Every Breath You Take: A Novel (A Kristen Conner Mystery Book 2) (21 page)

We mull that as I shift to another foot. Am I going to have to complain about this to my union rep? Nah. I’m going to say something to Blackshear.

“Listen, if you guys don’t need anything else, I’m heading back to my office,” Tedford says.

“Thanks, Byron,” Blackshear says. “You’ve given us something we can work with—finally. You’ve been a big help.”

Tedford exits and Blackshear follows shortly for his meeting. The rest of us move over to a conference room and sit down to chew on details.

Average monthly gross income for contractors working for Ferguson is around twenty-five thousand bucks. At least that’s the average of what they are reporting and that is showing up in accounts we’ve located. Most use the same CPA. I think Ferguson must set this up for them. Probably insures she gets her cut of their revenue. Based on what they’ve made they are all paying their taxes to the IRS, state, and city—Bobbie should have followed her own advice and she wouldn’t have gotten jammed up by us. Tedford doubts they are depositing all their cash in a bank and probably have a nice nest egg squirreled away somewhere else. But no one is hiding a hundred-grand under her mattress every month.

“Paying Martin through a Swiss bank account sounds like Jack or one of his buddies,” Konkade says. “Can Tedford not just look and see who has Swiss accounts?”

“KC brought that up,” Squires says. “They all have Swiss accounts. But now that he knows where Martin is getting her real money, that will be Tedford’s new top priority.”

“Might be easier than he thinks,” Randall says.

“Let’s hope,” Don responds. “Tedford told us the financial transactions for these guys, both automated and human-directed, is a labyrinth. And someone may have funded an account in Switzerland or the Cayman Islands years ago that has more than enough money to make the monthly disbursement to Martin.”

“Let me bring up the elephant in the room,” Konkade says. “One of the reasons we’ve not looked at Penny closer is she has an alibi for the night of the murder.”

“Conner and I talked about on that way back over,” Don answers. “She says she met a client at Ferguson’s place the night of the murder. That’s her alibi. Ferguson backs her up with her records. But three things. All Ferguson can personally testify to is that she saw Penny before she left for the theater. She wasn’t with her and him all night, obviously. Second—and this is where it gets real interesting—the client who booked Penny’s services was new with Ferguson and none of his contact information is real. That by itself is not absolutely suspicious. She has about fifty clients. We know ten of them through Durham. Half don’t use a real names and keep a DBA account to handle finances.”

“What’s DBA?” Blackshear asks.

“Doing-Business-As,” Konkade answers. We all look at him. “What?” he asks. “My wife has drapery business and it’s too much hassle to incorporate as a company.”

“But here’s the third thing,” Don continues. “Penny Martin didn’t make a deposit the day after the murder. Or Saturday.”

“I run to the bank with my check,” Martinez says. “If I don’t, something’s going to bounce. If she’s got a million bucks sitting there, maybe she wasn’t in a hurry.”

“Why don’t you do automatic deposit?” Randall asks Martinez.

“I’m old school, Bro,” Martinez says. “I got to be shown the money or it isn’t real.”

“Okay guys, let’s stay focused and finished,” Don interrupts.

“Sorry,” Randall says.

“We compared Ferguson’s calendar of when Martin was working and her deposits in the accounts we know about,” Don continues. “She was like clockwork making a deposit the next day. She was the person standing outside a bank at 8:59 waiting for the doors to open.”

“You said that Tedford suspects that the contractors don’t deposit all their earnings,” Konkade says. “Maybe she put it in another account.”

“We aren’t saying we’ve got Martin based on someone giving her a hundred-grand and a questionable alibi,” Don says. “But you got any better ideas?”

“Not at the moment,” Konkade says with a smile. “I’m just talking to myself because I know Zaworski is going to grill me on this when I talk to him and Bob tonight. This is good stuff guys . . . and Kristen. By the way Kristen, anything happening on your line of inquiry?” he asks looking at me.

“I go out with Derrick tomorrow night. Don’t know if any of the other friends or any of the contractors will be there. I’ll just find out what I can.”

