Hit 'N' Run (Under Suspicion #1) (17 page)

I’ll bet this is exactly what Mitch’s sting operation was looking for.
The link between Tim and Charles Fong, besides blood ties. The authorities were searching for the financial connection between the two, and she had it.

Ironic. If Mitch had asked me outright, I’d likely have told him what I knew without, of course, giving away privileged information. But he didn’t trust me.

Her time was up, and she had penetrated as deep as she dared. She closed out of the site, clearing her history, going through her system to erase the tracers. Meticulously, she printed and compiled the information, creating a dossier. Placing the pages neatly in a file, she topped the sheets with her original questions. Declining to label the folder, she hesitated, not sure what to do next. Reaching up to the armoire where she stored stationery, she took down a large envelope. She positioned the envelope next to the file, placing a palm on each.

Aching for inspiration, she looked through the window to the visible stars, strong enough to break through the barrier of city lights and be seen twinkling merrily. “I don’t have to decide tonight.”

Sliding the file within the envelope, she neither addressed nor sealed it, leaving it centered on the desk. Pushing back from her chair, she resumed her toiletries before crawling into her empty bed.

Chapter Fifteen

Early on Monday morning, Mitch stood with nonchalant military grace just inside Chief Boulet’s door, waiting for his commander to review the file he had laid on the heavy desk. Hands behind his back, he concentrated all of his efforts on keeping his emotions from showing on his face.
If ever there was a time for my training to be effective, it is now
.

“Holy fuck.” Boulet flicked his eyes to Mitch in a quick assessment. “Pardon my French, but how exactly does someone come back from this to live what looks like a normal life?”

Mitch declined to answer. What he had found out about Lorna’s past made his blood boil with rage. Knowing he had caused her more pain wrenched his heart.
She trusted me and I let her down
.

Truth be told, he didn’t have the words. His shoulders pushed back within his suit jacket as though it were too small as he adjusted his stance.

“These files are sealed?”

“Not from us. Not anymore,” Mitch replied in flat tones, amazed his voice worked. “Not for this type of enquiry where she is a suspect as an accessory to a major criminal investigation.”

“Was a suspect,” Boulet corrected as he nodded, flipping another page. “But we were wrong, obviously.”

Obviously!
“Yes, sir,” Mitch answered instead. “Her original reservation with the rental company was for a two-door hatch back. The car rental company at the airport in Vancouver overbooked because of an influx of walk-ins and had only the truck left upon her arrival.”

Mitch noted where Boulet’s chunky finger was on the report and continued. “The money came from her parents. The funds were left in the hands of a trust company until she reached the age of majority. This is fairly typical. The uncle never had a cent, or better put, could never retain any money in his pocket and died a heroine junkie.”

Mitch controlled a shuddered breath before continuing. “Lorna was a gifted child. Her parents had her enrolled in a special school from a tender age. When they died, her uncle gained sole custody and used her in various electronic fraud operations. She was his breadwinner.”

“What tipped you to this?”

“Something Vonnie said about the guy not seeming too smart yet he never got caught at illegal gift cards.”

“But that wasn’t all he was into?”

“No, he had the grow-ops as well. Used to lock Lorna in a closet when he wasn’t using her for his computer schemes. That’s where the cops found her, malnourished, frightened…”

His words trailed and Boulet glanced up from the file; a question flared in the deep depths of his eyes, his lips thin.

Mitch coughed. “Her connection with Tim Fong is strictly business related. She bid on the position and he chose her because she’s good at what she does. She’s a marketing specialist for public relations within the oil industry.”

“Gifted.”

“Yes. Gifted.”

“Funny she never went into IT or something related to electronic programming, engineering perhaps. She could have made a fortune, judging from this file from when she was a kid.”

“She was offered a scholarship to MIT. Likely she wanted to close that chapter of her life.”

“I can understand.” Boulet pointed to the file with a stubby forefinger. “The uncle’s dead, you say?”

“He should have died in jail.” Mitch paused to control the rise in his voice. His hands turned to fists behind his back. He turned his chin towards his shoulder before focusing back on his commander. “No contact after she was removed from the premises. We see he remained a pony for the Fongs, but low level. As I said, he died a junkie on the street.”

