Shipping and Handling Ch. 03

I continued: "You guys must think that Edward Blassingame has something to do with this. It's obvious to the world that we're coming across a smuggling operation within State Parcel Service, one that has been well-established for some time and has been working on behalf of the Establishment Elites, and possibly was in cahoots with Superior Bloodlines as well as the Consultant of Crime while he was ruling the Underworld with an iron fist."

"Ergo," I finished up, "you're thinking we might expose the Blassingame operation, and that will cause you and the Feds some kind of problem. Ergo, the Powers-That-Be told Muscone and Melina to try to shut us down... and sent you to persuade me with your considerable sexual charms."

"Well..." Laura said, "they didn't mention the sexual charms part, just that I'm your wife and you might listen to me."

"I know." I said. "I just added the 'sexual charms' part myself... since those are what will work best upon me. In fact..." I said, drawing Laura to me and kissing her neck, "why don't we go to bed and see just how... effective... those charms are."

"Mmmm." Laura said. She turned and kissed me on the mouth as her arms wrapped around me, "yes, let's see if I've still got it."

"Oh, you do." I said. "You most definitely do..."

Part 10 - Friday Foibles

"This is Bettina Wurtzburg, KXTC Channel Two News!" shouted the redheaded MILF reporterette at 7:00am, Friday, March 29th, from an 'undisclosed location' that was really the fenced-in KXTC property. "We are bringing you continuing coverage of the murder of a State Moving Services worker."

Bettina began: "Yesterday morning, a man identified as 34-year-old Rupert Saidy was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head in what appeared to be a State Moving Services truck. The truck was later identified as belonging to State Parcel Service, which is based in the City with branch distribution points all over the State, and the truck was altered to look like an SMS truck."

Bettina continued: "Police have no leads on the case, but have formed a joint task force with the Midtown Police, whose Detectives were investigating a series of scams where fake moving companies picked up people's belongings and then disappeared. The TCPD has not commented on whether the murder is related to those thefts, and Commander Donald Troy has ignored repeated requests by KXTC for comment."

Bettina had more: "And now let's go to trusted political reporter Lester Holder. Lester!"

"Thank you, Bettina!" said Holder, appearing to be somewhere else, but in reality at the other end of the KXTC property. "In other news, the social justice group 'Black Voices Raised' issued a statement demanding that the Town & County Charter Commission restructure the Town & County Council along equal-population lines without regard to the Town Limit line. The group's leader and spokesperson, Maxine Watts, said this. Roll tape."

Tape rolled showing Maxine Watts saying "The current structure of the Town & County was designed to discriminate against minorities. It is racist, and it must be changed. If the Charter Commission does not make the changes we demand, we will sue in Federal Court, and we ask the U.S. Department of Justice to join us in our complaint."

More tape, showing Edward R. Steele saying "Maxine Watts is a private citizen that lives in the City, not in our Town & County. Therefore, her words are of absolutely no value to anyone in this County."

More tape, showing Charter Commission member Rev. Joseph E. Williams saying: "I am sure we will study the legitimate concerns of the group 'Black Voices Raised'. Having said that, Maxine Watts is not a resident of this County, and her intrusion into our business is not helpful to finding the best solutions for our residents."

Back to Holder live: "As usual, Charter Commission Chairman Donald Troy has ignored repeated requests by KXTC for comment. Considering that Donald Troy is a racist who uses his halfbreed daughter as a political prop, that's not surprising. Back to you, Bettina."

"Thank you for that important report, Lester!" said Bettina. "In State news, this is effectively the last day that the State Legislature will be in session for the year. Apart from commendations and citations for a number of individuals, including one for Cameron Wakefield of County High School, who achieved a perfect score on the SAT, the Legislature only passed one bill, the omnibus Budget Bill.

Bettina continued, with emphasis: "Several sensible gun control measures were squashed by the powerful NRA, and a strong Green Energy Bill that would've required the State to adhere to United Nations policies to combat Climate Change, was defeated by the State Senate, whose Republicans want your children to drink dirty water..."

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

"My God!" exclaimed Nell Bell as she watched with the other Detectives in MCD. "Did I hear that right? Did he really say that?"

"About Commander Troy's daughter?" asked Joanne. "Yes he did. And he's said the same thing before."

