No Angels

Columbus Ohio

Bradley Falter was doing his last road trip in style. He found a dealership in Columbus and talked with a sales guy for less than two minutes when a brand-new Cadillac Escalade was pulled from the lot and put through the car wash.

Terry Gruentz had always dreamed of somebody coming into the showroom, buying an expensive car, paying for it, and leaving. The funny thing about this was that in all the scenarios Terry had seen in his head the past two years, the protagonist was a professional athlete or a rapper coming in with a stack and just driving away.

Brad Falter did not fit any of that lofty vision. The car he traded in was a piece of shit held together by Bondo and threadbare duct tape that was holding on long enough to get him to the lot. The dealership reluctantly gave him a thousand-dollar trade-in despite the car's age, condition, miles, and smell. 

Gruentz was gut-punched by the smell of the inside of the vehicle, and the only thing he did to earn this commission that day was to work through the sale without breathing. He never stopped smiling.

While they were filling out the paperwork to put the new car on the road, Brad kept coughing into a paper towel he had gotten in the men's room. At one point, Terry got up and brought Falter some more paper towels, and he asked Brad if he "wanted a soda or a water." Brad said he would love a cola.

While getting the customer his drink, Terry got excited about this sale, which put him over his quota for the month with three more weeks to go. It was nice to at least think of telling Gary Snolet, the sales manager, to screw himself. Terry could not imagine three weeks of no badgering. 

This was also the first time Terry made a sale that required the dealership to file a Form 8300 with the IRS, which is required when there is a cash sale over $10,000.

Terry Gruentz was popping all kinds of cherries today, and tonight, he would take Amanda to Applebees. The adjusted price of the Escalade after the trade-in was $149,000.57.

When he returned to his table, Terry looked down into his trash can and saw that Mr. Falter had been coughing up blood. He gave Brad a couple more paper towels and his cola and said. 

"The lot guys are washing your new car and bringing it around. Are you sure you don't want to test-drive it?"

Brad laughed, saying, "He did not have time for a test drive." 

Brad had dreamed of paying cash for a new car and was smiling. This event was a bit of joy in his last days, and he saw the joy that it was bringing the sales douche.

Gruentz had overcome the smell of the old car and its owner, and now he wanted the customer to leave so he could smoke a cigarette and do a jig on the sales floor. He was just about ready to piss himself as he kept touching the button on his phone that would ring Amanda.

Terry finished the paperwork, and Brad pulled out the money he had been scrounging for many years. Gruentz had the dealership secretary count and arrange it while he and Brad sipped their colas. 

"It's a beauty, Mr. Falter."  

The money was now counted and placed in the dealership safe. 

The last duty of the lot guys was to screw on the old license plate to the new car, and when they were finished, everyone knew that the rusty old plate looked horrible on this beautiful brand-new beast of a car.

Brad and Terry shook hands, and then Brad climbed up and in and was gone.

The whole transaction took under forty minutes, from when the customer walked into the dealership to when he left. For Gruentz, the cherries kept popping.

A Burger Joint In Cambridge, Massachusetts

They had been texting each other for a few days, and now it was time for Ben Mason and Special Agent Lisa Tanaka to meet. She chose a very friendly Burger Joint in Harvard Square; he was there when she arrived.

Ben looked at her and realized she was coming from work. She wore the suit of armor that F.B.I. agents wear on "casual days." Tanaka wore a tasteful navy blue dress that screamed tight ass, and all Brad could think about was, where was her gun?

He made figuring out where her gun was his mission for the evening.

The two fist-bumped at the hostess stand, and Tanaka said, "I fucking love this place, The burgers are never frozen, and their fries are incredible."

Brad had not been here since his undergrad days, but he remembered enough about the place to agree with Lisa.

She said, "In case you are trying to figure out where my gun is, it's in my purse."

Brad laughed out loud. Tanaka was direct and refreshing, and boy, did she smell good.

