Crossed Roads
(Steele, Scarecrow and The Beast)
By Thomas Mc


Part 9: To Be or Not To Be

10:30 am (Day 3)

Lee and Amanda received a call from Francine shortly after they woke up, identifying the hotel where Remington Steele was staying. After a quick breakfast they decided to tackle Steele first and went to his hotel. They found that Remington was out, so they entered his room to search it. Lee was about to decide that there was nothing useful here when Amanda found something very interesting.

"Lee." Amanda called out. "Look at this." She was holding up four passports that she had found in an overnight case.

"These all belong to Paul." Lee remarked in surprise. "But where and how did Steele get a hold of them?" He glanced around the hotel suite then shrugged. "So far I've come up empty." He glanced down at the passports. "At least now we know where the Remington Steele Agency got the names, but we still don't know why they would have them or how they got them." He handed the passports back to Amanda. "Put these back where you found them. We don't want this 'detective' Steele to know we've been here."

While Amanda put the passports back, Lee planted a bug under the phone. Then they left the room. In the hallway Lee planted the voice activated receiver/recorder that was tuned to the bug. They staked out the hotel until lunch then they ate a light lunch in the hotel lounge. Since there had been no activity they decided to check out the D.A.'s office angle.

~ o ~

Remington and Laura approached the officer in the lobby of the apartment building. Fortunately it was a different officer than the one from yesterday. This time they were dressed in no-nonsense business attire. Remington approached and introduced themselves. Good afternoon officer. Richard Blain and Laura Hunt of Pepplers and Pepplers Life and Casualty Insurance Agency here to interview the residents on floor thirteen.

The policeman passed them on without comment. On the thirteenth floor there was an officer on guard at the crime scene but they were ignored as they talked to the other tenants. By noon they realized that they had learned nothing new and decided to cut it short and head back to their hotel. Laura wanted to call Mildred and find out what she had uncovered.

As Remington and Laura entered the elevator back at their hotel, Lee and Amanda came out of the hotel lounge and left the hotel. Once back in their room Laura called Mildred.

Mildred reported her findings. "The Paul Cartwright identity appears to be genuine but he is listed as deceased. The Peter Blair and Jim Donavan identities were just good enough to pass a casual inspection but they both broke down as soon as I started digging." She paused for a few seconds. "Now the John Abbot identity turned out to be very interesting. It looked to be completely genuine and I was about to go to the next ID when I noticed a couple of odd things about it so I dug a little further and ran into some definite irregularities. Also he is supposed to have been killed in a car explosion on the same day that Paul Cartwright is supposed to have died from a car accident. That's when I hit a brick wall, but just before I was bounced out I spotted a federal government flag on the file. That ID was government generated and it was flagged to alert somebody if it was probed too deeply. I don't know what you kids have gotten yourselves into but watch your backs."

"OK Mildred, we'll be careful."

Laura hung up. "Why would he have a government generated false ID?" She mused aloud.

"I can think of two reasons." Remington replied. "Witness protection or secret agent."

Laura didn't look happy. "This just keeps getting better and better. First a con-man, now a spy . . . or a mobster on the run. And in either case he has been dead for several years."

Remington thought for a second. "According to several of the neighbors, someone from the district attorney's office lives in that building and has already been asking questions. Why don't I go over there and see what I can find out?"

"I'll go check out the police reports on the shootout." Laura replied.

~ o ~

Catherine glanced into a folder as she was telling Joe what she knew. "It didn't take long to figure out that Peter Blair is an alias. There is just enough info to satisfy a casual check. Say for instance a job application or to open a bank account. When Rita dug deeper the only reference she could find on it is a report on some kind of ruckus about ten years ago involving the Czechoslovakian embassy." She paused. "A source of mine mentioned that he bought flowers in the ground floor florist shop with a credit card in the name of John Abbot."

She opened a second thicker folder. "When Rita looked up John Abbot the information available appeared to be much more complete. The deeper she looked however, peculiarities in the information available started to make her suspicious. There were places where the details were too vague and there were some suspicious holes in the data." She looked at the folder again. "I would say that this must also be a fake identity. It's very good and would pass any normal background or security check, but Rita went a little deeper and found those anomalies I just mentioned." Catherine had saved the best for last. "The records show that he was supposed to have been killed in a car explosion six years ago. Rita also said that when she dug in far enough she found that the files under that name are flagged by the CIA."

"That's just great." The disgust was quite evident in Joe's voice. "The last thing we need is to have a bunch of Fed spooks breathing down our necks on this." He shook his head. "You remember that time when that foreign hit squad was after Elliot Burch." He made a disparaging snort. "They were more interested in covering the whole thing up than solving it. The hit squad just disappeared and we never did find out what happened."

