‘ What did you find?’
‘Money in a floor safe underneath one of those bolted down saws. This is like a fun house. Everywhere you look here you find something. But like I said, you inspired me.’ Ortega turned to him. ‘It’s the money we found I want you to see.’
Ortega squinted and for whatever the reason looked pained. Bruce Ortega worked his way from uniform officer to sergeant to a stint with Burglary and Robbery to the Homicide Detail by age thirty-four. He came on quietly and Raveneau knew him as a hard worker, knowledgeable about DNA and the more recent forensic advances available to them. He had good instincts and was intuitive about motive. He called himself a steady plodder, but Raveneau didn’t think of him that way at all.
This afternoon he was dressed in a charcoal gray sport coat, black pants and black loafers. He once told Raveneau that his wife shopped for him twice a year at Nordstrom’s semiannual half-off sales and got her inspiration from watching the remake of the TV series Hawaii Five-O. She then toned it down to their budget.
‘The safe was underneath the big band saw. I didn’t come here looking for anything other than a new idea. Here, let me show you.’
They walked to the tool room where the cutting was done and looked at a saw cut in the concrete surrounding the area where the band saw had sat. Someone pointed it out during the search Raveneau was on, though he couldn’t remember who. Ortega ran the edge of his shoe along the saw cut line.
‘We cut the bolts holding the saw down and I shoved the saw out of the way with the forklift.’
Raveneau looked into the open safe.
‘Where’s the money?’
‘In Khan’s office, the locksmith just left.’
‘How much was there?’
‘I haven’t touched it, but enough for both of us.’
He smiled.
‘I want you to look at it before I notify my fearless task force leader. When I do they’ll show up here with a dozen agents.’
‘You’ve gone rogue.’
‘No, technically you’re on my team.’ He turned. ‘Did you hear they made an arrest this morning?’
‘Yeah, I heard a couple of hours ago about Mathis.’
The Bureau had arrested Cleg Mathis, prime suspect in the Khan murders at a McDonald’s in St Paul, Minnesota, but headed to Canada with false ID. It happened mid morning Pacific Time. Raveneau was impressed the Bureau had tracked him down.
In Khan’s office Raveneau looked in the bag then pulled on latex gloves and lifted out a bundle of bills. It shouldn’t surprise him but it did, and as it did, something brushed along the edges of his consciousness again. The blatant aspect was striking. The bills could hardly stick out more but they probably paid Khan with them. In his view it was another mistake, but maybe they had it all so well scripted they were that confident.
‘What do you make of these?’ Ortega asked.
‘They look like the counterfeit bills my guy Krueger was carrying. They’re identifiable but not traceable.’
‘But you’re saying they’re the same as what you found on Krueger, right?’
‘They look the same to me, but I’m an instant expert. You need to call the Secret Service.’
‘Why would you pay anybody with counterfeit notes that look like they were buried in your grandfather’s mattress?’
‘Maybe they wanted to make it easier for the Feds and us later. Maybe they want the operation rolled up after it’s done.’
Raveneau shrugged. He really didn’t know what to make of this, but he felt reasonably confident the bills would match.
‘How many of these bills got printed?’ Ortega asked.
‘Good question.’
‘They haven’t given you any idea?’
‘I doubt anyone really knows.’
‘And they’ve been out of circulation all this time?’
Raveneau shrugged, couldn’t answer that either. Ortega knew about the buy last July so there was nothing to say about that.
‘Is there a big stash over there in Hawaii, Raveneau?’
‘There’s one somewhere.’