Crown's Law (38 page)

Sam called Becky and told her the news.
She said she would rearrange her schedule and be there for such an
important event. She didn’t want the process delayed, because she
wanted it to be a surprise to Nana and Grandpa Crown when she got
her doctorates and they called out her name as Rebecca
Crown
, not Rebecca
Rogers
!

***

When Sam and Becky got back to the office at
4 o’clock, Pearl sat down with Becky and helped her compile a list
of places where she had to get her name officially changed: Social
Security, passport, DMV, UCI, and so on. Also, a letter would have
to be composed and sent to the various academic people who
corresponded with Becky on a regular basis.

Becky said, “You told me, Sam, that payback
isn’t always with money. This is payback to Nana and Grandpa for
all they’ve done for me. For how much I love them. And you, too,
Sam. I hope they like it.”

After the exhilarated
Becky—Becky
Crown
—had zoomed
off in her bug, Pearl went to Sam’s office and plopped down in the
client’s chair.

“She’s really hyped! I never realized how
much this meant to her!” said Pearl.

“She was always worried whether she belonged
or not. This gives her some closure. I’m so proud of her!”

Pearl was silent for a moment, then she said,
“Did you give any of that tape info to your FBI girlfriend?”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” said Sam with a
shrug.

“Whatever. Did you?”

“No. I can’t figure out a way to do it
without involving Becky. That won’t do! Besides, it’s not usable as
evidence.”

“I know that! The murder and smuggling
are
fait accompli
. You can’t
stop those, but this meeting on the tenth hasn’t happened yet! And
it sounds like it could affect national security! You’ve got to do
something about that! I just don’t feel right being privy to such
information and not doing anything! I could make an anonymous call
to the FBI.”

“They might just ignore you.”

“But I’d feel better,” said Pearl, crossing
her legs.

Sam knew, based on the equations on Becky’s
test, with 95% probability, that it was a potential act of treason.
There was also the possibility that the FBI already knew about the
meeting, and if he got in the middle of it, he could fuck up an FBI
sting operation. He wasn’t sure what to do.

“OK, Pearl, give me the exact location of the
proposed meeting and I’ll go take a look-see. This could be an FBI
sting and I don’t want to get caught up in it.”

“Thanks, Sam. I’ll go get the info for you,”
said Pearl. She uncrossed her legs and got up. The flash of inner
thighs reminded Sam of Bo. Yes, he missed her!

***

On Thursday the 7th, Sam paid a visit to the
park mentioned on the tapes to check it out—see what possibilities
presented themselves. The park was located in Irvine just east of
Harvard Avenue—not far from the I-405. Sam drove Pearl’s Toyota—his
red Camaro was too well-known by law enforcement throughout the
county—and he wore shorts, T-shirt, and running shoes. He jogged
around the park with several other joggers. There was an area for
children—swings, slides, sandbox—not far from the bench where the
exchange was scheduled to take place.

Not a good place for a
shootout
, thought Sam.
Well
chosen by the assholes! Kids and moms everywhere.

Sam finally settled on a lamppost and two
trees that were properly situated to give him good coverage of the
bench and its environs if he used three cameras. He didn’t see a
convenient place for his van, so he would have to use satellite
communications back to the tech room at Mickey’s. He drove back to
the office to discuss the technical aspects with Pearl.

Later that afternoon, Sam returned in his
van—now transformed into a “City Parks” van with ladders on the
side—and began the process of mounting his high-tech video cameras.
He wore blue coveralls with “City Parks” on the back. He hoped no
real city employees showed up—they would spot him as an imposter in
a second.

After securing the cameras in place, he went
to his van and intercepted the satellite feeds to check his
positioning of the cameras. He wasn’t satisfied with the one on the
lamppost, so he went back with his ladder to adjust it. When he was
satisfied, he headed back to Santa Ana. He was ready. But for
what?

