Shadows of Deceit (A Series of Shadows) (44 page)

“But of course!” Abby grinned then her head cocked suddenly and her face grew stern, as if she heard something. “He’s here. Come on.”

Lou took another deep breath, positioned her crutch under her arm and readied herself for standing up but before she could, there was a knock on her door. The two women looked at each other curiously. “Yeah?” Lou called out and the door swung open and Max shyly peered in at them.

“Is it alright if I come in?” He asked sheepishly. Not what Lou had expected.

“Of course!” She grinned and watched him enter her room. Her heart skipping a beat at the sight of him. As usual. “How did it go?”

“First of all, how are you doing?” He frowned when he saw her face and then the crutch.

Lou chuckled half-heartedly. “Once again I’m a little beat up!” She shrugged. “I’m fine though, just a little worse for wear.”

“I’m going to go fetch us some tea while you two talk.” Abby informed them before heading out of the room. “The ice cream will keep.”

“Thanks Abby.” Lou smiled at her before she scurried away.

“Frank and Dillon filled me in on what transpired today.” Max told her. “He said that you did an excellent job handling the clean up and that you left the perfect trail of breadcrumbs so it leads back to Carlos Vargas tomorrow. You’ll get your warrant and tie everything together neatly for your homicide cases.”

“Will I?” Lou wasn’t so sure. “Ernesto Vargas and Manuel Rojas are still in the wind. Now with the addition of this blood born, I am not sure how I’m going to figure all that into the case for public consumption. The helicopters and everything, it’s a little over the top.”

Max nodded in understanding. “The blood born is Cameron Timms. He’s the son of an affluent Sanguinostri family in Cape Town. At least he was until he annihilated them and took off with Johan Esterhuizen. Apparently, Esterhuizen had been working for Timms for some time. Cameron’s right hand man helping establish his high end criminal enterprise.”

“He’s the one who headed up all of this?” Lou was trying to make sense of it.

“Apparently.” Max nodded. “It appears to be a classic case of an entitled adolescent shithead on a much much grander scale.”

“How is that possible?” Lou frowned at him.

“The Timms were a very old Sanguinostri family that established themselves in Cape Town in the sixteen-hundreds, when the Dutch East India Company set up shop down there.”Max gave her a brief history. “It was a different time then and although the Sanguinostri frowned upon it, the Timms family blended in and established themselves in trade, primarily the slave trade. They got involved in livestock of all kinds, negotiated with the British when they took over, then were right on top of things when diamonds and gold came into the market. Even with the money they had amassed when they landed in South Africa, it only grew exponentially after they settled. Although they kept just below the radar, they still became one of the most influential families in the region with all the perks and benefits that come with that.”

“No offense but old money plus new baby equals spoiled shithead.” Lou furrowed her brow.

“Exactly. I had a long conversation with Moshe this evening and he filled in all the blanks for me on the family. They were a less evolved line of Sanguinostri as far as humanism goes. George Timms fixed himself as an Afrikaner from the get go. He apparently had quite a superiority complex and used his power and influence to help the National Party get into power and ultimately fostered Apartheid. He was not one of Moshe’s favorite subjects, to say the least.”

“What a dick!” Lou was getting a clear picture of the man now.

“Sadly, yes.” Max leaned back in the overstuffed chair before he continued. “I’ll skip the rest of the history lesson but suffice it to say George Timms was a proud elitist and his wife, Alma, was right there along with him. The norm among our people is to approach attempting to conceive with utter reverence and solemnity. It is a true gift to successfully bare a blood born child. In Alma’s case, and from my take on things, it was something to do to garner some excitement in her life.”

“She got pregnant and went through all of that because she was bored?” Lou was stunned.

“Evidently. She used it too. Literally sat on a golden pillow being waited on, hand and foot for the entire pregnancy like she was some mythical goddess.” Max spoke as if he had a bad taste in his mouth. “Then, when the child was born, she grew bored with him and left his rearing to the staff. The kid never stood a chance being raised by such self-important gluttons.”

