Shadows of Deceit (A Series of Shadows) (51 page)

“What?” Finn looked confused. “I’m the jerk?”

“No, I didn’t say that.” Connor looked over to see Max approaching. “He’s worried about Lou!” He whispered and saw understanding hit Finn in that moment.

“Sorry my Dom.” Finn got up and faced him before Max could blow a gasket. “I’m still a bit tired, cranky and not thinking straight. I apologize for being out of line.

Max walked up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “No, I am the jerk.” He admitted. “I know you have been working exceedingly hard and are not frat boys. I’m the one who needs to apologize.”

“No way.” Connor protested. “We totally get it.”

“Yes way.” Max mimicked Connor’s vernacular and grinned at him. “You need to forgive me. I’m a bit like a fish out of water here. So much going on at once and a good portion is unfamiliar territory for me. Be patient as I navigate this minefield, would you?”

“You never have to ask that.” Finn patted Max on the back. “Grab that bottle of scotch and pull up a box!” He grinned. “I’ll see what time IKEA is open ‘till.”

“Over my dead body!” Abby declared as she and Frank walked in the front door. “You think I’d let you desecrate this place with mediocre furniture? That we will be throwing away once the other place is finished?

“Well this is entirely unacceptable, Abby.” Max informed her.

“Yes, which is why there is going to be a delivery on Monday with appropriate furnishings that will move to the new place when we do.” She smiled at him sweetly.

“Why am I not surprised?” Connor snickered. “Leave it to Abby to already have it handled.”

“There will be a grocery delivery too.” She set her bag down and got another folding chair. “Move over, I need your other terminal if we are hanging out here.”

“You have something new?” Max asked.

“Lou got Carlos Vargas to give up possible locations for where his brother and the others could be hiding out.” Frank handed Abby his phone so she could start running down the list. “He said he doubted that Timms was with Manuel Rojas and his brother but we need to proceed as if he is.”

“Why did he doubt it?” Niko asked as he walked in with Yuri behind him.

Max looked around and realized there were not enough chairs for them all to sit. “Perhaps we should take this to the guest house. This is not exactly the most inviting of work environments.”

“Good idea.” Abby agreed. “I’ll have the results sent to my system there.”

“Fine with me.” Frank started heading for the door. “I can grab some of those finger sandwiches from the dedication.”

“Oh! Good call!” Connor unplugged his laptop, tucked it under his arm and headed for the McAllister compound as well.

“Hello?” Niko reminded them he had asked a question. “Why did Carlos doubt his brother and Manuel would be with Timms?”

“Oh, yeah.” Frank stopped short of the door. “He said that Timms was a snob and viewed the rest of them as the help. From what we’ve learned of him, that was a nice way of putting it. I’ll drive us back to the McAllisters. Who brought the golf cart?”

“I did.” Max admitted with a smile. “That is a brilliant means of transportation for up here! We need to get a few of them so we can zip back and fourth.”

They all looked at each other as if he was joking but given they would eventually be running back and fourth between Max’s house, the new headquarters building on the other side of the ridge, then to McAllister house, it was actually a good idea.

“I’ll ride back with you, Max!” Abby bounced past Frank and out the front door. “Shotgun!”

“We could just walk, you know.” Niko reminded them.

“Bro, that’s gonna get old real quick.” Yuri said as he patted him on the back then headed for the door with Finn right behind him.

“What a bunch of lazy assed senior citizens!” Niko scoffed as he closed the door behind them.

Carlos Vargas had
been sitting alone in the interview room for about ten minutes. Lou wanted to double check with Vinny that he was completely fine not sitting in on the interview. He assured her that he was fine not being there, she gathered her files, a fresh notepad and pencils off her desk, then hobbled her way to Interview Taking a cue from Lou and her interview with Peter Taylor, Dillon made a vending machine run and loaded up on various stale snacks, sodas and a good supply of water.

“I’ll be observing.” Captain Davidson grabbed the files that were dangling precariously from under Lou’s good arm. “Let me get these for you.”

“Thank you.” Lou felt so helpless. “I shouldn’t be on this crutch for long.

“It will take as long as it takes.” He smiled at her. “And not a second less so don’t force it. You could do permanent damage if you try too much too soon.”

