The Hunt for Truth

by Sury Patru Viswam

  “Fuck, no! You are not even denying…; I am not going to forgive myself,” Robinson choked, feeling troubled with his perceived inaction.

  Arya was taken aback with Robinson’s behavior and began to wonder if Tariq being a Muslim man had anything to do with Robinson connecting Tariq to 9/11. She was aware of some incidents around her city and the country where racial epithets were being hurled against innocent Muslims. In some cases, their properties were being vandalized. She understood that the people were acting out of fear and wanted to show their outrage against the people who attacked their country. But they were wrong in directing their anger against innocent Muslims, who were just as American, and who felt equally outraged against the terrorists who attacked the country on 9/11. They loved the country like everybody else, and she couldn’t imagine how they must feel to have their loyalty being suddenly questioned.

  Arya wanted to question Robinson’s motives, but, on second thought, she decided against it. At this stage, she knew it would be counterproductive and could make Robinson sound defensive.

  “What makes you say that?” Arya gestured for Robinson to continue.

  “Samir Tariq,” Robinson said flatly.

  “You know him?” Edgar asked.

  Robinson shook his head. “I don’t know him personally, but I know of him.”

  Arya gestured for Robinson to continue.

  “I met him only once last week.”

  “And?” Edgar lead on.

  Robinson sighed. “He was quite a character. I almost called you guys, the cops.”

  After a brief pause, Robinson asked. “I assume you guys know that having a bank account is necessary for possessing a safe deposit box in a bank?”

  Arya and Edgar nodded, gesturing their knowledge about the prerequisites of opening a safe deposit box.

  “Tariq was here last week and caused quite a ruckus.” Robinson paused and pointed at one of the teller windows. “She was badgered by Tariq.”

  “For what?”

  “Tariq wanted to close his account and empty out his safe deposit box immediately, but unfortunately, the teller couldn’t do either because of the upgrades.” Robinson pointed to the hallway leading to the bank lockers and mentioned that the area was closed last week due to the upgrades. He went on to explain that security upgrades, like fingerprint readers, were being installed to modernize the facility’s security infrastructure.

  “Okay. How did Tariq react?” Edgar brought the focus back on to Tariq’s behavior.

  “Tariq flipped; he went batshit crazy and accused us of stealing his money.” Robinson threw his hands in disbelief.

  “I had to jump in and rescue the poor teller.” Robinson shook his head, replaying the incident in his head. “He was causing quite a scene on the floor, and I had to smooth talk to bring him into my office.” He gestured towards the chair Edgar was sitting on and said, “It took me five minutes to get him to sit on that chair. He was adamant about closing the account immediately.”

  “Did you close his bank account?” Arya knew that the financials they reviewed earlier could be a week off, and Samir might have closed his business with this bank.

  “No, we couldn’t.” Robinson shrugged his shoulders. “Per bank policy, we couldn’t close his account without emptying his safe deposit box. As the safe-deposit boxes were off-limits last week, we couldn’t really close his account last week. Our hands were tied. My first solution was for Tariq to come back next week.”

  “I assume that was not acceptable to Tariq?” Edgar asked, connecting the possibility that Tariq wanted to close the bank account desperately because he wanted to disappear the following week.

  Robinson nodded. “Exactly. It was a non-starter. He conveyed that he won’t be available to come back next week as he would be going back to his country.”

  “Pakistan?” Arya asked, hearing Samir was planning to go back to his country.

  “Yes. Tariq said he was from Pakistan,” Robinson recounted his conversation with Samir from last week. Samir had expressed that he would be going back to Pakistan as he took a teaching job in a Lahore university.

  “Teaching?”

  “Yeah…. Tariq said that he was an engineer and wanted to make a difference for his people.”

  “Interesting. What happened?”

  “So…, I came up with an alternate solution that seemed to satisfy Tariq.” Robinson explained that his solution involved Samir signing the paperwork for closing the account and shipping the locker contents to a pre-specified address. This way, Samir wouldn’t have to physically come to the bank next week to close his account.

  “Did he do it?” Arya asked.

  Robinson nodded. “Eventually, yes.” He went on to explain that Tariq was initially reluctant with this solution, but his wife convinced him.

  “His wife?” Arya was surprised to hear Sania knew about this bank account and didn’t disclose it to her.

  “Yes. She was here. I believe her name was….” Robinson’s eyes drifted upwards like he was trying to remember her name.

