Chapter 21… Waiting It Out
It was 6:00 p.m. on Saturday. Lopez limped up to Pruitt’s car and leaned in to the open passenger side window. “This better be good,” he said. “I had a free ticket to the Sox game tonight.”
Pruitt said, “Don’t be so grouchy. What happened to you?”
“I turned my ankle playing softball last night.”
“Can you function?”
“I’m here, ain’t I? And on my own time.”
Pruitt needed the help, but the last thing she wanted was to babysit someone. “As of this morning, so am I.”
Lopez opened the door and slid into the passenger seat. “A week ago you cut me off at the knees on the breaking and entering call and now you’re pulling strings to get help with surveillance on the same house. What’s going on, Detective?”
Pruitt reached down to the cup holder and handed him Styro cup. “Here,” she said. “I’ll bring you up to speed. I figured you for a black with sugar kind of guy.”
Lopez smiled ever so slightly. “I’m listening,” he said as he took the coffee. Twenty minutes later he said, “So the bank guy who did himself at the dive bar in Saugus is linked to this after all.”
“It is,” said Pruitt. “Thanks for letting me know about that. If it wasn’t for you connecting the dots I might never have gotten this far.”
“It sounds like this Curlander guy and his fraternity buddies might be walking into an ambush. Do they have any idea who or what they’re facing?”
Pruitt replied, “They might have some idea of who, but I don’t think they have any idea of how many, or how serious the situation really is. If it’s true that Hutchinson and the former CEO were killed to keep the accounts from being discovered, another murder or two won’t make any difference to these perpetrators.”
Shaking his head, Lopez said, “And you couldn’t get anyone to look into this case? What’s up with that?”
“The ME said Hutchinson’s death was due to a heart attack. There was no basis for an investigation, and the only reason it’s gotten to this point is because of Curlander and his fraternity brothers.”
“So your goal is to stop them.”
“Right now I’m just trying to figure out what Curlander and his wife are up to. I’ve tracked the signal from his cell phone and it’s coming from inside his wife’s Audi which has been parked on the next street over for the last twenty-four hours, maybe longer.”
“The guy’s got his wife with him?”
“Where he goes, she goes, and if I was after Curlander I’d be more afraid of her than I am of him. Talk about protective, that woman is fierce—and she’s armed. So is he, by the way.”
Lopez sipped his coffee as he tried to put it all together in his head. “But why would he park the car away from where he’s staying? And why would he leave his phone in there? Wouldn’t he need his cell phone?”
“I don’t think he left it there, I think he put it there—purposely. I think he knows someone is tracking that GPS signal, that being someone besides me, and I don’t think he knows I’m on to it. Somewhere along the way he must have picked up another phone.”
Lopez got it immediately. “He’s using that cell phone signal to attract the bad guys.”
“But he doesn’t want them to know exactly where he is. By locating the car close to the house he hopes to be able to spot them, but if they don’t know where he is exactly, to them he could be anywhere. Not a bad plan.” Pruitt sipped some coffee. “This morning someone in a black BMW with Jersey plates pulled up next to the Audi and checked it out. Did I tell you someone ran Curlander off the road back in Jersey after Hutchinson’s funeral?”
“Yeah.”
“That car was also a BMW, and I suspect the same car was tailing us in Wallingham last Monday night.”
Lopez’s eyes got real big. “That’s no coincidence. Do you think Curlander knows that the guys who are after him are here?”
“If he doesn’t, he will soon. I think his plan is working.”
Lopez shifted in his seat and gave Pruitt a once over. Knowing that her boss had contacted his boss to ask for him specifically, Lopez figured the woman had some pull within the state police investigative units, so he’d called a couple of guys he knew in their Middlesex unit. They’d heard of her all right, and outside of the fact that they’d hurled their verbal jabs at her by calling her the “grandma with a gun,” they said she was probably the best investigator out of the Franklin/Hampshire unit and had solved a number of high profile cases in the western part of the state, including the capture of a drug kingpin out of Greenfield that was distributing as much heroin between the Connecticut River and Albany as was flowing into Harlem and the Bronx combined. “You know,” he said as she lowered the visor to block the late day sun, “you could have gotten some help from the Middlesex unit. Why didn’t you call them?”
“I don’t think so,” Pruitt said as she turned away from whatever she was watching and stabbed him with a look. “I’ve been nursing this case like a baby for the last month. I’m not about to serve it up to those arrogant pinheads so they can scarf it up like wolves.”