“That’s good,” he says. “Good to have a fallback angle if this Penny Martin thing doesn’t work out.”

“Randall, you been able to collect all the public camera footage near Durham’s place yet?” Blackshear asks. “This delay is getting a little ridiculous.”

“Getting close, Sergeant. Not making excuses, but it’s been tough. Some guy owns a couple of the garages and he got sued last year after he turned over video files to a private investigator on a divorce case.”

“Over a public video?” Konkade asks.

“Actually a private video system,” Randall answers. “The guy on film sued for a violation of his privacy. The garage owner won, but it cost him some serious dollars to defend. So he’s made us come back three times now with basically the same warrants. Legal finally has everything in order for us to get what we need.”

“If you’re not getting the right kind of cooperation in-house or from some jerk with a garage; this is the kind of thing you come to me on.”

“Sorry, Konkade. I’m on it.”

• • •

Don and Martinez really like Penny Martin for this murder. I do too. But even after meeting with Tedford, now my mind is going different directions. Probably because I spent so much time in front of the crime board and my mind is muddled.

32

AFTER THE MEETING to update Blackshear on Penny Martin officially becoming a person of interest, I went for a 4:00 training session with Barry Soto. He’s been a fight instructor with the CPD for thirty years. He might be more than sixty-five years old but he is still a physical specimen with a tiny waist and lots of chest and arm muscle. He’s only five-eight or -nine but he is around 200 pounds of ripped muscle. His long black stretch shorts, the white socks and black athletic shoes, and the gray collared workout shirt with CPD embroidered on the chest, make him look like a gym teacher from the 50s.
The 1850s.
He wears heavy black glasses with a ski croaker to hold them on. He’s mostly bald with two wild patches of wiry gray-streaked red hair sprouting above his ears. His nose is another physical marvel, both for its size and for the fact that there might be as much hair coming out of those nostrils as there is on his head. He isn’t going to win any beauty contests. As I walk up he is doing fingertip push ups. The guy still has a muscle tic that allows him to fire off the floor.

Soto looks sideways, sees me coming and rips off 10 more quick ones and springs to his feet. I think he’s showing off now.

“Very impressive, Mr. Barry.”

“That?” he declares indignantly. “I used to do 100 without stopping. Barely got me breathing hard.”

“You are one of a kind.”

“Who you fighting with these days, Princess Kristen?” he challenges.

“No one. I’m behaving.”

“I doubt that. But even so, don’t mean the other guy will behave. Always good to be ready. You need to get down here more.”

“I’m here now and ready to do a boxing workout.”

“No boxing today.”

Rats. I like to box.

“You heard me say it once, you heard me say it a hundred times, all fights end on the ground, Conner. So pay attention and stay alive. You like to kick and punch because it keeps your pretty workout clothes clean. What you gonna do when you get punched and go down and he comes down there after you? You ain’t gonna be kicking and punching then are you? If you do punch, it’s gonna be from about three inches away and I don’t care what those kung fu movies show. No one can do any real damage from that close. You’re gonna fight on the ground today. I hope you’re ready.”

“I’m ready
,” I say with a laugh.

“We’ll see how ready you are.”

Krav maga was developed by the Israeli Defense. It is a mixed martial arts system that includes kicks and punches, but focuses on using hands to defend, grapple, and attack with joint locks and chokes. First time I was introduced to it was a self-defense for women class at NIU. I think it is the best survival program for in-close fighting. I try to combine that with classic men’s wrestling when I’m on the ground. Greco-Roman is interesting but it’s all about staying off the back so I don’t think it replicates street conditions well enough to spend too much time on it.

Soto usually has two fight assistants on staff, one male and one female. He knows I like to fight the males. Call it my ego getting the best of me or just being realistic. I’ve had to break up more than a few female cat fights as a police officer—and I’ve been scratched, bit, kicked, and spit on in the process—but the vast majority of fights are started by men against other men. I want to make sure I can fight with the big boys. I bend over and do a slow stretch to my hammies.