***

On Friday morning, using a picture put
together a few days ago by Becky and Pearl using a computer program
and Becky’s description, Sam started watching for Chase outside
the
Dynology
building. Sam
saw him arrive, confirming that his picture was good. Chase came
out of the building at noon with a young woman with large breasts
and long, blonde hair. They went to a nearby restaurant, then
returned to the building at 1:15. No clues. No Bobby D’Orr. He
followed Chase home after work and made a note of his address for
possible later use. He went back to the office and got his Camaro
and headed toward the beach. Another wasted day.

Putting crooks in jail shouldn’t be this
hard.

***

On Saturday the 9th, John and Helena Crown
came home. They planned to stay at the beach house until the end of
June, then the two of them were taking Becky to Spain during the
first week of July to watch the running of the bulls. It was a
present to Becky for all her hard work leading to her
doctorates.

Becky was having a hard time not
blurting out her secret, but she knew she had to hold it in for a
week, or she would spoil her surprise. She kept repeating to
herself, “Hi, I’m Rebecca
Crown
!”

***

On Sunday morning, Sam was parked ten blocks
from the park in his van. He had decided that staying in the tech
room placed him too far away if he decided there was any action he
wanted to take. He set up his equipment so he could control the
cameras’ zoom capability from the van.

At 9:55 A.M., a short blonde woman wearing
shorts, a T-shirt, and dark glasses sat down on the bench and put
her large, black backpack on the bench next to her. Sam zoomed in
the cameras—one at a time—and got close-ups of her from all three
angles.

It’s possible that she’s
just an innocent woman taking a rest, but I can’t take
chances
, he mused.

He adjusted the cameras to their original
settings and waited. When a man wearing jeans, blue T-shirt, and
dark aviator glasses sat down on the bench next to her, Sam knew
that he had hit pay dirt. The man put an identical backpack next to
the one on the bench. The man’s beard looked fake.

Aha! The switch is about to take place!

He zoomed in on the man. He left the frontal
camera on close-up so their lips would be captured on tape. Maybe a
lip reader could garner some information later. After a couple of
minutes, the man picked up the woman’s backpack and left. The woman
went in the opposite direction with the other backpack thirty
seconds later.

Sam had wanted to put an audio bug under the
bench, but he was afraid that the area would be swept sometime
before the meeting. He had to be satisfied with video. They were
very good close-ups.

When Sam got back to the office, Pearl was
there. She had watched the switch of the backpacks on the monitors
in the tech room.

“Good video, Sam!” she exclaimed.

“Make up a package of three tapes—one from
each camera—and send them to Special Agent Rainbow Trout at
Fenster’s office. Nothing traceable to us. Then we’ll see what the
FBI does with this!”

“Better than an anonymous phone call,” she
said as she slipped on a pair of latex gloves. “I’ll get right on
it!”

“Put it in the U.S. Mail so only she can open
it.”

“Wouldn’t she get it faster if I sent it to
her D.C. office?”

“Just do as I say, Pearl. Please.”

“You got it, boss.”

***

The package arrived at the Santa Ana office
of the FBI on Tuesday the 12th. Carl Fenster called Agent Trout and
asked her what he should do with it. She jumped at the
opportunity—just as Sam had hoped she would—and told Fenster to
hold it. She was taking the next plane to Orange County.

A chance to see Sam again!
And Becky’s graduation, maybe!
she thought.
A miracle!

Bo called Sam from the plane and told him she
was coming to town on business and would land at 4:15 P.M. his
time. He told her that he would meet her at the airport. He was
ecstatic! His ruse had worked! At the airport, she flew into his
arms and kissed him. She was wearing a light yellow suit with a
short skirt.

Ah! Banana!
he
thought as he ogled her. He couldn’t believe that he’d already
forgotten how luscious her long legs were!

“God, Sam! I’ve missed you so much!” she
moaned.

“Me, too!” he replied as he kissed her again.
“I’ll take your bag. Come with me. A cop buddy of mine is watching
my car in that loading zone over there.”

“I have to go to Fenster’s office first.
Business. Then, can I stay with you? Please?”

“You’d better! I won’t ask you why you’re
here. Save you the trouble of telling me you can’t tell me. I’ll
drop you off at Fenster’s, then you can call when you’re ready.
I’ll hang out at the office till I hear from you.”

