The Other Path
Chapter 58
Rick surveys the stack of paper that Kate pulls off the bullpen printer. "That's all from Nina Rafaelli's financials?"
"Uh-hm."
"Busy lady. How do you want to go through them?"
"If Nina did what you suspect she did, she would have paid someone near the time of Lou-Anne's murder. So we should start there and work backward." Kate peels off several pages. "These are from the last month. Let's use the conference room. We can split them up and see if we have to go back any further."
Sitting across from Kate, Rick's eyes speed over the listings on his pages. "Many of these transactions are regularly recurring, but they're linked to Nina's various businesses. Do you think she'd be paying a hitman that way?"
"Maybe," Kate considers, "but it would more likely be one or two big chunks, probably one before and one after the murder. OCU just got a new readout. The most recent listings would be on your top page."
"There are two payments here to Munci Enterprises. The first one was two days before the murder. The second was the day after. They were for $9,000 each."
"That figures. They wouldn't go over the threshold for reporting to the IRS. But the average price for a hit is $15,000. So Nina would have been paying a $3,000 premium."
"Hey, outstanding, Beckett! Usually, I'm the one with the factoids. But the $15,000 was a figure I didn't know."
"It came out of a recent study that was part of the materials I got when I was working with the Homicide Squad."
"Nice to know you got something useful out of the experience. So it looks like our next step is tracking down who's behind Munci Enterprises. There's no account number or institution associated with the transaction."
Kate sighs. "That would be too easy."
"But Munci, m-u-n-c-i isn't the standard spelling. Usually, it has an e on the end, and that's a corruption of a French word. None of the common variations end in i. That should make it easier to track down."
"Talk about factoids," Kate teases.
"Yeah, well, I use so many names in my stories that I'm always looking up their translations and origins. Sometimes I can have fun with the meanings, like calling Raley and Ochoa's car the 'roach mobile,' only less obvious. But regarding Nina's Munci, I can start with Google and see where it leads."
"You can if you want, but I think I'll give this one to Tori. If it's some hitter from the dark web, she could have better luck digging out a lead."
Rick inclines his head. "I would be the first to bow to her superior cyber knowledge."
"And while she's on it, let's go through the rest of this printout."
"Detective Beckett," Tori Ellis calls from the doorway of the conference room. "I've got something on Munci."
Kate looks up from her documents. "Do you know if it's an alias?"
"I don't know that yet, but I found a site," Tori explains. "It's on the dark web, so it wouldn't come up on Google. But I've seen hidden sites constructed with a much higher skill level. What this guy has looks like he was following a how-to on YouTube."
Rick's eyebrows jump. "They have those on YouTube?"
"Sure, they're usually ads for tools to construct the websites. But many of those sites are for legitimate users who just want to remain anonymous. You'd need a higher level of expertise to put together something more hack-resistant, and this guy didn't have it."
"So, can you find out his ID?" Kate asks.
"I can work on it. But it would go a lot faster if we sent a message that would interest him enough to respond."
"Like what?" Rick questions, popping out of his chair.
Tori gestures across the bullpen. "Come and look at the site, and you'll see."
With Rick at her heels, Kate follows Tori back to Tech.
"He claims to be selling specialty meat and calls it 'long pig!'" Rick exclaims, viewing Tori's display. "You'd think he could come up with something more original than that. "'Munci long pig, slaughtered to order. Available at the location of your choice. Disposal services also available.' This would be funny if it weren't so grim."
"It says payment is by wire transfer only and detailed delivery instructions are vital to complete satisfaction," Kate adds. "Without more to go on, I can't see 1PP authorizing money for that."
"They don't have to. I can get my bank to do it and set up a provision to yank it back." Rick puts his arm around Kate's shoulders. "Rathborne was a hard lesson for both of us," he whispers. "But I did learn a few things."
"If the department doesn't have to put out any cash, I should be able to convince Gates to let us set up a decoy," Kate muses. "We can use one of the city's confiscated properties as a location. But we'll need someone to pose as a victim like Lou-Anne."
"Not you!" Rick insists. "But you know, I don't think Esposito would look half bad in a dress."
"No, he'd look all bad," Kate retorts. "But some of the cops in Vice are trained for a masquerade. They might get a kick out of trapping a killer instead of a John."
Rick takes a slow turn around the store Kate chose as the location for their sting. It once sold wine, and until the city can auction them off, the bottles still fill the shelves. Some of them are not bad vintages. When the time comes, he may consider putting in a bid himself.
However, the store's proprietor wasn't busted for selling wine. She was running a separate operation offering underage sexual partners. As far as Rick's concerned, the bitch can rot in prison, but the store will come in handy. Officer Mo Laurice, whose grasp of the use of wigs and makeup could put Ru Paul to shame, will be posing as the owner. According to the cover story, she refused to play ball with a developer wanting to raze the store to build an upscale condo and shopping complex. The message transmitted to Nina Rafaelli's assumed hitman instructed him to remove the obstacle permanently.
The hit is set for that night when the surrounding stores are closed, and pedestrian traffic is low. Still, a reasonable possibility exists that the long-pig vendor will case the place first. So the trap is laid for opening at a standard time. Various cops will pose as customers, with a strike force hanging out in the back. Rick and Kate will be hanging with them. And if Kate tries to barge in on the take-down, Rick is fully prepared to prevent it, no matter how mad she gets at him. But he's hoping she'll keep her private promise to him and stay out of the line of fire until the killer is in cuffs.
As the day slowly passes, Mo sells a few bottles of wine, but no one poses any threat. The group in the back room stares at a monitor displaying the feed from a hidden camera. Kate points at the screen. "Look at that guy."
"There's nothing unusual about him," one of the team members comments.
Rick grins at his wife. "Right. Average everything, the anonymous face in the crowd. He's perfect to work as a hitman."
"He's checking out the layout," Kate observes. "I doubt he'll do anything while he thinks there are other customers in the store. But I bet he'll be back."
