Camouflage

Author's note: I'm back – thanks for your comments.

Chapter 11

"So here's the situation," Don said. He took a swig of coffee and leaned forward on the conference room table. "We're going back over to do doing staff interviews today. We'll start with the top three. When we get to Murciano, I'm going to drop a reference to the Stevenson murder, and see how he reacts."

David took a sip of his own coffee as Megan and Colby nodded. It was early Friday morning, seven a.m., and they were meeting in their usual conference room off the bull pen; there was no great need for privacy anymore, since the story had broken in the news. They had already discussed the Stevenson case; David and Colby had gotten Don and Megan up to speed on what they had found at Stevenson's house, which was not much, and Don had filled them in on Charlie's discovery the night before – that Stevenson's lab was connected to P.J. Murciano via his pharmaceutical companies, Biotech and Murtech. There was one other good outcome from the story in the newspaper; since the story was now public, Merrick had gotten the NFL commissioner's approval to use LAPD officers for assistance and surveillance of the team members as needed. That would take some of the pressure off the Don's team, and maybe cut back on some of the long hours.

David had a line of sight over Don's shoulder and through the door, and across the bullpen, he could see Charlie trudge around the corner and head toward them, his soft-sided briefcase slung over his shoulder. He looked tired; his usual loping gait lacked both velocity and spring. The door was open, but Charlie knocked respectfully on the door jamb and waited for Don's permission to enter. Also uncharacteristic behavior, David thought. Usually when Charlie had something for them, he bounded right in; his excitement over a find trumped manners, and he never bothered to knock. The gleam in his eye showed that he did have something for them, however; David had worked on enough cases with Charlie to recognize that. He suspected Charlie was trying to be on his best behavior after the argument the week before.

Don turned. "Yeah, Charlie, come in."

"The data for the phone search finished running through the algorithm last night," said Charlie, as he stepped in and eased his briefcase onto the table. The bruise on his cheekbone was fading, but he looked thinner, and very tired. He was unshaven and his dark curly hair was more unruly than usual, and there were dark circles under his eyes – but then, they all had those, these days. He still seemed to be moving a bit gingerly, as if he was in pain. No doubt his ribs were still sore. "I set up an algorithm to check the phone numbers that our six suspects and Trainer Frank called during the last several months." He paused. "I didn't find anything."

Megan and Colby looked disappointed. Don frowned. "Nothing?"

"Nothing." Charlie smiled widely. "That's exactly it. Those seven guys meet regularly at Reese's house, according to the kicker, Peterson. They're friends. They occasionally call other team members or receive calls from them or from their coaches, and of course there are calls made to people outside of the team; family, friends – but there are no calls to each other. Well, I found two, but compared to the volume of their other calls, there were essentially none." He paused a moment to let that sink in.

"That doesn't make sense," said Colby.

"Right," said Charlie, happily. "The solution is null." David suppressed a smile; he could see that Don, Megan and he had all come to the same conclusion already. Charlie was encouraging Colby to get there himself, just as he would with one of his students.

"Null?" Colby looked confused; then smacked his forehead. "Aw, hell! They're calling each other – they've got to be! They just aren't using their own cell phones."

"Exactly," said Charlie, triumphantly, beaming in pleasure at Colby's leap of reason. He fished out a sheaf of papers and handed them to Don. "That's a printout of the results, for your files."

"They're using burners," said Megan. "They must have all agreed to use prepaid cells for some reason. That would imply an organized attempt to hide something."

Don grinned wolfishly. "One more piece of evidence that there is something going on with that group – something they don't want anyone to know about. Okay, then, for today, Colby and David, I need you to come with Megan and I this morning. I want the whole team to be there when we interview Murciano, Mansell, Coach Rubacek and Trainer Frank. After that, David and Colby, I want you to break off and continue to follow leads on Donna Bainbridge and the Stevenson murder. Megan and I will finish up the staff interviews." He nodded at them, and David, Colby and Megan gathered up their notes, rose and all filed out.

Charlie had lowered himself into a chair and was rummaging in his bag, and as the team got out to the bullpen David could see Don lay a hand on Charlie's shoulder, and say something with a smile and a rueful look. Charlie looked up at him quickly, as if a bit surprised; then he grinned back, and said something in reply.

