Chapter Thirteen
Henry was seated at Jake’s kitchen table in his condo. Sterling, Bree, Everett, Addison, Lincoln, Ben, Parker, and Temple were also there. Everyone had been doing some investigating into the strange things that had been happening with the Ramesly family.
They were laying out all the information they had, which was very little, in Henry’s opinion.
“Gerrit couldn’t have killed James,” inserted Lincoln.
He had an arm draped over Addison’s chair at the crowded table, his other hand emphasizing his point as he talked.
“James was killed around the supper hour.
Addison and I saw Gerrit at the hotel. He was in one of the manager's offices, going through paperwork.”
“We saw him as we passed by. No one was with him,” concurred Addison. “You know the offices are glass. If the video feed had been available, anyone would be able to verify it.”
“Yet not all the video is available from the day in question,” stated Temple.
He was calm, reasonable, and scribbled down facts on his legal pad.
“At what time exactly did you see Gerrit? How long would it take him to get from the hotel to James and Dotty’s residence and back?
Is it feasible he had time to commit the crime?
Did anyone who isn’t family see Gerrit?”
“I don’t know the exact time we saw him, however I’m willing to testify,” replied Lincoln. “It’s the truth.”
“There would be time,” softly said Jake. “The hotel is only twenty-five minutes away from Uncle James’ home when it’s bad traffic. Fifteen in good traffic.”
“While the building where Uncle James and Aunt Dotty live has security cameras in the lobby, it doesn’t have them anywhere else to provide for privacy of the residents,” Ben said disapprovingly.
“From five in the afternoon until eight at night, seven people went through the lobby. There is no way to track anyone who came from another exit to the building. Of those seven people, three were delivery, two were residents of the building, one was the janitor, and the last was the nurse who tended to Uncle James. She went out for a smoke break then returned through the lobby.”
“Of the delivery people, two were take out delivery people that we verified were legitimately delivering food to residents. One was from a package delivery service. The company did not have a package to be delivered at that address that evening. That person is our killer,” revealed Bree.
She pressed a few buttons on a tablet which everyone passed around.
Henry saw a grainy picture of a man in a delivery uniform, holding a package. The man had a ballcap on, and looked deceptively normal.
“There is no sign in system to the building. Security is terrible there,” added Bree. “The camera system is so bad we can’t get anything through facial recognition scanning. There is no way to identify this guy unless he left evidence at the crime scene. Evidence only the FBI has.”
“While I could tap into the FBI computers, they would know and there would be consequences I’m not ready to face,” said Ben quietly.
“I’m not going to ask Marty to hack the FBI for the exact same reasons,” stated Bree. Marty was her technical assistant, helping her with her bounty hunter and private investigation business.
“Where are we with getting any footage back from the hotel?” wondered Sterling. “I know the system erased it all, but was there any backup?”
Ben gave the group a breakdown of his earlier conversation with the hacker who had originally been responsible for taking down Ramesly Hotels’ computer system during the bombing scare. The hacker had made a backup file of all footage from the night and had sent the material Ben’s way.
“I have created a program to skim through the material on the system to look for relative data points in the footage. There are gaps as some footage does appear to be missing but I’m still working on that.
So far the program has found a few interesting things.
The unfortunate part is when the computers went down, nothing was recorded from that point on until I had the new system in place.
There are hours with no footage. We do get to see everything that happened during the bomb scare, which is important,” mentioned Ben as he switched to a different view on the tablet, showing everyone at the table a bunch of different camera angles in the hotel.
“We can see a man, fairly nondescript, go into Lincoln’s room.
This is our bomber. When I track this man over the hotel, he knows where the cameras are.
He keeps his face hidden because he understands my system is good enough to run facial recognition from.
He checked into the hotel with an alias and stolen credit card.
We have no way of identifying him. He looks close enough in size, height, and description to pass for Gerrit on the camera.
He even dresses like Gerrit. The fact that he knows where the cameras are would be damning in a court case.
I think the guy is setting Gerrit up,” declared Ben.
