Investigators

by W. E. B Griffin

  “I know that she has had a very difficult time with her husband, if that’s what you mean. And that he is a highly decorated, grievously wounded—”

  “We think she has been used, Mr. Chase,” Matt said. “I can’t really believe there will be much interest in putting her in prison. Providing, of course, she comes to understand the mess she’s in, and cooperates.”

  “Used by whom?” Chase asked coldly.

  “Her across-the-backyard neighbor,” Deitrich said. “Who is the uncle of the police officer now under arrest.”

  “You’re suggesting that she’s . . . that they’re involved? Personally, I mean?”

  “It looks that way, Mr. Chase,” Deitrich said.

  Chase considered that a moment.

  “The poor woman,” he said, and then shifted into his banker’s role: “Exactly what is it you want from me? How is the bank involved in this?”

  “We just learned—we left a car watching her house; they got on the radio—that she is in her car, and apparently on her way here, to work,” Deitrich said.

  “You mean she’s not here now?”

  “I suppose she’s come in late today,” Matt said.

  Chase gave him a dirty look. This tragic situation was obviously not the place for levity.

  “When she comes in, Mr. Chase,” Matt said, “we’d like to talk to her here, in your office.”

  “To what end?” Chase demanded coldly.

  “Detective Payne thinks,” Deitrich picked up on Chase’s annoyance with Matt and answered for him, “and I agree, that when she sees us here, and knows that we know, she’ll give us what we want.”

  “I just can’t believe this of Adelaide.”

  “Frankly, I feel sorry for her,” Deitrich said. “I hope that she sees that the only thing for her to do is admit that she’s done something really foolish, and tries to help us straighten it out.”

  “And the alternative?”

  “We’re prepared to arrest her on suspicion of receiving stolen property,” Matt said. “Other charges are possible.”

  “You’re going to arrest her, here, now, right in the bank?”

  “If that becomes necessary, yes, sir,” Matt said.

  “And once you arrest her, then what?”

  “We’ll interview her. Ask for her cooperation. If she’s unwilling to cooperate, then we’ll get a search warrant for the safe-deposit box.”

  “No judge will give you—no judge should give you, it wouldn’t be fair to our customers—a warrant to go into every safe-deposit box in the bank.”

  “No, sir,” Matt said. “But I’m sure I can get a judge to give me one requiring the bank to give me access to every unrented safe-deposit box. I think that’s what Mrs. Worner has done, permit Calhoun to use an unrented box. Or maybe she’s got a box, and she’s letting him use hers. But I think we’ll find we’re talking about an unrented box.”

  Chase looked at him coldly, then at Deitrich, and then back at Matt.

  “And what you hope I’ll do—this is it, isn’t it?—is that I’ll talk to her.”

  “That would be in everybody’s best interests, Mr. Chase,” Dietrich said.

  “Yes, I suppose it would,” Chase said thoughtfully, and sighed audibly. “We’ll have to let her go, of course. The bank simply cannot tolerate—”

  “There she is,” Deitrich said softly, gesturing through the glass wall to the wide lobby.

  Mrs. Adelaide Worner was pulling at the knob of a door marked “Employees Only” to make sure that she had closed it well. Then she started to walk across the polished marble floor of the bank lobby toward the safe-deposit-box vault.

  She was plain, gray-haired, and a little plump. But there were vestiges of what probably had been above-average youthful beauty.

  She looks, Matt thought, like somebody who sings in a church choir.

  Chase stepped to his door and opened it, and leaned over his secretary’s desk to say something very quietly to her.

  “I don’t like this part of the job very much,” Lieutenant Deitrich said softly.

  Chase’s secretary got up from her desk and walked across the lobby after Mrs. Worner. A moment later, they both came out of the safe-deposit-vault entrance and started across the lobby.

  Chase stood in the door between his desk and his outer office and waited for them.

  “Good morning, Adelaide,” he said.

