Levon's Night

Contents

Title Page

Levon’s Night

About Chuck Dixon

Other Works by Chuck Dixon

Levon’s Night

CHUCK DIXON

dixonverse.net

1

The cop was young and snapped to attention in a rigid salute. Pressed fatigues and body armor. Cap pulled low over his eyes. The one spot of color on his dark uniform was a patch depicting a police officer standing protectively by a pair of children. The lines around the young man’s mouth were deep. His voice husky with emotion.

“I have seen bad,” Ramon Salas said, stepping into the shade of the awnings over the broad veranda. The day was already hot, the sun up only a few hours. The breeze off the Caribbean was doing little more than stirring the muggy air along the Costa Rican coast.

“Very bad, sir,” the young cop repeated and led the way through the expansive villa toward the main crime scene at the back. There were secondary crime scenes outside the big house. Two bodies lay outside; Ramon saw them from the back of the police cruiser on his way in. One by the wrought iron access gate. Another on the circular turn-around before the main entrance. Both bodies appeared to be men covered in sheets. Flower print sheets taken from the house to preserve the dignity of the dead. The forensics team from
Departamento de Medicina Legal
would scold the answering cops for tampering with evidence. The cops from the
Fuerza Publica
stood about the bodies like ants around crumbs of bread. Black uniforms and body armor. They smoked and talked while waiting for someone like Ramon to show up. Someone who would take the bloody mess off their hands.

The house sat on a hill overlooking the sea. All spread out with outbuildings that formed a courtyard around an enormous salt water pool. Ten thousand square feet maybe. On a ten acre parcel in Puntayamas. Many millions in American dollars. The interior was cool with stale air-conditioned air. The rooms went on and on toward the back of the house.

Ramon walked past walls lined with paintings. He knew nothing of paintings. The walls of his home displayed pictures of his children. To him the paintings, in their expensive frames, looked like something his kids might have done. When they were four. And drunk.

The eager young cop stood aside and gestured with an open hand into a wide arched opening. He reminded Ramon of a presenter on a Mexican game show.
And here are your prizes, señor
.

The room had a high ceiling two stories in height. It was a large area meant for entertaining. Lots of upholstered conversation pits comprised of long sofas upholstered in cool linen and layered with mountains of embroidered throw pillows. A projection system for a TV screen that dominated a one hundred foot wall. The wall facing the back of the house was glass from end to end and ceiling to floor. The ocean filled the eyes. The morning sun turned the water to silvery shimmers. The remaining face of the room was dominated by a long bar with a full kitchen behind it. Shelves stocked with bottles. Behind the glass doors of a stand-up cooler Ramon could see row after row of bottled beer. Imported brands in green bottles. He licked his lips despite the earliness of the hour.

In an open area before the bar was the main crime scene. Three adult figures sat in steel framed chairs. Patio chairs dragged in off the veranda for this purpose. They were draped in sheets like the bodies out front. Ramon could see the exposed arm of a woman. She was secured to the arms of the chair with black tape at her wrists and elbows. Broad bands of tape held her ankles secured to the metal legs. More tape below the knee. Whoever did this was practiced.

The three adults sat in a row next to one another like members of an audience.

Or witnesses.

Across from them sat two more figures, smaller figures. Similarly bound with black tape. They looked tiny beneath the sheets that covered them like tents. A tasteful monochromatic print of palm fronds. Beneath the chairs was a joined pool of dried blood shining black in the sunlight slanting in through the window wall. In the sticky spill Ramon could see pale objects.

Fingers. The fingers of children.

One had a flower, a daisy, meticulously painted on the nail.

The eager young policeman was right.

This one was bad.

2

Fluency in Spanish and English would lead to advancement in the Bureau, everyone said.

Instead it led to shit assignments like the one Bill Marquez was being briefed on now.

“Got a liaise job down in Costa Rica for you. Should be cake since you’re Mexican.”

“I’m Dominican, sir,” Bill said.

ADC Terry Blount squinted at Bill from across his desk. Sunlight filtered by LA smog glared through the window. The sounds of traffic from down on Wilshire filled the silence.

“That’s not a problem, is it?” Blount said.

“Da nada.” Bill smiled and shrugged.

ADC Blount let out a sigh. The FBI had become totally politicized in recent years. Every utterance had to be checked before it was spoken in order not to offend. A special agent used the word “siesta” in a surveillance report three years ago. The shitstorm of paperwork, hearings and mandatory seminars handed down from Justice went on for six months. The last thing the assistant director in charge needed was another weekend spent at a sensitivity course for thinking every beaner in his office was a Mexican.

“Okay. We’re good. Thanks for being cool about that, Bill.” Blount used his first name. We’re all buds here, right? Amigos.

“A liaison job, sir?” Bill said.

“Remember Corey Blanco?”

“The Ponzi guy? Took a bunch of investors for a ride. Mall real estate, right?”

“And an escrow surety company he bought then picked the clients’ accounts clean. Got away with almost a half billion,” Blount said.

