Chapter 76

“Stolen?” Sinead wondered out loud, tapping her pen against her desk.

The night, overall, had been a disaster. Marc had surprised her with another undercover operation, even if what they did before that was pretty fantastic. She’d rubbed shoulders with escorts, sports celebrities, minor politicians and a bigger variety of criminals than she’d ever seen in one place other than behind bars.

Victor Barisha, no matter the fact that he was a slimeball weasel, was a lot better connected than she would have even guessed. She was... 90% sure he wasn’t le Français, but if she could nail him on a big enough charge he could probably sing about all sorts of interesting criminal enterprises for a big enough deal.

The key were the antiques. She and Marc hadn’t gotten a very good look at them, but they definitely hadn’t been North American, and her gut said they weren’t European either. North African, or maybe from somewhere in the Middle East. Her gut also said they were what was valuable, not something hidden inside them - if he’d been worried about drugs, he wouldn’t care so much about some potential cosmetic damage.

So what antiques needed to be smuggled overseas, shipped down the St Lawrence and into the Great Lakes? From Lake Ontario and the Toronto ports, someone could ship stuff by boat and through the locks to Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago. Milwaukee. Toledo. Cleveland. The list went on and on, and that was just considering if they were the final stop and not just another leg to get deeper into the US.

For them to need to be smuggled, Sinead surmised, the antiques either had to be so valuable that someone didn’t want to pay taxes on their purchase, or there was something illegal about them. Sure, they could be made of an illegal substance like ivory, or maybe be some sort of an illegal object, but they were most likely stolen from someone, somewhere.

“You look like you’re a dog who caught a rabbit and doesn’t know what to do with it now,” Jules said as she came back into the empty ‘Financial Forensics’ office and set down the fresh cup of coffee on Sinead’s desk.

“Just ... thinking,” Sinead said.

“How hard?” Jules smirked. “Am I going to start seeing steam come out of your ears?”

Sinead rolled her eyes. “Alright, hypothetical situation for now - I suspect someone is smuggling antique goods into the country, and I’m fairly certain I know the general how, but not the exact what. How do I get a warrant for the place I know they are at so I can get a proper look at them?”

Jules blew out a breath and shook her head as she sat down, kicking her feet up onto the edge of the desk she’d appropriated while she was working in the office. “Do you have any evidence?”

“Eyewitness testimony that it’s there, but not what,” Sinead said. “ ... And the testimony is from someone who might be considered compromised if it gets dug into.”

“Sinead, what the fuck did Marc do?” Jules asked.

“I- He- Nothing.”

Jules raised both eyebrows. “I-He-Nothing,” she mocked. “Did you go stake out that warehouse again, just with Marc this time?”

“ ... No,” Sinead said.

“Did you break in?”

“No!”

“But you went in,” Jules guessed.

Sinead gestured haphazardly, trying to find the words that could deflect the accusation but not finding them. “Victor invited Marc to a poker game,” she finally admitted. “Marc brought me as his ‘arm candy’ undercover.”