Catch and release, p.6
Catch and Release, page 6
If Trans Air’s hotel contracts were anything like other cooperate contracts, they were only good for a few years. Then the airline would re-evaluate the contract and either renew it or look for another hotel to partner with for the next few years.
Connor stood up from this chair with an aching head and strained eyeballs. Thanks to the postcard postmarks, Connor knew the sender was in Catasauqua, Pennsylvania, West Yellowstone, Montana, and Duluth, Minnesota, on June 7th the last three years.
And now he knew if the sender had stayed overnight in those cities, he had stayed at either Mendelson Hotels or Hospitality Inn, the airline’s hotel partners. Connor had two pieces of the puzzle. He knew where the sender was and when he was there. Now he needed to know who he was.
11
SMILE AND DIAL
Getting hotel records would be easier than getting flight manifest records directly from the airline, but it would still take some creativity.
Connor had a plan in his mind, and he hoped the Mendelson Hotels and the Hospitality Inn would play along. When looking for information, complicated schemes rarely work. Con jobs with multiple layers of deception are great for selling movie tickets, but in the real world, the more complicated something is, the more likely it is to fail.
US Army Intelligence had an extensive social engineering program, and Connor knew every page of the playbook. He’d learned various ways to psychologically manipulate someone into divulging confidential information without their knowledge of doing so. It was an ideal way to get people to talk without breaking fingers, waterboarding or otherwise violating the Geneva Convention.
The information Connor needed was inside the computers at Mendelson Hotels and Hospitality Inn, and he was going to get it without leaving Tara’s office. Obtaining the hotels’ guest information relied on one thing: plausibility. The quality of seeming reasonable. What were reasonable grounds a hotel employee would divulge who stayed at their hotel? That’s private information, after all. The trick was to shift the motivation. Change the direction of the conversation from the hotel protecting its guest information to the manager wanting to shout it from the rooftops. That shift came down to incentive. That incentive would come in terms of money, or more specifically, the renewal of the lucrative Trans Air hotel contract.
Connor opened up a spoofing tool to create an email address. A quick search revealed Trans Air used the appropriately named @transair.com email extension. There was no way to create an account with that extension since it already existed, but he could create a similar one. He thought for a moment and then generated a legitimate-looking email account: roger_mathers@transairbenefits.com. It looked corporate enough, and since Connor, or Roger Mathers, was going to be calling from the benefits department, he thought it would pass muster. A few more stops on the information superhighway revealed Trans Air was based in Dallas, Texas. Dallas had a 214 area code. Connor opened another app on his phone to generate a Dallas phone number in case the hotel managers paid attention to those things. The secret to a solid con job was to remove all barriers of unbelievability. Never give a mark a reason to not believe.
The next step was to get the hotel manager on the phone. He looked up the number to the Mendelson Hotels property in Catasauqua, Pennsylvania, and dialed. A cheery woman named Ashley answered the line. Connor asked to speak with the manager, and after a brief hold, he found himself speaking to Christine Grote. He could hear her smile through the phone.
“Christine, this is Roger Mathers with Trans Air. I’m hoping you can help me with a delicate matter.”
“I’ll do my best. How can I help?”
“We’ve learned that one of our flight attendants has been misusing her hotel benefits. Letting friends stay for free on her account.”
“That happens all the time,” said Christine, still wearing the smile. “We tell our staff to check for airline IDs, but sometimes they forget.”
“Totally understandable. I’m hoping you can pull a specific date range for me. I’m looking for the week of June 5th.” Connor was most interested in any hotel stays around the 7th, but tossing out a week instead of a specific date seemed more realistic for someone trying to sniff out fraud.
“What’s her name?” asked Christine.
Connor made up a name on the spot. It didn’t matter what name he gave her because it wouldn’t be in the hotel computer. That wasn’t the point.
“Mandy Neely,” he said. “She also goes by Amanda.”
Christine typed away.
“I don’t have anyone staying here that week by that name.”
“I thought that might be the case,” said Connor, sounding disappointed. “I’ve checked with other hotels, and her friends are using aliases. What about Cathy Allen or Deidre Haberstroh? Those were names they used at other hotels.”
“Spell that last one for me.”
“H-a-b-e-r-s-t-r-o-h.”
“Nothing,” she said. “Why don’t I just send you the log from that week, and you can cross-reference it with your manifest.”
“That would be great.”
Connor had hoped Christine would volunteer to send the log. He didn’t want to ask for it, but that was the next play. The reason for the call was to get that list. He assumed Christine wanted to help Trans Air, and her hotel, crack down on fraud. Everyone in the hospitality industry wants to be helpful, and Christine didn’t disappoint.
Connor gave Christine the Trans Air Benefits email address and joked about having a long list of hotels to call and not wanting to play benefits detective. She laughed and commiserated before hanging up the phone.
One down.
Connor took a deep breath and pulled up the number for the Mendelson Hotel in West Yellowstone, Montana. He duplicated the script, but this time, to cover his bases, he was looking for a pilot and not a flight attendant. He also asked for the records for the previous year and complained about how tough it was to investigate a series of fraudulent hotel stays from years back. The call flowed the same as the last, and by the time he hung up, the manager, John Ross, had committed to sending Connor the Trans Air hotel log for the weeks he needed.
