Sorry for lack of post in the month of October. Long month for me work wise.
-Trixie Kirkpatrick-
Monday - April 19, 2021
The dashboard of the surveillance vehicle is littered with food wrappers and cups from various fast-food restaurants. We've been at this all week, and the car has as the awful, combined scent of cheap burgers and old man ball sweat. Miles and I have been running this in twelve-hour shifts, and I'm not entirely convinced he's bothered to shower. Miles and I did our shift change hours ago, and I must roll down the window to stop my eyes from burning.
Our sights have been set on a parking garage of all things. We believe it's one of the businesses that our real target has been laundering their money through; the 9
th
Legion. We're just bean counting right now. Every time a car goes to park at the garage, I use a pair of binoculars to grab the license plate while it's stopped with the attendant. I radio that information and other details to another team in air conditioning. Make, model, and color. That is all compiled, and I radio back when a car leaves.
The money at the end of the day is locked in a bag and delivered to the bank by hand the next morning. The garage is open at all hours, but the day's earnings are taken the next day, and exchanged for what our consultant says is likely a fixed amount. Enough to break larger bills and make change for costumers. This makes the accounting easier if you maintain a baseline, and easier to detect someone skimming off the top.
The garage is five dollars an hour. It's a fixed price, and that's easy for us to track. So we sit and count the cars and hours. Blue Nissan arrives at five thirty and leaves at six forty; five dollars. Black Mustang arrives at four and leaves at seven; fifteen dollars. We have a rough, but likely accurate estimate of how much money is being earned per day. If we track the weekly take is five thousand, but they deposit seven thousand, that's probable cause.
Five hours into my shift a car pulls up behind me. I double check the garage then look in my rearview. Every day we swap cars out, so the same car isn't just loitering. Another Street Crimes Unit detective is behind me, so I start the car to move so he can take the front spot. We need to maintain the line of sight on the garage. I pull it around the block and park. I grab a cup of coffee to go from a diner before rounding the block again and entering the new vehicle on the passenger side.
"Long day?" Detective Hall asks. Our shift change is noon, and the car swap has routinely occurred at five in the afternoon. Doing shifts changes in the middle of the night is more conspicuous. When nothing else is moving, you moving is noticeable. Middle of the day we're hiding in plain sight.
"Surveillance sucks in general," I reply. I remove the lid from the cup and throw it on the dash like a frisbee. "You look into what I asked for?"
"Regarding Mr. Pewter?" Hall asks and I nod. "Yeah."
"And?"
"He knew her," he replies, and I smile. I knew it.
Matthew Pewter is a renowned criminal finance consultant we've contracted for this investigation. When he came in to talk with us, his eyes couldn't leave one face on our board of personalities involved with the 9
th
Legion. He was fixated on Lady Smith, a locksmith we believe is a prostitute. She's also likely a gambling addict who owes the Legion money and is selling tips on vulnerable locations she scopes out during her legitimate job.
"Did he appear during our time surveilling her?" I ask.
"No. Apparently he told LT a few days after he came in that he had met her during an innocuous coincidence. Met her at a diner and got shot down trying to pick her up," he explains. Matthew told the Lieutenant, but not us, and then she didn't fill us in? "Boss didn't think it was relevant."
"Awfully convenient," I say. I was still right that he knew her, but now I don't know what that means. "What diner?"
"Queen of Hearts," he says. I look at the cup in my hand and turn it until I see the logo with a red heart wearing a tilted crown. "That's the place."
"You mind holding down the car for a minute?" I ask. He shrugs and starts a comms check. I look both ways to cross the street and round the block again. The Queen of Hearts is on the corner. It's façade still appears like an old single pump gas station. I've driven past the establishment during breakfast hours, and it often has ten to twenty people standing outside waiting for the bar only seating to open. This time of day it's just a handful of people getting ready to go on night shift.
A real bell chimes above your head when you enter. One customer looks over their shoulder at me, then back down to their coffee. The décor is a mixture of poker and Wonderland. A gorgeous woman is behind the counter, standing around sheepishly waiting for customers to finish drinks or who appear ready to order. Her posture suggests she dreads the moment she has to interact with someone. She's on the side of the bar closest to the door, holding a menu with trembling hands.
"You can sit where there is a seat," she says awkwardly. I can't tell if she meant to say something else, or that's just the way she talks. Her name tag says
Dinah
.
"I was literally here a minute ago," I say, holding up my cup of coffee that is still hot.
"Oh. Umm, do you need a refill? No charge," she says. I shrug and extend the cup to get topped off. The woman grabs a pot and carefully pours it with both hands. She's trembling, afraid she'll spill it on me. "Anything else?"
"Has this man ever been here?" I ask. I place the cup on the counter and find a picture of Matthew Pewter on my phone. It's from his consulting website. She leans over the counter to look closer, and shrugs.
"I don't know. Maybe," Dinah says. She did already forget me, and I had only left minutes before.
"What about her?" I ask, and slide through a few pictures to find Lady Smith.
"She's here all the time," Dinah says, and points down the bar. "She's here right now."
I tilt my body over the bar and see Lady dipping toast in the yolk of sunny side up eggs. I thank her and slowly walk down the seating. All the seats are the playing card suit of hearts, moving upward in value and into face cards the further away from the door. Sitting at the Queen of Hearts is Lady Smith. She feels my presence and turns to me.
"Jesus, can I just have a minute to myself without you fucking vultures circling me?" she asks, dropping the last piece of her toast on the plate in frustration.
"Not following you, just getting coffee," I say, raising my cup up to show her. "You know a man named Matthew Pewter?"
"You know what harassment is?" she asks.
"I admit, Miles Deacon comes on a little strong," I say, and I'm honest about that. Miles lacks subtlety and tact. He's a good detective and dedicated to his craft. The only problem is that he's stubborn, making it more difficult to disengage a potential suspect when the evidence isn't going the way he wants it to. The less things add up, to him it means the more they must be hiding. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
"What do you want cop?" she asks.
"Just curious, do you known a man named Matthew Pewter?"
"No."
"You sure?" I ask and pull up his picture again. Lady huffs but does turn to look at my screen. "Look familiar?"
"Actually, yeah," she says, and takes a sip of coffee. "Not that long ago, he sat on the Jack of Hearts and asked if I wanted a real meal. Saw his wedding ring, told him to fuck off."
"Not into married men?" I ask.
