Uncontrolled Spin: The Power and Danger of Spin ("Un"missable Series Book 1) (20 page)

Evelyn replies, “I’ll have it to you within the hour. I will also notify Jessica’s personal assistant, so he can clear her schedule as well. Sean, how are you doing?”

There’s a long pause, and Sean finally answers, “I’m distraught, shocked, worried, and pissed all rolled into one big mess. I can’t believe any of this is real. Thank you for everything you do for me.”

“Of course. Let me get started on getting the numbers for notifications. I’ll also have some flowers delivered to Bonnie’s before she gets home. I’ll notify her staff immediately. Everything is going to be okay, at least as far as I can make it.”

Sean thanks Evelyn and hangs up the phone.

Jessica goes into the villa to check on Bonnie and finds her sitting catatonically on the bed, staring out the bedroom window. She pauses; biting her lip, then walks into the room, sits on the bed beside Bonnie, and touches her leg.

“I’m here, sweetheart. What can I do?” she asks quietly.

Bonnie tips into Jess’s embrace and says, “Just hold me for now, please.”

Jess nods and sits with her arms wrapped around Bonnie, saying nothing for what seems like forever until Bonnie suddenly bursts into uncontrollable sobbing. It’s the type of crying that racks the entire body and soul, causing hyperventilation and utter exhaustion. Jessica sits silently weeping with her friend, stroking Bonnie’s hair until her sobs subside.

After a while, Bonnie breaks the silence with a question that stabs Jessica’s heart. “Jess… what am I going to do?”

Jessica tightens her arms around her friend and replies, “Dear, you are going to grieve and miss him tremendously, and then somehow find the strength to go on living. I don’t have any definite answers for you, but I know you will never be alone as long as I live. I love you, hun, more than you will ever know.”

Bonnie responds by holding Jess tighter, too, and she says in a broken whisper, “I love you, too.”

After a short while, Bonnie falls asleep in Jessica’s arms. Jess guides her into a more comfortable position, covering her with a blanket to let her sleep and knowing it will be short-lived. Next, she goes downstairs to speak with the devastated staff, assuring them nothing will change with their employment. They are secure. She asks for their loyalty on behalf of Bonnie. All the staff agrees enthusiastically, and Jessica begins making arrangements to get Bonnie home, and to make dealing with the onslaught of details and complications awaiting them in San Francisco a little bit easier.

Next, Jessica calls Sean back with the tentative plan for their return. Sean informs Jess of all the notifications that Evelyn has already made and asks her to text him when she and Bonnie are about fifteen minutes from the front gate of Bonnie’s home.

“I expect a lot of media will be camped outside waiting for a chance to speak with anybody, especially Bonnie. I hired a security team already, to prevent the media from getting close to any of us until we are ready to face the circus. How is she doing?”

Jessica peeks in on her in the bedroom, then murmurs back, “As well as can be expected, but none of this seems real to either of us.”

“Yeah, I know. I still can’t believe it, and I’m the one that found him. Jessica, it was horrible.” His voice catches a bit at the end.

Jess shakes her head sadly. “I can’t even imagine what you’re going through. Is there anything I can do for you?”

Sean replies, “Yes. Please just take care of Bonnie. Evelyn is helping me arrange everything on this end. And, by the way, I might need someone to confide in after this has blown over a little more. Maybe we can talk then?”

Surprised by the vulnerability in his voice, she replies, “Of course. I’m here for both you and Bonnie. This is just a horrible situation.”

“Yes, it is. Thank you,” Sean says, and they hang up.

After his second conversation with Jessica, Sean asks if there is anything else Sergeant Jones needs from him at this point and is told to go get some rest. Sean gives Jones Bob’s name explaining he is his groundskeeper and asks Jones to call him when the investigation is concluded, so he can secure the house.

“Well,” Jones says, “it’ll be a few days, I think. And we’re going to dust for fingerprints, so you might want to have someone clean after the investigation team is done to make sure all the biohazard materials are disposed of properly.”

Sean replies, “I believe Bob will take care of all those details. Thank you, Sergeant.”

He heads over to the Shore Lodge. He checks into his room and immediately heads to the bar. Seating himself, he orders Jameson Midleton.

As the bartender moves to pour his drink, Sean says, “Give it to me straight and keep pouring until I leave.”

The bartender places the bottle on the bar and says uncomfortably, “Sir, I can only serve—”

Sean waves a hand, interrupting him midsentence, and says, “Never mind. Just put the unopened bottle on my room tab. I’ll drink it there.”

The bartender eyes him for a moment, then replies, “Very well. As you wish, sir.” He pushes the bottle across the bar, and Sean signs for it. Pulling the bottle off the bar, he heads straight to his lake-view suite to drink while staring out at the lake. When the Midleton is nearly gone, he passes out in his chair. Waking at two-thirty in the morning, he gets up, goes to the bathroom, and then climbs into bed. When his alarm goes off at eight, Sean’s head is heavy, and his eyes despise the warm sunlight streaming in through the window. He is dehydrated, and he knows he has to get moving to meet his pilot at the airport for his return trip to California and all the chaos awaiting him.

