Deadly Cover-Up, page 12
Jordan and Ben shared a look, but it was clear neither one was familiar with the law firm. They both shook their heads, and Jordan raised an eyebrow. “Should we know them?”
Bailey pressed on. “They’re a large firm with about three hundred lawyers that do those annoying commercials on TV, you know, where they say they have an army of attorneys ready to help you win your case. I think they do mostly personal injury cases and class action suits. The nine attorneys that invested are all partners, including the managing partner.”
“I don’t know how often lawyers invest in pharmaceutical labs, but it seems strange to me that so many of them share such tight financial interests,” Jordan intoned. “Why would a group of lawyers that work together invest everything they have into the same pharmaceutical company? Is that normal?”
“It does appear odd,” Ben agreed. “And what does personal injury law have to do with pharmaceuticals? I thought those lawyers handled car accidents, slip-and-fall torts—those types of cases. Even the class action angle doesn’t make sense. They wouldn’t want to sue and cripple their own investment.”
“Is there any reason one of these lawyers should know about the day-to-day operations in Southeastern?” Bailey asked.
Jordan shook her head. “None that I can think of.”
Bailey sat back. “Well, it could be that one of these lawyers is the one trying to hurt Jordan. These are some pretty powerful people.” She paused. “Maybe we just need to keep searching for a connection.”
Ben’s brow furrowed. “If there is a connection, I’m sure not seeing it.” The printer behind him powered up and a moment later, he pulled off a sheet with the names of the three Southeastern investors and the nine attorneys who had put all they had into Southeastern’s coffers.
“What was the name of that attorney that represented Sam Delvers and cross-examined you when you testified?” Bailey asked.
Jordan looked up, thinking. “It was a woman with blond hair—really polished and beautiful. Hammond? Tammond? I can’t remember her name.”
Bailey clicked some keys on her computer. “Suzanne Tammington?”
Jordan snapped her fingers. “That’s her. I might not have remembered her name, but I’ll certainly never forget her face—or the attitude she threw at me when she cross-examined me. She’s one tough cookie.”
“You’re right,” Ben added. “I met her during a meeting with Delvers when they came to the office. She’s a real piece of work.”
Jordan raised her eyebrow but didn’t comment. “Is she associated with that firm you mentioned—Baker and Davis?”
“She’s a partner there and one of the nine primary investors, just like Delvers and the others. Everything she owns is basically invested in Southeastern.” Bailey’s lips flattened. “She certainly has an interest in whether or not that company succeeds.”
“Sounds like it’s time to take a trip over to that law firm and start asking questions,” Jordan said enthusiastically. She stood. Finally, they had a new path to follow.
“Hang on,” Ben said, putting up his hands, palms out. “Let’s talk to Eddy. That’s always got to be our first step when we have legal questions.” He reached for the conference phone and called Eddy’s number, using the conference function so everyone in the room could hear the call.
“State Attorney’s Office. Donald Eddy speaking.”
“Hey, Eddy, this is Ben Graham, and I’ve got Jordan, Bailey and Frankie here with me.” He gave a quick summary of what Bailey had discovered.
“Tell me the name of the two other investors besides Delvers that weren’t part of the law firm?” Eddy asked. They could hear him typing on his own keyboard.
“Cindy Drake and Phil Johnson,” Bailey intoned.
“I’m looking for them on Martindale-Hubbell, the attorney database, but I’m not seeing either one. Maybe they’re on Southeastern’s board?” He typed some more. “Yes, they’re both board members.” He paused. “Can you give me the names of the nine attorneys that own a piece of Southeastern?” One by one he checked them but reported back that there wasn’t much to find. “I don’t see anything odd in any of these listings. I’m not seeing any other connection between them besides the fact that they all work at the same firm and made the same investments. There’s no mention of the Southeastern connection, but that doesn’t surprise me. There is no requirement that personal or business interests like that get listed, but I wonder about the conflict of interest for Ms. Tammington.” They heard him hit some more keys. “Let me do some more checking on Westlaw about some of their cases to see if I find any patterns or problems that jump out at me from a legal standpoint. There might not be anything to find, but it’s worth a look. I’ll call you back if I find something. Bailey, if you can check into their backgrounds and search for connections between all of the investors, that will really help.”
“You got it,” Bailey responded.
They heard the phone click and Jordan reached over and pushed the disconnect button.
Bailey raised her eyebrows and turned to Ben. “How far, do you, ah, want me to dig? You see, there are legal ways to search, and other ways...”
Ben put up his hands. “Legal only,” he said in unison with Frank. Jordan smiled at their quick response and Bailey’s teasing laugh. She knew that in the past, Bailey had managed to steal over a million dollars through the internet and hide her tracks quite successfully so that even the sheriff’s forensic accountants and computer techs hadn’t been able to discover how she had done it. Bailey also knew more about the dark web and illegal computer tactics than anyone else they were aware of in all of law enforcement. Ben had told Jordan several stories about how Bailey had helped find a vital piece of information that helped solve a case while she had been working at the Sheriff’s Office. She worked there as a condition of her probation. She was also an amazing asset because she had been both a defendant and on the side of law enforcement. That insight was invaluable.
