

"Where is Sheriff Griswold, sir?" I asked, realizing I had not seen him at all since coming into Headquarters.

The Chief replied "He's at a conference for Sheriffs and Police leaders in Midtown. The subject matter is Police Reforrrrrm. I didn't go because we expected yooooo to not be back yet, and because this Toyota Gang bust happened, and you better bee-lieeeeve I took advantage of those reasons to excuuuuse myself from that claptrap event."

"I don't blame you a bit, sir." I said...

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

The Chief led the way to Classroom E. When he entered, someone announced "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Police Chief." and everyone stood up.

"Take your seats, please." the Chief said.

"Not quite yet, please." I countermanded. "Not until I shake every one of your hands." I proceeded to do so, going around and shaking the hands of every person at the table: the Detectives in MCD, Vice, and Intel, as well as the the Lieutenants, Captain Claire Michaels, and Lt. Commander Croyle.

The Chief and I got coffee and sat in our normal places, the Chief at the end of the table nearest the door, and me in the center of the table facing the 5x4 matrix of monitors on the wall to the Chief's right. Teresa was sitting to my right and Captain Michaels to my left. The Chief bade me to begin the meeting.

I said "I want to congratulate every one of you on the outstanding result you achieved Saturday night. And all the better that you accomplished this without me anywhere near here, much less in the State."

"Modesty is a human trait, Commander." Teresa said. "It was your plan, including you conveeeeniently being away. The perps fell for it, as did the Feds that worked so hard to fuck us up."

"But it was all of you that made it happen." I replied. "So fill me in." Teresa indicated for Captain of Detectives Claire Michaels to begin.

Claire said "We also heard of your success in solving a crime up in your hometown, sir. Congratulations." Everyone murmured their praises in a manner similar to the British House of Commons during Question Time.

Claire began her report: "We followed your plan, sir, to observe where the Federal vans in the area deployed to, then deployed our own vans in other very obvious places, which made the seemingly unwatched places more enticing for the perps. Sure enough, they hit the Kwik-Mart near Ward Harvester Park. Rodriguez and Laurer were parked there, and Laurer took down the perp that didn't make it to the car, while Rodriguez was able to attach a magnetic homing device on the perps's car just before it took off."

Claire: "The rest was easy. Halston dropped a second homing device via a drone, and our Uniformed patrols did a great job of boxing them in, which forced them to go out of Town to County Road 5 and the farm fields. Out there, they were easy to trace and bring to a stop, whereupon successful arrests were made."

I said "Yezzz, I heard there was an (air quotes) 'explosive' con-cluuuu-sion." The room grew silent. Teresa began looking around the ceiling and whistling, making me grin. We fist-bumped.

I then said "Great job. So what are we holding them on?"

"Armed robbery." said Cpt. Michaels. "And the standard fleeing Police, resisting arrest, et cetera."

I asked "Any drugs, weapons, contraband in the car?"

"No drugs." said Claire. "The only weapons were the handguns they used in the robbery. We did find $20,000 in cash, two wrapped sets of $10K each, but the people behind the counter at the store said the robbers only took what was in the cash register, so we're not sure if they're lying and the money was taken from the store, or if it was already in the car."

I said "So who are these people who were stupid enough to repeatedly commit crimes in our County?"

Lt. Theo Washington said "Uh, sir, we've been discussing that---"

Cpt. Michaels interrupted: "Why don't you let me fill the Commander in on what we have, then we can talk about the other stuff later." I nodded, and Claire said "Lieutenant Purvis, bring up the mug shots." Lt. Christopher Purvis was operating the laptop, as Lt. Mary Milton was still on maternity leave.

Eight of the 20 monitors lit up with photos, with mug shots side-by-side with drivers licenses. Claire said "The perp they left behind is a woman, Maribel Isadora. Her father is Brazilian and her mother is Venezuelan, both naturalized citizens, and she was born in Tucson, Arizona. They have no criminal records at all; they're upstanding members of the community."