"Looks like they made up," said Colby; he and Megan had seen the exchange, also.

"Yeah, it does," said David agreed. Megan said nothing. She was smiling, but speculation was in her green eyes.

"That's good," continued Colby. "The little guy kinda grows on you. Although I felt like I was being quizzed in there."

David grinned. "You were."

Colby made a face at him, then looked back at Charlie. "The Whiz Kid isn't lookin' too good, though. Looks kinda rough."

Megan yawned. "We all are. I'm grabbing another coffee before we hit the road. Any takers? I'm buying."

...

Deondre Wiseman took the concrete steps of his mother's house slowly. It wasn't where he'd grown up; that was in an inner city neighborhood in Chicago. He'd bought this house – a neat stucco near Burbank – for his mother when he'd moved to L.A. last year.

Although the house was new to her, his mother had made it her own. She'd brought much of her furniture from Chicago, and all of her knick-knacks and pillows and paintings, her religious items the most prominent among them. Loretta Wiseman was a devout Baptist, and had raised Deondre that way, on her own. She'd kept him out of trouble for the most part, in spite of the rough neighborhood they lived in. Growing up, he was her world, and she was his.

She answered the door with a smile that deepened the creases in her face and brightened her eyes. It was a wonderful smile, deep and loving and genuine, and somehow it made Deondre feel worse. "Hi mama," he said.

"My baby!" she exclaimed. "Come in, honey, I'll get you something to eat."

"That's okay, mama, I already ate," said Deondre. "I've got practice in a little while – I had to eat early. I just came by to say 'hi.'"

She regarded him, and cocked her head like a wise little bird. "I love that idea, baby, but you didn't come by just to say 'hi.' Come in, sit down, and tell me what's on your mind."

She stepped over to his favorite chair and patted it invitingly, and then sat down herself in her rocking chair and looked at him expectantly.

Deondre sat and looked at her, tongue-tied for a minute. Out of all the people in the world, he didn't want to disappoint her. "Mama, I need some advice. There are some of us on the team -," he stopped, started again. "Our trainer has been giving some of us – some vitamins."

Her face dropped, and he hastened to add, "Nothing illegal, or that's what he told us. I know you've been reading the stories in the papers, but I've been coming up clean on the testing. We all have, so I believed him."

She regarded him levelly. "But your heart is telling you something else."

Deondre's face twisted. "Yes. Trainer Frank has been telling us to keep it quiet – that the stuff is new and it's not illegal, but if we let them know it's out there, then the secret will be out for the other teams."

She said nothing, just nodded for him to continue.

"The problem is, it works, mama, and no one else has it. There are six of us taking it, and it's helped on everything – muscle gain, speed – and if no one else has it, it's an unfair advantage. The change in how we play is so obvious that the FBI is investigating us. We're winning, but we're cheating." He hung his head. "I don't know what to do. To do the fair thing, I should tell the feds what's goin' on. But then I let down my team, and all of our fans."

"Neither choice is easy," said his mother in a soft voice. "Either choice can hurt others. I can't tell you what to do, baby; it has to be your decision. You need to do what you think is right – what you feel in your heart is the right thing. Whatever you decide, I will stand by you and respect that decision."

Deondre was silent for a long moment, then nodded and stood. She walked him to the door, and he embraced her. "Thanks, mama," he said softly. "I love you."

"I love you, too, baby. I'll be at the game Sunday, watching." She smiled at him.

Her gentle, wise smile hung in his memory as he walked back down the sidewalk toward his car, and he waved at her as she stood in the doorway, as he pulled away. He never noticed the dark car parked halfway down the block, or the man inside it, watching.

...

Don opened the staff interviews with all three of the Warriors top management present: P. J. Murciano, the team owner, Clayton Mansell, the general manager, and Tony Rubacek, the head coach. He wanted to see all of their faces when he broached the subject of the Stevenson killing.

He started out by recapping their findings from the team interviews. "As you know, we've interviewed the members of your team, and we're starting on the staff today."

Clayton Mansell said with a smile, "You wouldn't break our hearts if you decided not to progress further. We have some playoff games to manage."