“Yeah, that’s what they keep telling me.” Lou sighed. “Keep an eye on me in there, would you?” She asked him under her breath..

“You will do fine.” Davidson gave her a wink. “But I will be watching so no worries.”

“Thanks.” She smiled and saw Dillon heading their way with his arms loaded. “Grab my stuff from Captain Davidson, please.”

“You bet!” Dillon replied, shifting cans of soda to under his arm so he had a free hand. “Sir.”

“Detective Cole.” Davidson nodded as he handed Lou’s things to him. “Good luck in there.”

“Thank you, sir.” Dillon nodded since his first instinct was to salute, but his hands were now completely full.

“Let’s get to it.” Lou smiled meekly as she opened the door to the interview room and they headed in for their interrogation of Carlos Vargas.

For three solid hours they questioned the man and he spilled his guts on the entire heroin smuggling operation. At least as far as he knew it. During one of their family visits several years ago his brother, Ernesto Vargas, started asking about Arcano Imports’ shipping practices. After a cursory explanation, Ernesto confessed that he wanted to get out from their father’s thumb and test smuggling a few shipments through Arcano Imports’ supply chain on his own. It scared Carlos at first but the cut of money he would be receiving for each shipment was just too good to pass up. All Carlos had to do was personally over-see all the paperwork for one shipment each month. It seemed simple enough and fell in line with Carlos’ existing business practices. He already had been spot checking shipments for the company so nothing would look unusual or be deviating from his norm. Carlos had nothing more to do with the heroin other than facilitating the rigged shipments and keeping a ledger with basic checks and balances. It was simple and quite ingenious. Everything went smoothly for the first two years until their father found out and wanted to take control of the operation. That was when Carlos got his first taste of how ruthless his brother really was. Days after their father’s death, Ernesto told Carlos that he arranged for the explosion in Bogota that had taken Francisco Vargas’ life. Ernesto also informed Carlos that their father’s death meant they could increase the shipments which meant a great deal more money for both of them. The fact that Carlos was inheriting all his father’s U.S. property and holdings seemed to ease the shock of his father’s murder. Carlos was not about to argue with his brother so he kept his mouth shut and they tripled their import volume within a year. Once again everything was going smoothly until a couple years later when Luis Arcano started passing more and more responsibility of the company over to his son, Casius. The shift in power had brought Casius snooping and asking questions about why certain shipments were handled differently than others. That was when Ernesto decided they needed to bring in a distraction. Enter Angela Boone. Carlos had not seen his niece since she was five so didn’t even known that Angela Boone was his niece until he was way too far down the rabbit hole. Carlos swore up and down that he just provided research as to Casius Arcano’s type of woman and Ernesto did the rest. It was at the Fair Trade Fair where Casius met Angela for the first time and Carlos was also introduced to a man named Cameron Timms. Apparently, Cameron wanted to make sure Angela followed instructions and made the connection with Casius as planned.

Just as Carlos hadn’t known about his niece, he hadn’t known that his brother, Ernesto, was really working for Cameron Timms. Even now he assumed Ernesto was still working with the Jacinto Cartel. Timms had approached Carlos at the Fair, introducing himself as an associate of his brother. The way Carlos described the encounter, it was a very menacing meeting but he was unable to articulate why. Lou and Dillon, on the other hand, knew exactly why. Cameron Timms had undoubtedly used his blood born gifts to play with Carlos’ mind. The pauses and stammers during this portion of the interview indicated to Lou that there were a lot of holes in his memory from Frank’s wipe. Dillon must have caught it too because he hurried Vargas through to more current events. Specifically, Luis Arcano’s death.

“It goes back further then that, really.” Carlos told them. “Before he made his annual trip to Costa Rica with Angela, Casius confided in me that his sister was going to be coming to work with the company after the new year. He swore me to secrecy because Maria wanted to surprise their father with the news at Christmas.”

“Another set of prying eyeballs was not going to be good for you, was it?” Lou asked.

“I didn’t think it would matter!” Carlos insisted. “Honestly, I thought it would make things easier for me. Free me up to focus more on the shipping legalities for the company. Pass my other duties over to Maria. But when I told Ernesto, he was very upset. I reassured him and thought I had done a good job, until Casius and Angela broke up.”