“But you’re letting me in on it,” said Lopez.
“Yeah, well, I owe you one. Do you think you want in, or not?”
Lopez grinned and sipped his coffee. “I’m in,” he said. “What do you need?”
“First off, I need you to keep your patrol cars out of this neighborhood. I think some of the residents have been noticing me and calling it in to you guys.”
“I’ll let dispatch know we’re on site.”
“Then I need you to spell me for a few hours. I’ve been watching that house for most of the last forty-eight hours and I need some sleep—and a shower.”
“Can do,” said Lopez. “Where are you going to do that?”
“I’ve been using the state police barracks over in Revere for the last couple of nights.”
“That’s way too far.” He fished his keys out of his pocket and pulled one off the ring. “Here, use my place. It’s only ten minutes from here.”
Pruitt said, “You sure?”
“Not a problem,” Lopez replied. “I live alone—divorced,” he added when he saw her inquiring look. “I hope you don’t mind that I gave the cleaning lady the decade off.”
“I’m sure it will be just fine,” Pruitt said thankfully.
“So what are we looking for?”
“Well, if Curlander is setting a trap like we talked about, you’d figure he’d make himself visible to the people he’s trying to attract.”
“But he’s not,” Lopez surmised.
“Not at all. There’s been no movement in or out of that house since I’ve been here. No lights coming on or off, no shades moving, nothing. I’m having a hard time figuring out what he’s up to.”
“Are you sure he and his wife are still in there?”
“The Audi hasn’t moved in that whole time and on one has come out that front door or out of that driveway, but it’s possible that they may have gotten past me somehow.” Pruitt activated her phone and showed it to Lopez. “This is a picture of Curlander and his wife. If they’re out and their car is still here, that means they’re on foot or using another vehicle. Just be on the lookout.”
“Will do. Send that picture to my phone, will you, and I’ll text you my address. Help yourself to whatever is in the fridge.”
* * * * *
The sun was low in the sky and Harry shielded his eyes as he spotted Fish coming across the patio, pizza box in hand. Sally was right behind him.
“It looks like the first of your reinforcements have arrived,” said Bob.
Fish came up and said, “Sorry we’re late, Harry.” Seeing that the barbeque was in full swing, he put down the pizza box and gave Bob a look. “It looks like you already ate.”
“Fish, he’s good,” said Harry, knowing exactly what Fish was thinking. He went on to re
late how Bob had been as close to Hutch over the years as any of the brothers had been. “Fish, he wants to help us.” Fish was clearly wary, his expression tight and guarded. It was one Harry hadn’t seen before. “Fish, what’s the matter, man? Is everything all right?”
“He’s nervous,” Sally answered for him as she jumped right into the conversation. “He thinks what we’re doing could be dangerous and he’s got the yips about involving someone else—specifically me.” She stuck her hand out to Bob and added, “Hi, I’m Sally. I’m Fish’s... uh, friend.”
All eyes turned to Fish. “It’s true,” he said bluntly. “It’s one thing for me to continue on with this crazy scheme, it’s a whole other thing to put other people in harm’s way.” He turned to Bob. “I hope you’re aware of that. What about your family?”
Bob pointed across the patio where his wife and Denise were sitting in a couple of sling chairs talking face to face. “I think Harry’s wife is taking care of that now,” he said, and indeed his own wife glanced over at him as soon as he said it. Bob continued, “I don’t plan on getting myself killed over this, but I think I’d like to help you guys out. Hutch was a great friend, and if what you say is true, his killers should be brought to justice. If anything, Suzanne deserves that.”
Fish didn’t respond, but flashed a look at Sally, who said, “There are a lot of good people in the world, Fish, and they want to help. Why don’t you let them?”
Harry said, “Bob made the observation that whoever wants Hutch’s laptop might not wait until Monday to come and get it.”
“What’s that based on?” Fish asked.
“There’s a jogging path I use regularly in the athletic fields across the street from Hutch’s house,” Bob replied. “In the last couple of days I’ve seen two different vehicles parked there that looked kind of fishy to me—ah, no pun intended.”
“Fishy... how?” Harry asked.
