“Sam.
What do you think about this?”
Mitchell asked.
Sam looked over at me quickly and then
back to him.
“Well, sir, I think we may have
something here. The evidence is worth
looking further into.” Sam said.
Mitchell looked back at me, trying to
read the expression on my poker face.
“Alright. What do you need from me?” He asked.
“The case re-opened.” I said.
Mitchell hesitated, creasing his eyes
at me.
“Alright. Fine.
But you’re on thin ice here, Marty.”
“And, one other thing…” I said.
“And that is…” Mitchell asked.
“I’ll need a search warrant for my
father’s house.” I said.
“Are you out of your mind!?” Mitchell said.
“You’re lucky I’m re-opening the
case. Don’t push it Lieutenant.”
“If my father’s involved, these steps
need to be taken.” I said.
Sam and I walked out of his office a
short time later. We went back to our
desks to look over any new reports that had came in, when my phone rang.
“Martin Winter.” I answered.
“Detective, this is Ray Miller from
Lloyd’s Commerce Bank, how are you?”
“Fine, thanks. Any word on the check?” I asked.
“Sort of. I’m afraid I have bad news. We were unable to trace the origin of the
funds transferred into Mrs. Darren’s account.
The trail went cold somewhere in the Caymans. Who ever it was, knew what they were
doing.” He said.
“Damn.
Okay. Thanks Ray.”
“Sure.”
I hung up the phone and stared forward
for a moment. I decided it was time to
call Mrs. Darren once more and give her some good news.
“Hello.” The familiar voice answered.
“Hi, Mrs. Darren, it’s detective Winter
again.”
“Well, hello again detective.” She said.
“I have good news for you. The money is yours. Do what you want with it.”
“Oh my lord in heaven!” She exclaimed.
I couldn’t help but laugh at her
reaction.
“Consider it an early Christmas
gift.” I said. “I’m sure you’ll spend it wisely.”
“Indeed I will detective, and thank you
very much.” She said.
“No, thank you, Mrs. Darren.” I said.
I
hung up the phone and noticed Sam walking towards me.
“Hey, we may have a lead on the footage
taken from the bank. Forensics wants to
see us.” He said.
“Let’s go.” I said.
We walked down to the lab at the back
of the station. We were greeted by
Montgomery, a forensic video analyst who was never short on energy. Everyone called him Montey for short. He was shorter and younger than we were, and
talked very fast as if he had drank too much caffeine.
“Detectives, right this way!” He said.
He led us into his control lab that was
filled with monitors and television screens.
Underneath the monitors was all the equipment necessary to power
them.
“The footage is very raw and hasn’t
given us very much.” He said, sitting
down.
“What do you got?” I asked.
“Our facial recognition software will
not work with this low resolution footage.
However, I did manage to enlarge a shot of the time stamp you specified,
and found this.” He typed in a few
strokes on his keyboard and enlarged the video on the screen in front of
us. In the video we could see the five
men in the bank, wearing winter coats and stocking hats. But, the screen was very distorted and
pixilated.
“What are we looking at here?” Sam said,
“Notice the one guy on the left at the
teller. He’s talking to the woman behind
the counter.” Montey said.
“Okay?”
I said.
“Look at his hands.” Montey said.
Suddenly it hit me. The man at the left teller window was wearing
dark gloves.
“I don’t know about you, but typically
when I come in from the cold, I take my gloves off so my hands don’t get
sweaty.” Montey said, smiling.
None of the other men in the footage
had gloves on.
“He kept his gloves on to keep his
prints off the check?” Sam asked.
“That’d be my guess.” Montey said.
“Look at the timestamp. That’s
when your ghostly deposit took place wasn’t it?”
“It’s him.” I said.
“Can you move this footage forward slowly?”
“Sure.”
Montey moved the footage forward in
slow motion showing the man exiting the camera’s view with his gloves still
on.
“I think you’re right.” Sam said, looking at me.
“You might talk with the teller who was
working that day. Maybe she could give
you a better description of him.”
“Thanks Montey, good work. Keep that tape handy.” I said.
“That’s what I’m here for.”
Sam
and I walked out of the lab and down the hallway.
“I’ll call Ray Miller at the bank and
see if he can’t figure out who that woman was behind the counter that day.”
Once again, Sam and I found ourselves
in Lloyd’s Commerce Bank. This time Ray
sat us down in their break room next to his office.
“Detectives, this is Melanie
Houston. She was the one behind the
first teller window that day. Mel, this
is detective Winter and detective Mitros.”
“Hi there.” She said smiling, shaking our hands. She had a very delicate handshake. Almost as if I squeezed her hand too hard,
her cold hands would crumble. She wore a
yellow sweater that hid under her blonde hair, covering a white blouse. She appeared to be a very perky person.
“How can I help you?” She asked.
We all sat back down around the table,
including Ray.