  “Good morning, Mr. Chase.”

  “Would you step into my office, please? These gentlemen want to have a word with you.”

  “Mr. Chase,” Mrs. Worner said. “I can’t tell you how sorry, how ashamed, I am to have involved the bank in this.”

  Chase put his arm around her shoulders.

  “Come in, and sit down, and we’ll see if we can’t try to straighten things out,” he said.

  He looked at Matt with what Matt recognized was more than distaste. It was closer to hate.

  “Do you remember me, Adelaide?” Deitrich asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Mrs. Worner said. “Before we had to send Al to the hospital, we used to see you down at the VFW.”

  “That’s right,” Deitrich said. “Adelaide, this is Detective Payne of the Philadelphia Police Department.”

  Mrs. Worner looked at Matt with terror in her eyes.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Worner,” Matt said.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  “I’d like you to tell me about the safe-deposit box you’ve been letting Timmy Calhoun use. Are you willing to talk to me about that?”

  “I really don’t have much choice, do I?” Mrs. Worner said.

  “Are we all ready for this?” Matt asked, and looked around the safe-deposit vault. There were nods.

  “Okay,” Matt said. “Here we go. I am Detective Matthew M. Payne, Badge 701, of the Philadelphia Police Department.”

  “A little slower, please, if you can, Detective,” the stenographer said.

  “I’ll try,” Matt said.

  “This is an interview of Mrs. Adelaide Worner being conducted in the First Harrisburg Bank and Trust Building, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In addition to myself and Mrs. Worner, present are Lieutenant Paul Deitrich of the Harrisburg Police Department and Mr. James C. Chase, Vice President of the First Harrisburg Bank and Trust. The interview is being recorded and transcribed by Mrs. . . . I’m sorry, I forgot your name.”

  “Grace Placker, Mrs. Grace Placker,” the stenographer furnished.

  “Mrs. Grace Placker, of the Harrisburg Police Department,” Matt went on. He looked at Adelaide Worner.

  “Mrs. Worner, you have already been advised of your rights under the Miranda decision. . . .”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “But to make sure that we have crossed all the t’s and dotted all the i’s, I’m going to go over your rights again. All right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m going to ask you questions about Officer Timothy Calhoun of the Philadelphia Police Department having access to a safe-deposit box in the Harrisburg Bank and Trust vault.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Matt took his leather credentials folder from his pocket, took out a small cardboard card, and read from it:

  “I have a duty to explain to you and to warn you that you have the following legal rights: You have the right to remain silent and do not have to say anything at all. Anything you say can and will be used against you in court. You have a right to talk to a lawyer of your own choice before I ask you any questions, and also to have a lawyer here with you while I ask questions. If you cannot afford to hire a lawyer, and you want one, I will see that you have a lawyer provided to you, free of charge, before I ask you any questions. If you are willing to give me a statement, you have a right to stop anytime you wish.”

  He stopped reading and looked at her.

  “Do you understand your rights, Mrs. Worner?”

  “Yes, sir, I do. Lieutenant Deitrich went over all that with me before in Mr. Chase’s office.”

  “
And, Adelaide, I told you then that I’ll get you a lawyer if you want one,” Chase said.

  “If I’m going to tell the truth, why do I need a lawyer? I’ve caused you enough trouble as it is.”

  “We just want to be sure you understand your rights, Mrs. Worner,” Matt said.

  “I do.”

  “Then you are,” Matt dropped his eyes to his Miranda card and read, “willing to answer questions of your own free will, without force or fear, and without any threats and promises having been made to you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Mrs. Worner, are you acquainted with Officer Timothy J. Calhoun of the Philadelphia Police Department?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “How did you come to meet Officer Calhoun?”

  “He’s the nephew of my neighbor.”

  “Is your neighbor’s name Vincent T. Holmes?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “At any time, did you make available to Officer Calhoun a safe-deposit box in the vault of the First Harrisburg Bank and Trust Company?”