“Well, normally when someone drives into the park to use the jogging path, they just pull into in the parking area next to the baseball fields, you know, facing forward. These two cars didn’t park in the parking area, but along the maintenance road and parked so that they were turned around and facing Hutch’s house. I thought that was kind of odd but I brushed it off. Later in the day yesterday, however, when I was walking the dog, I see what I think is one of those cars pulling up to what I now know is your silver Audi that you parked up the street from here. The car that I think is from the park rolls up next to it, hangs there for a while like it’s checking it out, and then pulls off. Looking back and thinking about both of those situations now, it definitely seems weird.”
“Did you notice the make on either of those cars?” Harry asked.
“Not really,” Bob answered. “It was from a distance, and one of the cars I saw from the side and it could have been anything. They’re all shaped the same these days. All I know is that it was a dark color, and I couldn’t even tell you if there was someone inside. The car I saw on the street was larger, like an American car, but older. I saw it from behind and thought maybe it was a cop car or something, but I was fifty or sixty yards away on both observations and really can’t provide any more details.”
Fish said to Harry, “So you’re thinking whoever is interested in Hutch’s laptop might already be in the neighborhood.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” said Harry.
“So what are you doing here?” Fish went on.
“Hiding in plain sight.”
Bob said, “Far be it from me to tell you guys what to do, but it doesn’t sound like it’s a good idea for Harry to go back into that house until you can find a way to protect him.”
“That’s why I told you and Sally to come here instead of Hutch’s place,” said Harry. “I could be miles away as opposed to across the back yard as far as the scumbags are concerned.”
Fish looked skeptical. “So what’s next?”
Harry said, “We contact Ducky to see if he was able to get some of the other brothers together. We now have a new base of operations.”
Sally opened the pizza box and said, “Extra pepperoni. Anyone want a slice?”
* * * * *
Sitting alone now, munching another slice of pizza and taking the final swig of her third Bud Light, Sally whipped out her smart phone to check the time. Having listened to all the concern and consternation about everyone’s safety, she couldn’t help but think that another important aspect of this crazy plan would be to find out who had hacked through the bank’s firewall and was monitoring the email account of at least one member of said bank’s senior management. That person, or people, she figured, would be at the core of this conspiracy that had cost one of Fish’s best friends his life. She also figured that this person, or people, would either not be far removed physically from the conspiracy leaders, or at minimum would have a direct IP link to their location. Discovering this information was why she’d come along with Fish on this Memorial weekend Saturday afternoon, and now she saw the opportunity melting away. She walked over to where Fish, Harry, and Bob were rehashing the same conversation they’d been having for the last hour.
“I hate to interrupt you three girl scouts, but we need to get into that house before the sun goes down.” She pointed across the back yard to the Hutchinson’s house.
The girl scouts all looked up at her—blankly. Only Fish had the nerve to respond. Shielding his eyes from the sun which was now below the tree tops and glinting powerfully through the branches, he said, “What does the sun going down have to do with anything?”
Sally cracked open another can of Bud Light and looked at Harry. “Didn’t we want to find out who is monitoring this guy Brennan’s email? I thought that was part of this big trap you’re trying to set up.”
Harry said, “Yeah, we do. So?”
She let out an exasperated sigh. “So... since I’ve been here all you’ve been talking about is staying away from that house.” The girl scouts all looked at each other now. “I don’t think you geniuses are getting this. If we do this IP search after it gets dark, just the glow of the computer monitor could be detected from outside unless we black out the windows or something. If you want to keep up the illusion that the house is unoccupied, we need to move now, before it gets dark and there’s still enough time to do this.” She swigged some more beer and stood there with her hand on her hip.
Noting her condition, Harry asked, “Are you sure you can do this?”
“Nothin’ to it,” she slurred as she waved her can dramatically. “You ready, or what?”
Harry looked at Fish. “Are we?”
Fish got up and said, “I guess,” but Sally put a hand in his chest.
“Fish, honey... I got this. Hold my beer, okay? C’mon Harry, l’ess go. Show me where this computer iss located.”
Five minutes later they tiptoed onto Hutch’s and Suzanne’s office room as if someone would hear them, and they stood there for a minute staring at the two computers. Suddenly serious, Sally asked, “Which one of these are we dealing with?”
Harry pointed to Suzanne’s machine.
“It’s right in front of the freakin’ window,” Sally whispered.
Harry said, “Why are you whispering?”
“Oh, right. We’ve got to disconnect this monitor and get it down on the ground below the window level.”
“Why don’t we just pull the shade?”
“No!” Sally exclaimed. “If someone has been watching this house, more than likely they’d be using binoculars.”