Scrunching his fingers across his broad brow, the Chief exhaled through his teeth. “Well, shit. We may have lost a good lead to see where the connection lies between the brothers,” Boulet skimmed the remaining pages. Finishing, he smoothed the sheets into place and closed the file with a gentle hand.

Mitch watched in silence as his commander adjusted his glasses with the knuckle of his forefinger. Boulet’s eyes flicked from his window to the ceiling before they focused all of their grey intensity on Mitch. “Sit down a minute, will you?” he said, his normally steely gaze softening in his face as he raised his hand to gesture Mitch to a chair.

Mitch declined comment as he folded his body stiffly into position. Placing his arms on the chair rests, he straightened his fingers, breaking the fist.

“More than a tough weekend with Veronique Fong’s body turning up here in the city.”

“Yes, sir. You could say that.” Mitch nodded. “Found her down by the water under the Low Level Bridge.”

“Your assessment—and Luke concurs—she made contact to warn you?” He nodded back towards the now-closed file.

“Yes, sir.” Mitch stared blankly ahead without focusing his eyes on any one particular object and certainly not on Boulet. His insides were a torment with Lorna and then with Vonnie. Her death seemed to stain his hands. “I don’t know why she did it, but because of Vonnie, we now know the bigger picture actually lies with Tim Fong. We just need the link between the two brothers and their operations.”

“Jesus.” Boulet slammed a meaty hand on the desk. “We were so close. We wrapped the sting too soon. What’s the link, Mitch?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Use your gut, man. You know this Tymchuk woman. Regardless of her being an unwilling participant, we were right—she was the link back to you.” The Chief stood up from his chair, agitated. He strode to the lone window, lifting the blinds, hand cupping the back of his neck.

Pausing to look over his shoulder at Mitch, Boulet continued. “You have to let the knowledge of her past go. We have a job to do. What was Veronique warning you about? What’s the link?”

“They want their money back.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” Boulet turned back to the window. “How much was involved?”

“Between the drugs and the actual cash?” Mitch stopped to do some quick figures. “Close to three-point-two million.”

Boulet whistled between his teeth. “This woman, Veronique, said it was earmarked. What for?”

“We haven’t established the link yet.”

“Are you too personally involved in this to use your head?” The older man turned from the window to face him, releasing the blinds to fall back in place with a clatter He was goading him, and Mitch knew it.

Mitch turned his head to meet his Chief’s eyes dead on. “No, sir. I am not.”

“Then do your job and find out.”

***

Mitch slapped Jordan on the shoulder. “Everything and anything you can find on Tim Fong.”

“Okay,” Jordan said, not looking up. Instead, the younger man’s fingers started to play over the keyboard as though he were a concert pianist.

Mitch added. “And no more fuck-ups…we go right back to the beginning.”

“Tim Fong never crossed our radar before.” Hank cleaned the whiteboard of all previous information, preparing it to be populated with all they could find out about the oldest of the Fong brothers. “He’s like a ghost. No contact with the rest of the clan.”

“Oh, there’s contact,” Mitch said, pulling out his own laptop, logging into the police database. “We were just so absorbed in the one side of family business we neglected to look into any legitimate businesses. Makes sense though, in hindsight. Their whole operation with the funeral parlor had a legit side to it, and they would definitely need some way of washing the money.”

“Shouldn’t we concentrate on old Chucky?” Hank asked, tacking up a picture of the very suave-looking Tim Fong. “This guy’s all
GQ
.”

“Oh, but we are,” Mitch assured his teammate, nodding, but not raising his eyes from his own monitor. “The more we find on Tim, I’ll bet my left nut it’ll shine a bright light on Charles.”

“Left nuts and
GQ
magazines; sounds like my kind of party,” Luke said, coming into the cluttered boardroom with a stack of files.

Coffee was the perfume of choice in the small boardroom where the walls filled with gathered intelligence. Flow charts with arrows and circles grew, linking one event to another, connecting money acquired in one place to money being spent in another.