  “Yes, I did. I told you that.”

  “Did Officer Calhoun follow the usual procedures to get a safe-deposit box? I mean, did he identify himself, fill out an application, and pay a rental fee?”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “In other words, you let him have the use of a safe-deposit box for free, and without making any records for the bank?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why did you do this?”

  “Because he asked me to.”

  “Did he tell you why he didn’t want to give his name, fill out the application, and pay rent?”

  “Oh, I didn’t understand what you were asking,” Adelaide Worner said. “He said, or maybe it was Vincent who said . . . One or the other of them, anyway, said that Monica had gotten in an automobile accident in Philadelphia, and that they were going to be sued, and were probably going to lose, and if they lost, they were going to take everything they owned, because they hadn’t been able to afford insurance, you see, unless they could put a little bit away somewhere where the lawyers couldn’t find it.”

  “Money, you mean?”

  “Money and some jewelry Monica inherited from her grandmother.”

  “Let me see if I have that straight, Mrs. Worner. You were told that Mrs. Calhoun was about to be sued because she had been involved in an automobile accident; that the Calhouns did not have insurance; and that if they lost the lawsuit, the lawyers were going to take everything they owned?”

  “That’s what they told me. Vincent first, and then Timmy and Monica, later.”

  “So you helped them hide money, and jewelry, by making a safe-deposit box available to Officer Calhoun?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Just Officer Calhoun? Did Mrs. Calhoun ever use the box?”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “And Mr. Holmes? Did he ever go into the box?”

  “Yes, he did. Both of them did.”

  “Did you ever see what Officer Calhoun, Mrs. Calhoun, or Mr. Holmes put into the safe-deposit box, or took out of it? Did you ever see any of the money, or the jewelry Mrs. Calhoun inherited from her grandmother?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Can you explain that to me, please? Why not?”

  “Because, except for not making a record that they had rented a box, I treated them like any other customer. They came to my desk, I went with them to the box with my—the bank’s—key and unlocked the bank’s lock. They unlocked their lock—you understand there’s two locks on every box?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And then they took the box into one of the little rooms, closed the door for privacy, and then either put things into it, or took things out of it.”

  “So you have no personal knowledge of what went into the box we’re talking about?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Did it occur to you, Mrs. Worner, that what you were doing might be illegal?”

  “Yes, sir, it did. I realized I was cheating the bank.”

  “Out of the box rent, you mean.”

  “Yes, sir, that’s what I mean. That bothered me.”

  “Mrs. Worner, did you have any idea that Officer Calhoun might be engaged in an illegal activity besides concealing his assets?”

  “I knew he was a policeman. I didn’t even think of anything like that. I knew his wife had stubbed her toe.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “That she’d had a couple of drinks in her when she’d had the accident. That was why—even though the accident wasn’t really her fault—they were going to lose in court.”

  “But aside from Mrs. Calhoun’s drunken driving, and the Calhouns’ desire to conceal their assets from the court, you had no knowledge or suspicion of any other criminal activity on the part of Officer Calhoun?”

  “Not until this morning,” Adelaide said.

  “What happened this morning?”

  “After the police went to Vincent’s house and arrested Timmy, Vincent went over there—”

  “Excuse me. Vincent—Mr. Holmes—‘went over there’? By over there, you mean to his house?”

  Mrs. Worner lowered her head and blushed.

  “He . . . Vincent had spent the night at my house,” she said.

  “Okay. And after the police arrested Officer Calhoun, he went to his house to see what was going on?”

  “Yes. And Monica told him what had happened, and Vincent came back and told me he didn’t know what, but Timmy was in some kind of trouble with the police, and that if I didn’t want bad trouble myself, I should never tell anybody, ever, about the safe-deposit box.”

  “But you’re talking to me now?”

  “I am not a criminal-type person, Mr. Detective. As soon as I could work up the courage, I was going to see Mr. Chase and tell him what I had done.”

