Chapter Fourteen
“Happy birthday!” Landon voiced to his mother on a cell-phone video chat as he stood inside his condo. He’d left Raquelle’s place an hour ago, after having breakfast together like old times, to get ready for work.
Zelda Pritchard had turned sixty but could easily have passed for a woman ten years younger. Thin, she had chestnut hair in a layered, short cut and the same gray eyes that had been passed down to Landon.
Her face brightened as she said, “Thank you, Landon.” She became thoughtful. “I’m so glad to have reached this point in my life.”
He took that in multiple ways. One was reaching sixty while finding later success as a real estate agent.
Another was knowing that his father, William Briscoe, had not even reached age forty before disaster struck.
Finally, the fact that she was happy to celebrate her birthday with a new husband—Chuck, a retired neurologist—to share her life with as they settled into a place in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Tennessee.
I can’t take any of that away from her, Landon thought, knowing she deserved every bit of happiness that he wanted for himself. “So am I,” he told her, grinning. “How’s Chuck?”
“He’s doing well,” she said.
“Great.” Landon waited a beat to then say what was likely to come as a shock to her, “I’ve started seeing Raquelle again.”
Zelda lifted a brow. “Really?”
“Yeah.” His voice was mellow. “It’s true.”
“And how did this come about?” she asked curiously.
“It’s a long story,” he answered, meditative. “No time to go into details just yet. Suffice it to say, though, I can only hope the story has a happy ending.”
“So do I.” Zelda flashed her teeth with encouragement. “You two made a great couple. No reason that you can’t again.”
Landon grinned. “I couldn’t agree more.”
He almost hated to cut the conversation short but knew that if things went his way there would be plenty of time to discuss his revived relationship with Raquelle. Which would open the door to reestablishing their own connection and even his getting to know Chuck better.
Landon headed out to the field office, expecting the autopsy report to come in at any time now on the circumstances surrounding the death of Fred Davenport.
* * *
KATIE RODE WITH Zach as they drove into Saluda Shoals Park in Columbia, having taken the west entrance on Bush River Road. They had been surveilling, while keeping their distance, a black BMW X5 M SUV with Ivan Pimentel and Yusef Abercrombie inside.
After the BMW parked, Pimentel and Abercrombie got out and headed into the riverfront park. Katie and Zach left his vehicle and trailed them.
“Something tells me they’re not out for a leisurely stroll in the park,” Katie said humorlessly, carrying a powerful zoom digital camera for official work.
“No, not likely.” Zach grinned. “Let’s find out what they’re up to.”
“All right.” She hoped the art-crime suspects might give them even more to work with in solidifying a case that was unshakable.
They watched as Pimentel and Abercrombie made their way to the river observation deck, where they were joined by another man.
Zach asked intently, “Who’s that?”
“I’ll get a closer look,” Katie told him.
They were on the opposite side of the river, while hidden from view, amid southern sugar maple trees and red buckeye flowering plants.
Using the zoom lens, she homed in on the trio.
And then, more specifically, the unknown male.
He was white, in his mid-forties, tall and of medium build, and had brown hair in a bun.
She recognized him as wanted international art smuggler Hans Duey, who had also been on their radar and specialized in Native American stolen art and artifacts—selling them to the highest bidder.
Duey had been fingered by Eddie Jernigan as part of the Art Crime Team’s transnational investigation.
“That’s Hans Duey, who Pimentel and Abercrombie went out of their way to meet with,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Not too surprising,” Zach said knowingly. “The trio are likely trying to get their stories straight while hoping to stay one step ahead of the law.”
“Good luck with that,” she said sardonically while snapping pictures and recording video of the three men conversing.
“Aside from adding more fuel to the fire for our case, our partners at Homeland Security Cultural Property, Art, and Antiquities Investigations will love this—as part of their overall goal to dismantle global crime syndicates and their trafficking of cultural property for money laundering and funding of their various criminal activities.”
Zach paced and responded conclusively, “You’re right—we’re on the verge of holding Pimentel and his associates accountable for their transgressions. Whether or not that includes the death of Eddie Jernigan is still up in the air.”