“How do we know it’s not Gerrit? Just to play devil’s advocate,” inserted Temple.
“Because at the same time the bomber was strapping the bomb on Lincoln, Gerrit was scoring from his dealer,” answered Sterling. “The dealer is not willing to provide testimony but that is where Gerrit was.”
“We have proof of that through security cameras from various locations and businesses. Gerrit drove to this block and the security cameras saw him get out of his car, talk to the dealer, pass something between them which we now know were the drugs and cash, before leaving the scene. It’s all time stamped,” responded Everett.
“Verifiable proof Gerrit is not the bomber.”
“That’s usable in court.” Temple nodded as he wrote down more information. “Send that to me. What do we have that might work in our favor regarding Nate and David’s deaths?”
“We have video from Mercy Hospital showing Gerrit did give the cardioplegic concoction back to the nurses. It corroborates his story. We don’t have any proof of where the drug went.
It is capable of stopping the heart, which I am guessing is what the autopsy reports found which will make our lives a lot more difficult if that is the case,” grimly said Parker.
“Is there any way we can get copies of the autopsy reports?”
“The coroners used were specific to the FBI so the information is in the FBI database. Again, I can hack it, but I likely will either face charges or be forced to become an employee,” dryly mentioned Ben.
“Or we can get our information from the FBI itself,” smiled Bree as the doorbell rang. “Just on time. Get an extra chair, will you Everett?”
Bree headed towards the door to let in the latest guest while Everett found an extra chair and everyone made room at the table.
Henry was surprised to see FBI Agent Bill Kepler walk in after Bree. Kepler hadn’t been exactly helpful to the Rameslys for much of the investigation, despite his previous friendship with Bree. He also didn’t like how the man had treated Cora while investigating Nate’s death.
Kepler stayed standing and surveyed the group at the table. “I am not here. The security for the building has been temporarily disabled so there will be no footage of me being here. My phone and electronics are elsewhere. You will not take any electronic recordings of me or what I have to say.”
He dumped a thick file on the table. “I know paperwork is old school but it’s the only way to do anything without getting easily traced. The autopsy reports, the summaries of the company financials, and a copy of the plea deal Gerrit Ramesly made.”
“Why are you bringing us all of this?” questioned Henry, not feeling exactly charitable towards the man.
“Have a seat, Bill,” directed Bree as she gave him a clean coffee mug and pointed to the carafe on the table. “It’s going to be a long evening so you might as well just stay.”
Reluctantly, Kepler sat and poured himself a cup of coffee.
Kepler looked directly at Henry as he spoke.
“Deputy Director Epps made this a political case. The governor is looking for a quick win to prove he is tough on white collar crime before the election. This makes both of them look good. It isn’t justice.
You will find the financial summaries conclude that while the companies should pay hefty fines to return the laundered monies, Michael, Jake, Dillon, and Noah were innocent of any involvement.
The FBI knew it had no case against them.
They simply need to have the fines levied against Ramesly Pharmaceuticals, and Ramesly Insurance.
“When it comes to Gerrit, he personally profited and was aware of what was happening with Ramesly Hotels laundering drug money. The company needs to be fined, he needs to be fined and face time in prison for that crime. However, doing a plea deal to drop charges that were already going to be dropped against the other four Ramesly men was unnecessary and overreach by Deputy Director Epps. The murder charges are based only on Gerrit’s confession.
There is not enough proof to convict him beyond a reasonable doubt.
Epps is a political puppet who took an easy win.
This isn’t how the FBI is supposed to work,” grumbled Kepler before taking a sip of the black coffee.
“I can’t lose my job. I need it for other reasons which I am not about to divulge.
I was going to be taken off the case when Epps took over unless I towed the line.
The only thing I can do is relay information to you as I am able.
I am not going to get caught or be accused of getting directly involved,” warned Kepler.
“The only reason I am doing this is because Gerrit Ramesly, while guilty of some crimes, is innocent of the others. You still have a killer who is intent on harming all of you, as proven at Christmas during the bomb scare. There have also been other attempts on your lives that I don’t believe you even realize. ”