“Melanie, this may be hard for you to
remember, but I have to ask you to try your best, okay?” I asked, sitting down. She sat down across from Sam and I.
“Okay.”
She said.
“Three days ago, around 11:15 in the
morning, there was a white male who wanted to make an anonymous deposit of a
hundred thousand dollars into another member’s account. Do you remember this?” I asked.
“Of course! It’s not often we handle big amounts like
that.” She said.
“Can you describe him to us?” Sam asked.
“Well, the whole thing was kind of
awkward, really. All he knew when he
approached me was the member’s name, and that he wanted to deposit his check
into her account. It was, um, Olivia
Darren’s account, if I remember right.”
She said.
“That’s right.” I said.
“Can you describe him to us?”
“The guy looked like he was in his late
twenties or early thirties. He was a
little shorter than you, five-seven, five-eight or so, medium build. He also had a thick mustache under his nose
that I swore looked fake. I couldn’t see
his hair color because he wore a stocking cap that covered it. But he did keep his gloves on the whole
time. I thought that was kind of weird
too. It was like he was still cold from
being outside or something.” She said.
I looked at Sam who looked back at me
nodding.
“Anything else?” Sam said.
“His voice was weird too.” She said.
“How so?” I asked.
“If I didn’t know any better, I
would’ve thought he was trying to purposely deepen it for some reason. He came off sounding very throaty.” She finished.
“Okay, that helps a lot Melanie, thank
you.” Sam said.
We all stood up and Melanie walked
towards me.
“Sure,
if there’s anything else you need, just let me know.” She glanced me up and down while shaking my
hand, trying to put forth a subtle come-on.
“Thank you.” I said, offering a smile.
Behind me I heard Sam snicker
slightly. I glanced back at him with a
scowl, to which he responded with an innocent look.
“So, what’s next?” Sam said, as we once again exited the
bank.
“I think I’m going to pay my father a
visit. Alone.” I said.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea
Marty?” Sam said.
“I’ll be fine, trust me.” I said.
It was dark by the time I pulled into
my father’s driveway. His yard had
dim-lit lights that rested upon posts along each side of his driveway. His house appeared warm and was lit in
certain rooms. I could see the light
reflect down onto the light snow. I got
out of my car and started towards the door.
I knocked three times and that’s when I heard the sound of a gun echo
through the air originating from inside the house. I stepped back, pulled out my gun from my
waist and kicked the front door in. I
held my gun outreached in search of a target through the house, when I heard my
father speak.
“Marty, is…that you?”
His voice sounded weak and
tattered.
“Dad?”
I said.
“In here.” He said.
I walked into the living room and found
him on the floor holding his arm. His
hand was bloody and his sweatshirt sleeve began to turn red as well.
“It’s okay…he’s gone.” He said.
I holstered my weapon and knelt down
beside my father.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I came home a little while ago, and someone
hit me over the head, and dragged me into the living room.”
I lifted his hand from the wound on his
upper arm to get a closer look.
“It’s not bad. Bastard missed me. Thanks to you.” He said.
“C-mon, let’s get you up.” I said.
I helped him to his feet and sat him on
the couch. I helped him take off his
sweatshirt and he let out a groan in pain.
I took a closer look at the wound.
“It looks like the bullet just grazed
your arm. I’ll get a bandage.” I said.
“They’re in the cabinet in the
bathroom. Top shelf.” He said.
I went to the bathroom and brought out
the bandages.
“Did you get a good look at him?” I said.
“No, he was wearing a mask.” He said.
“Did he say anything to you?” I asked, cleaning his wound.
“Yeah, but not much. He said, ‘It’s all your fault, you son of a
bitch.’ Whatever the hell that
means. I was on the floor, still dizzy
from when he hit me. He had a gun pointed at
me when he heard a knock at the door. It
must have startled him. The gun went
off, but I doubt he was aiming for my arm.”
He said. “After that he ran out
the back. He’s probably long gone by
now.”
I had finished cleaning his wound and
had wrapped a bandage around his arm.
“You may want to have this looked
at.” I said, referring to his arm.
“Thank God you came when you did,
son. I might be dead by now.”
I stood up and walked around the living
room, looking for evidence. I happen to
notice the photographs on the mantle above the fireplace. They were photos taken at the wedding of Jeni
and I. There were also photos of me at
my academy graduation. I realized how
long it had been since I was in my father’s house. It felt like years. I pushed the thought away and resumed my
search around the house. The windows
hadn’t been opened or broken, and there were no other signs of forced entry,
aside from the front door I had kicked in.
I went to the back door that was still open and looked outside. The tracks in the snow headed off down the
street and disappeared soon after. I was
about to go back inside and close the door when I noticed a paper lying on the
ground. I reached into my pocket and put
my right glove on. I bent down to pick it up and the fright consumed me. It was a military photograph of Lara
Matthews. On the face of the photograph,
written in marker, were the words, ‘She’s next.’
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