Checkered Past (A Laurel London Mystery Book 2) (18 page)

He walked around the car looking in the windows. He tapped the trunk.

“We need to check the trunk.” He came back up to my window. “I’m not sure if you know, but we feel there is a criminal, a dangerous and armed criminal, in the area. We are checking all cars in and out of Walnut Grove.” He smiled.

“Of course.” I turned the car off and got out. “My momma and I heard all about it.” I put my hand up to my chest. “We hope you find him soon.”

“We do too, ma’am.” He looked into the trunk when I popped it open. Another agent used a long stick with a mirror on it to look underneath my car. They nodded at each other. “Have a good day. Don’t spend too much money.”

“Oh thank you.” My shoulders raised in excitement. “There is a sale going on at the mall. When I come back, my trunk will be filled with packages.”

He laughed. I jumped in the Old Girl, turned her on and headed on out of town. Not glancing back once.

The quicker I got to Louisville and into FBI headquarters, the better. My nerves were shot and I needed to get to the bottom of this.

The large reception area was the same as I had remembered with the leather chair and the glass staircase off to the left.

“Can I help you?” the agent behind the desk asked. “Say, aren’t you the same girl who came in here a few months ago asking for Mike Florenza?”

“I am.”
Shit!
I didn’t figure on seeing him again.

“I’m Dale Buchannan. We weren’t properly introduced last time.” He smiled. “I heard you’ve been working with Jax Jackson down in Walnut Grove on some of his PI cases.”

“Yeah. That’s right.” I nodded, seeing this as my in. “He asked me to come up and talk to Agent,” I brushed my hair behind my ear and mumbled a name, “who’s on the case of Willie Ray Bowman.”

“I heard that shit was going down. And I hope they catch the motherfucker.” He put his hands in the air. “Excuse my language. But you know, he killed one of us.”

“Yeah. Asshole.” I sounded all big and bad, playing the game.

“You can head on up the stairs and take the first conference room on the right since he must be expecting you.” Dale pointed to the glass steps.

“See ya.” I darted up the steps in my heels before he could stop me.

“I didn’t catch your name,” Dale called after, but I ignored him.

There was no way I was going to stop in the room on the right, instead I headed to the ladies room and directly into the stall. I hung the hobo bag on the hook on the stall door and dug through for the fingerprint, scissors and theatrical glue. The fake FBI badge caught my finger and I pulled it out, clipping it on the band of my pants.

The sound of two sets of heels walked into the bathroom. I stood as still as I could, hoping they weren’t in there looking for me. The water faucet at the sink turned on.

“I still can’t believe after all of these years they still haven’t gotten to the bottom of the Bowman case,” a woman said. “I’m so sick of reviewing those damn tapes.”

“Especially now. Since he escaped, they are breathing down our necks to see who his accomplice was.” the other woman said.

I moved my head side to side to see if I could get a view from the stall door crack.

Both of them had on a navy blue blazer and slacks. One had on a pair of leopard print heels I would have died to get my hands on, while the other had on the boring natural colored heels. The fun leopard woman had her hair in a low ponytail, while natural and boring had hers pulled up into a tight bun on the top of her head.

“If Bowman was giving bribes to the FBI agents who were undercover in the sting, he isn’t going to tell who,” Leopard said.

“Someone told me some of the agents believe the undercover agent who was found dead was working with Bowman. They believe the agent told Bowman the agency was on to him and his bribes.” Natural ran the palm of her hand over her slicked hair. “Truthfully, I think Bowman had nothing to do with it.”

“Get out,” Leopard gushed.

“Seriously.” Natural leaned in. She whispered, “Think about it. Bowman was at the wrong place at the wrong time. He passed the initial lie detector test about why he was at the bank. Yeah, I get he was a petty thief, but look at his eyes.”

“His mug shot makes me horny just looking at it.” Leopard bit her bottom lip. “I wonder who the lucky lady was from his statement?”

“Shit, you’ve always liked the bad boys.” Natural snickered. “You know.” She looked in the mirror at herself. She ran her lipstick around her lips. “They never found out who the girl was.” Her perfectly manicured brow cocked when she looked at Leopard. “Maybe she’s the missing piece to all this.”

