Chapter 23—Dante
Well this was different to how I came to this place last time.
The Crowthorne Society however looked the very same. Same elaborate structure of grand archways attached to a beautiful châteaux style mansion and acres of lush land surrounding it.
Last time I was on my bike and I’d practically been snooping to see as much as I could of Christina and Donny Manello.
This time felt like I’d been given the chance to spend the day on the set of a film like Mission Impossible. Just for the fact that while Claudius and Marcus had gone inside the regular way, Gio and me were dressed up in overalls under the guise of men from the electric company. Alex was on surveillance with two of the guys from our tech team.
Very elaborate set up we had going on here.
The goal was to cause some sort of distraction with Claudius and Marcus ordering lunch and tea while we got to working on the actual mission. There were ways of walking into a place and taking what we wanted. It didn’t always mean we had to go in guns blazing with death in our eyes.
We would only do that when absolutely necessary. It wasn’t an option when it prevented us from having enough time to get what we came here for.
Claudius and Marcus were acting as the decoy. They would be the massive distraction to throw off the Antonellas.
I could imagine them up there in the restaurant and the manager at the very least knowing they were enemies to the Antonellas. Knowing and wondering what in the hell they were doing there.
It sent a seriously big message that we were up to something.
This place was somewhere none of them had really been to before, and definitely not to eat.
I could imagine the manager calling around to report it, but who to exactly? Well that would be some kind of mystery and something to definitely be interested in. Barabbas was seen just last year. Maybe they would report it to him and he’d march down here in all his glory to find out why they were here.
Gio and I had on disguises along with the overalls. We both wore caps, the standard kind guys from the electricity company would wear. I, however, had a moustache and beard to cover my face. Gio had on thick rimmed glasses and had even shaved off his beard.
He actually looked so different without facial hair that it may have been enough of a disguise by itself.
The secret squad did a really good job figuring out the layout of the place. We knew that there was one guy in the security office located in the basement watching the CCTV. There were six guards on site. Four custodians that took care of the interior, and two managers on site at all times. One took care of the restaurant while the other took care of the function halls and event rooms.
The area we needed to focus on was the basement area near the security office. They had an archives department that held all the records we needed.
Our fake ID passes got us in with no problems, and the manager escorted us down here to the electrical room.
Alex was screwing with the CCTV. When he gave the signal to move on to the Archives room, we headed there quickly.
The good thing about this place was the doors were unlocked. The security at Crowthorne was so tight that anyone on the grounds or inside the building were all vetted to the highest degree. Especially people working on the premises. If we were anyone else there would have been no way that we would have made it inside so easily.
Gio opened the door to the Archives room. We had to be careful here. We weren’t authorized to be here. Alex would tell us if he saw someone coming, but past experience taught me to keep watch myself and stay on alert even with the backup of surveillance.
Things could always go wrong.
“Where should we start?” I asked Gio while looking at the many, many rows of shelves.
We were after video files and record books.
“How about you start with the video files? I will look for the books,” Gio answered.
I nodded it was a good idea to split up the search. The faster we could get out the better. I hoped for this to be a simple grab and go job.
The minute we were done, Alex would let Claudius know and they would leave too.
I left Gio and moved to the section with all the video files. Whoever took care of this place had to be one of those overly organized, perfectionists who had to have everything a certain way. Everything was labeled. The video recordings were all labeled by date and there was a file cabinet for every year going back to 1999.
I guessed they probably didn’t do much in the way of surveillance before that. CCTV wasn’t exactly popular these days. I guessed that the Antonellas would have been very possibly the first people to get it.
I needed to find the 2008 files. That was all I was interested in except maybe a year or so prior to that and possibly the year after. I planned to grab as much as I could depending on how the files were stored.
I made my way down the line of cabinets until I found the one for 2008. I opened it and frowned when I saw that the thing was fucking empty, the whole thing. There were four drawers, each with trays for memory sticks that should have held the recordings.
I decided to look in the cabinet next to it for 2007, however that was empty too. I must have gotten to 2003 before I stopped and got a bad feeling, because fuck 2003 had all the video memory sticks. Following that feeling I went to 2009 and found that cabinet to be the same.
2003 and 2009 had files. All the years in between however had nothing. All empty.
What the fuck did it mean?
Gio came around to me, face contorted into a frown.
“There’s no files. No books from 2004 to 2008,” he said, and that confirmed the nagging feeling I’d gotten.
