Played: “Sometimes you never know who is playing who, until the damage is done." (16 page)

Milkowski, not really wishing to be chummy, answers with a short yes.

“Okay, I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” He snaps his phone shut to the beat of the music, then turns it up and rolls down the window, letting in an icy wind. The cold air stings his face, and the music vibrates his senses further. The stereo now plays “Last Kiss” by Pearl Jam, one of Chelsea’s favorites, as he buzzes through traffic, drumming the steering wheel. He waits until the song ends then calls Captain Jackson. “Good morning, Captain.”

It doesn’t take long to figure out Captain Jackson doesn’t share his effervescent frame of mind. “Cools, did you catch the fucking news?” he yells.

“No…no, not yet.”

“All the networks are reporting that sources have leaked possible evidence that Joshua was at the Friesen residence the morning of the apparent suicide!”

Cools pulls into the right-hand lane, reducing his speed. “Is there any evidence to that?”

“None whatsoever! As far as I’m told, from Detective Shoemaker in Tacoma, there’s no reason at all to believe it’s not a suicide.”

“Fucking lying ass reporters! If they don’t have it, they make it up,” he shouts, back to his usual self. “Anything else?”

“All right and there’s this: it’s also being reported that we’ve been investigating Joshua as the
only
possible suspect in the mysterious vanishing of his high school sweetheart.” The captain continues, louder, “The fucking news media is making us look like assholes!”

“It’s Renny, Captain. I set him up with that yesterday, looking for our leak. It’s that fat piece of shit, Renny!”

There’s a pause. Cools can hear him thinking. Then he detects a seldom heard sense of urgency in Jackson’s voice. “All right, I’ll take care of Renny. And I want you to think about this, old buddy: just between you and me, maybe we need to start stretching some truths ourselves. I’m really under the microscope here, and it doesn’t play well that I basically said nothing in last night’s press conference. I need to have something, anything—anything at all—I can arrest him for. I need him off the streets and away from these fucking reporters!”

“Okay, Captain, tell you what…I’ll get something on him, and if I can’t, then
I’ll get something
on him,” he replies, comforting his friend.

“Just play it safe, old buddy. But seriously, think about what I need. I’m getting another call; we’ll catch up later.”

Cools steers off of the interstate and parks on the shoulder. There he begins scheming Joshua’s demise. He lights a cigarette, running through possible scenarios. And soon the cruiser is burning back into traffic.

Later that morning, he receives his second call from Michelle. He ignored the first one, and now he answers sounding annoyed. “Talk to me, partner.”

“We just got the warrants; the geeks are taking over,” she exclaims.

“Good, that’s real good.”

“Where are you?” she asks, hearing rustling in the background.

He hesitates. “Uh…I’m going over the Amberly video, trying to see what else I can get out of it. Can I call you back?”

“Sure, but first I want to—”

Click.

He feels bad about lying to his partner, but he cannot involve her in what he is about to do. He digs through some more boxes until he finds what he’s looking for, one that reads, ‘WA State vs. Santorini, Lucrezia—Evidence.’ Applying a razor blade, he carefully cuts the ‘Restricted—Do Not Open’ tape and opens the box. He stares inside for a second and then looks around, making doubly sure he’s alone—and alone he is, with twenty kilos of pure cocaine beside some other evidence. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pair of rubber gloves, then retrieves one of the packages and a cell phone still holding a faint charge. It all fits nicely under his arm, and with his jacket covering the package, he files the box back to its original place and sneaks out of the evidence locker. Only three men have a clue of his whereabouts: himself, Captain Jackson, and Officer Malone, the evidence room officer, who received a strange call earlier from Captain Jackson instructing him to grant full access to Cools. All in all it has been a good morning for Officer Malone: not only did he get to smash that surveillance camera always watching his every move, but he is now four hundred dollars richer.

.

Chapter Twenty-Two

J
ust after noon, Captain Jackson lights up the phones. Forty minutes later most of his team has convened in the war room. Michelle sits next to Cools. She gets the sense that her partner is up to something. For the last half hour or so, he’s been avoiding any real eye contact and seems to be completely absorbed in thought. She stares at him through her big, blue eyes, trying to figure him out, but he doesn’t even seem to notice she’s there. He’s staring off into space, with a little blood vessel pulsing on his forehead, the one she sees quite often when he is about to explode. He’s going to die young, she concludes, while fussing around in her chair, vying for his attention.

