“And that’s what we have here?”
“With your Mr. Jose Gonzales, I think it’s possible, if not downright likely,” said George. “What makes you think he’s from Colombia?”
I told him what we’d discovered and included the fact that the main information had come from a confidential informant. I did not name Hector.
“We did establish, based on the tip, that the address for Cueva in L.A. was false,” I said. I went on to explain the duplicate Social Security numbers. “It sure would explain some stuff…they’re recruited, but for money, I suppose?”
“Mostly,” he said. “At least they would be, if I’m right about the connection.”
“So, like, ‘hired’ might be a better term, though? Not to split hairs or anything…”
“Hired,” said George, “is a good term. We prefer ‘recruited,’ though, because if we collar some of them, we don’t want to piss around with the defense demanding a paper trail for their ‘hired’ services.” He produced the first honest smile I’d seen from him that day. “I’d hate to have to produce a W-2 for one of ‘em. It’s a practical thing.”
“Gotcha.”
“I called my office a couple of hours ago,” he said, “right after Ben told me about this Gonzales man. Our experts assure us that there’s virtually no chance that the ricin was contacted accidentally. That say there’s no chance it’s used in meat processing. No way, not even if they used castor oil to lube the machinery. Ricin’s a by- product, and nobody anywhere near here refines castor beans.” He gave me a worried look. “Ricin was one of the major weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein was trying to produce in quantity. Lots of the research was done there, and we destroyed a bunch of the stuff right after the Gulf War. That’s another reason we think it’s not a home-grown problem.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. Iraq produced a lot of it. But, hell, they weren’t the only ones. Anyway, last I heard, CDC was sending two people up anyway, and they may send more now. Look, I better set you up for our briefing.”
“You gotta be kidding,” I said. “You’re gonna have a briefing? Christ, George, we just got out of a state briefing.” George was a friend. Maybe. “Could you get me out of this one? I’m losing valuable time on my homicide case here.”
“Not out of this one,” he said. “You’ll be doing part of it.” He looked at his watch. “The plane carrying the CDC people has already landed. Cedar Rapids. They should be driving up now. The FBI joint intelligence team has members on their way from D.C., and they should be getting to Cedar Rapids within a few hours now. Can you be ready to give them a summary of what you have in, say, four hours or so?”
Shit. “Ah…let me call Hester. She’ll have to be there, too.”
“Hester is DCI’s agent on the homicide? Excellent!” George and Hester had worked together before, too.
“Yeah. It’s just been old home week around here.” I stood. “Look, I’ve got an informant I’m looking for, and a missing female who was the live-in with Cueva, who split on us.”
“Are these already set to be interviewed, or are you just planning to talk to them at some time?”
I thought that was a strange sort of question. “Oh, planning, I guess. Actually, we have an ATL out on the woman, probably APIA. No response yet, as far as I know.”
“Why don’t we go to your office? Just a suggestion, but don’t you think you should expand the APIA?”
APIA stood for All Points, Iowa. That meant that every police teletype in Iowa got the relevant Attempt To Locate data.
“Upper Midwest?”
“Let’s go national,” he said. “From you, though, not from us. Just for now. It’s a security thing. How long has she been gone?”
“Not more than twelve hours.”
George and I rounded up Bligh from the plant and went to the Gonzales apartment, where we linked up with Hester, Carson Hilgenberg, and Dr. McWhirter. When George walked in, it was one of the very rare times I’ve ever seen Hester floored.
“George? What on earth…?”
Carson Hilgenberg stepped forward. He didn’t know George, but he’d apparently decided he was important. He introduced himself.
“Glad to meet you,” said George. “I’m Special Agent Pollard, FBI.”
“Really?” asked Hilgenberg.
“Really,” said George.
While George filled in Hester, Hilgenberg, and Dr. McWhirter about why he was there, I called the office on a land line and had a chat with Sally.
“Hi. Hey, we gotta go national on the ATL for Linda Moynihan.”
“Uh, sure…okay…but I’ll need more information. That’s a formal request, so we need a wanted/missing person’s report…just a sec…” and I heard her mutter to herself, “page 939…” She was looking at the NCIC manual. “Uh, can I do her as a missing person? For that she has to be mentally disabled, or abducted, or…”
“No, no. Just wanted.”
“Has a warrant been issued for her? I really need a warrant for that.”
NCIC, the National Crime Information Center, is the overseeing authority for all police teletype messages, and they have pretty stringent rules. “Not yet. Can we just say one will be, ah, obtained in the future?”
“Yeah…” Sally sounded reluctant. “WWBI, Warrant Will Be Issued. But I better have a warrant number within twenty-four hours, or I’m in trouble. With a bond attached. And it better include a ‘Will Extradite’ or you ain’t gonna get much of an effort out of anybody. But you gotta get a warrant…”
“Okay. Do that. WWBI. Call her a material witness in a homicide case.”
“Right. That was the easy part.”
“Hey, is the media around up there or anything?”
“Around? Well” and I could hear her voice fade slightly as she stood and walked to the window “out here in the parking lot I count three TV Broncos. Is that enough?”
Even the press, apparently, had a problem with keeping secrets. I’d thought that only Judy Mercer from KNUG would be there.
“Thanks,” I said. “We’ll be back in a while. Get ready for some company.”
“What?”
“Better break out the thirty-cup coffeepot. You’re going to have guests. That’s all I can say.” I looked over at George, who was listening to my end of the conversation. “Sally,” I said, indicating the phone.
George came over and said, “Let me talk to her.” I handed him the phone.
“Hi, Sally! It’s George of the Bureau.” He knew his nickname, apparently. “Yes! Pretty soon, you bet. Hey, this really has got to be kept pretty quiet for right now, okay? You have any trouble with getting any of the messages you want out, or accepted, or anything, call this number…” and he pulled out a business card and read a series of numbers to her. “Tell her it’s on my authority, S.A. Pollard, and give the word ‘buoyant.’ Yes… b-u-o-y-a-n-t. Got that? Okay, and I’ll be looking forward to seeing you!”
That done, Hester drew our attention to the unmarked spray can that I remembered seeing the first time we were in the apartment.
“We think there’s a good chance that this could be the delivery system for the ricin,” she said. “We haven’t touched it yet…but we have to wrap it securely and forward it to the FBI labs in D.C. It looks just like an ordinary spray can. But if you look at it really closely,” she said, pointing with her pen, “you’ll see that it’s not a can that’s had the label torn off. No glue marks, no residual paper patches, nothing. But, it does have a commercial serial number on the bottom.”
“So, where’d it come from? “I thought that was a good question.
“Not sure,” she said. “I do know, though, that major paint stores will make up spray cans to special order. You buy the paint; they put it in the can and pressurize it for you. That’s a possibility.”
“I didn’t know they did that,” I said. “Cool.”
“There’s also a box of synthetic vinyl exam gloves inside a shoe box in the closet over there,” said Hester. “It’s opened, but I don’t know if any are gone.”