“Not
Sparky’s
?” she laughed.

“Now there’s an idea!”

***

When Bo opened the package—carefully—she
found three video tapes. The package had been dusted for prints and
now she had Carl’s technician dust the tapes. Then she and Carl put
the tapes in a VCR—one by one—and watched them. Bo was aghast! The
woman in the blonde wig was Katie Carlisle, an agent in the L.A.
office. She had been eliminated as the mole during an earlier
investigation. There she was, though, clearly making a switch with
that man!

“Where the hell did these tapes come from,
Carl?” she exclaimed.

“Beats me. Came in the U.S. Mail, as you saw.
I called you. That’s all I know,” he shrugged.

“These have the quality of a professional
sting. I’ve got to call D.C.”

“What’s going on, Trout?” asked Carl.

“Can’t say yet. Need to know, and all that
crap. I need a secure phone,” she replied.

Bo interrupted her boss’s dinner and briefed
him on the mystery tapes. He told her to send an agent to D.C. with
the tapes on the next available plane. He would call the L.A. SAC
and have him put Katie Carlisle under 24-hour surveillance, tap her
phones, check her finances, the whole enchilada.

“Good work, Rainy! If we don’t get good
evidence in a day or two, we’ll bring her in and show her the
tapes. See if she cracks and confesses,” he said.

“I doubt if the tapes would be admissible in
court,” answered Bo. “No chain of custody. I don’t know who made
them.”

“She doesn’t know that! She’ll think they’re
our tapes. We now have to find out what info she stole and passed
along. I want a member of our team—namely you—there in California
so I don’t have to tell a lot of people what we’re up to. You stay
there and lay low—await my call. Stay out of L.A. for now. Later, I
may want you to take her into custody, then we’ll squeeze her a
bit—a lot. In the meantime, do what you can to find out where those
tapes came from. And why they were addressed to you! I’ll get busy
trying to ID the man on the tapes as soon as I get them.”

***

By the time Bo got the arrangements made to
get an agent on the plane to D.C., it was 6 o’clock. She called Sam
and he picked her up at 6:15. Sam could sense her excitement, but
he wasn’t sure whether it was because of the tapes he had sent her,
or because of seeing him. He didn’t care. He had her back, at least
for now.

Bo giggled, “I’ve been ordered to stay here
until further notice. Isn’t that terrific? Maybe I’ll be here for
Becky’s big event!”

“Superb! Do you want to make a dash for my
Tustin pad?” he chuckled.

“I thought we were going to the beach house,”
she replied.

“We are, but you’ll have to stay in the guest
room across from Becky. My parents are home and I never bring women
for overnights when they’re home—whatever you might have thought
before. I want you right now! We can figure something out at the
beach for the long run,” he said, glancing at her as he drove.

“What about the boat? It’s on the way,” she
suggested with a smile and a squeeze of his thigh. “I have pleasant
memories from there.”

“Good idea! Watch for cops. We’re gonna
fly!”

On the freeway, Sam called home and Becky
answered the phone.

“Got a surprise for you, Beckster!” he said.
“I’ll be cruisin’ in with a friend of yours about 8 o’clock.”

“Who? Not Bo!” she squealed.

“Who else? Of course. Get the room across
from yours ready for her, please. And tell Nana and Grandpa that
I’m bringing a guest home. Don’t hold dinner. I’ll throw something
together for us when we get there.”

“OK, Sam! I’ll take care of everything!”

Sam disconnected. “She can’t wait to see
you.”

“I want to see her, too! But first, we have
priority business on the boat!”

***

They cut their frenzied sexual interlude
shorter than either of them liked, but they needed to stay on
schedule for now. The night was long—they would be innovative later
tonight. Sam pulled into the beach house garage at 7:56 P.M.,
introduced Bo to his parents, then took her bag to the room across
from Becky’s. Becky was on Cloud 9!

Helena said to Bo, “This child has done
nothing but regale us with stories of how you helped her with her
prom—and all about that horrible incident on the
Belle
. Welcome back to our home, Ms.
Trout.”