A brief pause as the lawyer looked for a piece of paper, and JoHelen glanced at her phone. Her intruder could barely be seen in her closet, rifling through her wardrobe. Should she call the police and bust the guy? Should she call Neighborhood Watch? No—calls leave trails, and these days it seemed as if most trails were leading back to JoHelen.
Two lawyers were suddenly talking at once, something that happened every day in her world, and she deftly separated the two on the official record without missing a word. Her only real pet peeve was when three lawyers were talking simultaneously. A simple glance from her to the bench and Judge McDover would restore order. They often communicated with slight movements of the face or hands, but today JoHelen was trying not to look at her boss.
The intruder would find nothing incriminating. She wasn’t stupid enough to hide records in a place so easy to find. Her records were elsewhere, locked and secure. But what would they do next? They had killed a man to intimidate and impede the investigation by BJC. Evidently, they had tracked down Greg Myers and silenced him. Now Cooley, her friend, confidant, handler, and co-conspirator, was either leaving or already gone, freaking out and seemingly on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He assured her she was safe, that her identity would never be revealed, but those were hollow words from last week.
Her Honor called for a ten-minute recess, and JoHelen calmly walked down the hall to her small office, where she locked the door and watched, in real time, her intruder. The man was still in her house, now going through the kitchen drawers, carefully removing the pots and pans and then replacing them just as he found them. He was not a thief and would not leave a trail. He was wearing gloves. He finally made his way to her office, where he took a seat and looked around. He began removing files from her drawers as if he had all the time in the world.
He worked for Vonn Dubose. And they now suspected her.
—
Allie Pacheco stopped by at noon for an update. They met in Geismar’s office, at the worktable cluttered with files of other pending cases. Allie wasn’t smug when he talked about their success with Clyde Westbay, but he was obviously proud of their work. And, the best was yet to come.
All of their requests for wiretapping and surveillance had been approved by a federal judge, and their tech team was listening to dozens of phones. The FBI had located the homes of Vance and Floyd Maton, Ron Skinner, and Hank Skoley, four of the five Cousins. Their boss, Mr. Dubose, was currently living in a cottage in Rosemary Beach. The night before, Hank had driven Vonn to a swanky restaurant near Panama City where they met a third man, a guy who just happened to be a Brunswick County supervisor. The purpose of the meeting was not clear and the FBI was not eavesdropping.
Dubose still had them baffled. They were now in agreement that the name had to be fictitious, and that he had done a marvelous job for the past thirty or forty years living as someone else. As to bloodlines, the past was murky. Given the moral vagaries of their ancestors, it was proving to be difficult ascertaining the degree to which the Cousins were actually related. But this mattered only in their search for Vonn’s real identity.
Clyde gave them the names of seven other managers. So far, the FBI had identified almost thirty bars, restaurants, hotels, shopping centers, strip clubs, liquor stores, convenience stores, residential developments, gated communities, and golf courses believed to be managed by the eight men, including Clyde. Every single entity was owned by an offshore company, most registered in Belize, the Bahamas, or the Cayman Islands.
Their investigation was expanding by the hour. Their boss in Jacksonville was committing all the manpower and resources Tallahassee was asking for. Luna, Pacheco’s supervisor, had dropped everything and was running the operation. The U.S. Attorney’s Office had four lawyers tag teaming with the FBI.
Pacheco was wired and all business. They were pulling twenty hours a day; he seemed to have little interest in Lacy, at least outside the office. When he raced off, Geismar asked her, “Are you seeing him?”
“Just saw him.”
“You know what I mean.”
“We’ve had a lunch, two dinners, and two late-night bottles of wine. I think I like him but we’re going real slow.”
“Don’t you always go slow?”
“I do. Does it bother you?”
“Sort of. It’s in the gray area.”
“He and I have talked about it. We’re on the same side of the street, but not in the same office. He couldn’t date another agent in this town, but their rules do not include me. You want me to break it off??”
“What if I said yes?”
“You’re the boss and I would do as instructed. He’ll be around. He’s not going anywhere.”
“I’m not asking. I think you’re okay with him, but just be careful what you say. You can rest assured he’s not telling us everything.”
“True, but he knows a lot more than we do.”
36