White Collar Paradise

Chapter 7

[Chapter 7]

“Boss, we’ve got an ID from the cross-reference. There’s only one guy who smokes that brand of cigar we lifted off the ash, has that particular type of denim jacket, and attended that party. Yale Bates, 43, owner of a small financial firm.” I reported, walking into the room with the file in my hands. My team was working on a fraud case that had only recently been reopened by Clarke under directions of Barrett, but we were getting on with evidence that hadn’t been spotted by previous agents so far.

Of course, it did help that Hayden, Mr. Jack of Spades, had pointed out the M.O. for the suspected, and thought out everything with a con artist’s mind. It didn’t take me long to guess who the perpetrator of this sort of crime was, and though I had the answer to this case, as Annabel Francis, the new transfer from Bronx Homicide, I had to pretend that I didn’t.

Though Hayden did know that I was subtly inching the team towards the answer.

After the argument on our first day, Hayden hadn’t wanted to talk more about our complicated relationship. To him, it was as if his sister was dead, and only Annabel Francis had taken on her identity. Annabel Francis hated it that Hayden continued to run away from the problem, but only Hayley Seyfried was crying out with hurt on the inside every single time he looked away after meeting her gaze.

I knew he wasn’t ready to accept me back in his life yet, but the way my brother employed his tactics to make me feel guilt was almost too much for me to take.

“Great. How about his accomplice-slash-temporary-girlfriend?” Clarke received the file from me, scanning through the file quickly.

“Do you want me to give you a hunch, or evidence that she’s seen anywhere near the money?”

“If I ask for the latter, you’re going to tell me you have nothing, aren’t you?” I was here only weeks, and Rainer was already beginning to catch in on my style of work.

No wonder this guy topped his cohort in Criminology. He was awfully good at pinning down my style and Hayden’s. He did point out –at one point of time –that I worked almost like Hayden. Of course we did –we were taught the same way, after all –but Rainer Clarke couldn’t know about it, so we lied about it being a coincidence.

“Bingo. But if you’re asking for the first, I have logical explanations.”

“Not my style to ask for hunches, but go on –since we’re on our last lap.”

I went forwards to the map spread out on the table, taking a marker from the table.

“Yale and Sophia live here –at least at the time when the party happened. The party was here –a few blocks away. Records say witnesses saw a suspicious figure running up the road, others saw another one running down. One of them has to be Sophia. They had to split up, before their rendezvous back at their home. Yale was caught and arrested two hours after. No money. Logically, it’s with Sophia.” I made a few drawings and circles to help my fellow team members understand.

“For a woman in heels and a party cocktail dress, no matter how much of a runner she is, she’s not going to be able to run the entire place out before her arrest three hours after Yale. With that much of money along with her, she’s got to drop it off somewhere. There are a million routes from the party back to Yale’s, but with a radius of 3 miles max –this considering she’s an athlete and might even be able to win some Olympics medals –there’s only a few places you can drop that money and run safely. Here, here, and lastly, this lousy warehouse.”

“Interesting. But cops checked out these two after the fraud. Nothing there. Suppose someone else is part of this, dropped in and cashed out the money, leaving Sophia and Yale to hang?”