…..
Another chapter up! I thought that the last one went pretty well and it didn't even take me that long to write. I really hope that the rest of them can be that way, but I highly doubt it. Either way, I at least hope that you continue to enjoy the chapters.
I was originally only going to post once a week, but I got three reviews in one day (even though it's only showing one, for some reason), and I wanted to celebreate!
I wanted to say a quick thank you to those of you that have favorited, followed, or reviewed. I appreciate each and every single one of you. And also a big thank you just for reading my story. I appreciate the support.
On to the story!
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Chapter Two: The Art Expert
Allie
The home that we pulled up to was gorgeous. White and French style, with a large circular drive. Of course, that drive was littered with cop cars, which made the whole scene significantly less elegant.
"It's always the rich and famous," Kono sighed as she got out of the passenger side of the car. I liked her. She dressed in clothing very similar to mine and had dark brown eyes that matched her shoulder length hair worn straight. She had a seemingly easygoing manner, and I felt like we would get along well. "Why is it always the rich and famous?"
I didn't respond to that and, instead, headed for the door. Steve, Danny, and Chin were already entering the home. Kono and I were right behind them.
"Chin, Kono, talk to the owner," Steve said and gestured to the man sitting on the couch in the grand living room. He was dressed in an expensive suit and was clearly distraught, eyes red from crying. I didn't sense any guilt from him, so I immediately dismissed him from my mind.
Chin and Kono moved to do as Steve had asked and Danny, Steve, and I followed a uniformed officer up the spiral staircase.
The two bodies were lying in what had been the gallery, before it had been looted. I could see the hooks on which paintings had been hung, the display cases that had likely held vases or other non-painting pieces of art. And judging by the size of the room, the guy downstairs was a serious collector. Perhaps I'd heard of him…
The medical examiner was already there, kneeling by the bodies, and Steve called out to him. "Max. What do we got?"
The man named Max looked up and I almost laughed. He was as dorky-looking as they came, with an Asian appearance and big glasses covering dark eyes. He was wearing his medical examiner's jacket, but I was willing to bet that he was dressed just like your stereotypical geek.
Not that I was one to judge…
"The victims are Susan and Madison Coulter. The wife and daughter, respectively. Cause of death on both is a GSW to the chest. Two shots each, both with a nine-millimeter. We found the shell casings already. Pretty cut and dry, but I'll let you know if I find anything else during my autopsy."
"Thanks, Max," Steve said and took the gloves that a crime scene tech handed him.
Danny did the same, gesturing to me with the gloves. "Max, this is Officer Allie Rhodes. She's new to Five-O."
"Oh." Max smiled at me. "It's very nice to meet you, Officer Rhodes."
"Allie," I corrected him and smiled back, pulling my own gloves on. "It's nice to meet you, Max."
He nodded at me as he stood and directed the techs to move the bodies onto stretchers so that they could be loaded into his vehicle. That was definitely one job I did not want.
"Okay, so the thieves break in," Steve began.
"Thieves?" Danny asked him.
"Yeah, this was way too quick to be just one guy." Steve pointed up to the corner where a security system camera sat against the ceiling. "I'll text Kono and tell her to ask the owner for access to the feed."
"Don't bother," I told him after a quick study of the camera. "It's not working."
Danny and Steve were both staring at me, but it was Steve that answered. "And how would you know that? These cameras don't have a light that blinks when they're on."
It didn't take an expert behavioral analyst to know that this guy wasn't crazy about me. He didn't like that he'd been forced to accept me onto his special team and he didn't like that he didn't know me and my skills. That made me a wild card and men like him didn't like wild cards.
I could have asserted myself and fought back, making him look like an idiot. But I knew that approach wasn't going to really get me anywhere. If we were just butting heads all of the time, he wouldn't be far back enough to see my skill set and that I could be useful to him. So, until he did see me that way, I needed to try not to step on his toes. Let him lead and show that I was willing to follow.
Hopefully, he would learn to trust me.
