Page 16 of Keller

“All right,” he says. “Walk me through where we are.”

“Right now I'm making a flow chart of how the day-to-day at Stone Intermodal looks. I haven't started anything yet, but my first plan is to visit the docks and just get to know the workers.”

He nods. “What do you need to get this investigation going? You can have any resources you need.”

I straighten in the chair. “Right now, nothing. I’ve gone back through the preliminary materials. The homicide ruling hasn’t changed. It was a mugging gone wrong. But the unresolved pieces are still there, including the timeline gaps and the other missing people that have worked with them in the past.”

“What does that tell you?”

“Nothing, yet,” I say carefully. “But I plan to really dig into the shipping manifests and see where the missing folks and Robert Stone line up.”

“That's what we want to do. Nothing saying there is anything there, but I want to be sure,” he says.

“I’m not convinced it was random, but I’m also not convinced it wasn’t. When I'm finished, we'll know.”

Martin turns from the window and leans back against the edge of his desk. “I like your confidence. If anyone can find the needle in a haystack, it's you.”

He doesn’t need to explain why this landed on my desk. We already had that conversation. The promotion, the quiet shift in responsibility, the expectation that I would ask the right questions before drawing any conclusions.

Because of who Robert Stone was, and Stone Intermodal's significance in this city, we have to tread lightly until we have something concrete.

“What I’m trying to do now,” I continue, “is define the scope. Figure out what’s reasonable to look at without creating noise. I don’t want to start pulling threads until I know which ones actually matter.”

“What threads are you considering?” he asks.

“Financial exposure,” I say. “Nothing specific yet. Just whether there’s anything in the company’s structure or recent activity that would suggest motive, leverage, or pressure points tied to Robert Stone personally.”

Martin studies me. “You’re keeping it abstract.”

“For now,” I say. “I need a clean baseline before I start looking for anomalies.”

He nods once.

"My plan is to start with the corporate side and work outward. Stone Intermodal’s public filings, subsidiary structures, port authority contracts, recent audits. I want to build a clean financial map before I look for irregularities.”

“And how do you define irregularities in this case?” he asks.

“Money that suggests motive, debt exposure that wasn’t public, payments that don’t line up with declared operations. I want to put my eyes on anything that could explain why someone might want Robert Stone dead or why his death benefited someone else.”

Martin watches me closely. “And if you find nothing?”

“Then we document that,” I say evenly. “And we close it.”

“That answer matters,” he says. “The Stones are powerful. Stone Intermodal moves a significant percentage of container traffic through this port. They have political connections, legal teams on retainer, and a family that just buried their patriarch. We are not looking to rattle cages for sport.”

“I understand,” I say. “This isn’t a fishing expedition.”

“No,” he agrees. “It’s a confirmation exercise.”

He pushes off the desk and crosses to the table, picking up a thin folder. He doesn’t hand it to me yet.

“This stays quiet,” he says. “No subpoenas. No direct contact with the company or the family. No outreach that leaves a footprint. You pull what you can from public and quasi-public sources. If you need anything beyond that, you come to me first.”

“Understood.”

“You’ll give me a weekly check-in,” he continues. “Short, focused, what you’ve reviewed, what you’re flagging, what’s next. If you hit something that looks real, we pause and reassess before you dig deeper.”

“And the timeline?” I ask.