“Look, Sheriff, she denies it. She’s my client, and I got to go with that. But I’ll see where the evidence leads me. So far it doesn’t implicate her. With these chalk signals, you can track down the person Kostas gave the files to. That’s the key to this case. Marisa Dupree didn’t have a pocket calendar connecting her to these dead-drops. Kostas did.”
Tompkins shook her head. “I’m not certain of all this. Walk me through it.”
I took Sheriff Tompkins step-by-step through the procedure for a dead-drop, at least as best I could. To avoid direct contact, two parties used simple marks to show where an agent would drop off documents, photos, or flash drives. Another signal somewhere else would show where the agent would pick up money, equipment, or instructions. They would never meet face to face, so trapping and arresting them was difficult.
The sheriff asked, “Whoever worked with Kostas made these chalk marks, not him, right?”
“Yeah, looks that way. The same person put them at both drop sites. The size, the angle. They’re identical.”
“So if they were this secretive about communicating, how did Kostas let this person know he was ready to pass along stolen files?”
I did not know, but she was right. Kostas needed a way of communicating that he had obtained confidential data from Benton Dynamics, but I had not closed that loop yet. The sheriff seemed skeptical on the surface, but I sensed that she was increasingly convinced there was something to all this. With her phone, she photographed the chalk mark on the box. I did the same with my phone, which seemed to irritate her a bit.
Tompkins said, “Looks like there were older ones here. Kind of washed away.”
“They probably used this place a few times. Easy to see from this parking lot if you were looking for them. Otherwise, they’re barely noticeable.”
“How many?”
“You got Kostas’s pocket calendar?”
She went to her patrol cruiser and retrieved the manila envelope that she had brought into the interrogation room on Thursday. She pulled out the pocket calendar.
I asked, “How often did Kostas visit Turner Creek Sporting Clays?”
She flipped through the pages. “Six times.”
“I don’t see six marks on that box, but every time it rained, the evidence would be gone. There’s remnants of old marks, though.”
“And what about these numbers he wrote after each visit?”
“I wasn’t sure at first, but maybe the payments he got. Can I see his calendar?”
She handed it to me, and I studied the pattern of numbers.
“Started at fifty and then got bigger as he went along,” I said. “Could be thousands of dollars. If so, the last dead-drop was his big score. Seven hundred thousand dollars, but Kostas never had it long. He landed face down in the Chesapeake Bay a rich man.”
“I wonder what he handed over that last time?” the sheriff asked, but both of us were still in the dark.
I asked, “You’ve been in touch with Benton Dynamics. What did he steal?”
Sheriff Tompkins exhaled slowly. “For a company that lost a lot of confidential data, Benton Dynamics hasn’t been very cooperative with my department. In short, I don’t know.”
When I examined the pages of the calendar again, a small slip of paper fell out. I picked up a tag for cello lessons with Alejandra’s phone number, the same tag that hung from a flyer on the bulletin board at the front door of Turner Creek Sporting Clays.
The sheriff said, “Oh, that’s mine. Give it here. It must’ve gotten into the calendar.”
I picked up the paper, but kept it a moment. “You know where it’s from, don’t you?”
Sheriff Tompkins said, “Yeah, his car seat next to the calendar. We searched his SUV.”
“No, I mean originally.”
She shook her head.
“Sheriff, you should’ve shown me this.”
She smirked and reached for the tear-off tag. I handed it to her.
I said, “It’s from that bulletin board over there by the entrance.”
As we walked toward the wooden building, I asked, “You’ve called that number, right?”
“Yup. Not in service. Never has been.”
“Excellent,” I replied. “Then that’s how Kostas signaled his handler.”
We climbed a few steps to the porch, and I pointed out the flyer for cello lessons thumbtacked to the bulletin board.
I said, “Kostas probably tore off these six phone number tags. Nobody else at a shooting range would want expensive cello lessons. Maybe when his handlers saw the tag missing, they’d put a chalk mark at the two sites for the dead-drops. Then Kostas would know they were ready. One place for stolen files, the other for payment.”
She nodded without replying, but I could tell she was thinking through the procedure. She removed the thumbtacks, took the flyer, and slid it into her manila envelope.
The sheriff asked me, “So who was he working with?”
“Not sure.”
“Any guesses?”
“Honestly, no. But if I come up with anything, I’ll let you know. Look, I need your help, Sheriff. Marisa Dupree does, as well.”
The sheriff’s eyes squinted at me. “I’m not here to help your client or you. I’m looking for a killer. Besides, Benton Dynamics says that it can prove your client downloaded files without authorization. She was part of this. Everything points to her involvement. Come on, Kostas and Dupree were co-conspirators.”
“I know how it looks, but if I actually thought she was involved, I wouldn’t have called you and given you all this. I think it was Kostas … Kostas alone.”
The sheriff shrugged and said nothing.
“We’ve got this,” I said. “We can piece it all together.”
“Maybe you’ve figured out how this went down, and that’s a big maybe, but you don’t have who did it,” Tompkins replied.
“Together we can. That’s where you come in, Sheriff.”
“Nothing here points to any one person. Besides, this is all conjecture. Look, you’re a lawyer. You know evidence. None of this would hold up in court, at least what you got so far.”
“Sheriff, these chalk marks are a good lead. Start from there and investigate who Kostas’s contact was. And at least fill me in on how