It was clear he'd intended his remark as more than half a joke, but Don kept his face cold and deadpan; a purposeful stereotype of the humorless federal agent – designed to provoke. He looked at Mansell. "We have not found anything definitive yet, but we have enough that we feel we need to continue with this investigation." He placed a recording device on the table in front on him, hit a button and said, "This interview is being recorded. The focus of our investigation is a group of six players: Jack Worth, lineman, Mike Reese, lineman, Deondre Wiseman, receiver, Joey Cancetta, running back, Freddie Muhala, tight end, and Leshawn Wilkinson, linebacker. He looked at Coach Rubacek. "Coach Rubacek, what can you tell me about them?"

Rubacek lifted a shoulder, looked at the other two as if for reassurance, and then back at Don and scratched his head. "What can I tell you about them? They're good players. Obviously in terms of performance, but also in terms of work ethic. They work hard in the weight room, they work hard on the field – they work hard, period."

David chimed in. "Ever see them take anything? Anything at all – supplements, vitamins?"

Rubacek gave a soft snort. "They all take supplements. Amino acids, protein – all legal stuff. Gotta be legal, or they wouldn't be passing their doping tests." He looked at them with a slightly incredulous smile. "You asking me if I've seen 'em shootin' up in the locker room? No. Of course not."

"What do you think, Mr. Mansell?" asked Megan. She was smiling pleasantly, but her green eyes looked sharp, catlike. "Do you think those six players perform above the norm?"

Mansell ran a hand over his slicked back hair, and gave her a look that was laced with a hint of disdain that he didn't manage to hide. It was obvious he didn't care to field questions from a woman. "Of course I do. So do some other players on the team, and some other players in the league. We are fortunate enough to have several guys on this team who are having a good season. It happens – and a lot of times it happens to players no one paid any attention to before. Some of it's hard work, like Ruby said, and some of it's luck – the way the cards fall. Some of it's good coaching. I for one am not apologizing for having a good season, or a bunch of hardworking players."

Don leaned back in his chair with a slight smile, and looked at P. J. Murciano. "So Mr. Murciano, it's to you. What do you think of the Stevenson murder?"

Murciano had been leaning forward politely, relaxed, with his hands lightly clasped on the table, with a bland pleasant expression. He had obviously been formulating his own reply for a question about the six suspect players, and Don's change of subject had stunned him – but only momentarily. His smile faded and his relaxed hands tightened, and for a split second he stared at Don without appearing to breathe. Then he recovered. "I'm sorry," he said, with relative smoothness. "Your question caught me off guard. I thought we were talking about the six players you mentioned. Are you investigating the Stevenson murder now? I thought that was an LAPD case."

Mansell and Rubacek were staring at him, confused, and Murciano caught their expressions and explained. "There was a murder at a local lab yesterday; a research chemist named Ansel Stevenson. He ran that lab; it was funded by a subsidiary of one of my companies." He looked at Don, with a hopeful expression. "Is the FBI involved? I certainly hope so – whoever murdered him not only killed a brilliant man in cold blood, they made off with a lot of proprietary information – information that belongs to my company, and therefore, to me. I'd like it back." He frowned. "But I'm confused, I must admit. I thought today's inquiry was related to the NFL investigation."

"It is," said Don. "And yes, the FBI has been called in on the Stevenson case – my team, as a matter of fact. I just wanted your take on what happened. You're right; let's stick to the NFL investigation. Give me your impression of those six players."

And with that, Murciano launched into his prepared reply, which sounded a lot like Mansell's and Rubacek's. Poor, hard-working players, unfairly singled out. Don let him drone on, with an eye on Mansell and Rubacek. If the murder of Stevenson was somehow connected to the six players and their performance, it was news to Mansell and Rubacek – they had looked utterly confused by both Don's question about Stevenson and by Murciano's response. Murciano hadn't looked confused as much as he'd looked startled – and then he had jumped in and immediately made attempts to smooth over that impression as quickly as he could. His reaction smacked of guilt, but there was no way yet to prove it. And by the same token, Mansell and Rubacek appeared to be not guilty – at least of any involvement in the murder. The question was – were the murder and the players' performance related? Apart from Murciano, there was only one person that Don knew of who could tie them together – and she had been missing for nearly two days, now.