Suddenly he adjusts, jerks a notepad and pen out of his pocket, and begins scribbling. Michelle tries to peep, but Captain Jackson deflects her attention, posing a question.

“Robertson, did you see Officer Renny this morning?”

“No, I didn’t, but I heard about it,” she replies absentmindedly.

“Yeah, well after I confronted him, then suspended his fat-ass, he left here screaming. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong! I’ve done absolutely nothing; I swear to God, I didn’t do it!’ And on and on.”

“That’s what I heard,” she replies, trying to cut their chat short and sneak a peek at her partner’s notes. But it is too late; he’s already secured the notepad back into his suit pocket.

“What’s that?” she asks, with obvious interest.

“Nothing.” She squints her eyes. “Oh, I mean, it’s nothing…uh…I’ll talk to you about it later.” Again he looks away.

She doesn’t press any further, deciding to leave it alone for the time being.

Just then Milkowski walks in. Captain Jackson stands, presenting an air of hopefulness, and waves his hand to the department’s computer analyst. “All right, let’s hear what you got.”

He’s a young, skinny man—the one they call Ghost—all junked-up on energy drinks. “Well, we have a few things here,” he nervously replies, thumbing through his papers. Ghost gets his nickname from his pale white skin, pale due to the fact he hasn’t left his computer to venture outside since he was fifteen. But if you asked him, he would claim it originated from his uncanny ability to retrieve information from the Internet. In jittery diction, he continues, “Okay, let’s start with his finances. He had some money left to him by his grandfather, Earle Siconolfi, a Freemason, who made a fortune after World War Two selling vacuum cleaners. Earle Siconolfi was a pioneer, operating one of the first full-scale door-to-door businesses.” Everyone quickly grabs for their pens; he speaks so fast they can barely keep up. “And in the seventies, he was one of the largest distributors of vacuum cleaners in the US. He died in 2004, leaving a substantial amount of money to his only grandson—Joshua.”

“How much?” asks Michelle.

“Nearly four million, but it looks like he’s already burned through most of it—all but about a hundred and sixty thousand. And for some reason, he’s been withdrawing ten thousand a week in cash for the last ten weeks. And get this— he took out an eight-million-dollar life insurance policy on Kimberly just eleven months ago, with a special clause: if she is murdered, it pays double.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Cools yells out. “He would never get it if he kills her himself.”

Ghost shakes his head. “Yeah, I don’t know; it doesn’t really fit. But anyway there’s a lot more I think you can use. I cannot find any tickets purchased for Kimberly Siconolfi—or Kimberly Sharons, her maiden name—bound for Peru or for anywhere for that matter, and if there was one, I would have found it,” he announces arrogantly.

Michelle rolls eyes at Captain Jackson. The captain just grins and motions her attention back to Ghost’s apparent genius.

“Now for the real goods: his credit card purchases on the twenty-sixth, just three days prior to Kimberly going missing.” Everyone takes notes. “Sixty-eight hundred was charged to the Seattle Yacht Mariner for a one week’s rental of a ’41 Riviera FB. Eleven hundred for gas purchased the same day. Then an odd purchase from Danny’s Boat World: a steel cage crab trap. I say ‘odd,’ because crab season does not open for two more months. I researched it on the Washington State Fish and Wildlife website.” He briefly glances to them for admiration and then moves ahead. “Also the same day, a purchase from Wal-Mart: one thousand feet of half-inch nylon rope, one hundred feet of quarter-inch rope, a complete set of gym weights, and a Pepsi—diet.”

Cools interjects, “That son of a bitch took her out, killed her, put her in the fucking crab cage, weighted in down with the weights, and dumped it into the Puget Sound.” Everyone nods in unison before turning to Milkowski.

He exhales slowly, ignoring them all, staring at the pen he’s twirling in his hand. “I can take this to Judge Cooper, and I already know what she will say: put a team of forensics on the boat, a team in the water, and then get back to me.”

Cools turns back to Ghost and says, “Seattle Yacht Mariner?”

“Yes,” he replies, proudly nodding like he’s just single-handedly solved the case.

Cools ignores the young man’s expectation of being venerated and looks to Michelle, saying, “Sounds like we have a boat to take apart.”