“It’s no good without the financial records as proof.” Luke stood to stretch his back, the snap of his vertebrae vibrated off the walls. “It’ll never hold up in court, and if we
can
get it to hold up in court, all this is moot.”

The foursome were a hive of activity as they searched, took notes, made phone calls calling in leads and favors for useful evidence. Breaking at supper, the four men attacked two large pizzas, talking around their bites, washing it down with cans of soda.

“You know,” Luke said, stifling a burp, “it took one-point-eight billion to get Aqua Oil off the ground.”

“Where’d he get the cash?” Hank didn’t bother to suppress his belch, punching a fist to his chest to release the pent-up-greasy gas.

“That’s the first domino.” Jordan pulled his note pad from beneath computer printouts. “Unlike the other two brothers, Tim was left in Hong Kong when Daddy moved to North America.”

“You think he headed up the business in the old country?” Mitch wiped his mouth with the flimsy napkin, wadding it into a small ball to soak up the grease from his fingers.

Jordan flipped some pages. “Could be. There’s not a lot of information available and not much I could gather. The first we hear of Tim was when he started the business.”

“Hey now,” Hank cut in. “Didn’t I read in the Aqua Oil bio, he graduated from Harvard?”

“Swanky,” Luke said, reaching for another slice. “Chuck attended Yale, didn’t he?”

“Sure, that’s what his bio reads, but there’s no record of a Tim or Timothy Fo…” Jordan stopped. “Ping Zhang.”

“Ping?” Mitch questioned, standing to swipe another slice of pizza, picking up a stray piece of pepperoni from the cardboard and popping it into his mouth before going to stand behind Jordan. “How do you know it’s the same guy? We have to be sure.”

“Ping Zhang,” Jordan said, smiling smugly. “His Chinese name. His mother’s surname. Same date of birth and a graduation photo to match his bio photo from the Aqua Oil website.” The young man pulled up both website photos for side-by-side comparison.

“Well, I’ll be goddamned,” Luke said, in the process of lifting the can of soda to his mouth. “How are we going to make the connection?”

Mitch’s eye caught on the pile of news clippings from that morning from their investigation—invasion—of Lorna’s past. “Environmentalist on side with Aqua Oil,” Mitch read out loud. “Pass me the large clipping there, Luke. The one with the photo.”

Luke moved papers out of the way. “Why?”

“Since when are environmental groups ever on the same side with anything involving the petroleum industry?”

Mitch took the newspaper clipping in hand and read out loud. “Made-at-home solutions strengthen Aqua Oil’s position as a preferred conveyor for the country’s economic growth in the world market.” He scanned down the article. “‘With crude set to double in production in the next decade, a company like Aqua Oil, whose care of the environment, state-of-the-art technology, and impeccable record of giving back to the communities in which it has an impact will do nothing but further benefit our most northern communities.’ That’s from the reporter.”

“Then there’s this from the man himself: ‘Rigid performance levels and adherence to tight environmental standards, coupled with this growth, enables our company more security in dealing with the public whose land we impact with our pipeline. At Aqua Oil, we see these so-called barriers as opportunities for our continued success in markets beyond North America.’”

“So?” Hank questioned, sitting back in his chair, hands on his now-full stomach, looking bored and tired.

“So. He’s set to release the hatch on his pipeline in the next two years.”

“Okay. So?” Luke also sat back in his chair not catching the gist of Mitch’s summation.

“So,” Jordan interjected, a gleam lighting his eyes as he took his glasses off to clean them with the hem of his shirt. “The money doesn’t flow back into the company–pardon the pun–until the oil starts to be transported through the pipeline. Everything is an up-front investment. Years of
up-front
investments—billions. All the cash to build the pipeline, all the workforce, the testing, the approvals, everything is up-front investment.”

“And?” both Luke and Hank echoed in unison.

“And, our sting cut off the cash tap floating the legitimate business.” Mitch smiled at the other men in the room, his gut telling him he was on the right track. “It’s not just the money we confiscated, as Vonnie thought. It’s the operation of smuggling vis a vis the Funeral Home.”

“That was fucking brilliant, by the way,” Hank said, running a greasy hand through his cropped hair. “Fucking brilliant, running cocaine in caskets and cremation urns.”