“Want to run that by me again?” she said.
“Think, think, think,” he tapped his forehead with an index finger. “Tobacco smoke. The employee at the hotel reeked of it. At Biggs’ house, there was an old pipe spilling ash all over the place. Then again in the cells. All three times, the same smell.”
“Plenty of people smoke pipes.”
“You ever run into three different guys smoking the same flavored tobacco, all in the same day? Smelled like cherry to me.”
Mary blinked. “Okay, maybe not. Still, it’s not exactly groundbreaking evidence.”
“Not by itself. But sometimes the smaller things lead us to the bigger things. You checked Biggs’ file?”
“Yeah. Nothing much there we didn’t already know.”
“You got a photo?”
“The guy’s got no record. No photo, no prints, no DNA. Why?”
“Call it a hunch.” Leopold turned his cell phone’s speaker on and lay the handset down on the desk. It was playing a Muzak rendition of “Uptown Girl.” He pulled Mary’s keyboard toward him and leaned in to get a view of the computer monitor.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Just bear with me.” He loaded up the internet browser and punched Biggs’ name and address into the search bar. A few dozen relevant results bounced back, the top ones belonging to various social media sites.
“This isn’t exactly the police database,” said Mary.
Leopold ignored her and clicked on the top result. “Look. Recognize this guy?” He pointed at an image of a gaunt, aging man with black skin and gray hair.
“No, should I?”
“What about these photos?” He opened up the other search results, all pictures of the same man.
“You’re kidding me,” she said.
“Afraid not.”
“The guy we spoke to in Brooklyn…”
“Wasn’t Biggs.”
“Shit.”
“Well put.”
“Then who the hell were we talking to?”
Leopold grinned. “My guess: if the pipe smoker was the inside man at the hotel, our fake Biggs was probably the one with the connections. You know, the middleman. He dispatched the real Biggs and waits at the apartment for the cops to show. That just leaves the brains.”
“Don’t get all Wizard of Oz on me,” said Mary. “You’re just guessing here. We’re going to need more than that.”
“You really think the fake Biggs, whatever his name is, had the mental capacity to pull something like this off?”
Mary folded her arms. “I’m no psychologist. How would I know.”
“You should learn to rely on your instincts. We both know there must have been someone else involved, someone who had working knowledge of the bank. Now that Creed is dead, our pool of suspects just got a little smaller.”
“Not small enough. We need more to work with.”
“I’m working on it.” He picked up his cell phone just as the Muzak stopped and a man’s voice came on the line. Leopold walked away from Mary’s desk, just out of earshot.
“Blake?” The voice was strongly accented, maybe Puerto Rican.
“Yes. You have the information I need?”
“Your contact had to work fast. He had to drop a lot of important clients.”
“He’ll be well compensated. I trust you’ll see to that. What have you got for me?”
“The wire transfer came from an account in the Cayman Islands. The corporation was a shell, as you might expect. We followed the trail through Geneva and then back west to the Caribbean.
“You got a company name for me?”
“Yeah. Umbrella corporation calls itself ‘Plutus Inc.’ I got a list of the directors and shareholders, though it’s pretty short.”
Leopold felt his pulse quicken. “Let me guess. Just two people? Share a surname?”
There was a pause on the line. “Yeah, how’d you know?”
“Let’s just call it instinct. Text me the names.” He hung up without waiting for a response and made his way back to Mary’s desk.
“Let me guess: another lead?” she said, downing the remains of her coffee.
“You could say that.” His cell phone vibrated and he held up the screen so Mary could see. “Somebody’s been very, very naughty.”
“Absolutely no freakin’ way,” said Captain Oakes. The captain stood up, slamming two heavy palms down onto his desk. “And who the hell is this guy?” he glanced at Leopold.
“Sir, Blake has been working with us on this case from the beginning,” said Mary. “He found a lead on the killer. We need to get out there.”
“And you want me to sign off on this? Based on what evidence?”
“We found data on Teddy Gordon’s hard drive that suggests several accounts at Needham Brothers were being scammed. We also know that Gordon was killed because of his connection with the fraudulent activity. We also believe that Vincent Creed was set up to take the fall by another party.”
Oakes slumped back into his seat. “You still haven’t got any proof. This is all a hunch.”
Leopold opened his mouth to speak, but Mary cut him off.
“We came across information regarding a substantial deposit made into Creed’s bank account on the day of Gordon’s murder,” she said. “This payment was sent to make Creed look more guilty. We traced the accounts to an umbrella corporation.”
“This is Plutus Inc.?”
“Yes, sir. ‘Plutus666’ is also the password that Teddy Gordon and his wife use on their home computer, the same computer where we found all the documents covering the scammed accounts at Needham. The Gordons did a good job of making it look like Creed had authored the files, but our tech teams managed to see past that.”
“That’s still not enough, Lieutenant. I can’t get you your warrant without something concrete linking Melissa Gordon to the murder.” He raised a chunky finger. “And don’t pretend you followed protocol on this one, Jordan. I don’t even want to know how you traced those accounts.”
“But sir, we need to bring Mrs. Gordon in. And we’ll need backup.”
“Denied.” The captain got to his feet again. “The DA is satisfied with the evidence against Creed and the medical examiner doesn’t believe there was any foul play. Get some evidence, then you get your warrant. Play by the rules or don’t play at all.” He aimed the last comment at Leopold. “Now get the hell out of my office.”
Leopold stormed ahead, leading the way back to the Mercedes where Jerome was waiting. Mary jogged to keep up.
“Hey, slow down,” she said, putting one hand on Leopold’s shoulder. “You heard the captain. We’re on our own.”
He stopped and took a deep breath. “It just seems that, no matter the environment, those who are most effective at setting up road blocks are the ones put in charge.” He exhaled. “No matter. We just need to find something we can use. Why didn’t you mention the fake Biggs?”
“What, and make us look even more incompetent? We need to go to Oakes and the DA with an ironclad case. That means we can’t rely on anything you found on social media or anything your network of hackers managed to get hold of. We need to do this by the book.”
“You’re with me on this.”
“Damn right,” she said. “Everything I’ve seen today, Melissa Gordon is the only suspect that makes any sense. She and her husband must have been running the scam for years. I guess he grew a conscience.”
“We need to get back inside her house,” said Leopold. “If we can find something to link her to the fake Biggs or the money transfers, we’ve got probable cause. A full forensic sweep of her computer accounts should tell us the rest, along with whatever scams Needham was running. We can end this whole thing today.”
“How do we get inside without a warrant?”