I sucked in air and listened to them talk about me.

“I wonder if she was the mastermind around the robbery and that’s how he was able to beat the questions on the lie detector.” Natural had it all wrong.

“We should go ask Sarge if they ever found out who the fiancée was because I can tell you,” Leopard looked at herself one last time in the mirror. “There is nothing about her in the file. Nothing about a girlfriend. Nothing.”

“It’s worth looking into.” Natural added, “Let’s leave the tapes and go grab a coffee before we tell Sarge our theory.”

Some theory. What kind of FBI training did they get?
I glared through the crack.

“I was watching them in the media room.” Leopard pulled down a paper towel and ripped it off the roll. She dried her hands and threw it in the trash. “No one is going to be in there so the tapes will be fine.”

Media room
. Mentally I tried to recall if I had seen a sign on any of the doors that said Media Room, but I couldn’t recall. My adrenaline was pumping so fast, I was on a spinning rollercoaster.

The two of them walked out of the bathroom. Quickly I got Eric’s thumbprint out and cut it to fit the tip of my finger.

“Fiancée,” I spit. “Helping him out. Mastermind? Are they crazy?” I asked while smearing the theatrical glue on the tip of my right pointer finger.

I sat on the toilet and carefully stuck the fingerprint duplicate on top the glue on my finger. A steady stream of air came out of my mouth and blew the glue dry.

I slipped out of the bathroom when I saw the coast was clear. I straightened my shoulders and presented a very confident attitude. I kept my eyes straight, darting them to the side to get a good look at the nameplates on the doors.

“Afternoon.” A man nodded with a stern face as we passed in the hall.

Eye contact but nothing more.
I reminded myself not to smile.
Be one with the people here
.

The reason I was so good at being a petty criminal was the fact I could blend in anywhere. I was neither the prettiest girl nor was I the ugliest. I wasn’t the thinnest or the heaviest. I was normal. Blend in normal. My eyes, well, they were a different story and people always remembered my eyes. Not many people had grey eyes. Still, I blended in pretty good when I needed to.

Quickly I moved my way around the halls until I came to the Media Room.

“Here goes nothing,” I gulped when I saw there were two ways to enter.

Using your badge and using your fingerprint. Hopefully it was one or the other because I didn’t plan on counterfeiting a badge.

“I knew you were one to be reckoned with the day I met you. I should kick my own ass for letting you in on where you came from.” Ben Bassman spat under his breath next to me. “I have people who take care of this kind of stuff.”

“What do you mean people?” I asked in surprise.

“Let’s just say people and leave it at that. The less you know, the better.” Ben was telling me in code he had illegal dealings within the FBI.

He swiped a card and put his fat finger on the fingerprint scanner.

“How did you know I was here?” I asked when he shoved me through the door by my elbow.

“I said I got people.” There was an odd twinge of disappointment on his round face. The shadow of his round hat covered his eyes. He flung the edges of his long black coat around him. “You cannot be sneaking around anymore.”

“Anymore?” I questioned.

“You are not the same little orphan girl you were a few months ago. You have an identity and are known.” Ben Bassman stalked over to the video monitors and hit a bunch of buttons. “You’re lucky I am as savvy as you are with counterfeiting stuff.” He held his fake badge in the air.

On the giant screen in front of us, Willie Ray Bowman walked into the bank.

“Wait.” I stopped and turned back to Ben. “Are you telling me you have people watching me?”

He pushed another button. Willie and the teller stood frozen at the entrance of the safety deposit vault.

“Laurel,” Ben’s eyes slid to mine. “You are the granddaughter of the ultimate mob boss. He wasn’t a nice man. He was a killer, a thief, a womanizer, and some other unpopular things that you should never know of. Now that you know who you are, the stakes are even higher you are going to be killed. Many people know you exist. They don’t know where you live.” His next word chilled me to the bone. “
Yet.”

“How did you know I was here?” I demanded to know.

“Are you going to get the information you came for or not?” Ben stuck a thumb drive in the correct spot, hit a few buttons.

The video fast-forwarded. There was a bump. A very visible bump.

“Run that back.” I pointed to the screen. “To where he is standing in the door with the teller before they go in.”