Thirty minutes away (and twenty-four minutes later), Cools and Michelle pull into the parking lot of the Seattle Yacht Mariner. Michelle, in between phone calls and holding on for her life, found some time to ask her partner a few questions, but to no avail. They park close to the entrance, and since Michelle has already called ahead, D. J. Adders, the manager, is waiting for them, as he said he would be. He’s a heavy but good-looking guy sporting short sandy hair and a goatee. They exit the car and introduce themselves promptly. “Good afternoon, I’m Detective Robertson, the one you talked to on the phone, and this is my partner, Detective Brad Cools.”

“Very nice to meet the both of you,” D. J. replies in a warm and friendly approach, shaking their hands. The three of them all wear sunglasses given that it’s an unusually sunshiny winter day.

“Can we see the boat?” Cools asks impatiently.

“Yes, follow me, if you will; and allow me to inquire: did he do it?”

“Uh…I cannot comment on that at this time,” he answers, exercising restraint.

“Well, I have followed this saga quite closely in the news and am hoping to be of assistance,” D.J. says, appearing somewhat offended by Cools’s response. “Also there’s something you should know; he has done a fair amount of damage to the railing of the Riviera.”

Cools’s ears perk up. “What kind of damage?”

For a brief moment, D. J. grows a bit standoffish as they round the outside corner of the showroom where the marina comes into view. “Well, let me show you,” he replies, pointing toward the ramp that leads down into a sea of luxurious yachts, all of which are parked side by side a hundred yards into the sound, extending a mile up its curved coast.

Michelle is immediately impressed. “Wow, now this is amazing! I guess I wasn’t expecting all this.”

Her admiration pleases D. J., and he informs her further, “This is home to over seven billion dollars of nautical craftsmanship, owned by the likes of Paul Allen, Elton John, Ichiro, and actress Salma Hayek.”

“Wow” is the only response she can muster, as he swipes his security card and types in a code on a keypad. The gate buzzes.

Then Cools, not as nearly impressed, asks bluntly, “Did you meet with him to arrange the rental?”

“Yes, I did indeed,” D. J. replies spiritedly and somewhat proud to have shared the presence of someone so infamous.

“What was his demeanor?” asks Michelle.

“He was quite pleasant. I was certainly astounded to hear of his exploits later.”

“Did he mention what he intended to use the boat for?”

Suddenly D. J. stops cold in his tracks, looks her keenly in the eye, and replies, “Joshua divulged his intent was to—and I quote—‘return his wife to the sea.’ When he said this, of course I didn’t intrude further into the matter; I merely ascertained his wife had somehow succumbed to her death, leaving him a widower, and he was arranging to scatter her ashes to the deep. It is not that uncommon, so I did not surmise a great deal more of until…well, until a few days later when I heard his name again on the news.”

Michelle echoes his statement. “He said he was returning his wife to the sea?”

“Yes, those were his words, precisely.”

There’s a short silence, and then they continue as they near the end of the dock. Cools makes a note while following alongside and asks, “Did you ever see him with anyone else?”

“No, and I never saw him again after that day we signed the papers. We gave him the keys to enter the marina, and our records reveal that he sailed out late that night and returned in the early morning.”

“Do you have video surveillance of the marina?”

“Absolutely, and every time a code key is used, it activates our lighting systems. And here she is,” D. J. says, presenting the Riviera. Michelle and Cools give it a good look. It is pearl white with a tinted window flybridge dressed in stainless steel lock downs, mounted lights, and railings. And from their position, they can also see the interior of the cabin; it’s complete with a stereo system and a wood-trimmed liquor cabinet. Immediately thoughts of taking it out for a sail with her husband and select group of friends enter Michelle’s daydreaming mind. She is the first to board the craft, with a little help from D. J., with Cools following close behind. Once aboard she leads them straight to the bow of the vessel to assess the damaged railing. D. J. steps between them and demonstrates his claim by jostling the rail back and forth. It’s obviously loose and broken.

“And you’re positive this damage was not done before?” Cools asks.

“Yes, I am quite certain of it; every one of our yachts is thoroughly inspected on a routine bases.”

Michelle pulls out a camera and begins taking pictures while D. J. begins his assessment of what he believes to have happened. “You can clearly see the base is wrecked here,” he says, pointing to the main structure of the yacht that supports the rail posts. “This is where a fairly cumbersome article was thrown overboard.”