I shrugged as if I didn't care one way or another. "I could be wrong; it was just a feeling. Have Kono check with the owner."
He stared at me for only a moment longer before he looked back down at his cell phone and began to type. "I will."
Thinking that it would be best if I just kept my mouth shut for the duration of the visit to the house, I moved off to examine some of the displays.
"Do we know if the owner has a list somewhere of all of the art he had in here?" Danny asked, voicing exactly what I'd been thinking.
Steve shook his head. "I'll tell Kono to ask the owner about that as well. Anyone see anything out of the ordinary?"
"No," Danny said from the wall of hooks.
"No," I affirmed, much more quietly, from one of the displays. "They've already dusted these for fingerprints, but I doubt that they found any."
"I don't see anything, either," Steve sighed. "We're going to have to pray that they were caught on security camera. And that they weren't wearing masks. Keep looking."
So, the three of us combed the small room. The crime techs hadn't missed anything, though, so our search was fruitless. I was actually relieved when Kono and Chin came through the door to tell us what they had learned from the homeowner.
"He got home after the robbery had occurred," Chin told us. "Didn't see a thing, obviously. Poor guy actually ate his takeout at the kitchen table before he came up here and found them. They were supposed to be at a doctor's appointment for the eight-year-old daughter. She had an autoimmune disease and had to go in once a month for a checkup."
"What time was the appointment?" Steve asked.
Chin consulted his small black notebook very quickly. "Nine. They would have needed to leave here by eight-fifteen to get there on time, which means that the robbery had to have happened around then and prevented them from making it."
Only eight years old and dead for some art. I couldn't understand that and I never would. A human life was priceless. But not to everyone, obviously.
"Did you ask about the security camera in here?" Steve asked. "And the inventory list?"
"He gave us the inventory list," Kono said and held up a sheet of paper. "But he said that the security camera in here – as well as a few of the others – have been out for a few weeks. He said he'd been meaning to get them fixed, but just hadn't gotten around to it yet. But some other cameras caught the guys. I'll have the footage for us back at headquarters."
Danny, who had been holding in laughter, suddenly burst with it, causing everyone to look at him in confusion and surprise.
Steve's jaw was tight.
"What's so funny?" Chin asked.
Danny waved his question away and shook his head. "Don't worry about it, babe. Inside joke." And he winked at me before clapping Steve on the shoulder on the way out of the room.
I kept my head down as I made my own exit. Behind me, Chin and Kono were asking Steve about it, but he was tight-lipped for obvious reasons.
I stopped by my house on the way back to headquarters both to check on my dog and grab myself some lunch. By the time that I returned, Kono had started examining the video and had made copies of the inventory list for everyone. Steve and Danny were in their respective offices, and Chin was apparently out to lunch.
"Your office is through there," Kono said and pointed to the only small office with the lights off. "Not much time to decorate it right now, but I'm sure you'll get around to it."
I smiled. "I'm not really the decorating type. Thanks."
The office was small, but definitely not the smallest I'd ever been in. And it was completely closed in for a little more privacy, though all of the walls were glass except for the outside wall, but even that one had big windows. The only furniture was a wall to wall bookshelf behind a desk much like the one in the governor's office. There was also a chair and a phone on the desk that I would likely never need to use. I would, however, be using the laptop that was also provided.
"Not bad," I sighed and took a seat in my new chair. It was relatively comfy; I'd definitely had worse.
After a few more moments spent looking at my new space, I turned my attention to the list that Kono had given me.
And something on it was off.
My uncle Edward answered on the third ring. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
I felt myself frowning. "How do you even know who this is, Uncle Edward?"
He scoffed at me. "I'm old, not an idiot. You told me that you were moving to Hawaii. This is a number from Hawaii. And, as the only other people I communicate with on the islands are already contacts in my phone, I made the deduction. New number?"
"They got me a new phone when I took the job," I answered. "Listen, I need a favor."