“You doing ballet or you gonna fight today?” Soto says. “Stand up and let’s get you warmed up.”

“Where’s the love, Mr. Barry?” I ask.

“I bet when you hammered that Shark guy’s nose to a pulp you knew how much I loved you. Enough chit-chat—let’s get going.”

Chit-chat? What chit-chat?

For fifteen minutes I do a series of dynamic stretching exercises and then work solo on down position wrestling moves. I go from flat to getting my knees under my stomach, elbows under chest, pushing up, and kicking either right or left leg out to where I’m on my butt and can throw my opposite elbow back and slide behind the attacker that had me down. That’s how it is supposed to work when the attacker is present anyway.

I’ve got a sweat going and am breathing medium-hard when an athletic woman, maybe twenty-five or so, at least a few years younger than me, joins us to put me through my combat paces. She is probably two inches shorter but at least thirty or more pounds heavier than me. She’s not overweight but she’s thick. Big legs and big butt. It’s not fat. I was a middle-distance runner in high school. Bet she was a sprinter. She’s definitely in shape and has a lot of definition in her arms and shoulders. No question, she’s a weight lifter.

I am a mass of contradictions when it comes to my body. I want the strength she has, but I don’t want the size. I’m in a big club on that one. Pound for pound Soto says I’m tough as anyone—but that I need more pounds. I am quick and have good leverage. I’m stronger than I look and have a ferocious grip. I’m limber and can fully extend with kicks and chops. I’ve done enough training that I can maximize my body position and torque to really get some power behind my punches and moves.

But she’s going to be a handful.

“On the ground, Conner,” Soto says. “Meet Denise. But don’t shake hands until you are up on two feet. Denise doesn’t want to meet you and she plans to keep you on the ground.”

She doesn’t smile. Soto knows how to pick ‘em. He had a brawler that I worked out with a few times named Timmy earlier in the year. Timmy was a very good fight partner because he loved his work—maybe too much. I suspect he needed a little more law and order to go with his love of a fight. Not sure I could beat him under any circumstances.

I drop to the mat. I’d rather have Denise’s role. I think it’s harder to keep someone down than to get up. I want a hard workout.

“Flat, Conner,” Soto says. “You just got punched from behind and you are completely down. Hope your thinking isn’t as fuzzy as usual.”

Soto is in fine form this afternoon.

Denise settles in above me and puts her chin in the middle of my upper back, one hand on the outside of my hip, and grabs my left wrist firmly and roughly. I’m not ready when Soto yells “go” and she digs her chin into a nerve cluster that about paralyzes me in the first second of the drill. I slide forward and squirm left and right to get her chin off me and get a second’s respite but she keeps finding new ways to dig in. As soon as my knee slides forward enough to get my quad off the ground, she brings her knee on top of my hamstrings and then tries to slide that leg forward and hook my right leg. She starts pulling my left wrist down and trying to get my arm behind my back. I crab to the side enough to shrug her chin back off me but she is happy to drive it into my right shoulder. Plenty of nerves there too.

I have to tilt my body to get relief from the chin and start getting my legs into a position where I can push from the strongest part of my body. She immediately lets go of my wrist and slides her left arm under my left arm to leverage my arm and shoulder and flip me over on my back. If this were a real fight she would do that so she could start punching me in the face from above. If she gets her hand behind my neck into a half-nelson I’m in big trouble.

I leverage everything I have down on her left arm hard, get on an elbow and force both my knees under me, and sit out of her hold in a fast fluid motion. But she’s quick and is already back behind me, trying to leverage both of my arms up and behind me in a move called the surfboard.

I repeat what I did before and go the opposite way. I think I might have room to escape and get to my feet. But again she’s on top of me and this time she completes the half-nelson and plants her legs off to the side of me to finish flipping me on my back. If she gets me there she is going to bury an armpit on my face and lock me in a hold around my neck that controls my shoulders. If that happens, the bottom of my body can flop all over the mat but I won’t get loose.