“So let me fill in the blanks here.” Lou thought for a moment. “He was waited on just like his mother from day one, hand and foot. Had his ass wiped and his every want and desire tossed at him so that he wouldn’t bother his parents. Probably went to the finest schools, every toy and gadget tossed at him without needing to bat an eyelash. Started getting into trouble just to get more attention and his parents made it all disappear so as not to tarnish the good family name, blah blah. Am I close?”

“Spot on.” Max nodded. “Being blood born, Cameron was smart as a whip, handsome, talented, strong, all on an exceptional level and he used that to get whatever he wanted. It seems he started his criminal activities at a very early age. His sealed record is extensive.”

“You got a peek at it?” Lou was curious.

“I did.” Max smiled at Abby when she walked in with a tray of cups and a pot of tea as promised. “Thank you Abby. You can stay if you want.” Abby smiled and poured them all a cup while he continued. “Cameron started at the top with a blood diamond operation. That, along with his siphoning funds from his parents accounts in undetectable increments, he amassed a small fortune by the time he was sixteen. Enough of a fortune that he was able to contract Esterhuizen to come and work for him exclusively and start building a small arsenal.”

“Small?” Lou snorted. “He has one of those helicopters! That’s not exactly small.”

“Yes, well that was actually his father’s that he commandeered for himself and had smuggled out of Cape Town. God knows how.” Max ran his fingers through his hair, tired and frustrated. “He had it brought to South America to facilitate his drug operation which he stole from the Salazar Brother’s former employer.”

“Weren’t they cartel men?” Lou asked for clarification. “Like Ernesto?”

“The Jacinto Cartel, yes.” Max picked up his cup of tea and took a sip before resuming. “Yuri uncovered that Cameron Timms struck a bargain with the Jacinto Cartel that included a regular stipend of diamonds each month. Ernesto Vargas was assigned as Timms’ point man in Bogota. It was a lucrative arrangement for the cartel and Timms didn’t have to worry about ruffling their feathers while he did his own business.”

“But how did the Rojas family get involved other than Ernesto being married to Salvatore’s daughter?” Abby asked but Lou was wondering the same thing.

“From what we can piece together, Cameron got into trouble a while back for keeping a harem of sorts. He drugged up some local girls and kept them as slaves he fed on whenever he wanted. Mind you, right under his parent’s roof.”

“They didn’t know or didn’t bother to give a shit?” Lou was angry.

“The best I can describe, it is as a combination of Sanguinostri elitist and white supremist arrogance. The girls were all colored so the only objection Alma Timms had was that they were dirty and being kept under her pristine roof. That is how Cameron got caught, actually.”

“I remember hearing about that!” Abby’s face lit up. “It gave her something to do, building a separate house for her son on the property, with a basement where he could keep the girls. One of the security staff was Sanguinostri and one night he saw the girls all chained together, barely able to walk on their own. They were being moved to the new building and he tipped the Aegis Council off to what was going on.”

“Correct.” Max confirmed. “The entire African Aegis Council paid a visit to the Timms and insisted they be given access to Cameron’s new residence. Seven girls were found, dressed like harem girls, drugged out of their minds with multiple bite wounds all over their bodies. They found wine bottles with hand written labels chronicling who the blood belonged to, when it was harvested and how the host had perished.”

“Why wasn’t he terminated then and there? Like Salvatore Rojas was?” Lou asked.

“Because of his family, his young age and because he was a blood born.” Max said with shame lacing his words. “Moshe confronted the entire family and the parents begged for mercy. They blamed themselves for not teaching Cameron the laws about that sort of thing. When I talked to him earlier, Moshe said he remembered like it was yesterday, taking pity on the boy who was sobbing at his feet. He claimed he had no idea he was breaking any laws and even when the women were questioned, they were so drugged out of their minds and addicted to whatever he had been feeding them that they each said they were there willingly.”

“How pathetic.” Lou grumbled.

“Well, now we know that Moshe suspected Cameron was behind this and that was why he wanted things kept in house. He felt guilty for letting the kid off and wanted to clean things up himself.” Abby laid it out. “Unfortunately for him, he hadn’t seen Cameron for what he truly was and he got out of Cape Town before Moshe got wise to him.”

“Is it sick that I’m not all that upset he whacked his parents now that I know what a pair of royal asshats they were?”

