Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
An hour later, Collin’s brothers were back from their chore, breakfast was eaten, the kitchen cleaned, and they’d all resumed their seats in the tasting room. Scipio paced the front of the room, the fire burning gently in the hearth an odd juxtaposition to the murder board that stood beside it.
“We still have open questions, but we came to a solid working theory last night,” Scipio started. Perched at one of the high tops, Leo and Kendall nodded, each with an open laptop in front of them.
Nearly everyone in the room looked at her. Helia wasn’t sure why. They’d all invested time and a lot of brainpower. This seemed like all of their fight now, not just hers, but she nodded for Scipio to continue.
“Here,” he said, turning the murder board around to display a drawing more akin to an organizational chart rather than the notes and timeline on the other side.
At the top was a name Helia didn’t recognize, but connected by a line, beneath that box was Mark Pena’s name.
Beneath his was his wife’s name, and under Trish’s was Roger Wilde.
Branching out under Roger were three names: Justin Flannery, Kelly Carter, and Akin Miller.
Off to the side were two unconnected boxes, one with Derek Weber’s name and the other listing Kurt Fisher.
“What are we looking at?” Helia asked.
“A drug ring,” North said.
Scipio nodded. “Run by Johnny Haines out of Hong Kong,” he said, pointing to the top box.
“How’d you get to that?” Mantis asked.
“Before you answer, why is Akin’s name on there?” she interjected, setting a hand on her stomach, hoping the pressure would ease the acid burning there.
“Drugs are coming in from South Asia through Sundaram,” Scipio said.
“We don’t believe they are distributed from there, but that is the point of delivery.
Akin, as your chef, is in charge of ordering the food.
It’s possible it’s not him. It could be your kitchen manager, Greg, but there are reasons we’ve settled on Akin.
I can get into those now or as we walk through this,” he said, gesturing to the whiteboard.
She wasn’t ready to contemplate Akin’s potential betrayal of Sundaram. Maybe that made her a coward, but she didn’t care. “Start at the top, please.”
Scipio nodded. “Johnny Haines is an American-born man of Chinese descent. Like Pena, he served in the military but then moved to Hong Kong after he discharged to run his uncle’s export business. In addition to English, Cantonese, and Mandarin, he also speaks Thai, Vietnamese, Pashto, and Urdu.”
“He speaks more languages than you do, babe,” Viper commented.
“He sounds like a spook,” Lina agreed with a nod.
“The CIA did try to recruit him, as did the Chinese government, but Johnny had other plans,” Scipio continued. “Why get a shitty paycheck risking your life for a government who’d leave you high and dry at the blink of an eye when you can make millions trafficking drugs?”
“Well, when put like that,” Callie said.
“Did Pena and Haines meet while serving?” Helia asked, her head spinning.
Scipio nodded. “Same unit. Deployed together. They’ve kept in touch.”
“We have records of phone calls,” Leo said, looking up.
“And a couple of social media posts of them together,” Kendall added. Helia’s gaze lingered on the preteen, but she chose not to revisit the question as to whether it was a good idea to keep her so involved. That horse had left the barn.
“Okay, so that’s the link between Haines and Pena and presumably Trish. Where do we go from there?” she asked.
“We suspect Pena’s the boss of the US operations of the DKZ, but the DEA would need to confirm that,” Scipio continued. “Trish is, for lack of a better term, his lieutenant, in addition to being his wife.”
“Which means?” Joey asked.
“She manages the people. She keeps everyone in line, organizes the logistics, that sort of thing,” Leo answered.
“Basically, runs the show but doesn’t get to claim the title of ‘boss,’” Kendall said. Helia chuckled at the round of comments from the women in the room. Apparently, no matter the profession, women were still getting shafted in the workplace.
“Pena manages up while Trish manages down,” Leo said. “Not that I disagree with Kendall’s take, just telling you the organizational structure.”
Stone crossed his arms, his gaze fixed on the whiteboard, Sherman lying on his feet. “Pena handles the relationship with Haines—”
“And Haines’s inner circle,” Leo interjected.
Stone nodded. “And Trish manages the downstream distributors. Based on your chart, that means she worked with Roger, who then worked with Akin, Kelly, and Flannery.”
Scipio nodded.
“But the shipments come into Sundaram,” Helia said. “Oh god, I think I’m going to be sick.” Collin’s big, warm hand settled on her back. Everyone else in the room sent her supportive but commiserating looks.