The place was filled with mostly college-aged kids who accidentally forgot that they were vegan when the smell of flame broiling hit their noses. You cannot walk anywhere in the square without smelling the burgers from the cottage.

Lisa started the hum drum crap with, "How was your day?" Brad thought for a second and said, "I'll try to tell you what most days are like for me.  First, I have teaching duties, and I run one class each semester, which is good. I love that. Then, a handful of graduate students are helping out with that. We have coffee at 10:30."

"The next part of the day is spent thinking, reading, and writing about developments in the tech world. As you know, I focus on the dark side of Technology."

Tanaka laughed and said, "Word on the street is that either you or Musk are Skynet's secret CEOs."

Mason started laughing again at a well-known cultural reference to The Terminator series of movies, where Skynet is the corporation that allows Artificial Intelligence to go haywire.

Mason added that "he thought a few players were working to develop a real version of SkyNet and that if he had to guess, "It would rise out of India."

Lisa arched her eyebrow a bit, considered that, and added, "Robots that destroy mankind while serving plates of Chicken Curry Vindaloo?"

At that moment, Ben Mason looked at Lisa and knew he loved her.

The night was full of rum and colas, burgers, and laughter.

On The Road With Johnny Rivers And A Dog Hanging His Head Out the Window

Allston had road trips in his D.N.A. He always loved filling a weekend bag and going anywhere, and he was thinking about this and the case. He told his client where he was going, Ohio, and he promised Natalie he would not call for an arrest if he identified the Falters as the suspects without calling her first. 

Natalie was sure that Brad was the one who tried to kill her in Maine, but she never really knew if she managed to kill Steve on that night in Missouri. This trip by her P.I. Allston would reveal that.

The more he thought about the whole thing, Allston could not zero in on a motive. Did Brad try to kill Natalie out of revenge for stabbing his brother? If so, why would he go all the way to Aspen to kill Charlie Lopez?

Strier was able to firm up that the killer in Aspen and the person who attempted to kill Natalie in Maine were the same person. Hollywood thought someone was trying to kill the show's whole cast, which created many more angles. 

TXT NATALIE: I found something we should consider for the case. My legal team brought it up. TXT ALLSTON: What's that? TXT NATALIE: I have been holding on to the backpack I used when I left Kentucky. I went through it, and the knife I had used that night was in the pack. There is still DNA on it and the legal team wants to get it analyzed. TXT ALLSTON: Holy Moly!

The rates I charge my clients for incidentals like meals and hotel rooms are huge, but I stay on the cheap side when I like a client.  Tango and I are crashing for the night in a non-chain road sider. It's clean and connected to a convenience store with a frozen meal section.

I'm thinking about the Falters who moved to their house in the 70s when they were kids. There were sealed juvenile records I could not access, but I ran a Lexis Nexis Search on the address of the home, and there were a series of articles about neighborhood dogs and cats being found dead to the point where it was a pattern. There were no articles about that case being solved. As adults, both of the Falters accumulated multiple arrests for a few Break-ins, one stolen car, and two incidents where they were each charged with sexual assaults by women. The two were no angels.

Over the years, there have been a few speeding violations and a federal charge related to collecting Federal Benefits for a deceased family member. Again, these two were no angels.

They both showed gainful employment as truck drivers. They once joined the same company as a tandem driving team.

In a few years, they bought a truck and registered a new company, Super Apple Trucking. 

Then they went dark.

No speeding violations and all paperwork was filed on time. They even paid their taxes.

It's unusual that neither Falter had any marriage or divorce records. They looked like they worked a lot. State and Federal filings placed them in the high-earning category. The house they lived in was paid for.

Did they have spare time, and if so, what did they do with it?

The map view showed a tiny home built in the fifties with a chain-link fence. When the Maps crew drove by, no cars were in the driveway.

Allston laid on the very comfortable hotel bed and summed up - Animal killers who stole their dead parent's social security and assaulted women.

No Angels.