"That is... stunning." said Nell. "And he still has his job?

"Yes he does." said a voice in the doorway. Everyone turned to see Your Iron Crowbar standing there. As I came in, I said: "In fact, he was fired but then re-hired specifically to make attacks like that on me and my family."

"Penis Holder is trying to goad Commander Troy into doing something." said Commander Cindy Ross, who'd also just come into MCD. "We just ignore Holder's classless racism."

"Oh, I'm not ignoring it" I replied. "I consider his comments to be a terroristic attack upon the life and safety of my daughter. But despite what Commander Ross says, I don't always walk into traps, especially pathetic traps set by the deeply corrupt, racist Media. Okay, let's get down to business. We've got a murder to solve, and we need to figure out what's going on with this Bert Cowell guy..."

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

7:30am, Friday, March 29th. Myron Milton and I went into Cindy's office to hear his report. I first swept for bugs, finding none, and I'd long since pulled the I.A. wires out of her office as I had done for my own.

"We found three daemon programs." said Myron. "One was sort of obvious, and I think it was meant to mask the second one. And then we found an even deeper one. They're all eradicated now, and we're working on isolating our systems more so that if they try again, infecting one area won't infect others."

"How much data did we lose?" asked Cindy. "And I'm especially asking if any of the evidence in our servers was compromised."

"No evidence was compromised, ma'am." said Myron. "And I can show that in Court if it becomes necessary. Having said that, it would be a lot better for us if we just don't freely mention that to any defense lawyers, or they'll try like hell to use it against us."

"As to the overall data," continued Myron, "we didn't lose any, but these daemons are designed to read our data and also follow what we're doing using mirroring techniques. The Command Group and the Captains's computers have extra security and likely weren't mirrored, but the Detectives in MCD and Vice could have been. I really can't tell exactly what the hackers saw, so I can't tell you just how badly we were compromised."

I said "We have to assume the worst, that the hackers know everything we've been doing the last few days, or even weeks. I'll get with Captain Perlman, and have her ask the Detectives if any of their operations suddenly went south or if we lost any C.I.s or anything. Needless to say, any future operations will have to be changed up."

"Lieutenant," said Cindy, "who was behind these attacks?"

Myron said "The first daemon and the second one to cover up the first is likely by the Government, though I can't tell you which agency. I just know that what we were seeing was pretty standard for the Federal Government. The third one was much more sophisticated... either a foreign government's very best, our Government's very best, or some outside hacker with mad skills."

I said "The more important question is why is someone with that level of sophistication so interested in what this local jurisdiction Police Force is doing?"

Cindy said "Lieutenant, are you sure it's completely cleaned up?"

"I'm as sure as I can be, ma'am." said Myron. "We're coming off Plan B, so if any Officers have a trojan virus on their iPhones or vehicle computers, we may get attacked again... but we're on the lookout for those, so I'm confident we can intercept anything new."

"And I know you guys are doing great work and keeping diligent." I said to Myron, as I was feeling a vibe from Cindy that she was not entirely accepting Myron's word, nor that she was entirely satisfied the threat was mitigated...

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

7:50am. The meeting was in Classroom 'E', and was well attended by the Detectives and Leadership of the Midtown/Town & County Joint Task Force. The large number of doughnuts the two Police Chiefs had brought in disappeared with amazing speed.

"Okay, what do we haaaavvvvve?" asked Chief Moynahan.

Captain Tanya Perlman started: "I heard back from Detective Sapper Warren of the City Police. He and Detective E.J. Jefferson went to the address of Clarence Meadows. No one was at home. They procured a warrant to enter his home, and found a pretty messy home... messy in that he wasn't much for cleaning up. It did not look like he hastily bolted. His car was found in the parking lot of a nearby watering hole, but he was not in the bar, and surveillance of his car until dawn was fruitless, as he never came back to it. The City Police put out an APB for him."

Tanya then called upon Lt. Mary Milton, who said "With Detective Warner's secure line and help, we were able to get some data by means other than our Police servers and net, since Myron was cleaning out the daemons."