  “Mrs. Worner, let’s talk about the safe-deposit box,” Matt said.

  “Yes, sir. Four twenty-one. It’s a C-size box,” she said, and pointed.

  “A ‘C-size box’?”

  “There are six sizes, A through F, A being the largest, F the smallest.”

  “I see. Now, I want to be very careful about this. Do you know who the last person to go into that box was?”

  “Yes, sir. Timmy.”

  “By Timmy, you mean Officer Timothy J. Calhoun?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Is there any possibility at all that anyone else has had access to that box since Officer Calhoun went into it?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because I am in charge of the safe-deposit boxes. No one gets into one of them unless they come by my desk and sign themselves in.”

  Matt turned to Chase.

  “Mr. Chase, as an officer of this bank, do you have the authority to grant Lieutenant Deitrich and myself access to safe-deposit box number 421?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I ask you now, Mr. Chase, for permission to examine box 421, which has been identified to me as the box to which Mrs. Worner arranged . . . irregular access. Do I have your permission?”

  Chase nodded.

  “Would you verbalize your answer, please, sir?”

  “You have my permission to go into the box,” Chase said.

  “You’re going to need Timmy’s key,” Mrs. Worner said. “It takes two keys to get into a box.”

  “The bank doesn’t have a master key?” Matt asked, surprised.

  Chase shook his head.

  “We’ll have to call a locksmith,” Matt said. “Or break into it.”

  “Now, wait a minute,” Chase said. “Who will pay for repairing that damage?”

  “I will,” Adelaide Worner said. “This is my fault.”

  “Give me the bank’s key, Adelaide, please,” Lieutenant Deitrich said.

  “It’s in my desk outside,” she said. “I’ll have to get it.”

  “Please,” Deitrich said.

  “Why don’t
we send for a locksmith?” Chase asked. “I’ll pay for it.”

  “We may not have to, Mr. Chase,” Deitrich said. “Let me see what I can do with that lock.”

  He took a leather case, about the size of Matt’s credentials folder, from his jacket pocket. It contained an array of small stainless-steel picks.

  Twenty seconds after Mrs. Worner had given him the bank’s key to box 421, Deitrich pulled the stainless-steel door to it open.

  “There it is,” he said to Matt.

  “Let’s see what’s in it,” Matt said.

  The box was nearly full of stacks of currency, neatly held together with rubber bands.

  “My God! Look at all that money!” Mrs. Worner exclaimed.

  There was something else. Matt took a ballpoint pen from his pocket and fished a large gold-cased wristwatch with a matching band out of the box. The bezel of the watch was diamond-studded, and there was a diamond chip on the dial where each of the hour numbers would normally be.

  “Does anyone really think Mrs. Calhoun inherited this from her grandmother?”

  “What is it?” Deitrich asked.

  “It’s a Rolex, of course. What else?”

  Matt held it out for Deitrich to see, and then let the gold-cased watch slip back off the ballpoint pen into the box.

  “I think we should have pictures of this,” he said. “And I’d like to fingerprint the watch and the box. Maybe they can even get something off the currency. How much trouble would that cause you, Lieutenant?”

  “No more than dialing a telephone,” Deitrich said. “I can have a forensic-evidence team here in five minutes.”

  “There’s a telephone on my desk,” Adelaide Worner said. “You first dial nine, that gets you an outside line, and then you dial your number.”

  “Thank you, Adelaide,” Deitrich said.

  “When you come back—we don’t want some shyster lawyer accusing us of breaking the chain of evidence—so one of us is going to have to stay here until we get pictures and fingerprints. I need to call Philadelphia.”

  “I’ll be back in thirty seconds,” Deitrich said, and walked out of the room.

  “What happens to me now, Mr. Chase?” Adelaide Worner asked.

  “We’ll have to think about that, Adelaide,” Chase said. “We’ll try to work something out.”