...

Frank Sczechnewski was not in a good mood. His interview with the feds had seemed to go well that morning, until they started asking questions about the six suspect players, and whether he had ever spent time with them at Reese's house. How they got the information that they hung out at Reese's together he didn't know, but it rattled him. He thought he'd come up with a decent enough response, admitted that yeah, those players sometimes got together and had a few beers, and sometimes they invited him along. No sense lying about it, if the feds already knew. He managed to get out of there without doing any damage, but the whole thing had thrown his gut in a knot. The damned feds had kept looking at him like they knew what was going on – and then Murciano had pulled him aside later and told him they'd asked him about Stevenson. So the feds were putting two and two together, or at least trying to. "This sucks," he muttered.

He'd been observing Worth doing bench presses, with Reese spotting, and Reese looked at him. "What sucks?"

Jack Worth lowered the heavy weighted bar into its bracket so he could hear the reply. Frank knew he shouldn't be saying anything to them, but it was boiling up inside; and he probably needed to warn them, anyway. He spoke quietly, so the rest of the players in the room couldn't hear him. "The damn feds. They know we hang together at your house, Mike. They've got all six of you pegged as suspicious – and me too, probably for hanging with you. Relax," he hastened to add, as looks of concern crossed their faces. "They don't have anything – they can't prove nothin.' We just need to keep doin' what we're doin' – lay low – until they go away. But I think if you've got stuff at your place, you better find somewhere good to hide it, in case they decide to get warrants."

Jack had sat up on the bench, and he growled. "Someone needs to give them an incentive to go away."

'That's already been taken care of,' thought Frank to himself, but he just said, "Just lay low. I gotta go tell the others to make sure they hide their stuff." In a louder voice he said, as he walked away, "Add some more weight to that bar, Worthy – don't be a puss."

He managed to pull aside Joey Cancetta, Leshawn Wilkinson and Freddie Muhala and to give them the same warning. He saved Deondre for last, and told him to meet him after the workout.

Deondre dutifully approached him after the others had filed out, his dark eyes troubled. "Yeah, Trainer Frank? You wanted to talk to me?"

Frank looked at him for a moment, let the silence build, then he said, quietly, but with menace in his voice, "You ain't been talkin' to the feds about what we've got going, have you?"

Deondre's eyes widened, and his dark skin turned ashy. "N-n-no," he stammered. "Why?"

"Because someone told 'em we hung out together at Reese's house. They got all six of you pegged as suspects – that little geeky math professor ran some statistics or somethin' to pick you all out, but someone told 'em about Reese's."

Deondre shrugged, but he looked nervous. "Could have been anyone. Lots of players probably know we go there sometimes."

That was true enough, Frank thought, but he still thought Deondre looked guilty, and Joey's phone call the other night about Deondre's doubts had made him suspicious. He leaned forward, and hissed in Deondre's face. "You listen to me. We catch wind that you're even lookin' at a fed, and you're in deep shit. You even think about lettin' down this bunch of guys who have had your back all season, and you will live to regret it."

"I'm not!" protested Deondre, and he threw his hands up.

Frank poked him in the chest. "You better not be. Now go home and make sure you find a good hidin' place for your shit. Somewhere outside your house if you can find a safe spot. The feds might decide to get warrants and do some searches."

"Okay," Deondre mumbled, and he hung his head and walked away. Frank watched him go, frowning.

...

Charlie slid into a chair at the table opposite his older brother, and smiled. "Hi."

The truth was, he really didn't want to go out to dinner – he wasn't able to eat too many things these days anyway without getting nauseated, and he still had work to do on the grant presentation that was coming up the next week. But it was 7:30 on a Friday evening; he'd have the whole weekend to work on it, and an invitation to dinner with his brother was too rare to pass up – even if Don's team was invited, as well. Even that was a plus; maybe after his help on the case, Don was again considering him part of the team…

Don smiled back. "Hi yourself. Nice work on that phone list - and the Murtech find."

Charlie flushed with pleasure at the compliment, but he still felt a bit ill at ease – Don was studying him like a cat watching a fishbowl. "Thanks. Do you have something else for me? Is that why we're meeting with David and Colby?"