Mary started: "We checked with the State Insurance Commissioner's Office about the families that had their stuff stolen. Those insurance companies that had to pay out and then subsequently dropped SMS sent their data about the cases to the Insurance Commissioner to justify why they were dropping SMS. The data we got showed that every one of the families listed brand new refrigerators, plasma television monitors, new appliances, and relatively expensive furniture as having been stolen."

Mary continued: "BigBenefitInsurance has not reported the details of the claims they paid out, and have made their quarterly reports barely on time every time, so we'll have to get subpoenas to get that data from the company itself. We checked for complaints filed with the State Insurance Commissioner, and while BigBenefitInsurance has a ton of complaints for delayed or withheld payments, there were none from those that made claims against them for SMS cases nor the fires that destroyed expensive vehicles."

Joanne Warner said "Excuse me, ma'am, but were there any itemized lists from SMS of what was stolen?"

"No, and that's part of the problem." said Mary. "For most of their cases, it was a fake truck that arrived before the real one got there, so SMS didn't have manifests of what was actually loaded."

"But we do have the inventory of what we recovered from Truck 164." said Joanne. "And they had a lot of very old stuff."

"I see what you're getting at, Detective Warner." I said. "These people are putting in claims for new, expensive stuff, when they might've loaded older stuff into the trucks, or loaded nothing at all and still made the claims. And with perfect 20/20 hindsight, if we'd waited until the Farrises filed their insurance claim, it'd have been interesting to see what they would've put down. But... we didn't know."

"We might can help with that, sir." said Eric Hannum. "While at your home last night, I connected to the Midtown P.D. net and looked to see if any of those families later put up any furniture or appliances for sale on web sites or apps. We expected that they'd use aliases, but at some point the money has to come back to their bank accounts... and we got a full thread on three of the families." Eric received an acclaim from everyone, especially from his Police Chief.

"Well done, Hannum." said Chief Soltis.

"I a-greeee, very well done." said Chief Moynahan. "Chief Soltis, you have some very good De-tec-tives on your Police Force."

"What did you find?" Joanne asked Eric, who had blushed at the praise bestowed upon him.

"Nothing new or particularly expensive." said Eric. "But some older refrigerators, washer/dryer sets, microwave ovens, and clothes."

"And what did they list on the insurance claims?" asked Joanne, her voice sounding excited.

"We don't know yet." said Eric. "Their claims were with BigBenefitInsurance."

I said "That still may be good enough to get warrants for BigBenefitInsurance's data. And don't ask them nicely beforehand, which might allow them time to hide or destroy evidence. We want to show them what 'shock and awe' means."

"What about Bert Cowell?" asked Chief Soltis.

"We're going to go back and re-interview him." said Julia Rodriguez. "I was going to ask if we should get a warrant to arrest him, especially if it's the same guy we talked to yesterday."

"City PD is getting one for us." said Chief Moynahan. "We're going to have their company when we go... and some more company as well. FBI Special Agent In Charge Muscone has asked to join the parrrrr-dee."

Part 11 - Disappearing Acts

Detectives Julia Rodriguez and Teddy Parker came into the SPS Distribution Center through the huge space where trucks drove in and out to their loading bays, rather than through the front door as most people would.

As they came up to the Director of Distribution's desk area in its glass cubicle, Teddy Parker said "That's not the guy we talked to yesterday."

"And it's not the Bert Cowell on those IDs Lt. Milton brought up, either." Julia replied agreeably.

As they came up to the desk, the man behind it peered at them in an unfriendly way. "Can I help you?" he asked gruffly.

"We're the Detectives who were here yesterday." said Julia Rodriguez. "Can we speak to Bert Cowell, please?"

"Just a moment." said the man. He picked up a phone and turned so that the Detectives could not see his mouth due to his hand holding the phone, and he spoke low enough they couldn't really hear him. After hanging up, he said "Just stay here, please."

Moments later, Julia looked around. "Security approaching." she said to Parker. "Six of them, from every direction."

"Yep." said Parker. "Stay loose. I've got the guys on your right, and you can duck under and get the guys coming up from the loading bays."

Their planning was not needed, though. An older, distinguished man in a gray suit was coming up very quickly, along with a shorter man that the Detectives recognized. He was attorney Nathan Masterson of Gresham & Mason, P.C.

"Who are you?" said the older man.