"You and your favors. I don't suppose…"
"No," I said firmly, guessing exactly where his thoughts were headed. "But it's similar. There was an art robbery this morning. Private collection. I'm looking at the inventory list right now and something isn't adding up. It says here that he owned a Hollis Clayton original from 1943."
Uncle Edward whistled. "Those are hard to come by. In 1943, Hollis Clayton only put out-"
"Three originals," I finished for him. "I know. And I thought I knew where all of them were."
"You've been out of the game for quite a while," he said, almost as if consoling me. "I know for sure where one of them is. Should I track down the other two for you?"
"I'd appreciate it."
"My return favor is that you call every once in a while," he said, making me smile. "Sometimes, an old man just wants a friendly hello."
"I'll keep that in mind," I assured him. "Let me know as soon as you hear anything back from your contacts."
"Will do." He hung up.
With nothing else to do, I went back out into the main area where Kono was examining the security camera footage. Unfortunately, the robbers had worn masks the entire time, as well as gloves to prevent any fingerprints. There would be no evidence in that house or on the tape.
"It looks like the robbers came in just as our victims were getting ready to leave the house and go to the daughter's appointment. They saw them and the mother tried to call the police, but the robbers pulled out guns and forced them to show them to the private gallery. And I'm assuming that they were killed in there, since they never came out with the guys."
I shook my head. "If they'd left only a minute earlier…"
"I was thinking the same thing," Kono told me with a sad smile. "I'm going to relay this to Steve and then I'm heading out to grab some lunch. Want to come?"
I'd made myself a sandwich at my house, but I didn't feel like I was in a position to turn away a friend. Especially one on the task force. "Yeah, sure. I could eat."
She smiled, nodded, and went to talk to Steve.
Steve
"Still not over the fact that Allie was right about the camera?" Danny asked when he came into my office later.
Chin was doing some background into the homeowner and Kono was in the main area with Allie, going over the footage for anything that might have been missed. I kind of wished that I had been out there with them so that Danny wouldn't have accosted me.
I sighed and rubbed a hand over my face. "Do you really have to rub that in right now?"
"Absolutely," he answered without any hesitation. "I mean, even you have to admit how cool that was. How did she know that the camera wasn't working? I couldn't see anything different about it."
And maybe that's part of what ticked me off about the whole thing. How had she known about the camera? I was too ashamed to admit that what I'd actually been doing for the last hour was looking into that particular security system to see if there was any way to tell when one of the cameras was out. I argued to myself that it was also just some basic research about the security system that we were dealing with.
"I don't know," I finally said when it had become clear that Danny was really waiting for an answer. "She said it was just a feeling."
"Pretty cool feeling," he said, that smug smile never leaving his face. "I think we should keep her around."
"As you reminded me this morning, I have no choice in that matter. Now, is that all you came in here to say?"
"Oh, no," he said. "I called Kamekona and asked him to notify us if he heard anything about a private collection being moved or fenced. I know that he's not normally in on that kind of thing, but it couldn't hurt. I also talked with the neighbors like you asked me to. None of them saw anything suspicious in the last week, but security cameras at the gates of one of the houses might have caught the car used in the robbery this morning. I sent an HPD officer to pick up the tapes. He should be back within the next half hour."
"Excellent." As of then, it was the only hope for a lead that we had. The house had been devoid of any kind of DNA or prints. "Let me know when it gets here and we'll all look at it together."
Danny gave me a mock salute as he left my office and headed into his own.
I went back to my "research". From what I managed to gather, there was no way to tell from the outside if a camera wasn't working. According to the company that made the system, it could alert possible intruders of a failure and further prompt them to continue with their plans. Which begged the question… how had Allie known that the camera wasn't working? She couldn't possibly know about a flaw in the system that even the creators of the system didn't know.
I was dragged away from further musing when Kono motioned for me to come out to join the rest of them. "We got a plate from a neighbor's security camera. We couldn't see the men's faces, but I traced it back to a car that was reported stolen last night. HPD found it dumped a little over an hour ago and, lucky for us, they got a print." She swiped the large screen in front of her and a driver's license popped up.
