“I couldn’t eat another bite,” said Mary after taking the last morsel of bread, hand on stomach. “I think you’ve killed me.”
“Take your time. The coffee will help you digest.” Leopold tipped the espresso down his throat.
“We need to find something linking Creed to Teddy Gordon’s murder. We don’t have time to digest.”
“Food is a kind of meditation. Your mind is focused on just one thing—eating. This allows your subconscious to churn away in the background on less exciting things.”
“Murder cases not exciting enough for you?” said Mary, sipping her coffee.
“I thought there would be more action. You know, maybe a car chase or something. You think we can fit one in?”
“We can only hope.”
Leopold smiled and shook his head. “Look, we have Biggs’ testimony to work with. We can probably lean on Mrs. Gordon to back us up. And we’ve got these accounts on Teddy’s hard drive. I’m betting they’re on Creed’s hard drive too.”
“That’s not enough to make an arrest. We need probable cause.”
“I’m not finished. Take a look at the metadata in these files.” He pulled out the laptop again.
“The what?”
“Every file is stamped with information about who owns the document, when it was created, and when it was modified. According to this,” he opened up the spreadsheet again, “the records were created three months ago and were modified in the last forty-eight hours. More importantly,” he turned the computer around and tapped the screen, “Creed’s name is listed as the author.”
“That still doesn’t link him to the murder.”
“No. But it should get you a warrant to search his computer. All you need is something giving him a motive. Maybe Gordon found out what he was doing, threatened to go public.”
“Okay, we can work with that.” Mary fished out her cell phone from her purse. She paused. “Wait a minute. If Creed was responsible for Gordon’s death, wouldn’t he have been at the hotel that night? We can check the security footage. If we can place him at the crime scene, we’ll have motive, means, and opportunity. That’ll get us our arrest warrant.”
“Now you’re talking,” said Leopold. “I told you lunch was a good idea.”
Creed came quietly enough. Halfway through a suit fitting in his office, Mary had presented him with a choice: either come along willingly, or face the walk of shame in front of an office full of subordinates. Creed had chosen wisely.
Following a brief wait at the station for the man’s lawyer, Mary had interviewed Vincent Creed to little result. The banker had remained silent throughout, speaking only to recite his name, address, and occupation. Mary had informed him of his rights and sent him down to the holding cells. Leopold had been told to wait outside.
“Are you done yet?” Leopold asked, as Mary stormed back into the waiting room. “The coffee here is terrible.”
“I’m sure you’ll survive a little longer,” she said.
“He’s been down in the cells for nearly an hour. What else do you expect to achieve by stomping around? His lawyer will be working to put a moratorium on any warrants to search Creed’s computers, so make sure you get there first. You can hardly expect the man to confess without putting a little pressure on him.”
“I know, I know. He just gets me riled up, that’s all. Entitled bastard. You should have seen the smirk on his face all the way through the interview. Like he knew I couldn’t do anything.”
“You’ll just have to prove him wrong.”
“We don’t have long. I need to officially charge him with something in the next five hours or he’ll walk. And that’s not going to happen without something a little more concrete to link him to the murder.”
“You get his bank accounts?”
“Yeah. I’ve got some people going through them right now.”
“Let’s go take a look.”
She hesitated, then let out a sigh. “Okay, fine. You can come; just don’t speak to anyone, okay?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Mary swiped her ID card across the magnetic strip near the steel door at the back of the room. “And don’t touch anything.”
The three-man tech team was sifting through Creed’s banking records as Leopold and Mary entered the room. Their office was small and dark, no windows and no natural light, and it smelled dusty. They clearly didn’t get out much.
“What you got for me, boys?” said Mary, eying up the computer monitors.
The largest of the three turned his head. “We got a whole lotta numbers, that’s what. This guy’s frickin’ loaded. A couple of transactions stand out though.” He pointed at the screen. “Check it. There was a large cash withdrawal a couple days ago from five different ATMs downtown. Just a few blocks from the hotel Gordon was killed.”
“That’s a good start. We got him on the CCTV tapes, maybe he paid someone off.”
“Yeah, maybe. We also got a large deposit, well, larger than usual, made into his account just this morning. Two hundred thousand dollars.”
“Who made the payment?”
“We don’t know,” said the tech. “It’s not from a US bank. Hell, we have no idea where it came from. It’s gonna take us a few days to trace.”
“Get on it,” said Mary. “In the meantime, this is enough to at least get the assistant DA to sign off on an official charge. We can hold him downstairs until the bail hearing. That gives us time to assemble a case. Good work boys.” She smiled.
“Ma’am.” The big guy smiled back before returning to his workstation.
“I’ll have some friends of mine check the bank account routing numbers,” said Leopold, firing off a text message on his cell phone as they left the room. “Shouldn’t take them long.”
“Just keep me out of it,” said Mary. “If you find any evidence we can’t use it directly. And I don’t want to know where it came from.”
“Agreed. We should have an answer soon. In the meantime, let’s go see Creed’s lawyer. See what he has to say about all this.”
Creed’s lawyer was unimpressed. “None of this links my client to the murder,” he said, getting up from behind the interview table. “You’re clutching at straws. Let Mr. Creed go and stop wasting everybody’s time.”
“Sit down, Mr. Osborne,” said Mary. “What we have is CCTV camera footage of your client at the scene of the murder. We have sensitive information exchanged between your client and the victim just hours before his death. We’ve also got a considerable amount of money deposited into Mr. Creed’s bank account shortly after Mr. Gordon was killed. That’s more than enough to file charges. Mr. Creed’s not going anywhere. I suggest you inform him.”
The lawyer picked up his suitcase. “You can expect me to fight this,” he said. “And if you think I won’t get bail, you’re very much mistaken.” He breezed out of the room without another word.
“God, I hate lawyers,” said Mary.
“Who doesn’t?” said Leopold.
Mr. Osborne returned less than twenty minutes later to find Mary and Leopold waiting for him outside the interview room.
“You done?” asked Mary.
“My client has been informed of the charges. When’s the bail hearing?”
“Judge Robertson, Monday morning.”
“I need to formally request the duty officer grant pretrial leave. Mr. Creed can be released on his own recognizance until then.”
“I’ll pass the request on. It will be denied.”
“Please send the confirmation to my office. I’ll see you in court.” The lawyer marched off, disappearing around the corner.