Chapter 33
She’d forgotten about dinner and gone down to the second floor to raid their healthy vending machine around ten last night, grabbing a protein bar and a piece of fruit, having polished off the last bite of her burrito long before.
Pushing up, Athena stretched, feeling every one of her forty-five years.
The bullpen outside was dark and quiet as she slipped through.
Paulson must be in the crib. Everyone else had gone home.
It seemed surreal to see the situation room in hibernation, with no voices, lights, phones ringing, or the tapping of keys, just an ambient glow and the soft pad of her bootless feet across the tile. Peaceful, she thought.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you so fresh this early,” he commented. “Did you sleep at all?”
“Some.” She blotted the corner of her mouth with a napkin. “I want to box this guy in today so he can’t wiggle out of it. Then you and I are going home and spending Valentine’s night with our significant others.”
Paulson raised the mug of coffee he’d just filled. “I’ll toast to that! Did you make headway at least?”
“Only the usual.” She sighed. “Abusive, controlling father, sad, submissive mother, one sibling under psychiatric care, another killed on active duty in Afghanistan. No wonder he hates authority. His IQ is off the charts, but he’s left a string of alienated friends and coworkers behind.
I managed to dig up one ex-girlfriend, and that was from seven years ago. ”
“I’ve been thinking,” Paulson said. He pulled up his chair near hers, locked a wheel, and leaned in.
“I suspect he started up that private eye business to gain observation skills and to meet members of the criminal underground. Smart guy, he had to realize that to get anywhere he needed to blend in better, learn how to get along with ordinary folks. Then his year and a half, two years off the grid?”
“He spent part of that living with a cousin,” Athena inserted.
“Nothing linked him to the address, but he had a bus pass. I called his cousin before it got too late last night, and he said Isaac crashed at his place for five or six months. The cousin didn’t know exactly what he was up to, only that he spent a lot of time listening to podcasts, writing, and going out at night. ”
“If he’d started planning his money-making scheme, he might have been making criminal contacts, forming connections,” John said.
“But he couldn’t have known he’d be working for Gulf Allied Chemicals that far in advance.”
John lifted a brow in speculation. “Maybe he did, maybe not, but he knew he’d be working somewhere that he could get his hands on contraband to sell.”
“Good morning, boss!” Agent Ice’s voice was much too chipper for this hour on a Saturday morning. Athena could guess what he’d spent the night doing. “You know, I almost missed my turn. My subconscious wanted to take me downtown to Lieutenant Cash’s building to pick you up.”
“Thanks for the thought,” she replied with less enthusiasm.
The rest of the team trailed in behind him, hanging coats, grabbing coffee, and firing up their stations. “I’d better get back to my office,” she said, rising from the seat she’d occupied. “Time to check in with the lab.”
“Nobody’s called or sent me an email yet,” Bach said as he hovered near Karen’s desk. It seemed his mere presence made her blush. Athena refused to imagine what they might have been up to last night.
“Sometimes they need a nudge,” she replied.
A phone rang, and Howard answered. He sprang from his chair, twisting toward her, as waves of excitement radiated outward from his skinny frame.
“A GAC employee just called the hotline, said he witnessed Mora and some guys loading barrels into a strange truck in the middle of the night a few months ago.”
“Why didn’t he say so when we interviewed him?” Bach asked.
Howard shrugged. “Probably didn’t think it was relevant. But the late news report had a short bit about the car chase and Mora being taken into custody. The caller must have seen it too.”
“Let’s get him in here.” Athena perked up, fatigue falling away. “Looks like CEOs Whitmore and Kerrington might have to make good on their promises.”
“I’ll give the lab a call,” Bach offered, “and meet you when the witness gets here.”
“Good. Paulson, try to go a layer deeper on Mora’s finances. He’s got to put this money somewhere.”
“Not in his mattress,” Campbell chimed in. “We looked.”
“I’ll talk to the other janitors,” Shoops volunteered, “get their impressions of him, see what they think now that he’s been arrested.”
“OK, team,” Athena directed. “Let’s wrap Mora up with a bow.”
A stocky, balding man met Athena and Bach in the visitors’ lounge. “Thank you for coming in, Mr. Middleton.” Bach shook his hand. “I’m Detective Bach, and this is ASAC Bouvier. The tip line has gotten a lot of calls, but yours might prove to be the winner.”
Middleton shuffled his feet from side to side, fingering the cap in his hands. Athena thought he might utter, “Ah, shucks,” any moment.
“Won’t you have a seat and tell us what you saw?” she invited.
He waddled over to a big stuffed chair, as if he’d suffered a hip injury in the past, and sank into the seat.
“Well.” He scratched at the five hairs sprouting from the top of his ball-shaped head and stretched out his boots.
“I reckon it was four or five months ago, like when the leaves started turnin’, and it was finally gettin’ cool at night.
I was workin’ the night shift then, followin’ the pipes with my flashlight, makin’ sure there weren’t a gusher somewhere.