As I looked at the images of an attractive but very young-looking woman on the monitor, Claire said "She's only 22 years old, but she already has an impressive rap sheet: prostitution, drug possession and distribution, credit card fraud, theft by deception. She was suspected in two armed robberies in St. Louis, Missouri, but the charges were dropped for lack of evidence. She lives in southwestern Midtown, in the Red River District."

I said "Ah yes, where Bonita Bishop was found dead. It was a bad district then. It's as bad or worse now." (Author's note: 'Case of the Fake Badges', Ch. 03-04.) Teresa nodded, remembering. Chief Moynahan had been with the Midtown Police at that time, and he remembered. The others, not so much.

Claire: "Next is Miguel Mateo Carlena, a.k.a. Michael Carlena. He's 24 years old, and as you can see in his photos, he's the bald guy, and he looks to be white. We believe he is the leader of the gang, or at least this group, and one reason why is because he is the grandson of Miguel 'Machete' Carlena, the leader of the Carlena Cartel, a small and relatively new cartel in Colombia and Venezuela."

Claire: "Michael here doesn't have much of a sheet, just a DUI when he was 17, which got pled down, and a drug possession charge that originally was enough to charge him with distribution, but got pled down to misdemeanor possession. He lives in Southport, in the Dagny Piers area." (Author's note: 'Riverboat Gambler' for more on the Dagny Piers.)

The third mug shot showed a stout, barrel-chested man with a thin mustache and goatee that did not look very good on him. Claire said: "The third guy is Carlos 'Carl' Rojas, 25 years old. His parents were Illegals from El Salvador but he was born in Texas, making him an anchor baby. They died in a car crash in New Mexico, and we've had trouble getting details of that because the Federal Immigration authorities put all the records and reports of it under seal."

Claire: "Carlos here also has an impressive rap sheet for someone as young as he is. A lot of small stuff at first, but he graduated into human trafficking, and had houses of prostitution in the Midtown-Palmyra County area, Southport, and, south of the State Line, Chippewa Crossing in Turpin Heights." (Author's note: 'Film Noir', Ch. 01 for more on that bad place.)

Claire: "One interesting thing was that the Palmyra-Midtown stable had both Latina and Asian girls, and those two ethnicities in the same place of business of that kind is unusual, at least around here; they're usually controlled by different Organizations, one being Asian and the other Hispanic or 'traditional' White.

Claire: "Rojas himself has an official residence in a room above a bar in Jacksonville, which is between Midtown and Southport, but he rarely stays more than one night at any one place, and has so-called safehouses in Southport and Midtown."

Last was a 'successful-looking' Cuban man with a full head of wavy, very black hair. Claire said: "And last is the driver, Peter Segui. He is a third-generation American of Cuban descent. He's 24 years old, a college graduate of Miami of Florida, majoring in Business Administration, and he has arrests for disorderly conduct, public intoxication, and a DUI that was pled down. Nothing worse, until now. He lives near Pottsville, and works in Palmyra County for a Venture Capital company that funds startups."

I asked "Quite a diverse, eclectic group, wouldn't you say?"

Lt. Joanne Warner said "Uh, sir, they're all Hispanic, or of Hispanic descent."

"True." I said. "But you have two of them with long rap sheets and two with virtually nothing. One is even a college graduate. And as you said, all of them are Hispanic. But to get more granular, we have a Cuban, a Brazilian, a Colombian, and a Salvadoran. And they don't live near each other, nor near our Town & County. So... have y'all found anything that ties them together... besides the fact they were arrested together Saturday night?"

Lt. Purvis said "Nothing so far, sir, but we're in the early stages of investigating them." I was disappointed to hear that; after all, I was used to Lt. Mary Milton's team having tons of data within 24 hours. But I held my tongue on that.

Instead, I asked "Did they say anything at all when you questioned them?"

Lt. Teddy Parker said "They all immediately asked for lawyers, sir. The lawyers came in, they talked privately for about five minutes, then all four perps immediately fully invoked when asked the first question."

"Who were the lawyers?" I asked.

