would match.
‘How many of these bills got printed?’ Ortega asked.
‘Good question.’
‘They haven’t given you any idea?’
‘I doubt anyone really knows.’
‘And they’ve been out of circulation all this time?’
Raveneau shrugged, couldn’t answer that either. Ortega knew about the buy last July so there was nothing to say about that.
‘Is there a big stash over there in Hawaii, Raveneau?’
‘There’s one somewhere.’
FIFTY-ONE
But if there was the connection Larry Benhaime suggested, Raveneau wasn’t sure how he was going to prove it. He talked awhile that night with Coe after Ortega called and said the Secret Service had confirmed the bills were counterfeit and in the same series. The next morning ballistics testing matched the Glock 17 to three of the bullets removed from Krueger’s body and Raveneau and la Rosa sat down with Becker and the captain.
By late afternoon they were on their way to the airport. They would get to Hawaii tonight, but it was going to be a long one. Their flight routed through Los Angeles and included a two and a half hour layover.
At LAX Raveneau talked again with Coe and learned more details about the Mathis arrest.
‘He had the garrote with him and when we showed him everything else we have he caved. He gave us a name and a description of a woman that’s close to what Drury gave us, right down to an abdominal scar she told Drury was from a bullet that grazed her. Mathis claims she slept with him same as Drury.’
He sounded puzzled as he continued.
‘We still can’t figure out who she is. We got a little bit from Interpol, but it may just be chatter. There are rumors of an American woman who fits the description and acts as a go-between. She may have organized the murder of a London banker for Russian clients, but the Russians usually stick with their own. She probably had a role in the kidnapping-torture-murder of two telecom executives in Brazil. Interpol believes she’s an independent contractor reached through a website, but they don’t have the website link.
‘Both Mathis and Drury did describe more or less the same woman. Drury claims she has a Texas accent but looks as if she could be from the Middle East. Mathis told us this afternoon, southern accent and he was sure she was half Lebanese though she didn’t tell him that. What that information does for us I don’t know. It may not do anything.’
‘The similar descriptions are worth something.’
‘They are and we’ve got agents looking hard for her. That said, we should have stayed with Mathis. He was on his way to Canada to get paid fifty thousand dollars for taking out the Khans. We should have followed him but we didn’t want him to get over the border. He was carrying a throwaway phone and supposed to get a call from her after reaching a rendezvous point in Toronto. The Mounties are there and we have agents with them watching the area but so far no sign of her. I’ll call you if anything changes.’
La Rosa and Raveneau landed late in the night. The plane was quiet before landing then picked up cheerful chatter as it unloaded. Within forty minutes they were headed to their rooms. Before dawn Raveneau made coffee in the room. He talked with Ryan Candel as he waited downstairs outside the lobby for la Rosa. She came off the elevator with a wry smile wearing the lei left on her bed.
‘We’re here,’ she said. ‘Let’s get some of that coffee you’ve been talking about.’
‘Candel says Matt Frank called him last night and that he was agitated and in his words sort of incoherent. He said it weirded him out and that he alluded to things he’s got to get done before he can focus on his business. He said there were problems but didn’t say what they were. He asked Candel about me, whether I’ve questioned him any more and whether his name has come up.’
‘Does Ryan know we’ve got some questions about his new brother?’
‘He’s getting the picture.’ Raveneau paused. ‘Matt Frank is supposed to meet us this morning at Hapuna Beach at nine. The beach is north of here. I know where it is. It’s not going to take us long to get there.’
‘Did Candel say anything else?’
‘Not really, and I’d say he was disturbed by the conversation with Frank and having a little trouble with what we’re asking him to do. He’s conflicted. He’s known his half brother for under a week, but part of him wants to protect him.’
They had an hour to kill and made calls sitting in the sun on a bench in a shopping center half a mile from the main highway. La Rosa got her coffee and looked happy with it. Then they drove north toward Hapuna Beach with Raveneau pointing out the rise of North Kohala Road ahead, and farther north around the curve of the island the steep-falling slope where the ranch was.
‘Can you see the ranch from here?’
‘No.’
‘There’s so much lava. It’s drier than I thought.’
‘This is the dry side.’
Raveneau checked the time as they left the highway and drove slowly through a small town along the water before turning into the Hapuna Beach lot. He spotted Frank’s gray Toyota pickup and parked nearby. They walked through the entrance past rest rooms and down toward the beach.
‘There he is.’
‘Where?’
‘That guy over there with the green and white shorts carrying the surf board.’
Frank waved and leaned the board against a low concrete retaining wall. He picked up a towel and a can of some drink and came toward them, drinking from the can as he walked. Frank belonged on the beach and he and la Rosa probably looked like a pair of missionaries on a recruiting drive in the third world. He watched Frank closely as he approached, and then the three of them sat down on a concrete bench and Raveneau said, ‘A package arrived at our Homicide office.’
‘I sent it to you.’
‘Then I have to ask you what was in it?’
‘A gun, a Glock 17 that came from my uncle’s house.’
‘Is it his gun?’
‘He’s had it forever.’
‘Why did you send it?’
‘Because he used to talk about it like it was a person that went out and did things on its own. He talks some strange shit when he’s drunk. He talked about the gun as if it traveled to places, killed bad people, and then came back home. He thought I sent the complaint letter and a video of me telling how you broke in. When he finds out the gun is gone it’ll freak him out.’
He stared at Raveneau communicating something else.
‘That’s the Glock I learned on. Uncle Casey says it belonged to my dad, but it was always sitting in the bar cabinet of the lanai in Uncle Casey’s house. Uncle Casey told me he’d give it to me when I became a marksman, but he didn’t. He likes owning it. He checks on it regularly, like a habit. If he hasn’t already noticed it’s missing he’s going to real soon and I don’t know what he’ll do.’
‘What do you think he’ll do?’
‘First he’ll ask me where it is.’
‘What are you going to tell him?’
‘That it’s mine and I took it. It was Dad’s gun and he promised it to me.’
‘Do you know about something in particular the gun was used for?’
Frank tipped the can, swallowed more of the coconut water, and Raveneau knew he wasn’t going to answer that directly.
‘Was Alan Krueger’s name ever mentioned in connection with the gun?’
