Loves Me Not

TWENTY THREE

AFTER
DETECTIVE BRETT PORTER

Just like that, Sunday fades into Monday and before I know it, the weekend is over. More missed chances of finding Catalaina.

At least now that it's the start of a new week, I can crack down on some things that the weekend wouldn't allow. I'm still waiting on those phone records, but there's no ETA. I could try to get a rush on them, but that's easier said than done.

The one thing I can do today, however, is speak with the bank manager at United Bank. That is where both Ben and Catalaina have their bank accounts. Hopefully speaking with her will provide me with some more insights into their life, their financial situation, and more specifically, give me any indication of whether Catalaina was planning to flee.

I wait in the office, observing picture frames on the desk for a few minutes. There's a jar of candies and I'm almost tempted to reach out and grab one. But then the door opens and in walks a woman. She's petite and blonde, has an intimidating face. It almost vanishes when she smiles at me.
"Katherine McCaul," she says as she sticks out her hand.
"Detective Porter," I meet her grip.
"Pleasure to meet you, Detective." She takes a seat at her desk.
"Thank you for agreeing to see me on such short notice."
"Of course. All I've been seeing this weekend is news about the disappearance. Honestly, I didn't even know that she banked with us. But if you think that this might help the case, and you have a warrant, then please, anything I can do."
I give her the warrant and she scans it over. "You managed to get this in practically no time," she remarks.
"Had to pull a string or two. Helps to know people in high places."
She smirks and hands it back to me.
"I think we need to start by looking at her personal bank account," I say. "And then I'd like to see her mutual account that she shares with Ben."
"Of course. I'll bring it up now."
I wait for a moment as she types something into her computer, begins clicking her mouse. I watch as her facial expression changes. She clicks and types something else. I wait.
"That's odd," she says. "Catalaina has two separate accounts here, apart from the mutual account."
"Two individual accounts?"
"Yes. The first one was opened years ago, when she first started banking with us. Then the one with Ben was opened late last year. But then this one here," she pauses again, then looks at me. "Was opened at the end of April."
"Not even a month ago."
She nods.
"How much is in there?" I ask.
She looks back at the computer, then says, "Almost three thousand."
I push out my chair and stand up, walking around to the other side of the desk to see the computer screen. Sure enough, the numbers don't lie.
"Scroll down. I want to see everything, from when she first opened it to every single transaction going in and out."

Katherine does as I say. We see that the account was opened on the fifth of April. She puts a minimum deposit of two hundred to start the account. Then from that point forward, it's weekly payments, usually on a Sunday. It ranges from two hundred dollars to six hundred dollars. I think about the cash hidden away in the bookshelf. Why didn't she deposit that into the account? Perhaps she hadn't gotten around to it yet, especially if these deposits were a weekly occurrence.

Katherine eventually gets to the most recent deposit, which was made on Sunday May 12, just three days before she disappeared.

"And there's absolutely no withdrawals?" I ask. "Nothing outgoing at all? Not even transfers into the main account?"
"No," she shakes her head. "So far, there's only been deposits."
"Was she funneling money from the mutual account or her main account into this one?"
Katherine clicks around in the computer for a moment, and then she says, "No. Any withdrawals from the other accounts don't align with the deposits in this one. I'm going to take a safe bet here and say that this is new money going in, nothing from pre-existing accounts."

I stand back and scratch my chin, still staring at the screen. It's conspicuous enough that this woman opened up a separate bank account. But it's even more conspicuous that she was making fairly large deposits on a weekly basis.

But what gets me the most is that if Catalaina was planning on running away to disappear and was saving up enough money to do so, then why was there no withdrawals preceding her disappearance? The money went in, but nothing went out. Just in the same way that Catalaina went somewhere, but has not come back.

But you know what they say: what goes up, at some point, must come down.

______

I return to the house to speak with Ben. In regards to his fiancé's secret bank account, just as I presumed, he is clueless.

"What do you mean she had a second account?" he asks, perplexed.
"Exactly that," I say. "She opened it at the beginning of April. Any idea why she would do such a thing?"
"How would I know that?"
"Perhaps because she's the woman you plan on marrying," I say to him. "Don't you know her at all?"
He stares at me and is quiet for a moment. Then he says, "Apparently not."

The phone records come in on Tuesday, which is a miracle considering how long they can take. I spend the majority of the afternoon studying them, going through the pages with a highlighter. I look at everything from the last five months, from January until May, right up until the day she disappeared.

The call logs are quite normal and as to be expected. Most of the incoming and outgoing numbers are to the same people: Ben, Mom, and Dad. A few calls to the brother here and there. I also make note of Scarlett's number and track the amount of times they called each other on a weekly basis. Phone calls every night for two months, and then all of a sudden – three weeks prior to her disappearance – the calls cease.

There are a few other numbers here and there that either don't matter or do. I'll have to trace every single one and rule them out individually.

One number in particular stands out from the rest. The calls to and from this number begin in February. At first the calls are sporadic, no pattern. But then the calls become more frequent, and there are specific times each day and week that the calls come in. Mondays after 8 p.m. Saturdays around 4 p.m. I get one of my guys on it and have them trace the number.

I sit in my office and go over my notes again. It's difficult to pinpoint exactly what happened to Catalaina based on lack of circumstantial evidence. There is nothing amiss in the home, nothing to suggest foul play was involved. There's no body, and unless there's a body, I can't even be sure that she was taken.

I consider everything else so far. The car in the driveway, the full closet, the missing purse and cellphone. What does this tell me? She left in a hurry. We know based on Ben's statement – if he's indeed telling the truth – that she must have left some time in the middle of the night. But why? What would cause her to leave so abruptly?

I checked the phone records – no incoming or outgoing calls around that time. So was she planning on meeting someone? Are those what the dates in her day-planner were? Secret meetings?

She could have been having an affair. Ben did say that she was unfaithful to him a few months back. Could she have been doing it again? Runaway with her secret lover?

Clearly she was not abducted arbitrarily. If she was taken by someone, then it was planned. She left the house on her own free will in the middle of the night, but in her mind, she planned on coming home afterwards. Which means that something went wrong after she left. Whoever she was meeting, or whatever she was doing, didn't go as planned.