No one else had the list, but as she knew I considered that information to be important, Lt. Cmdr. Teresa Croyle had that information ready for me. She said "Michael Carlena had Chip Blake of Gresham & Mason, P.C. as his attorney. Peter Segui was represented by Edward N. Parker, also of Gresham & Mason. Maribel Isadora was represented, to use the term loosely, by Max Chambliss of... you guessed it... Gresham & Mason. And they all arrived together yesterday around lunch time."

Teresa: "Carl Rojas broke the pattern. His attorney was Michael Bertram of the newly formed law firm of Gaston & Bertram, P.C." (Author's note: 'Private Practice', Ch.03.) "He arrived earlier that morning, and was not even here when the others came in."

"Interesting." I said. "Have the Feds attempted to take these guys away from us? Or come in to question them, or anything?"

"No sir." Teresa said. "And I'm surprised by that. The ADA assigned to the case is Savannah Fineman, as Miriam Walters is saying she thinks it's more closely related to Vice issues like drugs than MCD cases. But Savannah has not pulled any stunts on us, at least not yet."

"Their arraignment is to-dayyyy." drawled the Chief. "And Ms. Walters assures me she will seek for them to be remanded into custody without bail. The Judge assigned to the case is Franklin Washing-tonnnn."

I nodded, then said "Okay, did y'all get their cellphones?"

"We got Maribel's when we arrested her." said Lt. Teddy Parker. "But the other three didn't have cellphones on their persons nor in their car when we took them into custody. None of Maribel's fingers worked to open her phone, so we haven't gotten into it yet."

In case you didn't know, the Courts have ruled that Police can forcibly press a person's finger to the reader on a cellphone in order to open it, and without requiring a warrant. Which is why my iPhone cannot be opened with my fingerprint. (Are you feeling me on this, Readers?)

Claire Michaels said "It may not matter. Her phone was a burner. Theirs might be, too."

"How'd you figure that out, that it was a burner?" I asked.

Claire: "Virtually all cellphones have something that can be pressed to call 9-1-1 without having to open the phone. We took it to the 9-1-1 call center, hit that button, and got the number when the call came in. It comes back as a burner, bought at the Wal-Mart on North Street."

"Outstanding." I said. "And you got a warrant to get the metadata from that phone number, and the other numbers it's communicated with?"

"Not yet, Mis-ter Crowbarrrr." said Chief Moynahan. "And that's on me. We ultimately have to go to a Federal Court to get that data. Jack Muscone is out of Town, and we're not sure if we want to trust anyone else at the moam-nnnnt."

"Whew!" I breathed, then said "Good! Yes sir, that's a very wise precaution. Okay, did you guys find the other cellphones?"

Claire: "We're not sure they even had cellphones, sir. We're hoping to get that metadata soon and see if we can ping the other phones."

"But you did search for the phones, yes?" I asked sharply.

Teddy Parker said "Yes sir, we searched a 200 foot perimeter around the car when it stopped, and we had Intel search for any pings out in the farm areas once we pulled back out of it, but there was nothing. And there's simply too many cellphones in the populated areas to isolate what might be theirs."

Lt. Theo Washington said "And sir, that's one of the things we wanted to bring up and discuss---"

"Captain Michaels said we would talk about all that lay-ter!" thundered the voice of Lt. Joanne Warner. Not only was the way she cut in unexpected, the harshness of her normally sweet voice was doubly shocking. Theo looked at Joanne with a mixture of shock and tremendous anger, and was about to say something when I cut in.

"We'll talk about it now." I said strongly. "What did Mister Roark find that they're trying to suppress, Lieutenant Washington?"

Theo exhibited his 'movie star handsome' grin, though his eyes flashed fire at Joanne. He said "Not much gets past you, sir. Mister Roark, tell them what you observed."