"When they get here they're gonna give me an update on what they found this afternoon on Donna Bainbridge, and yeah, if you've got any ideas how we can narrow down the search for her, we'd like to hear them. But mainly I figured you could use a good square meal." He paused, his eyes searching Charlie's face. "Dad called me – he's pretty concerned about you. He says your head still hurts and you aren't eating too much. He said he's been trying to get you to go back to the doctor, or at least get some rest."

Charlie shrugged, but he felt a little warm feeling inside. Don was concerned about him. The truth was, he was a little concerned himself; he seemed to be feeling worse by the day instead of better, but he had been reading about concussions, and apparently the symptoms could linger for quite a while. "I've been pretty busy."

"Yeah, Dad's accusing me of working you too hard," said Don drily, as he picked up a menu.

Just like that, the warm feeling evaporated. Don wasn't really concerned; he was just trying to make sure their father wasn't holding him liable for Charlie's health issues. Charlie scowled at his menu, suddenly in a bad mood. "I never told him that."

Don was looking at him over the top of his menu, with a perplexed expression. "I never said you did. Relax, and pick out something – it's on me."

Charlie sent him a cautious glance, and slowly picked up the menu. The truth was, apart from something extremely bland – plain pasta, potatoes or rice – he was having a hard time keeping anything down. He glanced down the list. A plain baked potato, maybe; that looked pretty harmless. He looked up as Colby and David slid into chairs beside him and Don.

Colby ended up next to Charlie, and he nodded at him. "Hey there, Whiz Kid." It was the first time Charlie had heard the nickname, and he blushed again, half embarrassed and half pleased, as Colby said, "Is Megan coming?"

"Nah, it's just us," said Don. "She headed back to the office to write up reports from our interviews this afternoon." The waitress was heading their way and he broke off. He had selected a table off by itself in its own partitioned section at the very back of the restaurant, and had situated himself so he could see the entire room, so he could see if anyone was approaching, to avoid being overheard.

Don ordered a pitcher of beer for the table, and the waitress took their food orders, and when she left, Colby looked at Charlie and said, "A plain baked potato? Are you on some kind of diet?" He clapped a muscular hand on Charlie's shoulder. "Dude, I hate to tell you, but you need a diet like you need a hole in the head."

Don was frowning at Charlie across the table, obviously taken aback by his menu choice, but he said nothing about it; instead he looked at David. "What did you find this afternoon?" Charlie, embarrassed and grateful for the diversion, slunk down in his chair a bit.

David grimaced, ruefully. "Not much. There's a BOLO out for her or her vehicle, but so far no dice. A couple of false reports, as usual; LAPD checked them out. Her mother is deceased, and her dad is remarried and living in Georgia, hasn't heard from her since the shooting. Neither has her sister in Virginia. They're both kind of freaked out by all of this. Neither one had any idea of what she was working on – they said she didn't talk about it. Her sister was pretty sure that she wasn't dating anyone, so she's probably not shacked up with a significant other. Wherever she is, she's living off the cash she took out from the ATM – there are no hits on her ATM card, and no credit card charges."

"What about the cell phone trace?"

Colby shook his head. "She ditched her phone the night of the shooting. LAPD checked out her phone records, looking for acquaintances, but she really didn't have many. Her call lists included her sister, one to her dad a couple weeks back, some local friends from UCLA – LAPD already checked them out – and her boss, Ansel Stevenson."

"Ditched her phone; and she's using cash. Smart girl," said Don thoughtfully. The beer came, and they stopped talking until the waitress had filled four mugs and left. Charlie hadn't wanted one, and he eyed his mug dubiously as Colby slid it in front of him. "Some of it sounds like planning, but some of it doesn't."

David looked at Colby, then back at Don. "We've got a theory. LAPD has been operating under the assumption that Bainbridge was at the lab that night and killed Stevenson, and stole the research material. They also concede a second possibility – that the killer was someone else, and that person also did away with Donna Bainbridge somehow, and stole the material. Without either Bainbridge or Stevenson to speak up, they could publish the material as their own, or otherwise use the research, and no one would be around who knew enough about it to claim that it wasn't theirs to publish."