His mobile phone chimed as he disconnected the call. It was Christine’s email. He opened it to find a list of Trans Air employees who had stayed at the hotel the week in question. Six crew members stayed at the Mendelson Hotels property in Catasauqua on June 7th of this year. Now he had to wait for John’s list and compare the two, hoping to find a common name. Connor waited for a half-hour, clicking refresh on his email program every few minutes. He was beginning to think the manager wasn’t going to play along when a welcomed ding finally announced the email’s arrival.
Connor compared the list from the two Mendelson Hotels for consecutive June 7ths but there was no match. He slammed a heavy fist onto the desk, forgetting for a moment that it wasn’t his.
There had to be a match. He compared the lists again in case he’d missed something, but there were no commonalities. Everything he planned to do next required a set of matching names.
He took a break and strolled down to Tara’s boathouse to clear his head. Peering out over the water, he watched two fishing boats off in the distance. It was nearing three o’clock and the fish wouldn’t be biting because of the heat. But sometimes being out on the water in a fishing boat not catching anything was still better than the alternative.
Connor kicked open one of Tara’s dock chairs and watched the fishermen as he thought through his next steps. He wanted to have a common name to take to the Hospitality Inn. The plan was to find a match from the Mendelson Hotels Trans Air logs to confirm with the Hospitality Inn in Duluth, Minnesota. Any name that appeared on all three logbooks would be hard to discount. What were the odds of the same person being in the same cities where the last three postcards had been mailed?
He’d hoped to have more to go on, but decided to forge forward with a call to the Hospitality Inn anyway. There was still a chance that whoever was sending the postcards, if they did work for Trans Air, was not staying overnight. They could have flown in, mailed the card, and then took off again without a hotel stay.
Then it hit him. Connor only looked at June 7th, but what if they had flown in on June 6th, stayed at the hotel, and then mailed the card on the 7th before flying out again? He went back up to the house and checked the names from June 6th. There was one commonality: Jessica Winslow.
He called the Hospitality Inn in Duluth and ran through his spiel, but this time, he specifically asked the manager to look up Jessica for June 6th or 7th. The manager questioned why he was interested in an overnight stay from three years ago, but Connor diffused his skepticism by explaining they were going back several years looking for hotel stays that didn’t match up to her flight schedule, which indicated someone other than Jessica used her name to book a free night at the hotel. He went on to explain that he had a spreadsheet full of dates where hotel stays were billed to the airline but where Jessica wasn’t in that city. He felt his own blood pressure rising as he declared he’d make sure Jessica paid the airline back for every fraudulent stay and how he’d make sure she never worked for another airline. Connor almost believed it himself.
The ruse was still solid, and the manager confirmed that Jessica, or someone using her name, had checked in as an airline employee on June 6th, three years ago. Connor thanked the manager and hung up. No hotel log needed this time.
A quick search on a social media platform yielded three Jessica Winslows, but only one was a forty-eight-year-old flight attendant for Trans Air. He enlarged her profile photo and printed it out. Was he looking at the woman responsible for the murder of Little Freddie’s wife and daughter? She didn’t look like a murderer, and if she was a contract killer, why was she also working as a flight attendant? Traveling gave her access to cities across the country, but try as he might, Connor couldn’t see this woman jetting across the states offing people in her spare time. It didn’t add up, but he also couldn’t shake the coincidence that she was in the same cities on the same days those postcards were mailed.
He opened another browser tab and pulled up another social media site, this one focused on careers and networking. He typed in Jessica’s name and found that she had been a flight attendant for Trans Air for fifteen years. That fit Little Freddie’s postcard timeline.
He went back to the other site and scrolled through her profile. He thought locating her would be more difficult, but her social media profile page indicated she lived in Tampa, Florida. He scoured through her timeline photos, which were all geotagged from different cities. He turned a page in his notebook and drew a line down the center. On one side, he listed all of the cities where Jessica had snapped photos. On the opposite side, he wrote the date the photo was taken.
It didn’t take long for him to piece together her flight schedule based on when and where she took the photos. He knew she was in the air Monday through Wednesday, had Thursday off, was back in the air Friday and Saturday, and was off on Sunday.
Connor specialized in thorny jobs, solving unsolvable problems and finding people who didn’t want to be found. When someone was underground, he had to get creative to locate them. But once he identified Jessica’s name, he didn’t have to work hard to find her. She advertised it for the world to see on social media. Connor had gone as far as he could go online. Now it was time to visit Jessica Winslow in person. If he was going to intercept her, he couldn’t do it at an airport. Too much security. He’d have to do it at her home.
He went back to her social media feed. She had posted several photos with her daughter, who also lived in Tampa. He continued through the photo feed but found no pictures of a spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend, which meant she likely lived alone. It wasn’t a sure bet, but he’d confirm that when he got to her house. Connor made it a habit to always know what he was walking into.