“Not part of the plan, I presume.” Dillon stated the obvious.

“Our stupid cousin!” Carlos grumbled. “I’ll never understand why Ernesto trusted him. Manuel thought the hotel was a fantastic place for him to check on Angela. I think he used it for meetings with his employees like the Salazars but I don’t know anything about all that. I am just assuming.” He waved his hand as if to dismiss his speculation. “I barely knew our cousin Manuel, or any of the Rojas, but Manuel gave me the creeps. I brought my family down there years ago for a vacation and I had to promise my wife we would never go there again. He was a drunken pervert and had no shame about it.”

“So it didn’t surprise you when you heard Casius had found Angela fooling around with him during their trip?” Lou wondered if he realized the other man had been his cousin.

“I didn’t even want to go there.” Carlos blew out a breath. “Casius told me he caught Angela with a cabana boy, but I knew in my gut that it was Manuel. What could I do? I was keeping my mouth shut about her real identity. That I was her uncle, that Manuel was her uncle and not a cabana boy! That is where things started going down hill for sure.”

“How did this tie in with Luis Arcano’s death?” Dillon pulled them back to the point. “Casius start throwing himself into his work? Got close to uncovering your operation?”

“As I said before, Luis had been giving Casius more and more responsibility in the company.” Carlos resumed. “Which was fine because Angela kept him distracted when I needed her to. But after they broke up, with Maria about to come in, they were going to take the shipping oversight away from me and have that under Maria’s purview. With all three of them at the helm, Maria, Casius and Luis, I was getting thinned out of the picture. When I went back to Columbia for the annual holiday party I told Ernesto I was concerned.”

“I bet he wasn’t too happy.” Dillon said as he cracked open a bottle of water.

“He seemed fine!” Carlos paused to take a sip of his own water before he continued. “I was horrified when I got the call that Luis had died! I knew immediately my brother had done it!”

“But you said nothing to anyone.” Lou reminded him. “You took over during the Arcano’s time of grief and covered your ass.”

“It wasn’t like that!” Carlos pounded his fist on the table. “I loved Luis! I love the Arcanos! You need to understand that I knew my brother had killed our father, and now Luis! I kept my mouth shut and avoided Ernesto like the plague!”

“Which is why he showed up at your office in Columbia, three weeks ago.” Dillon reminded him. “He demanded to see you?”

“Yes!” Carlos confirmed. “I snuck back to Columbia as quietly as I could so that he wouldn’t know I was there, but he showed up! I couldn’t make a scene! I had to take his visit. Trust me, I stalled as long as I could! I thought about sneaking out the service elevators but I knew he had his cartel thugs watching the building.” Carlos was shaking as he took another sip of his water. “When he got to my office he grabbed me by the hair and told me I was dead when I left the building if I didn’t get my shit together and get with the program. He told me that I needed to get back here, to Los Angeles, because he was dealing with another problem and he didn’t need me screwing things up. Something with his distribution set up falling apart and I needed to have things ready for his new contacts as soon as he had them in place.”

Lou looked at Dillon and he nodded slightly. That part of the story fell right in line for when Gilroy and the corrupt Sanguinostri agents were swept out by Max and the Aegis Council.

“And you know nothing about that end?” Lou verified. “This is your one chance to come clean on all this, Carlos.”

“I specifically made a point not to know!” Carlos insisted. “I came back here and waited for instructions on the next shipment. I heard nothing until the day before Casius went missing. I got a call in the morning about four cargo containers that I knew nothing about, but they were allegedly Arcano shipments. There was no one scheduled to pick them up and at first I wasn’t even sure if they were part of my brother’s operation. I wasn’t about to take any chances! I signed off on the receipt and told the dockmaster we would make arrangements for pick up.”

“What happened to the containers?” Lou asked.

“I was on my way home from the office and stopped to pick up Chinese food, like my wife had asked me to.” Carlos was stammering again. “While I was sitting, waiting for them to pack up my order, Ernesto sat right down next to me! He handed me a piece of paper and told me not to try anything cute. That he had people watching my wife and children at all times. That accidents happened every day! This was my brother telling me this!”