Scipio hesitated.
She took a deep breath and waved for him to continue.
A beat passed, then Scipio did as asked.
“Last night, we realized that the police reports included no mention of Roger’s cell phone.
He had to have had one. No way was he making deals and running a business—even tangentially—without a phone.
And there’s only one landline in the building, and that goes to Gretchen’s office and the tasting room. ”
“So we went on a treasure hunt,” Leo jumped in. “Turns out, you all missed a place yesterday. The toilet tanks.”
“The hell?” Collin said, his hand pausing in its strokes.
“Another great idea from the youngest member of our crew,” Leo said. Kendall didn’t look up but she smiled.
Scipio nodded. “Roger Wilde was a paranoid bastard. Had reasons to be even without being targeted for murder. We found his cell phone in a plastic bag in the tank of his toilet, and in two others, we found drugs. We’ve left the drugs where they are, but Leo and Kendall went through his phone last night. ”
“His text messages indicate he was the primary contact with Trish,” Leo said.
“And I found a couple of pictures of the two. Not at events here in the valley, but in Florida,” Kendall said. “One was from a party in LA, though. It was taken seven years ago. That’s when we think they met.”
Helia stifled a moan. Collin restarted his soothing rubs as he spoke. “Roger and Trish decide to start trafficking drugs into the Napa Valley. Pena and Trish broker the deal with him, but he doesn’t have any way to get them into the valley without raising flags since Bacco doesn’t import much.”
“Which is when he brings in Akin. Or Greg,” Helia said. “What better partner than a business that imports food frequently enough not to raise any red flags when shipments come through, but not so regularly as to raise red flags with customs agents.”
Scipio nodded. “Once they arrive, Akin—or Greg—gets them to Kelly and Justin, who then distribute them.” He paused, then he added, “With some coming to Roger both for his personal use and to use during the parties he hosted.”
“Marketing the drug,” Collin said, repeating Callie’s suggestion from the night before. “He had access to drugs well before that, though,” he added.
“He did.” Scipio nodded.
“But not the high-end designer stuff you found in his room,” Leo said.
“When we tested it, our lab folks had never seen anything like it. The base drugs are the standard ones we talked about, but they’ve been customized and engineered in such a way that could only happen with the most modern equipment and knowledge. ”
“Why would Kelly and Justin kill him, then?” Philly asked.
Several people in the room nodded.
“They either found another broker or he became a liability,” Callie opined. “And since the drug is hyper-engineered, I’m guessing it’s the latter.”
“It was,” Scipio answered. “Leo ran Roger’s text messages through some sort of program that I’m not going to explain because only about five people in the room will understand it, and I’m not one of them. The gist of it is, though, Roger was getting both reckless and careless.”
“And forgetful,” Kendall added.
“And forgetful,” Scipio agreed. “Not anything major, nothing to expose them completely, but he slipped up enough publicly—saying things he shouldn’t—that Kelly even mentioned it in a text to him. We think all three were getting nervous.”
“Nervous enough to kill him before he said anything to implicate them,” Charley said, her tone both curious and reflective.
Scipio nodded. “But once they killed him—and we may never know how—it created a leadership vacuum.”
“A space all three—Kelly, Justin, and either Akin or Greg—wanted to step into,” Collin said, leaning back against the couch. Sliding his hand forward, he wrapped his fingers around hers.
“And that’s when things started getting ugly,” Leo jumped in.
“Flannery made an early move when he tried getting close to Helia. If he succeeded, he’d be spending more time at Sundaram, making Akin obsolete.
Fulfilling two roles in the chain, receiver and distributor, potentially makes him more valuable to leadership. ”
“Also making him the first target,” Dulcie said.
“Based on the shoe print in the carpet at Flannery’s house, Akin was the likely killer. Knocking out his competition.”
“I don’t see it,” Helia said. Everyone looked at her. “I mean, I see the scenario and don’t disagree. But I can’t see Akin being involved.”
“He spends the most time in the kitchen,” Scipio pointed out.
Helia inclined her head. “I’ll grant you that, but he’s not the one who places the orders. Greg does that.”
“At Akin’s direction, though?” Mantis asked.
She didn’t want to concede that point, but she couldn’t turn a blind eye. “Yes, at his direction,” she said. “But Greg has final say on the vendors.”
“You think Greg is the one we should be looking at?” Leo asked.