Chapter 10 Hunting The Marsdens
Keith found himself in strange territory.
He’d come downtown to the precinct headquarters to visit Detective Stanton in his office for a change, bringing fresh information with him.
As he entered in, he could feel the eyes of the officers as they scrutinized his apparel.
Keith always dressed formally on the job, including the jacket and tie.
He made his way to a desk to ask for directions when Marvin saw him.
Marvin quickly made his way over to get Keith and lead him back to Brick’s office.
He showed Keith into the office, then went for some coffee.
It wasn’t long before he came back with coffee and Brick in tow.
“Mr. Dankard!” Brick greeted merrily as he entered in. “I see that Marvin has shown you in already. How can I help you?”
“This is Marvin?” Keith asked in surprise. “I thought you were shot during that ambush that nearly killed my friends.
“I was, but the surgeons did fine work and I’m back on the job.” Marvin turned to Brick. “Do you need anything else, Bud?”
“I’m good, Marvin. If you want to stay to help us go over this information, you are more than welcome to join us,” Brick politely offered.
“Are you kidding? I’m getting off early today. I got the chance to watch my kids learning how to swim.”
“Alright, Marvin. Take care, and thanks for everything.”
“You’re welcome Brick. Good afternoon Mr. Dankard,” Marvin said with a wave as he turned and left the office.
“Now. You said you had good news for us?” Brick asked eagerly.
“Absolutely. Two new clues. One from Tanaka-San, and the other from Danny Blaine.”
“How do you have so many connections?” Brick mused absentmindedly.
“Long hard years in the service, and working multiple international operations.”
“Sorry, that was just me, thinking out loud. Show me what you have.”
“IF,” Keith started, “Tanaka-San is right, then Lance Marsden was meeting with Taito-San when he visited Tokyo.”
“Really? How intriguing. Do go on, Keith,” Brick encouraged.
“And, after months of going over the security camera footage, he thinks he found who was involved in the assassination of Nobuko Tashugi, but he needs our help to find the gaijin who did this dastardly deed to his boss and friend.”
“Is that so?” Brick said, his curiosity piqued. “What evidence did he send?”
“Check out this beauty right here. It turns out that the wall clock also had a hidden camera in it. Apparently, Nobuko was highly paranoid. It wasn’t until its seven-terabyte memory got full that an alarm went off, alerting Tanaka-San to this camera feed that he didn’t know existed.
” Keith smiled like he was about to take a bite from the biggest, juiciest burger in the world.
“Check the features in this still he sent.”
“OMG! That’s the enforcer Millard Calput! I’d stake my life on that!”
“Exactly! Now do you believe me when I said this is a lot bigger than you and I had initially thought?” Keith waited and saw Brick slowly nod his head.
“If Millard was there, then Nobuko was as good as dead anyway.” Brick stood up and paced around the desk, putting the pieces together in his mind.
“Don’t you want to see the rest of it?” Keith asked. He opened another folder, and laid out the message from Tanaka-San. “It seems he was able to pull some audio, and this is the transcription,” he said pointing at the document as he laid it out.
“Have you looked at this?” Brick asked as he moved back to the desk. “What did you say this was? A translation of the conversation?”
“Tanaka-San was able to recover some audio, though most of it was muffled because of the placement of the camera. He’s sending the audio file by courier, but this was the transcription of the conversation as best as he could translate it.”
“OK! Let’s take a look at,,,” Brick stopped dead in his tracks, frozen as he stared at a single line. Slowly he brought his right hand over, pointer finger extended.
Keith tracked the movement and started to read through the transcription, stopping where Brick was pointing.
Confusion filled his face, distorting his look as he began to try to puzzle out what the words meant.
“What in the world does that mean?” Keith started reading out loud from where Brick was pointing.
“Don’t – The Grand Mother would not like that.
She has ordered us only to retrieve the method Nobuko uses to divine the source. ” He paused.
“That doesn’t make much sense now, does it?
” Brick asked. “But that next line, that sounds like something Millard would say – ‘I don’t care what The Grand Mother says, I’ll torture him to death if I have to.
I can’t leave without that device.’ This sounds like it was fully planned, but not by them. ”
“I concur. But who in the world is this Grand Mother?” Keith pondered aloud. “I really don’t get why some grandmother would bother Millard Calput.”
