BOOK ONE: DECEPTIONS
Chapters One to Twenty Six
Vignettes 1 - 140

BOOK TWO: YESTERDAY ECHOES
Chapters 27 to
Vignettes 141 -

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Vignette #187: Connecting Ian

Kellen nodded his head. “I deserved that.” He motioned for the others to start spilling the beans.

“Can we all be calm about this?” Yarrow carefully took his seat and held his hands up.

“Probably not.” Ian continued to flex his right hand, but took his seat. “Start talking.”

Andy nodded his head. “It all finally made sense, but just to be sure I did a thorough check to make sure Balouche’s note checked out. I was able to identify the Jane Doe as Ella Manchester but wasn’t able to get any verification from fingerprints, dental records or DNA. I had to get a court order to run the prints through higher security files.”

“That’s when I got alerted.” Barrow added. “But we’ll get to that.”

“I finally called Kellen to come over to the scene where I found Balouche’s body.”

Kellen nodded, pulling himself up to his chair. “That’s when little things came together and then fell apart.”

“Okay, you’re losing me.” Ian poured a cup of water and handed it to Kellen. “Is this over or not?”

The man with the puffy jaw sipped and waved his hands. “At first the note made sense. They had forged ID and rented the apartment in your name via the Internet. They had even stashed enough evidence to point fingers directly at you.”

“What kind of evidence?”

“Forged contracts, and little personal things that one might leave behind accidentally.” Andy said.

“Like?”

There was a sigh. “Marlboro Light 100 butts dropped outside the window, a couple of cell phones you thought you had lost stashed in places one might forget to look and remember those gloves you thought you’d left at the restaurant?” Kellen looked at Ian. “They were at the back of the top shelf of the closet right by the front door of the apartment.”

Ian’s eyes got wide. “There was enough there, that if I hadn’t read Balouche’s confession even I couldn’t deny you’d been involved.”

“And how do you know that I’m not?” Ian decided to play devil’s advocate.

“Because of a few little things they didn’t know, but the two of us did.” Andy indicated Kellen and himself. Mitchell reached for a file on the desk, opened it and looked at it. “I recognized Balouche’s handwriting immediately, even after pouring over it several dozen times I had no doubt.” He handed it to Ian. “But it’s a forgery.”

“How do you know?” Ian handed it back.

“I caught it.” Kellen said. “Look again.”

They watched Ian’s eyes scan down the papers, flip to the second page and scan more until his eyes shot up to meet Kellen’s. “Whoops…”

Kellen nodded his head. Andy turned to Barrow. “I would probably have caught it eventually. It wasn’t until Kellen reminded me that I remembered him correcting both Balouche and I when he sighed his statement the night of Blue Richard’s death.”

“He spelled my last name with an “I” instead of a “Y”.” Ian said out loud.

“I double checked.” Andy said. “On every document, note and paper since then we always spelled your name correctly. We even made jokes about it. Peyton Balouche did not write that note.”

“Then there was the kicker.” Kellen turned to Yancy Barrow.

“The reason Ella’s body couldn’t be identified had nothing to do with any cover up Balouche did. There were facts he didn’t know, facts neither he, Blue Richards or whoever this third party at HRT had any idea about.” Barrow informed Ian.

“And they are?” Ian raised an eyebrow indicating he was still taking no prisoners.

“Ella Manchester doesn’t exist.” Barrow said.

Ian sat back in his chair. “Of course she exists, I’ve worked side by side with her for the past five, six months.”

“Of course you did.” Barrow folded his hands in front of him. “But the woman you knew as Ella Manchester was born Isabella Nicholas. She was my partner.” Barrow waited for that to register. “In the F.B.I.”

Ian took a moment to pick his jaw up off the floor. “The F.B.I. is involved?”

“Not until this morning.” Kellen said, still rubbing his jaw.

“Isabella got out.” Barrow explained. “She was tired of having a job that lived her life for her. She moved out here and started a new life. I got a few calls and emails, telling me how much she loved it. She enjoyed using her brain for something other than tracking down America’s Most Wanted.”

“She was amazing.” Ian said mournfully.

“Then the tone started to change and suddenly there was no contact.” Yancy Barrow’s tone matched Ian’s. “I assumed she’d moved on and had decided not to look back.”

“Wait a minute.” Ian caught a detail. “You said the tone changed. How?”

Barrow smiled. “You’re pretty good at this.”

“Moving right along.” Ian flexed is right fist again and looked at Kellen. “I think I hurt something.”

“No kidding.” He said.

“She mentioned albeit cryptically that something was up and she was resisting getting involved in it.” Barrow stepped in. “She mentioned she’d met a man, outside of work, who seemed a little too interested in what was going on at work. Then nothing until a little over a month ago.”

“Time wise around twenty four hours after your…accident.” Andy hesitated at the last word.

“She left a message on a private number she and I only used for emergencies. She didn’t go into detail but said there was trouble, that by the time I got the voice mail she was either in hiding or dead and that I needed to come straight here and help you specifically put all the pieces together.”

“What pieces?” Ian was dumb founded.

Andy lurched forward. “Obviously the man she was talking about was Blue Richards. She sniffed and dug around and uncovered what was going on.”

“We don’t know if she was holding out to get more information or she didn’t realize it herself until Balouche and Andy showed up at her door with the news about Blue.” Kellen told Ian.

“Regardless, whoever this other party is either knew what she’d figured out or she was just a loose end he’s been very tidy about cleaning up.” Barrow mentioned.

“Third party?” Ian said. “You’re positive there is a third party?”

“Thanks to Ella…” Andy corrected himself. “Isabella we are positive.”

Before Ian could ask Kellen answered. “She left us a clue, leading right back to you.”

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