He closed his notebook and cleared the history from Tara’s Internet browser. Then he called an airline and booked a flight to Tampa for the following day.
12
SHE SELLS SANCTUARY
Boone turned off Route 9 in Bangor and listened as the woman inside his cell phone directed him down several side streets until he rolled to a stop in the parking lot of the Bedford Lumber Company.
Stepping out of the vehicle, he looked at the front door. It was a refurbished barn door, the kind that slides on wrought-iron runners. It wasn’t the door that caught his attention; it was the two video cameras positioned above it. Heavy security for a lumber company. He walked past a dark brown sedan parked next to a white pickup truck. The pickup was overflowing with parts, but they weren’t anything Boone recognized. Not automotive parts, maybe industrial machinery. A quick check of the sedan’s license plate confirmed he was in the right place.
He walked to the door and tried to push it open, but it was locked. He knocked. Then he knocked again. He kept at it until, finally, a latch disengaged on the other side and the heavy door rolled open.
“Whatcha need, fella?” The man asking the question wore a tight-fitting white T-shirt that showed off his upper arms. He had slicked-backed hair and could have passed for a greaser from the fifties.
“You sell lumber, right?” said Boone. “I’ll take some of that.”
“Sorry, can’t help you. Go somewhere else.”
The door started to slide closed, but Boone stopped it with a size twelve black wingtip.
“This is a lumber company, right?”
“Yeah, it is. But we’re closed.”
“What’s your name?”
“Collins.”
“I need to have a word with you, Collins.”
“I think you’re in the wrong place, mister. You best turn ’round and go back to wherever you came from.” He tried to close the barn door again, but Boone grabbed it and jerked it open, almost pulling Collins out of this T-shirt.
Collins reached for something behind him, but Boone already had a 9mm in his face.
“Inside.” He motioned him in with the pistol.
“Buddy, I don’t know who you are, but it’s not smart to be waving that around here.”
“Inside.”
Boone followed Collins into the main room. The place had been a lumber operation at some point, but the saws had gone silent a long time ago. Now, the equipment wore more rust than sawdust. As they walked further into the building, he heard a radio playing from some distant room. He couldn’t place the song. Maybe something by John Mellencamp.
“Your friend with the tattoo, where is he?”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” said Collins.
“I don’t ask twice,” said Boone, raising the 9mm.
“Downstairs.”
“Get him up here.”
He followed Collins to the top of a stairwell. “Rockwell, I need you up here.”
A minute later, a large man came up the stairs carrying a red duffle bag. He stopped when he saw the 9mm. “Who the fuck are you?”
Boone glanced down at the man’s Semper Fi tattoo on his forearm. “The more pertinent question is who the fuck are you?” He motioned them to a plaid couch against the far wall.
Sitting down, the two men looked up at him.
“You two paid a friend of mine a visit. Connor Harding. I want to know who sent you and why.” He leveled the weapon at Collins. “You first.”
Collins was silent.
Boone pulled the trigger. The blast snapped Collins’s head backward, cracking the glass window behind it.
“Your turn. I don’t ask twice.”
“Round Jon sent us,” said Rockwell.
“Round Jon?”
“Yeah.” The man shook on the plaid cushion.
“Why?”
“Albert Harding. Albert owes Round Jon for a ten-grand casino marker. He skipped town, and Round Jon sent us to see if he was in Meddybemps.”
“Why did you fuck with Connor?”
“Albert wasn’t there, but we heard his kid was staying on the island. Round Jon said to knock him around a bit. To send a message to Albert. Get him to pay up.”
“And you shot up his boat?”
“To send a message.”
“You sent a message, all right.”
“So, who are you?” asked Rockwell.
“Nobody.” He fired two rounds into Rockwell’s chest and headed toward the door. When he passed the room with the radio, it was playing “She Sells Sanctuary” by The Cult. That one, he recognized.
* * *
Back in the Mercedes, Boone scanned the scrap of paper Connor had given him and dialed. A moment later, Mitch Skinner answered.
“I need to get a message to Connor Harding.”
“Okay,” said Mitch.
“Tell him the license plate checked out, and it’s not related to his case.”
“Anything else?”
“His father owes someone named Round Jon ten grand.”
“That fat ass?”
“You know him?”
“Yeah, he runs a small operation in Bangor,” said Mitch.
“Well, the operation just got smaller.”
13
JESSICA WINSLOW
The earliest Connor could get into Tampa was on flight 1053, which departed Bangor at nine a.m. It was a two-hour drive to Bangor from Meddybemps, which meant he had to leave the lake around five in the morning. Maine mornings were crisp, and when he stepped out of the cabin, the cold hit him like a fireplace poker to the jaw. Fog had settled over the lake, creating an eerie gray glow. Connor tossed his backpack and his Army duffle into the Boston Whaler, zipped his jacket up to his neck, and climbed aboard. The boat engine roared as he pulled away from the island and headed toward Mitch’s dock. He stole a few glances back at the island, unsure if he’d return this summer. He hated the idea of cutting his vacation short, but there was only so much he could do sitting at Tara’s PC. Eventually, he had to get into the thick of it.