Bailey had repented and returned the money she had stolen, and was leading a law-abiding life now that she was married to Frank. But Jordan didn’t want any project she was a part of to tempt Bailey to return to her old ways. She could tell Bailey was teasing, though, and Jordan laughed along with her. There hadn’t been a lot to laugh about lately. It felt good to have a smile on her face.
“Okay, okay,” Bailey said with a nod. “There are a lot of social media platforms and other possibilities I can start checking.” She winked at Frank again, then turned back to her computer and started typing.
Suddenly, Frank’s cell phone rang and he spoke a couple of times, then hung up and stowed his phone again. “We’ve got him. We have an identity and an address for the man that pushed your car into the river.”
“How?” Jordan asked.
“He got sloppy,” Frank answered with a grin. “Not only did he let Ben see him before he pushed the car off the bridge, meaning Ben was able to give a great description of the guy, but he also left his fingerprints on the frame of the car. He probably figured you would both die in the river, and no one would check the car, but he was wrong on both counts.”
Ben was instantly on his feet. “Let’s go gear up. You can give me the details on the way.”
Jordan stood as well. “Can I come, too?”
Frank looked over at Ben, clearly wanting him to answer that question. Ben was quick to shake his head. “No, it’s too dangerous, and you’re safer here in the Sheriff’s Office. After our dive into the river, I need to know you’re okay so I can focus on the job I need to do.”
“Besides,” Bailey answered, “you can stay and help me with the computer work.”
Ben gave Bailey a thankful smile, then turned to Jordan. He came up to her and put his hands on her shoulders. “I know Bailey’s a pro, but I’m sure she’ll find a way you can help her. The man we’re hunting is a murderer. He’s really dangerous, just like that man that chased you out of the grocery store. I really don’t want you anywhere near the guy. This building is secure. You’ll be safer here.”
“Okay.” She gave Ben a beseeching look. “Be careful, okay?”
“Deal,” Ben answered. He gave her a smile, squeezed her arms affectionately, and quickly followed Frank out the door.
Jordan watched him go as the tightness swelled in her chest. What she hadn’t wanted to happen was unfolding right in front of her—Ben was risking his life on her behalf. It was a bitter pill to swallow.
FOURTEEN
Jordan pulled out her computer and set it up next to Bailey’s laptop, which was still connected to the Sparkses’ hard drive. She doubted she could add much to the investigation since Bailey was such a technology expert, but it was worth a try. If nothing else, she wanted to keep herself distracted so she wouldn’t worry about Ben when he was out in the field, in body armor, trying to arrest a trained killer.
“So, tell me more about the hard drive we got from Emma Sparks’s house,” she asked Bailey. “Are you any closer to breaking the encryption?”
Bailey shook her head. “No, still no soap. I’ve tried everything we talked about last time and then some, and I still haven’t gotten in. I’ve got a code-breaking program running options, but it could take days before it gives us the key. So far, all I know is that the first letter of the key code is c, and there is a minimum of six numbers in the combination. I also know that there are a j and a t somewhere in there.”
“Well, I’ve told you everything I could think of that I remembered about Jeremy, but there is just such a huge number of possibilities, it’s hard to narrow it down.”
“Well, maybe we should try a different approach.”
“Such as?” Jordan asked.
“Try searching for Jeremy Sparks on the internet and just read about him. See what you discover. The key code could be based on a childhood pet, or on something that reminds him about something significant that happened in his life. Those are things that wouldn’t be readily apparent to his friends or coworkers who might not know his past.”
Bailey shrugged. “It’s worth a try, I guess. Now I really understand what it means to look for a needle in a haystack.”
“And yet,” Jordan smiled, “sometimes, people actually do find that needle.”
They shared a laugh and then turned to their respective keyboards. Bailey’s blue polished nails flew over the keys as she typed, and every few minutes, she stopped to take a sip from the cup of lemonade that was sitting near her computer.
Jordan could smell the fresh lemon, and she sighed in delight. Lemons and citrus in general always made her think of Florida, the Sunshine State, and her idyllic childhood growing up in West Palm Beach. Although better known for the oranges, Florida had their share of Meyer lemons, which were her favorite for making lemonade. Bailey had offered to share her drink, but Jordan could wait. For now, she was content to just enjoy the pleasant aroma of one of her favorite fruits and remember an idyllic time in her life when trauma and anxiety weren’t as prevalent as they had been during the last nine months.
She opened up her browser and started searching. The name Jeremy Sparks was more popular than she had thought, but she got a more manageable number of hits when she narrowed the search to Jacksonville. She looked at the images first but didn’t see any photos of her coworker in the boxes.
She ran the search again under news and came up with three articles. One was about a bank manager, one about a guy that worked at an auto-repair shop on the south side of town, and one story about how lightning had sparked a fire. She shook her head. Talk about random.