"Brandon Miller," Chin said out loud. "He has a record for petty theft and just got out a month ago. We're pulling all known accomplices now."
"Armed robbery and murder is quite an upgrade from petty theft," Allie said.
"That it is," Danny agreed and a small smug smile appeared once more on his face. "Allie, do you, uh, have any hunches or feelings about that?"
"Excuse me?" Allie asked, confused.
I resisted the urge to punch Danny in the face and said, "Let's pull those accomplices. Chin, did you manage to find out how much that art was worth?"
Chin pulled out his small notebook. "According to Dan's insurance agent, the collection was insured for thirty million dollars. Of course, there are always varying opinions about how much a piece of art is worth, but his most notable piece was…" Chin looked closely at the page.
"Let me guess," Allie spoke up. "A Hollis Clayton original from 1943."
"Yeah," Chin said, sounding both impressed and surprised. "How did you-"
The ringing of a cell phone cut him off and Allie quickly pulled it out of her pocket and glanced at the screen before her eyes lit up. "I need to take this." She took a few steps away from us. "Yeah?"
We all stayed quiet and listened to her side of the conversation. "Are you sure? When? Okay. Thank you. I won't forget. Bye."
She came back to the screen and began to speak. "I just got a call from a contact of mine. When was the last time that the policy was adjusted?"
Chin consulted his notes. "Four months ago."
"According to my contact, a Hollis Clayton original was sold quietly to a buyer in Russia. A private collector that seems to be quite the fan of Clayton's early work. There were only three originals by Clayton in 1943, and the other two have been accounted for for years."
"Wait, hold on a minute," Danny said, sounding just as confused as I felt. "Are you saying… you're saying that this guy, this Dan Coulter… he's trying to commit insurance fraud?"
"He was legally required to update his policy after such a big sale. But it was still on the inventory list. So, yes," Allie confirmed. "That would be my first guess."
"I'll look into his financials," Chin said and headed off for his office.
"Good," I said and looked at Kono. "Anything strike you as unusual during your questioning of him?"
"No," she answered me as she thought back. "He was the perfect picture of a grieving husband and father. He blamed himself… I just don't think that he would have had them killed."
Danny spoke up from beside me. "No, maybe not. But… that doesn't mean that he didn't hire someone to rob him. He sells the art in secret, pays them a percentage…"
I finished his thought for him. "He was expecting his wife and daughter to be on the way to the hospital. Maybe the robbers were supposed to arrive a few minutes later or maybe his wife normally left a few minutes earlier…"
"But they were armed," Allie argued, confusion written all over her face. "Why would they bring guns if it was a simple robbery?"
"You think there's more to it?" Kono asked her.
With a sigh, Allie shrugged. "I don't know. If this was insurance fraud… I think he did a pretty poor job of it."
"Well, he didn't think anyone would know about the painting selling, since it was done quietly." Danny shrugged. "We need to figure out a way to get in touch with the buyer in Russia."
"No," I shook my head. "It's a waste of time. And possibly a dead end, if the sale was as under the radar as it sounds. Let's wait for Chin to come back with the financial data and we'll go from there. In the meantime, let's run down our leads from the vehicle."
Danny and I headed for the door and Kono went to Chin's office to help him, leaving Allie standing at the large screen, frowning down at the data. I wasn't sure what she saw there, but I wasn't going to hang around and wait for her to come up with something.
"She has contacts," Danny said as we descended the stairs. I knew that he had a smug smile on his face, so I didn't look. "That could be very helpful for some of the cases that we work."
"I think she worked with the White Collar unit of the FBI for a few months. She probably made some contacts there. No big deal."
He snorted and followed me outside. "You're just jealous that she came up with a viable scenario before you did."
"I'm not dignifying that with a response."
But there was a very real possibility that he was right.