"But there's a third theory, that Colby and I came up with," he continued, "and that is that Bainbridge was at the lab that night and took the research material, but didn't kill Stevenson. Maybe somehow she got tipped off that the killer was after her, and she got the stuff and ran before the killer could get to her."

Colby added, "We think there's a chance she might have been hiding in a room off the lab, that night. LAPD found fresh fingerprints – hers – on the door handle to the room, and on the plastic cover of a large piece of lab equipment inside the room – but only on the side away from the door. The cover is relatively dusty, and apart from the fingerprints the dust hadn't been disturbed, so it hadn't been removed recently. So, she didn't have her hands on the cover to remove it – she must have just rested her fingertips on it. LAPD didn't have a theory as to why, but we do – we think she might have been standing behind it and peering around it, and placed her fingertips on it as she did. If she was hiding in there, she was hiding from someone."

"The killer," said Don slowly. "We might have ourselves a witness."

David nodded. "Right. So our theory goes on – after the killer leaves, she realizes that they might be after her, also. She grabs the research material and runs. She's afraid to come in and give herself up because of the killer, and is probably aware that she is now a suspect. If that's the case, we've got to believe that she'll find herself a lawyer and come in on her own, sooner or later, as long as we can guarantee her protection. "

Their food arrived, so the conversation ceased until the waitress left. Charlie had been lost in the discussion and had almost absently been sipping at his beer and found to his surprise that it was half gone, and he was actually a bit hungry. He dug into his potato as the discussion resumed.

Don nodded. "Okay. That's a good theory – but either way, we can't stop looking for her - we can't just assume she'll lawyer up and come in on her own. What did you find out from the people at Biotech? Did they know what Stevenson and Bainbridge were working on?"

They shook their heads, and Colby said, "They didn't know much – other than the fact that it was cancer research – some kind of therapy to deliver medicine to tumors. The details were kept pretty hush-hush – Stevenson and Bainbridge were going to publish the results of the study, and the director at Biotech said they were preparing paperwork to file a patent as soon as they did so. But he didn't know much of the detail."

David said, "Interestingly enough, the director pointed us back to Murciano. He said the decision to fund Stevenson came down to him from the director of the bigger company, Murtech, but he was told the direction came straight from Murciano. So Murciano may know something that even his own people at Biotech or Murtech don't know."

Don shook his head, ruefully. "I was thinking that our suspicions of player doping and a chemical research lab might have been connected – but cancer research? It doesn't sound like it." He took a bite of steak and chewed, meditatively. "Bottom line is; we're at a dead end until we find Bainbridge. Charlie, is there anything you can do with what we know?"

"Possibly," said Charlie slowly. "The bank she withdrew the money from was on the north side of L.A. so it appears she was heading north – perhaps arbitrarily, but chances are good she didn't backtrack south through L.A., because L.A. was where the perceived threat was. She wouldn't head west – she couldn't get far enough away before she hit water. So she most likely went north or east, and she would have used the easiest routes possible to do that – highways most likely, unless traffic was too heavy on them for her liking. I can do an analysis of the traffic patterns at the time when she was in the last place we know of – her bank, the morning after the shooting – and see what her likeliest routes might have been from there."

"Good," said Don. The remainder of the meal was spent on small talk, and by the end of it, Charlie was regretting both the potato and the beer. His stomach had started to churn again, his mind was already on the additional assignment he'd just taken, and he wanted to get out of there. Finally, Don was ready to go, and he paid the tab as Colby and David sat finishing their beer. "See you tomorrow," he said.

"Okay. See you, Whiz Kid," said Colby, with a grin and a nod at Charlie. "Do yourself a favor and find a new diet." Charlie flushed, and followed Don toward the door.

Charlie had taken a cab there and Don had offered to give him a ride home, and as they headed out to the parking lot tucked in back of the restaurant, Charlie could feel the nausea building. It was dark and there seemed to be no one else in the lot, and Charlie figured that was a good thing, because he felt he was going to lose his dinner – and soon. Between his preoccupation with his stomach and darkness of the lot, he never noticed the two large figures that slipped out from their hiding place behind a car, and crept toward them.

...

End, Chapter 11