"Yes sir." said Roark Coleman. "I was going over the vehicle with the techs yesterday afternoon. There were no cellphones, but there were four cellphone holders mounted in the car. Two were on the front dash, pointed towards the driver and shotgun seats. There were also two attached to the inside back corners of the front seats, which covered the back seats. The one on the driver's side was angled to cover the right rear seat, and the one on the shotgun seat side covered the seat behind the driver's seat, in a criss-cross way."

"And how do you explain that, Detective Coleman?" Joanne Warner asked acidly.

"I don't, ma'am, at least not yet." said Roark. "Not enough data."

"That is what I wanted to hear, Mr. Roark." I said. "And that's a good observation on your part. It also shows that it's very likely they had cellphones and must've thrown them out of the car during the Police pursuit. Any more on it?"

Theo said "When Mister Roark brought that to my attention, sir, I asked our techs to really dig into the car. There was built-in wiring to charge the batteries of the cellphones in those holders, and that led to finding two hidden cameras, one in the rear-view mirror, and the other in the roof light, covering the rear seats. That roof light didn't have a light bulb in it, but a small digital recorder, like a 'black box', that also acted as a GPS device. Both hidden cameras fed by wire into a recording device and a powerful wi-fi transmitter hidden in the dash of the car."

"Yeah, that is strange." I said, somewhat introspectively. Then I recovered and said "Mister Roark, your observations may have led to finding what may be important clues to this gang's nature. And it underscores the need to find the others's cellphones. So did you backtrack along their route from the Kwik-Mart to the outskirts of Town and look for it?"

Claire Michaels said "Sir, like I said earlier, we're hoping to get numbers and then ping them, which would be a lot more efficient than looking for needles in haystacks---"

Terese interrupted: "Sir, I take responsibility for that search not having been made. I should have had that done immediately."

I said "Theo, when this meeting is done, you will take your team and all of Vice, and begin that search. Commander Croyle, contact 2nd Precinct and have them provide as much manpower as Lieutenant Washington needs to make that search in an efficient and timely manner." Teresa got up and went out into the hallway to make phone calls.

I said: Okay, were any warrants served to search these people's addresses?"

"Yezzz, Mis-ter Crowbarrr." said Chief Moynahan. "I contacted Chief Soltis in Midtown, Lieutenant Eugene Graham in Southport, and Lieutenant Shane O'Brady in Pottsville. They had teams execute the warrants on all of the various residences. They're sending reports as well as bringing up anything they seized, and will probably timmmme their arrivals in such a way that we will need to arrange to buy them lunch."

I was not fooled: the Chief had told them to time their arrivals to lunchtime. "Thank you, Chief. My next question is: Do any of these people own any other vehicles, Toyota or otherwise?"

"No sir, not even Peter Segui." said Lt. Purvis. "Well, no car tags registered with DMV in any of their names, no loans in their names showing up on their credit histories. Maybe a more advanced search will come up with something."

"Possiblee, possiblee." I said. "Okay, at the beginning of this meeting some of you wanted to talk about something. What was that, Lieutenant Washington?"

Theo said "Mister Roark, you're up again."

"Thank you sir." said Roark Coleman. "Chief, Commander, I think these guys we arrested are just the tip of the iceberg, that there are more people involved---"

"Well, DUH!" said Lt. Joanne Warner, rudely cutting Roark off.

"For God's sake! Give him a chance to speak, willya?" Lt. Theo Washington yelled out at Joanne, defending 'Team Theo' member Coleman.

"Mind your tone, Lieutenant Washington." Cpt. Michaels said venomously to Theo.

"Mind yours, Captain Michaels." I fired back. "Yes, Mr. Roark, we know there have to be others in this, so what are you getting at?"

"Their organization, sir." Roark said. "We have this group of four people that we busted last night. We know there are other groups of four that have committed crimes in Midtown, Southport, and Lexington, and there may be something more to that than just a bunch of armed robberies of convenience stores. And with all those cameras and phone mounts in the car---"

"Sir," said Theo, interrupting Roark, "you asked why these guys were stupid enough to repeatedly commit these crimes here in your County. We agree that it is stupid of them to do so, but we also asked (air quotes) 'why' they are doing it, what their purpose is."