I balled my fists and punched out at the air. “They’ve been removed. Damn it, they’ve been removed Gio.” I stared at him as the feeling in my gut deepened. Shit. I didn’t fucking believe in coincidences, particularly the ones like this. No one could tell me this was just some random occurrence that the files we happened to be looking for were missing. No one could convince me of shit like that. Someone knew we might come here. How? Did we have a rat in our house again? No it wasn’t that. Wasn’t that. “They’ve been moved on purpose Gio.” I nodded.
“I think so too.” Gio scowled. “Let’s get out of here. If they knew we could come here, they’ll be on the lookout. Claudius and Marcus up there will confirm it.”
I tapped my microphone to speak to Alex. “Alex get them out now. We’ll meet back at the office. There’s nothing here.”
“Nothing at all?” Alex asked.
“Nothing.”
***
We got back to the office, meeting there as a team.
Claudius and Marcus were the last to arrive. Claudius looked seriously pissed.
“Dante, how the fuck could there be nothing?” he asked.
“The years 2004-2008 were all gone; every single record book and video. There was nothing there at all. Everything else was there though, but we needed 2008.”
Claudius looked at Marcus.
“They were being careful, someone was taking precautions.” Marcus surmised.
“How’d they know we’d go there?” Alex huffed sitting forward in his chair. “Crowthorne isn’t a place we would normally go to.”
“They thought it would be though,” Gio stated.
I nodded in complete agreement. “They absolutely fucking did. Whether it was a just in case or a direct attempt to take the evidence away, someone had thought we’d visit and look around at Crowthorne.”
“So maybe they know you’re looking into Christina’s murder,” Claudius added. “Wouldn’t take much to figure out if you knew there was some kind of a link. Yesterday …” his voice trailed off as he smiled.
I was already there, at that thought. I’d told them what had happened yesterday with that creepy guy.
“Claudius that guy from yesterday. He’s the only person that I’ve seen in both those places; the charity and Crowthorne.”
“That fucker was practically running.” Gio added.
“He was the driver of the car that took Christina to Crowthorne with Donny Manello. He was in her office arguing about something when I saw them.” I thought deeper to the questions I’d asked Jerry Chase. “Maybe he spoke to Jerry Chase, the manager at Help The Homeless. I’d asked if Christina got the chance to work on any government events.”
“I’ll bet he did speak to Jerry.” Gio frowned. “From just the sight of us he’d know who you were, and the fact that you mentioned the government events could have hinted at the real reason why we were there.”
Fuck, it had to be that.
“Maybe it’s him,” Alex stated. “Maybe he’s the killer.”
“Maybe it is,” Claudius said. “I don’t think so though. Doesn’t fit with what Gibbs said. You never said this guy was anybody important. Remember the person we’re looking for is exactly that. Anyone could be helping them. Maybe he helped.”
I sighed. “Yeah. It just feels like we’re going around in circles.”
“Nah, man. This wasn’t a damn circle. Not at all. You may not have found any records we could use, but it’s what wasn’t there that tells us what we need to know. 2004- 2008, those were significant years for obvious reasons. We know that the person who either took the records or was given orders to take them thought so too. They knew we were coming. That is no circle Dante. It means we’re getting close.”
My gaze snapped up to meet his.
Really close. Until now I’d been so far away from finding answers that I couldn’t see it from that angle.
“Close.” I nodded.
“I’ll get the secret squad on to that guy.” Gio nodded. “ He’s definitely a link. I feel it in my gut.”
Claudius nodded. “Me too, and remember we could be looking for two people. Dante, I suggest you get on to matching up the names with what you found yesterday. It could help narrow down something.”
“On it.” I felt bad, because I should have done that last night. I was with Maria instead.
“From here on, we leave no stone unturned. Anything you find, even if it doesn’t seem important check it out.”
I looked at him and was reminded of years ago when I’d last gone to Christina’s office before she died. Claudius had offered to come with me back then and here he was now helping in the biggest way possible.
“Thank you, Claudius and all of you.”
“Stop saying thanks man.” Gio smirked. “It’s what we do, it’s what any of us would do. You would do it too if it was for any of us.”
Claudius smiled wider. “Guess I’m not that much of an L.A. punk after all right?”
I chuckled. He remembered what I’d said all those years ago. Sometimes I still couldn’t believe I spoke to him the way I did and lived.
“Get on it boys,” Marcus ordered. “We don’t know what other factors we may have to take into consideration with today’s visit.”
He was definitely right about that, and I was sure as shit that the manager would have called Barabbas and told him the Morientz’s were drinking tea at the Crowthorne.
He definitely wouldn’t like that.