“So?”
“So that means they’d be able to tell if someone pulled the shade down and they’d know that someone was inside.”
Harry said, “That’s right, I forgot. How do you know all this?”
“I read a lot of spy books.” Harry helped her disconnect the monitor, get it off the desk, and reconnect it on the floor below the windowsill. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, Sally pulled the k
eyboard close to her and said, “Tracing the IP address from an email is fairly simple. You just find the IP address from the email header and then use a whois search or an IP lookup to trace it back to its source.”
Harry said, “I have no idea what you just said.”
“Just watch.” Sally looked into Suzanne’s inbox and found the email that supposedly came from someone at the bank verifying that a representative from the HR department would be coming on Monday to pick up Hutch’s laptop. The email address was FIBinternational/HR.com. “First, you just open the extended headers. That’s the stuff here that looks like a keyboard puked all over the message.”
Harry went, “Uh-huh.”
“Then in Options you click the Dialogue Box Launcher and go to the Received section.”
“Okay then.”
“Next, once you’re in the Received section you’ll see From, which should be the IP address that we’re looking for. See it here? It’s 66.221.137.945. We copy that onto the clipboard.”
“Of course. What else would you do with it?”
“You’re a real smartass, aren’t you Harry? Now it’s time to go to the Command console.” She clicked a couple of keys and the screen suddenly went black.
Harry said, “Shit. You lost it.”
“Relax, cupcake, it’s supposed to do that. Now we come to the moment of truth. Here, right next to the flashing cursor, we type in whois 66.221.137.945.” Sally did that, smiled, and took Harry’s hand. “Now press Enter. Hutch was your friend. As soon as you press Enter, the information will be sent out to a database, queried, and then returned with the registration information for that IP address.”
“What does that mean? Will we know who killed Hutch?”
“You’ll know the IP address of who responded to your email to Brennan, as well as the internet service provider, the city where this dirtbag is located, as well as his latitude and longitude, his area code and zip code. That’s as far as we can get without a court order and some help from someone in law enforcement. They have special software that can zero in on the exact name and exact street address. My guess is that it will have nothing to do with the HR department at the bank.” Harry choked down some emotion and pressed the Enter button. Moments later the information came back. Sally looked at it and said, “Fish said one of your other fraternity buddies is married to a district attorney.”
Harry looked at Sally and said, “That would be Ducky’s wife Monica.”
“Then get Monica to make a couple of calls. The exact name and address of the person who hacked Brennan’s email is tied to this IP address.”
Harry took a look at what came up on the screen and noted that the IP address was located in Washington, D.C.
* * * * *
Harry and Sally returned to Bob’s barbeque to find Fish sitting alone and on his cell phone.
“You heard me correctly,” Fish said into the phone. “Do not go to Suzanne’s house. Right... Jackson Street... just look for the house that’s having the big cookout; can’t miss it.” He ended the call and said, “That was Ducky. He’s almost here. How’d it go over there?”
“Not what I expected,” Harry replied.
Sally sat down next to Fish and took back the beer he’d been holding for her for the last fifteen minutes. “Whoever it is that hacked into Brennan’s email is located in Washington, D.C.” she said.
“What do you think that means?” Fish went on.
Harry said, “You don’t want to know what I think. It sounds crazy even to me.”
“How could it be any more crazy than everything you’ve discovered so far?”
“Because I’m starting to think our own government is involved in supporting terrorists,” said Harry. “It makes sense.”
“That’s insane.”
“Not so insane,” Harry countered. “The person Hutch was talking to on his cell phone just before he died? It turns out that it was a CIA agent named Breckenridge.”
“How do you know that?”
“Through one of Fighting Al’s connections. We’ve met this agent, Fish. He came to our house and told me he was trying to protect me from the very people that we think killed Hutch and that we are now trying to stop.”
Fish shook his head. “Okay, let’s assume one of Al’s shady connections is correct and Hutch was talking to this Breckenridge dude. Is that proof that our government is supporting terrorists?”
“No, it’s not,” Harry answered, “but that means he knows who they are. Why don’t he and the CIA stop them? Why are they letting these terrorists continue to exist? Plus Denise thinks he’s slimy, and she’s never wrong about these things.”
“Oh, c’mon Harry. I love Denise, but you’re going to base your argument on her intuition? Really?”