“No, Keith – not a grandmother. The words are separated. Grand then Mother. As if there is some distinction between that and a grandmother.” Brick stroked his chin. “I wish I could hear what he actually said. This is all translated from Japanese into English.”
“I know, but it’s all we got. Still, I think it’s safe to say now that Millard Calput was there with Taito-San to get the device Nobuko Tashugi was using to detect oil deposits at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.”
“So, what links the Pendergast Family to Taito-San?” Detective Stanton grabbed his coffee and took a swig. “Any more luck following the money trail from Lance?”
“Most of it is a dead end. All his records are legitimate from Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras. None of it traces back to the Orient or Canada.” Keith let out an exasperated long breath. “I thought this would help, but it seems to be more like Lance is just a cover guy and messenger.”
“That’s it!” Brick snapped. “Lawrence Denson!” He dropped his hand hard on the desk. “That was one of the aliases on his passports, right?” He eyed Keith hard.
“The one he used to get into and out of Japan,” Keith replied. “What of it?”
“What money is tied to him?”
“I’ve got no idea. We can’t find anything on Lawrence Denson, or Denson Imports and Exports.” Keith pressed down hard on the desktop. “This is so frustrating.” He looked up. “Can Jack probe from within and find out anything for us?”
“He’s been quiet for a while now, just laying low because the environment over there at Marsdens Investment House has been chaos. His last missive indicated that they are starting to bleed clients, and it worries Jason and Philip because they won’t have the accounts to move the money around in.”
“They’re using their client accounts to move the items from the Orient to here!” Keith exclaimed. “Have Jack dig deeper on that, and I’ll have Andy hack from our place. We’ll find the connection, Brick. I know it’s there.”
“Okay, we’ll move forward that way. Now, what about this information from Danny Blaine. He’s your contact over at the DEA, right?”
“He sure is. He’s been tracking the Fentanyl shipments that enter Vancouver then change companies several times before coming down to the U.S.
He’s tracked the shipments down to Omaha, and a courier from there to Kansas City.
It seems that one of the drop off locations is Stamson Medical Center.
” Suddenly Keith froze in place, remembering his long recovery there after the drive by shooting in front of Club Euchre. “Erica,” he whispered.
“You’ve got to be joking me! Erica Stamson? The daughter of Michael Stamson, the richest man in Kansas City? You think she’s involved with the Marsdens! Have you gone loco Keith?!” Brick said fiercely.
“No, not that, Brick.” Keith took a moment to regain his composure.
“Erica came back to Kansas City the night of the drive by. She checked on all of us. She’s been heavily involved in the research side of Stamson Medical Center since her return.
She just might be our in. She could help us find how these drugs are getting into her hospital. ”
“Alright, that’s better. For a moment there, I thought you’d lost it.
” Brick looked back down at the tracking documents from Danny Blaine, then followed the shipments tracking until it came to Stamson Medical Center.
“We get her involved. I know we can trust her to help us find out the truth. I’ll contact her right away. ”
“Please, Brick,” Keith softly broke in. “Let me. I’ve known her all my life.”
“Something personal here I need to know about?” Brick asked firmly.
“She was Greg’s fiancée before the Denver trip last year,” Keith said, then lowered his head. “It’s an old wound, but she’s still a good friend to me.”
“Keith? What aren’t you telling me?” Brick almost demanded.
“I love her,” he softly confessed. “She loved Greg. In fact, she still does.”
“You love your boss’s ex-fiancée? WOW!” He shook his head in disbelief. “Do either of them know how you feel?”
“Nope, and I’m keeping it that way!” Keith insisted as fire flashed in his eyes.
“Calm down, Tiger! I’m not challenging you. Just trying to get the lay of the land, alright?” Brick assured him. Keith slowly backed down.
“Sorry. I’m a little sensitive where Erica Stamson is concerned,” he admitted.
“I can understand that. So, you contact Erica and arrange for us all to meet. I want to be there with you as we explain this. I’ve known her family since the Stanton family adopted me.”
“I didn’t know you were adopted.” Keith looked puzzled. “When?”
“I was told that I was supposed to be adopted as a baby, but something went wrong and I ended up in foster care. The Stanton’s came along when I was six, almost seven years old.”
“It seems they were good for you. Did you ever try to find your birth mother?”