"Oh, I remember." Catherine replied rolling her eyes. She knew more about it than Joe did but she had to keep that knowledge to herself. She didn't want to risk exposing Vincent. Another of the things she withheld was the result of the gun serial number check. She didn't want to have to explain where the gun came from. It led to a series of blind dead ends like someone had deliberately obscured the records. A closer check of the manufacturer discovered that the serial number was never used by them. In fact that number was not in any of the sequences normally used.

"What about the woman?" Joe asked.

"That background turned out to be fairly straight forward." Catherine consulted a third folder. "Abigail Holt was adopted as an infant. The adoption records are sealed. Fairly ordinary childhood. I found two occurrences of her name in the LA police records. Both were as a witness to a crime. She is a divorced mother of two daughters, Laura Holt and Frances Piper. Frances Piper is a housewife, married to a dentist and living in California. Laura Holt is an investigator for Remington Steele Investigations in Los Angeles." She looked up as she closed the folder. "I checked with the phone company and the last phone call from the apartment was made at the time of the shooting and lasted nearly an hour. The call was to the home residence of Remington Steele. I got curious so I checked with his office and they said that Miss Holt and Mr. Steele are out of the office and are not expected back 'til next week. I checked with the airlines and found out that they flew into New York two days ago. The flight was booked about two hours after the shootout. I have Rita trying to find out where they are staying."

"OK." Joe replied with a sigh. "It looks like we can expect a visit from ether the FBI or the CIA fairly soon." He shook his head, clearly annoyed with the situation. "Keep on top of it, Radcliffe, and watch yourself."

Catherine left Joe's office just a little worried. If the CIA or the FBI became involved, Vincent and the tunnel community could be endangered. She would have to tread very carefully with this one. She returned to her desk mulling over various ways to handle it if that should happen.

As she approached her desk, Rita intercepted her. "I found something on that gun serial number." She was definitely sporting a self satisfied grin. "It's juicy, and a bit scary."

"What is it?" Catherine asked.

"I talked to a cousin that works for a gun manufacturer. That serial number is one of a series that is forbidden by secret government edict. In a rather obscure unrelated database I found that a half dozen different numbers from that series have popped up in cases over the last fifteen years. I tried to track down those cases. In each one, all records of those cases had disappeared." She gave a little shiver. "I think the only reason they still exist in the database where I found them was because it is a secondary cross index register created by the National Registry Database during cross referencing operations. Most people don't even realize it exists. I stumbled across it by accident a couple of years ago and figured out how to use it to find hard to locate data."

"Thanks, Rita." Catherine sighed. "I was afraid it might be something like that." She sat down deep in thought then looked up. "If anyone asks you about it, tell them that I found the number on a piece of paper and asked you to look it up. As for the rest, just play dumb."

~ o ~

2:00 pm

Lee and Amanda entered Joe's office and identified themselves as computer network auditors here to assess the efficiency of the computer department. Lee told Joe that their report would be included in next year's budget allocations.

After praising the computer department for fast and efficient retrieval of critical information, Joe turned them over to Rita. "She is our chief information researcher." He told them then headed back to his office.

Remington entered the District Attorney's office displaying far more confidence than he felt. He walked up to the first person he encountered and flashed a totally fake ID quickly enough so that the woman didn't get a good look. "Agent Richard Blain, CIA, I need to speak with whoever is in charge here."

The woman pointed to Joe's office. "Joe Maxwell . . . in there."

Remington looked over and saw a man entering the office. He thanked her and walked over to the open door. He knocked on the door frame and, when Joe looked up, announced himself. "Joe Maxwell? Richard Blain, CIA, I need to speak with whoever is running the investigation of the shoot out two days ago at the apartment building on Central Park West."

Joe sighed resigned. He had been expecting this. "That would be Cathy Chandler. Have a seat and I'll call her in." Joe leaned out and signaled for Catherine's attention. "Cathy, can you come in here for a minute?"

As Catherine approached Joe's door she noticed the handsome dark haired man in there with Joe. Something about the man made her think of those old James Bond movies her father had been fond of. The tall handsome man seemed to be studying her as Joe waved her into the office.

Once Catherine had entered Joe's office and the door closed Remington began. "First I want to assure you that I have no intention of interfering with your department. I can't tell you why but I need to be kept up to date on this affair. Right now I need a synopsis of the investigation to date."

Catherine took the time to give a pretty accurate outline of the situation without mentioning the tunnels and the two guests they had down there or the gun. Remington listened attentively, especially to the part about the disappearance of the apartment's tenant and a woman named Abigail Holt, then he thanked them for their time.