While Sean was abusing his senses and liver, Sergeant Jones and the Idaho State Police forensics team have been scouring his home. From their initial assessment, it is clear this is a homicide, not a suicide. No weapon is located in the home aside from the guns in Sean’s safe—no shell casings, not even a sign anyone else had been in the home besides Mark Stevens. Multiple latent fingerprints are located on various surfaces, and while they don’t know yet, everyone on the team suspects they will be identified through elimination fingerprinting as belonging to individuals with reason to be in the home, and therefore of no evidentiary value. The team determines the fatal shot had to have come from the surface of the lake, meaning the murderer had to have made the shot from a boat or barge, thus indicating advanced firearms training and skill. They decide the killer is most likely military, former military, or law enforcement. However, this is Idaho, and many hunters also have the ability to make this type of shot. Based on their preliminary trajectory calculations, this was a three hundred to four hundred and fifty yard shot. What unnerves the investigators the most is that a .308 caliber weapon is the weapon of choice for many military or law enforcement trained snipers, not for big-game hunters. To their discomfort, Mark’s death appears to be a professional hit.

The initial background investigation information on Mark indicates that he previously held government contracts and has international business contracts, including foreign government contracts. Unfortunately, at this point, there are many more questions then there are answers. The Valley County Sheriff’s office has requested and received assistance from the McCall fire department dive team, who has set up a grid search pattern on Payette Lake based on the forensic team’s trajectory estimates. The search area involves water in the depth range of fifty feet.

Detectives for the Sheriff’s department and the Idaho State police have interviewed neighbors and staff members at the marina. None of the neighbors heard or remember anything out of the ordinary, and many of them express dismay that such a thing could happen in McCall. The detectives interviewing the marina staff focus on a barge moored on the east side and two pontoon boats. The staff advises that the barge had just been brought in last night for the upcoming holiday. It is owned by the McCall Chamber of Commerce and is used for the town’s 4
^th
of July fireworks celebration.

Both pontoon boats are owned by regulars and have not been out of the marina since last weekend, according to the marina’s records. Nevertheless, after contacting the owners to determine whether or not either vessel has been tampered with or was of any further interest, the detectives retrieve the records. Initial reports from the dive team are disheartening. Nothing has been found, but the search continues. The forensics team takes photographs with appropriate measurements of the body’s location, then finds and removes the spent .308 round in the living room wall. It had struck a thin piece of metal art, penetrating the artwork and lodging in a stud behind the drywall.

Finally, they have the body removed by the local coroner and continue to process the crime scene. The brainstorming among the investigators keeps coming back to the possibility that this was a professional execution. Yet most of the background they have received on Mark indicates that he was an upstanding citizen, with no nefarious business associations whatsoever. Motive at this point is clearly lacking, and as is always the case, Bonnie Stevens is being considered as a person of interest, since she presumably has the most to gain from Mark’s death.

The detectives quickly determine they will need additional assistance. The Sheriff’s department contacts the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Boise office. They are connected with special agent in charge (SAC), Dominic Hughes. Dominic is a meticulous guy in his early fifties who believes first appearances dictate peoples’ initial impression on the type and quality of one’s character. His mannerisms are quiet, precise, and calculated. He is the type of gentleman who wouldn’t say “shit” if he had a mouth full of it. After a thorough briefing on the events and findings so far, Hughes instructs Jones to secure the scene until the FBI’s regional forensic team out of Salt Lake City, Utah, can get to McCall. He assures the investigators already on scene that it won’t be more than six hours. Hughes also decides to send four agents up from the Boise office to conduct operations from this point forward. He instructs them to brief him on Monday morning about their findings. The FBI pulls records of known retired and active Special Forces personnel in the area, and Hughes instructs the agents from the Boise field office to begin their interviews with those records.

Hughes then has other agents pull background information on Mark and Global Metal Refining. However, they find no suspicious activity and no connections to questionable organizations or organized crime. Hughes contacts his counterpart in the San Francisco office, who begins looking into Sean Green and SGM, and checks out financial records for the Stevens through Mark’s attorney, Todd Stoddard.

Meanwhile, the IRS agents who had been alerted by the San Francisco office have begun tracking Global Metal Refining’s international accounts. Agents from the San Francisco office quickly learn that Mark has a personal net worth of slightly more than twenty-two billion dollars, while Global Metal Refining is valued around eighty billion. According to Mark’s attorney, there are two primary beneficiaries to Mark’s estate. Bonnie, his wife, is the first, along with his only living relative, a sister in San Diego, by the name of Wendy Stevens. Mr. Stoddard politely refuses to give any more specifics about Mark’s personal affairs, claiming attorney-client privilege with Mrs. Stevens, without first receiving a subpoena.

The San Francisco FBI agents tell Mr. Stoddard they will have a subpoena duces tecum for him on Monday morning.

Mr. Stoddard is agreeable. “Very well. Why don’t you come by my office around eleven that morning, so I can produce all the records you wish at that time?” The agents agree.

The FBI forensics team out of Salt Lake arrives in McCall around eight at night. The entire investigative team—made up of members from the Valley County sheriff’s office, Idaho State police, McCall fire department dive team, FBI agents from the Boise office, and the Valley coroner’s office—is present for the final briefing prior to officially turning the case over to the FBI. The lead agent from the Boise office, Jay Mather, is a taller man approximately six feet, athletic, with an obsession for marathon running but despite his rugged appearance, he has an endearing quirky smile. He is highly perceptive and his smile often hides his brashness. Jay requests all agency reports be completed and delivered to him via e-mail by Monday at 1300 hours, so he can brief SAC Hughes.