"I'm Detective Rodriguez and this is Detective Parker." said Julia. "We were here yesterday investigating the murder of a man who was found on one of your delivery trucks. And you are?"

"I'm Jeffrey Blankenship, Acting CEO of State Parcel Service." said the man. He turned to the man behind the desk and said "John, who permitted these people to come in here?"

"I don't know, sir." the man said. "They just showed up."

"Do you have a warrant to be here?" demanded Masterson, who was trying and failing to hide a grin.

"We came in to talk to your Director of Distribution, as we did yesterday." said Julia, who was all but squared up to Masterson.

"If you don't have a warrant, and you're not in your correct jurisdiction," said Blankenship, "then you're trespassing. And you won't just be allowed to leave. You're under arrest." The security men that had been approaching converged upon the group more quickly.

"Is that right?" asked Parker laconically, his eyes boring into Blankenship's, keeping the man's attention.

"Yes." said Blankenship. "You were not invited in, and you don't have a warrant. If you resist, my security will shoot you----" He stopped as a warrant appeared in front of him, held by a hand and arm that had reached around him.

"Huhh!" Blankenship gasped, moving forward and to his left as he pirouetted. He was about to attack until he saw that the man that had snuck up behind him was bigger than him, taller than him.. and wielding a red crowbar.

"What the fuck!" Blankenship yelled. "What are you doing sneaking up on me like that?!"

"Why, handing you this warrant." I said, still holding the document up as if trying to hand it to him. "And you really should be more aware of your surroundings, Mr. Blankenship. So should your Security... if they'd drawn their guns, they'd be dead now." Everyone looked around to see that our little party was surrounded by City Police and the FBI Special Agents of Team Lazarus.

"Agent Muscone and his batch of FBI losers." said Nathan Masterson. "I should've known the Iron Crowbar was too much of a coward to come in without reinforcements."

"Watch your mouth, Jew-Hater." I warned Masterson. "Those reinforcements are to protect you from me, not the other way around. Detective Rodriguez, is that the man you talked to yesterday?"

"No sir." said Julia.

"Mr. Blankenship, where is Mr. Bert Cowell?" I asked.

"I don't know." said Blankenship. "I only came down here after being informed of the security breach without showing a warrant. I can assure you that a complaint will be made to the SBI as well as several members of the State Legislature."

"Oh, by all means, make your complaints!" I said with Rudistan-'ish' joviality. "But as you can see, that is a legitimate warrant issued by a Superior Court, and I'm sure Special Agent in Charge Muscone has a similar Federal warrant." I then lowered my voice into a menacing tone as I said "Where is Cowell, Blankenship?"

"I don't know." said Blankenship. "John, where is Bert?"

"He called in sick, sir." said John. "I was called in this morning to work the desk."

I said "Who are you?"

"Don't answer that!" cried Nathan Masterson. "Don't say anything to these rogue cops."

I walked up to the desk. "Show me your ID." I said. "And no matter what this asshole Jew-hater of a lawyer says, you are required by law to follow my instructions and present your ID when asked."

"Show yours first." said John. I did so, exhibiting my SBI Inspector ID and Badge. He finally produced his driver's license, which I scanned with my Police iPhone, acquiring it's data.

"Thank you." I said. "So you're the weekend Distribution Director." I noted as I looked at his work ID that was clipped onto his shirt pocket.

"That's right." the man said shortly. I handed him the driver's license back, then turned to the others.

"Mr. Blankenship, that warrant allows us access to your employee files, all of them." I said. "Why don't you come with us to your personnel offices?..."

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

Bert Cowell's address in his employee file matched the IDs we'd seen in the past. The City Police were on their way to his home. In the meantime, Jack Muscone and I had Jeffrey Blankenship in a conference room. Nathan Masterson was too overwhelmed and could not be in multiple places at once. He'd called in for legal reinforcements. then stayed with Blankenship.

"Where's Granger?" Muscone asked. He was standing behind the seated Blankenship, towering over the Acting CEO's shoulder, which apparently bothered Blankenship.

"I don't know." said Blankenship. "And why don't you sit down, or at least stop standing behind me."

"Were you in the military, Mr. Blankenship? In combat?" I asked. I was standing near the door, with the corner of the table between me and the others. "You don't seem to like people standing behind you."