“It’s not sick.” Max gave a weak smile. “I felt the same way when the picture came into focus.”

“So, Cameron got back in the blood game when he crossed paths with Manuel.” Lou got back to the matter at hand. “He must have run a check on Manuel and that’s how he learned about who his father was and how he was executed for running blood back in the day. Sparked that old blood slavery interest in him and he saw a chance for connecting with a kindred spirit? Or at least the offspring of a kindred spirit.”

“Right.” Max nodded. “Some time ago, Cameron conned his parents into a family trip to Costa Rica of which he arranged to coincide with Ernesto’s family trip. This was at the early stages and before the bargain was struck between Cameron and the cartel. I believe the drug operation was a cover for his true passion, the blood trade. Him flipping the finger at the whole of the Sanguinostri, exploiting the week ones with his seductive blood supply.”

“Black blood.” Lou was thinking aloud.

“What?” Max looked at her with confusion.

“My little term I came up with today.” Lou shrugged. “Black blood, black market blood.”

“Ah.” He understood now. “Rather appropriate. That lead you had Frank look into on Gilroy, my former agent in charge here. That panned out.”

“Really?” Lou wasn’t exactly surprised, it fit.

“Yes. Apparently Gilroy had encrypted files from Cameron on his computer which lead us to learning Gilroy did in fact help get the shipments out of port.” Max finished off the last of his tea before he spoke again. “Removing Gilroy and his merry band of scumbags from their positions put a definite hitch in the operations here. That explains why Ernesto was looking for a more stable shipping route.”

“That makes sense.” Lou agreed. “But he still has to have people helping him. What about the people buying the crap? They have strong motivation for making sure their drug of choice keeps flowing in.”

“Connor and Finn are going through Juan Rojas’ computers now.” Max looked at his watch. “We figure there will be some names but whoever is doing the books on this end is going to have all the data we need.”

“I’m betting that’s Carlos Vargas.” Lou narrowed her gaze. “His last surprise visit to his brother in Colombia had to have something to do with Gilroy and his network being taken out of the picture. Carlos having ties to Los Angeles, it makes sense that Ernesto would turn to him to get things back on track out here. Hell, the man pimped out his own daughter so I wouldn’t put anything past him.”

Max furrowed his brow. “That’s a lot of pressure. Cameron wants Arcano shipping used as a pipeline so he recruits Ernesto to get his brother on board. Then they want Carlos to pick up local distribution here? That’s a little out of Carlos’ depth don’t you think?”

“Very.” Lou answered as she was thinking it through. “Maybe all those murders were tying up lose ends and sending messages to him at the same time? But what the hell? Taking all of Arcano’s furniture out of the house? The bodies? Then the fire at the beach house? It all seems so dramatic.”

“Well, it would be just like Cameron, if I am reading him right. To be arrogant enough to issue his own Bring me the Head order.” Abby tossed out her own theory. “Perhaps Esterhuizen and the Salazar brothers were not too hip on the black blood operation and wanted to peel off and take over the drug end themselves? That was a shitload of heroin, worth a shitload of money. One good run and they could retire.”

“It could even be as simple as the Salazars and Esterhuizen not giving the black blood operation the focus Cameron wanted.” Lou modified Abby’s thought. “They were focusing on the heroin and slacking on the blood which is where Cameron and the Rojas brothers heart were.”

“That makes sense too.” Abby agreed.

“The only way we are going to find out for sure is by finding Manuel Rojas and Ernesto Vargas and beating the truth out of them.” Lou looked Max straight in the eyes before she continued. “Cameron Timms is a little too big a fish for me. The boys are going to have to get that prick.”

“That goes without saying.” Max nodded. “We’re going to have to finesse all of this a good deal. The Vargas brothers can be the focus of your homicide investigation with the drugs being the motive. The Rojas’ and Cameron Timms however, they need to be surgically removed from the equation. We will need to get a hold of the Vargas brothers before you take them into custody to make sure their memories fall in line with the public version of things.”

“Dillon and I both expect the fall out from the warehouse will get tossed back to us around mid-day tomorrow.” Lou looked at the clock and saw that it was nearly 3:00 a.m. “Crap, poor Dillon is going to be exhausted.”