A thought hit her, and she typed a new search, this time including the names of both Emma and Jeremy Sparks. This search returned an arrest record for a woman named Emma and a listing in a people search site that wanted you to pay a hefty sum before letting you know if the person you were searching for was actually in the company’s database. There was also a link to a story about a young man named Jeremy Sparks who had won several science awards at a small university in rural Florida.
Jordan pushed some hair behind her ear and checked the images under the same search. She scrolled down and smiled. There was a photo! It was of both Jeremy and Emma Sparks. They were much younger, but it was definitely her colleague and his wife in the picture. She wondered if they had been college sweethearts. She clicked on the photo and was taken to an old Jacksonville magazine that featured prominent Floridians who had made large contributions to the state in technology, business or science. She clicked on the article. There was Jeremy’s smiling face again, and the article was talking about some work he had done on a competitive science project with Emma and a certain professor that had revolutionized the study of a certain strain of bacteria. As a result, the people of Florida had cleaner water.
“Did you know Emma Sparks was a scientist, too?” Jordan asked Bailey. “I’d never met her before Jeremy died, and I didn’t know anything about her.”
“No,” Bailey replied. “I know we tried the usual password keys with her basic information, like birthdate, marriage date and stuff like that, but none of them led to the key code.”
“Can we try a few new ideas?” Jordan asked.
“Sure.” Bailey switched screens and entered a program that would try several variations of letters and numbers to see if they matched the key code requirements to open the hard drive. As Jordan fed her the information, Bailey typed it in and ran the program, which tried several renditions of the information by switching around the order and other common password techniques. None matched the requirements that Bailey had outlined. They found several six-number combinations, but no words that made sense and had a c, j, and t.
“I found the name of the bacteria they were working on but the letters don’t match,” Bailey said thoughtfully.
“Okay,” Jordan responded. She continued scanning for other options. “How about college roommates or friends from their college days?”
Bailey scanned another window where she had accessed Jeremy’s social media platforms. “No matches. Any other ideas?”
“The name of their college and the graduation dates?”
That information was readily available in the same article, and Jordan fed it to Bailey one letter at a time since the name of the college actually met the letter requirements. “Nope, that’s not it, either.”
Jordan sat back, discouraged. She scrolled down on the article and found a picture that she recognized. It was of Jeremy, Emma and the same little girl that she’d seen a picture on the dresser in the master bedroom when they’d searched Emma’s house. She leaned forward again, and quickly scanned the rest of the article. Who was that child?
“It doesn’t say here, but I remembered when I searched Emma’s house that I saw a picture of Jeremy and his wife holding a little girl. Here’s a picture that’s almost taken at the same time.” She pointed toward the screen. “Can you help me find out who that is in the picture?”
Bailey shrugged. “Sure. Easy-peasy.” She glanced at the article a couple of times, then started typing. “It looks like your friend Jeremy had a daughter. Her name was Charlotte.”
Jordan was shocked. Jeremy had never mentioned a daughter or shown Jordan a photo of her. She wondered why the girl had never come up in conversation. They had talked about Samantha’s son often enough—it wouldn’t have been weird in the slightest to bring up other coworkers’ children, but Jeremy had always kept the little girl a secret.
Her eyes met with Bailey’s. Charlotte had a c and a t. Were they finally on the right track? “Jeremy never mentioned her,” Jordan said excitedly. “Is she still around or did something happen to her?”
Bailey hit a few more keys. “Looks like she died from cancer at the age of three. She had leukemia. At least that’s what her death certificate says.”
“How awful.” Jordan hadn’t even known the girl, but she felt sadness for her friend and his wife and the pain they must have endured at the loss of their daughter, especially at such a young age. She opened up a note program on her desktop and wrote out the words Charlotte Sparks. Fifteen letters, and they still didn’t have a j. They needed more. “What’s the girl’s middle name?”
Bailey typed some more, then looked up with a smile on her face. “Jade.”
Jordan leaned back, matching Bailey’s smile. “That makes nineteen letters.” She leaned forward, the anticipation making her giddy. “What about her birthday?”
Bailey typed in the girl’s full name and six numbers for the month, day and year of her birthday. C-H-A-R-L-O-T-T-E-J-A-D-E-S-P-A-R-K-S-1-0-1-9-1-2. The computer whirled and rearranged the letters into a different combination to make the key code, but they were in. The encryption was broken, and they could finally access the hard drive.
Jordan stood and whooped with joy, then reached over and gave Bailey a big hug. Now they were making real progress.
* * *
“So tell me about this perp,” Ben asked Frank as he drove toward their destination.
“The suspect’s name is Aaron Rich. He’s a white male, thirty-five years old, five feet eleven inches tall, one hundred and eighty pounds. He was born and raised in Uganda by a couple of teachers from the United States who were there teaching at an international school for kids of diplomats. Apparently, he had a rough upbringing, and his father was killed when he was ten by a group of militants that were never prosecuted or even caught. He came to the United States for college, majored in—get this—accounting and had a few minor infractions with the law. They were mostly drug-related, but there was one assault and battery that was really nasty. He served four years in prison, then disappeared once he got out. Rumor has it he’s a gun for hire. He was a suspect in a murder up in New Jersey, but he was never charged.”