Ben ran it back. The video played out. The scene was not good. Clearly you see Willie walk in. There was only one man in the room and the report stated there were two. There was a scuffle. The teller went down, and then the other man. Willie stumbled and fell to the ground. The next scene played out like Willie had told me. The police rushed in. Eric rushed in. He was the first one to grab Willie. Willie’s hand slipped out next to him and I knew what was under his palm. The keys. The safety deposit box that had held the key in question was on the floor. Willie Ray made a swift move of his hands, going to his mouth and then sticking them up in the air with Eric’s gun pointed at Willie’s chest. That was the moment Willie swallowed the keys like he said.

Clearly the tapes show he was the only one in there. He was the only one who could’ve pulled the trigger.

“The gun was a stolen gun with scratched off serial numbers.” Ben took a deep breath. “I’m telling you to stay away from this. You are bringing more attention to yourself.”

He talked but it was little more than a yammer to me since I wasn’t listening. I continued to focus on the little bump I had subtly noticed.

“Go back to where Willie was with the teller again.” I pointed to the rewind button. “Don’t play it, fast forward it.”

“Listen, we have to get out of here.” He pulled the stick out of the thumb drive. “I’ve copied it on here for you to review at your leisure.”

“It’s better on the big screen. Just real fast,” I pleaded.

Ben let out a sigh of annoyance. He wasn’t going to win this one and he knew it.

“By the way,” Ben hit the buttons. “I made a little visit to Johnny Delgato. Well, I didn’t,” he corrected himself. “One of my little buddies in Eddyville paid him a visit in the bathroom this morning.” His eyes sharpened. There was a deep-set anger in them. “Needless to say, he has nothing on you nor will he ever try to hurt you or Trixie. According to him, he was trying to get your goat. He believed whatever Trigger Finger told him and the money stuck out in his mind.” A smirk appeared on his lips. “Trust me when I say you won’t be getting any sort of visits from him or any of his so-called associates.”

I wasn’t going to ask Ben what he had the other inmate do to Johnny because the less I knew, the better off I was. I wasn’t going to deny the relief I felt when I heard him say Johnny wasn’t going to hurt Trixie.

“See!” I pointed to the screen. “There is a blip in the footage like someone spliced it. It’s so subtle and professional that you can’t see it unless you fast forward it.”

The only reason I knew this technique was the fact after I had gotten caught on camera for my first break-in, I began to study ways to splice security camera footages and block footages. I wasn’t proud of my way of life, but it was how I survived and it was proving to be helping in my life now. Not that it makes it any better, but it made me
feel
better.

“You are going to have to look at this later,” Ben warned. He rewound the tape to where it was when we came in. He grabbed me by the arm. “Let’s go.”

It wasn’t like I was going to protest even though I wanted to. Ben was wise. He demanded respect and I could tell he was the one in charge of my life now. The Gorilla had put the trust in Trixie, but once I found out about my past, Ben Bassman was the go-to man.

We walked down the hall of the FBI headquarters like we belonged there, making idle chit-chat with each other when someone passed us. Ben knew the way around the office, taking us down the back steps and out the door without anyone noticing us.

“I’m coming to Trixie’s tonight to have a little chat with the two of you.” Ben stopped me on the outside.

“Wait.” I stuck my hand out. “Give me the drive.”

He slapped it in my hand. “Remember I have people.”

“How did you know where I was?” I asked.

“You keep your nose out of trouble and we will be just fine.” Ben jumped into the back of a passing black car with blacked-out windows as it almost crawled to a stop. He slammed the door and the car took off in a hurry.

Chapter Twenty

“I’ve got people. I’ve got people.” Disgust dripped out of my mouth thinking about Ben Bassman. Angrily, I pulled my phone out of the bag, sticking the SIM card and battery back in.

I was mad. Since when did my life not become my own? I was going to tell Ben Bassman where he could stick him and
his people.

My phone chirped from the bottom of my hobo bag. I kept my eye on the road and used a free hand to pat around inside the bag and grabbed the phone.

“Hello?” I didn’t bother with looking at who was calling.

“Hey, babe.” Antonio acted as though we were a couple. “I’m calling in my favor.”