Katie was of the same mind. She continued to hold out hope that Eddie was somehow able to sidestep the worst outcome for his disappearance. If only for Landon—and his resumption of romance with Raquelle.
* * *
LANDON WAS AT his desk as Lexington County Coroner’s Office Deputy Coroner Jeannie Estrada appeared on the screen of his laptop. Fortysomething, she was on the slender side and had short, straight brown hair with blond highlights and brown eyes.
She smiled. “Afternoon, Agent Briscoe.”
“Afternoon,” Landon said anxiously. “What did you come up on with on the death of Fred Davenport?”
Jeannie went right into business mode as she responded in a measured tone of voice. “We’ve completed the autopsy on Mr. Davenport. Though the preliminary exam suggested that his death may have been a suicide, we now believe the decedent’s death was a homicide…”
“Is that so?” Landon cocked one brow. “Why the change of heart?”
“The initial observation was never meant to be the official cause of death,” she defended the coroner’s office.
“It was only after conducting a complete autopsy that we were able to ascertain that, in fact, the decedent was shot at close range by another person—and it was made to look like a suicide.”
“Hmm…” Landon gazed at her with interest, knowing that this played into his own strong suspicions that Davenport was taken out to silence him. Much like they had tried to do with Eddie—and might have succeeded as well. “Go on,” he nudged her.
Jeannie nodded and said, “There was some deep bruising on the shoulders of the decedent to suggest that he was being held down by someone—or possibly more than one person. The blood patterns on his arms indicated that they were raised in an upward position after death. Pretty hard to pull off for a dead man acting alone,” she uttered wryly.
“Finally, the placement of the gun on the bathroom floor indicated that Davenport would’ve used his right hand to shoot himself in the temple.
Problem is there were no lacerations or abrasions on the decedent’s index finger that normally would be present when one fired a weapon.
Hence the final conclusion is that the manner of death was murder by a single shot to the head, causing significant damage that proved to be fatal. ”
“Not surprising that we’re talking about a homicide here,” Landon had to say. “Makes sense when coupled with some other factors in our investigation. What’s the estimated time of death?” he asked for context in gathering evidence on the crime and those involved.
She gave a two-hour window but cautioned him, “It could have come a little earlier or later.”
Close enough to work with, Landon told himself. Then he said to her routinely, “I understand.”
After ending the video chat, he went to brief the special agent in charge, finding her in the field office’s gym.
Shannon, keen on fitness, was moving briskly on a treadmill when Landon walked up to her. “What do you have for me?” she asked assumingly.
“Just got the autopsy report on Fred Davenport.”
“And…?”
“Turns out, he was murdered—not a suicide.” Landon watched her reaction. “The Korth 2.75-inch Carry Special .357 Magnum revolver that killed Davenport was the same handgun used to shoot Lim Ramírez.”
Shannon’s eyes widened. “You think someone else killed Ramírez?”
“I think Davenport was hired by Ivan Pimentel—or more likely, his right hand, Yusef Abercrombie—to blow up my CI’s boat,” Landon told her, laying out the facts again as he saw them.
“Bomb-making materials discovered in Davenport’s apartment corresponded with those used to construct the IED placed on the Crest Savannah 250 SLSC vessel.
When Eddie managed to escape the explosion, by all accounts, I believe that Davenport—needing to complete his assignment—shot to death Ramírez, mistaking him for Eddie.
But then Davenport himself became a loose end that needed to be taken out of the equation. ”
“Hence using his own weapon to make it appear that he shot himself—allowing Pimentel and company to wash their hands of a hit gone wrong,” Shannon ascertained, using a towel to wipe perspiration from her face.
“That’s how I see it,” he said in agreement. “But it backfired, as we now know that Davenport was murdered with a firearm—from his own stockpile of weapons—and Eddie may well still be a thorn in Pimentel’s side.”
“So, what’s the next move in piecing this together?” she asked impatiently.
“We try to find surveillance videos or cell phone information that can place one of the suspects at or near Davenport’s apartment around the time of death—to go with any forensic evidence we can gather.
” Landon jutted his chin. “While also moving progressively on the case we’ve built against Pimentel’s crime organization on stolen and forged Native American artwork.
” And hope Eddie is still able to provide us with more intel on the criminality, Landon told himself.