“Got away is right. I’m guessing the trail got hot again?” Bill sat forward. They were sending him after one of Justice’s most wanted felons?

“Hot then cold. Corey Blanco is dead. Homicide down in Costa Rica. Whole family. The OIJ in CR is investigating. When they found out who they had they called State who called the AG who called us looking for someone to send down.”

“So, no investigation, sir?”

“No. You’re going down there at the request of State and the Costa Rican government. Dot the eyes and cross the tees. Take an extra day and wiggle your toes in the sand.”

“Thank you, sir. But won’t there be evidence down there?”

“Evidence, Marquez?” They were back to last names.

“The funds Blanco got away with were never recovered. Hundreds of millions taken from innocent investors. There might be something down there on a hard drive or paper. We might find some of those funds.”

“Tell you what. If you find any bank receipts lying around with lots of zeroes on them you give me a call. We’ll send a team down. Otherwise, you are there to bear witness, sign forms and confirm the identity of the deceased. You
comprende
that?”

“
Sí
,” Bill said, biting the inside of his mouth to keep the sarcasm from escaping.

“So, email or paper?” ADC Blount said, fingers poised over his keyboard.

“Email. I’ll read it on the plane, sir.”

“Your flight’s at four. LAX. Get your toothbrush and jammies and get over there.”

3

“Okay,” was all Bill could say in answer to that as he took the older man’s offered hand.

They made introductions as they crossed the flagstone parking area where the chopper set down and toward the sprawling villa of the late, ex-patriate fugitive felon Corey Blanco. The two men were from roughly equivalent agencies investigating crimes that rose above a certain bar of malfeasance, national security or broad federal guidelines of misbehavior. Salas was much more senior. It wasn’t just the gray in his dark hair. It was the lines around the eyes and mouth. The face of a cop a few decades on the job. Bill liked him immediately.

Captain Salas led him through the house past the few uniformed cops that had been left behind to keep lookie-loos and looters away. Surfaces of furniture, walls, light switches and doors showed the greasy residue of a thorough fingerprint search. The carpets were trampled flat by the passage of many feet. Paintings on the wall were askew. Was that a Matisse study? Furniture had been moved aside to allow passage for cops, forensics, investigators and coroners.

The big room at the back of the house had yellow tape strung across one end cutting the room in half.
LA LINEA DE LA POLICIA NO CRUZADO
. One side was a dream home theater area. The other something out of a nightmare.

Three chairs sat across from two more. There was blood sprayed over the scene with a large stain beneath the pair of chairs facing into the room. Carefully cut strips of black duct tape were still stuck to the legs and arms. The set-up was obvious. The three chairs facing the water were for spectators. The two seats with their backs to the sea were the main show.

“Tell me what happened,” Bill said, touching fingers to a strip of yellow barrier tape. He’d get some answers before he set foot in the crime scene.

“Señor Blanco, his wife and their housekeeper were seated in the row of three chairs. The Blanco’s two children, a boy of six and a girl of ten, were seated there,” Salas said and gestured to the chairs in the pool of blood.

“Causes of death?”

“The children, at the end, had their throats cut. Señora Blanco and the housekeeper were each smothered with plastic bags cinched over their heads.”

“And Corey Blanco?”

“Heart attack.”

“What was that?” Bill said, turning to Captain Salas.

“Señor Blanco suffered a massive coronary. There were no wounds to his body,” Salas said.

Bill stood for a moment, looking at the scene of horror that marred this beautiful home.

“How did the killers gain entry?”

“From the sea. Or they came along the beach from another point. All evidence was erased by the tide. So it is merely a guess. The front gates are covered by cameras. There are other cameras along the road leading to this house. Many families of wealth live on this beach. Security is very complete. No unrecognized cars used the road the night of the murders.”

“There was private security?” Bill asked. The kitchen and bar were untouched. The killers did not help themselves to booze or snacks. All business.

“Two men listed as assistants to Señor Blanco. One was found dead at the front gate. Another on the drive before the house.”

“Cause of death?”

“Blunt force trauma of some kind. We’re not certain of the weapon. They were each taken from behind by blows to the head powerful enough to fracture their skulls.”

“Unusual.” Bill made a note to look into the bodyguards’ backgrounds.

“We thought so as well,” Salas agreed.

“Anything else?” Bill asked.

“Follow me,” Sala said and turned to walk away. Bill followed.

In the home gym they arrived at a wall safe, a vault really, hidden behind a door disguised as just another mirrored panel in a long mirrored wall. The vault was six feet tall with shelves and drawers within. The contents were spilled on the floor. Bearer bonds. Some bundles of cash. Jewelry. Passports.

“It is all untouched. We wanted to leave this as we found it until your people arrived,” Salas said and met Bill’s eyes with a level gaze.

The message was clear.
We took nothing. We are not thieves
.

“This safe wasn’t forced open. Someone opened it for them. Probably under duress,” Bill said and crouched to look at the valuable litter lying in a heap between an elliptical machine and a stationary bike. He took a pen from his jacket pocket and used it to poke through the pile.