“And maybe Hutch’s trips to D.C. weren’t initiated by the Treasury Department,” Harry went on. “Maybe he initiated those trips himself. According to Brennan, Hutch went there to blow the whistle.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“Am I? You were with me when we first met Brennan at Hutch’s wake. Do you remember the guy who was with him?”
“Of course.”
“What did he look like?”
“Dark complexion, dark hair, why?”
“Brennan introduced him as Brendan Phillips hoping we would know that Phillips was a bald, pudgy, white guy. Brennan was giving us a clue, trying to tell us that the guy was one of them.”
“Them.”
“Yeah, them. Brennan said he’d been told by this guy to get the accounts out of the scrutiny of the government because that was his deal. That was the word he used: his deal. Don’t you see? Dark complexion, terrorists, D.C., deal—put two and two together, Fish. Someone from our government is trying to protect these guys, and those accounts.”
Sally, who’d been quietly listening to the whole thing, suddenly tapped Fish on the arm and said, “I think your friend Ducky just arrived.”
* * * * *
It was 8:30 p.m. Having watched the line of parked cars extend on Dudley Street in both directions and now spill around the corner onto Clifton Street, a little voice in Lopez’s ear told him something was wrong with the picture he was watching. The Hutchinson house at 91 Clifton Street was quiet, too quiet, he felt, if anyone was in there. The house on the other side of it, however, was a beehive of activity with a hell of a back-yard party happening since he’d taken over for Pruitt. The sun was almost down and he decided that a change of vantage point might be beneficial. He started his car, swung out onto Dudley Street and took a left on Jackson, moving slowly between the parked cars that lined both sides of the street due to the festivities at number 88 Jackson. His stomach growled as he got a whiff of grilled chicken and thought about how good that would taste with a cold beer right about now. The silver Audi with Jersey plates that Pruitt had told him about was still in its spot, he noticed.
He took a left at the top end of Jackson Street and then took another left back onto Clifton and approached his surveillance house from the opposite direction. People were out on their porches and chatting in their front yards on this Saturday night, with kids playing catch in the street and a dog darting back and forth trying to catch their ball before they did. Nice. Russell Field was on his right now, and he coasted south on Clifton, stopping quickly when the ball got away from one of the kids and rolled across the road into the yard of one of the houses that bordered the park. That’s when he noticed the dark sedan inside the complex, not in the regular parking area where cars normally parked, but on the service road positioned between two houses and facing out so that it had a perfect view of the Hutchinson residence, the same house he was surveilling. Hmm, he thought.
Lopez waited for the kid to retrieve his ball and continued down Clifton Street past number 91, parking behind a pickup truck so that he couldn’t be seen from the car he’d just spotted. Getting out on the passenger side, he aimed his b
inoculars and discovered what he thought he would, which was someone with his own set of binoculars aimed at the Hutchinson house. Quickly, he popped back behind the pickup. The car was a black BMW, just as Pruitt had described, and he knew then and there that what he’d said to Pruitt earlier was right. Someone was here to kill Curlander.
* * * * *
Harry, Denise, Fish, Sally, Ducky, and Monica had their own little gathering going on, but Bob didn’t seem to mind. The barbeque was winding down and the few late guests were collecting their coolers and casserole dishes and getting ready to extend their thanks to Bob and his wife Laura.
Bob came over and dropped a plate of drumsticks on the patio table. “Eat up,” he said. “Nothing worse than leftover grilled chicken.” Before leaving, he turned to Harry and asked, “Is everyone here that you thought was coming?”
Harry turned to Ducky and Ducky said, “Al said he was working on something for us and that he’d try to make it if he scored—whatever that means—but it doesn’t look like he’s going to show.”
Bob said, “There’s plenty of beer left, help yourselves. I’m gonna do a little cleanup and I’ll be back in a few.” With that, he lit a couple of patio torches for them and disappeared into the house.
“Helluva guy,” said Ducky. “Does he know what’s going on?”
“Yeah, he does,” said Harry. “At least most of it. He said he’s with us on this.”
Monica hadn’t said much since she’d arrived with Ducky, but it wasn’t hard to tell that she wasn’t thrilled with the idea that this amateur investigation was escalating. “And what exactly is this?” she asked, but it was hard to tell if she aimed the question at Harry or her husband.
Addressing the question, Harry replied, “I don’t think we can answer that until we know how many of the other brothers show up.” He looked at Ducky.
“They said they’d try, Harry. That’s all I can say.”