A little leakage is OK, but Mr. Booker’d be spittin’ mad if he came upon a lake, you know? ”
Bach nodded in serious agreement.
“That’s when I noticed somethin’ goin’ on at the small order loadin’ dock.
” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, worried eyes shifting between Bach and Athena.
“Ain’t usually anyone over there at two in the mornin’, so I wandered that way to have a closer look.
That’s when I recognized Isaac directin’ some foreign-lookin’ fellas loadin’ fifty-gallon drums onto the back of this flatbed.
It weren’t one of our trucks, that’s for sure. ”
“What did you do?” Athena asked.
“Well, I thought it was odd, but who knows?” He raised his palms and cocked his head.
“I went back to inspectin’ the pipes and forgot about it.
I mean, Isaac works in that buildin’, and I don’t.
It could’ve been a special order. I don’t know.
But then, when I saw on the news last night that he’d been arrested, it dawned on me, and I remembered.
What if that night I saw him, he’d been doin’ somethin’ sneaky?
Illegal? So, I called the tip line first thing this mornin’. ”
Middleton sat back, pride beaming on his round face. “Does this mean I get the reward?”
“Perhaps,” Bach replied.
Athena took out an 8 by 10 and passed it to Middleton. “Is this the man you saw?”
He took the photo and glanced at it. “Yeah, that’s Isaac.
I know him, see? Well, back when I was on days, we often shared a lunch shift.
Not like we spent weekends at the huntin’ camp or nothin’, but I know who he is.
We’d shoot the breeze sometimes. I figured he was just a regular guy, but then they showed the report about the car chase, and he hit that fire truck and all?
You just never know about folks, do ya?”
“No, sir, Mr. Middleton,” Bach concurred. “They can fool us sometimes.”
“Will you agree to testify in court to what you saw that night?” Athena asked.
“Yes, ma’am.” Middleton straightened, assuming a respectable posture. “I’m a good Christian, a law-abidin’ citizen. If Isaac was stealin’ from us, I don’t reckon he should get away with it.”
“Thank you,” Bach said. He handed Middleton a legal pad and a pencil. “Please write down what you just told us and sign it.”
Taking the pad, he began to write. Then he glanced up, eyes sparkling. “Who decides if I get the reward money?”
That was a good question, one Athena didn’t know the answer to. “We’ll call and let you know.”
Paulson hailed Athena when she and Bach returned to the workroom. “It wasn’t easy, but I think I found the account,” he announced. “I dug up a supposed charity established in 2021 by Gael Andre Salcido Kuri, only I can’t find any record of anyone by that name living in Texas.”
“Gael Andre was Mora’s brother, killed in action in Afghanistan,” Athena said. “And Kuri is his mother’s maiden name.”
“Well, Isaac Mora is listed as having rights of deposit and withdrawal on the organization’s bank account,” John continued, “which has moved two million dollars since the charity was established.”
“What’s this fake charity called?” Bach asked, leaning on the edge of Shoops’ desk.
“Rise Together Foundation,” Paulson answered, then rolled his eyes.
“Good work, Agent Paulson,” said Athena. “Get an injunction to freeze its assets.”
In her office, Athena made a list. They’d gathered enough evidence to charge Mora with the illegal sale of company products, but still nothing tying him to the bomb, the collateral-damage deaths, or Nolan’s murder.
She stared at the list, drumming her polished nails on her desk.
Campbell had sent her a report on everything removed from Mora’s residence.
No pipe wrench. He had plenty of other tools in the house, but no common plumber’s wrench?
Athena was so deep in concentration that she jumped when Bach burst into her office unannounced. She glared at him. “Do you ever knock?”
“You want to see this,” he said.
Athena met him at the door. “The lab report is in?”
The answer shone in his eyes. “It’s not a smoking gun, but I think it’s enough, added to what we already have.”
She followed him out into the bullpen, where everyone stopped to listen. “You should all be getting copies of this,” Bach began. He read off the attachment delivered to his phone.
“The suspect’s passenger-side carpet and an empty lunchbox tested positive for microscopic PETN particles and trace lead azide. Both substances are consistent with explosive residue recovered from the device.”
“But no detonator,” Ice grumbled in disappointment.
“That’s not all,” Bach said, holding up a finger. “Also recovered from the floor, a tiny blood drop matching Nolan’s blood type but not Mora’s. It’s in DNA testing right now to confirm the match.”
“No murder weapon.” Karen’s words were laced with disappointment.
“He’s too smart to leave a detonator or bloody wrench lying around,” Athena deduced.
“They’re at the bottom of the bayou. But the blood drop, the trace explosive chemicals—they put the murder weapon and bomb in his truck.
He’ll argue it’s circumstantial, but, with the right push, we can tip him over the edge.
A man that convinced of his own superiority can’t hide behind a mask of civility forever. ”
Bach grinned. “Then let’s put him back in the box and take him down.”