He gave them a special number that went to a line that Mildred always answered without identifying the agency. "If you learn anything else call me at that number. If I'm not there, you can leave the information with my assistant." Then he stood up and after shaking both their hands and left the office.

~ o ~

Amanda consulted a clipboard she was carrying. "How many Inquiries do you do in a day?" She asked.

Rita responded. "I can't really say miss . . . ah . . ."

"Kane, Amanda Kane." She pointed to Lee. "And this is my assistant, Lee Stockman." Lee couldn't help smiling at the way she had put him in a subordinate roll. It had become a game with them.

"Miss Kane. I never really bothered to count." Rita continued.

"Does this system keep a record of inquiries?" Amanda asked. "And if so, can you print me out a list from say . . . the last three days?"

"Yes it does keep a record." Rita thought for a few seconds. "I think I can print it out . . . Give me a second." She did a quick check of files within the computer then with a triumphant, "Ah Ha!" pulled up a file. "Here it is. This is the computerized log of inquiries." She pressed another button and the printer clattered to life.

Lee and Amanda scanned through the printout. The information was in the form of fairly cryptic data and statistics most of which was meaningless to them. They were however able to make out a few names scattered through the printout and finally they found the name 'John Abbot' in the listing.

Lee marked that entry then marked two other queries at random. "Who requested these queries?" Amanda asked her. "We would like to interview them."

Rita studied the entries for a while. "This first one I don't remember specifically. This second one was Cathy . . . Cathy Chandler and this third one was for Eric Henderson."

Amanda then asked, "Could you direct me to those two people?"

"Let's see." She got up and looked out into the bullpen area then pointed. "That's Eric over there." She looked around then noticed Catherine's empty desk and Joe's closed office door. "I believe Cathy is in Joe's office right now."

Lee and Amanda went over to Eric and asked him such questions as how often he accessed the computer system and when was the last time he used it. They also asked him what the query they marked was for and how timely and useful it had been.

Joe's door opened and a tall, dark haired, well dressed man came out accompanied by another man and a very pretty woman about Amanda's age. They shook hands and separated. The dark haired man walked out, the other man returned to the office and the woman headed to a desk over by the filing cabinets.

"Why does she look familiar?" Lee remarked quietly to Amanda.

Suddenly Amanda grabbed his arm. "Lee, that's the sad elegant woman that blundered into the wedding of Dimitri's girlfriend."

"You're right. That's where I remember seeing her." Lee responded. "We definitely need to talk to her. I have a feeling that there may be a lot more here than we thought."

A light seemed to come on in her mind as Amanda remembered why Cathy had seemed familiar back then. "I remember now. I saw an article about her in one of Mother's magazines last year. She is an independently wealthy socialite that joined the DA office after she was viciously attacked three years ago."

Lee and Amanda went over and announced themselves and their cover story. Then Amanda asked the same questions that they had asked Eric. They learned about the shootout and the two bogus identities. Catherine was happy to explain how useful the computer access was in digging out such things as false identities. They also learned about the woman that had been present at the shootout.

Amanda thanked her and they left. They stopped at Remington Steele's hotel and swapped out the tape then headed back to their hotel. As soon as they got back to their rooms they listened to the tape then Lee called Billy and requested a full workup on Catherine Chandler of the New York District Attorney's Office and Abigail Holt of LA. Two hours later Francine called them back with a fairly complete synopsis of the report, including a rather graphic description of the police photo of Catherine after the knife attack.

Francine paused. "Here's something interesting. The C.I.A. has her marked as a person to be careful around. Last spring she got involved in one of their operations. They were tracking a foreign death squad. She somehow helped the target, one Elliot Burch, escape and when their agents finally found the death squad, they were all dead. It says that they appeared to have been badly mauled by some large animal. Eck! The pictures are not pretty." There was a momentary pause. "As far as Abigail Holt, her record is downright boring, but when we ran a cross check against all the other people involved and it turns out that she is the mother of Remington Steele's associate and wife, one Laura Holt Steele."

After he hung up Lee told Amanda what Francine had said. Since the reasons behind the multiple hits on the agent's ID's had been explained, The Remington Steele angle was temporarily tabled in favor of further investigation of Catherine Chandler. It was decided that they should stake out her apartment.

Continued in Part 10


"Beauty and the Beast" and its characters are owned by Witt-Thomas Productions and Republic Pictures. "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" and its characters are owned by WB and STM. "Remington Steele" and its characters are owned by MTM Productions and the NBC Television Network.

No infringement on copyrights is intended. This story is the property of the author and is presented merely for the enjoyment of fans. Original concepts and story elements may be used by other authors as long as appropriate credit is given.

V.12.04.06