  “Sania Tariq,” Edgar offered.

  “Could be…. I am not sure.” Robinson let his answer hang for a moment as his hands danced on the keyboard.

  “You are right; her name is listed as Sania Tariq,” Robinson said hesitantly.

  “What is it?” Arya asked. She could clearly see that Robinson was holding something back. He looked unsure.

  “Hmm…. I would have sworn that I heard Samir address his wife with a different name…, but I guess I was wrong,” Robinson said weakly.

  “I will be right back.” Arya turned towards Edgar and gestured for him to continue his discussion with Robinson.

  Instinctively, Edgar knew the reason behind Arya leaving the interview mid-way. To confirm who accosted Samir to the bank – Sania or Nafisa? From the look on Arya’s face, he could tell that she believed the same as him. The person who accosted Samir to the bank was Nafisa. If it was Sania, Arya would have known about it. There was no reason for Sania to hide that fact from Arya.

  As Arya exited the office, Edgar turned his attention back to Robinson. “Did they withdraw the funds in the account?”

  “Yes, most of it. Per policy, they left a thousand dollars on their account and withdrew the rest of it.”

  “How? Did they wire funds to a different account?” Edgar was hoping for Samir to have wired the money, as it would invariably leave a money trail for him to follow up.

  “Mostly yes,” Robinson immediately said, like he remembered that from yesterday.

  The word ‘mostly’ in Robinson’s response caught Edgar’s attention, and he went back to Robinson for an explanation.

  Robinson proceeded to explain that Samir wired most of his money to a different bank, except for a couple of thousand dollars that he took as a cashier’s check.

  Upon hearing about the cashier’s check, Edgar was intrigued. Before he could ask his next question, he heard the sound of a door opening behind him. He turned around to find Arya entering the room with a folder given by Kate Halladay.

  Arya landed a quizzical look on Edgar to find out if she could jump in with her line of questioning. Edgar nodded, expressing his consent for Arya to proceed with the photo ID.

  Arya opened the folder and took out a photo that had a closeup shot of Samir and Nafisa dining in the Moroccan restaurant. “Robinson, can you identify the people in this photo?”

  Robinson reached for his reading glasses on top of his desk and took a closer look at the photo. “Yes, of course. Samir Tariq and his wife, Sania Tariq.”

  “You sure, Robinson? If you need, take another good look at the girl’s photo. Was she the woman who came to the bank with Samir?”

  Robinson lifted his gaze from the photos to Arya’s face and confidently said, “I might forget a person’s name, but never their face. She was definitely the person who came to the bank with Samir.”

  Arya and Edgar exchanged glances, and they both understood the implications
of this revelation. There was only one reason for Samir to introduce Nafisa as his wife and withdraw all the funds. He might be planning to run away with her.

  Robinson was able to read the obvious from the detectives’ expressions. “I guess she was not his wife.”

  Before Edgar could respond, Robinson continued. “I should have known.”

  Arya’s eyes narrowed in interest and asked Robinson to explain.

  Robinson slowly caressed his forehead as he let out a deep breath. “I noticed that there was a little bit of tension when Samir requested a cashier’s check.”

  “Cashier’s check?” Arya asked, trying to place it.

  Edgar quickly jumped in and filled Arya about his earlier discussion with Robinson about Samir’s withdrawal of his account. After their brief exchange, Edgar turned his attention back at Robinson and gestured for him to continue.

  “If I recall correctly, Sania….” Robinson paused and corrected himself from addressing the accompanying woman as Sania. “When Samir asked me to make a cashier’s check for two thousand dollars, the woman objected. I could not follow what they were talking about, as they were engaged in a foreign language, but I could see that she was not happy with Samir. Even though most of their argument was in a foreign language, Samir did slip up and use English at certain times.”

  Robinson paused for a sip of water from the glass on his desk. He certainly seemed to be enjoying all the attention he was getting from the detectives.

  “Where was I?” he asked rhetorically, before continuing, “Yeah, I remember – Samir spoke in English.” His gaze lifted towards the ceiling like he recalled the words from memory. “I want Sania to be happy and have no trouble, even when I am gone.”

  “Those were his exact words?” Arya asked, almost in disbelief. Those words didn’t look like something you would say about your wife to her replacement.

  “I might have paraphrased a little bit, but that was the gist of it,” Robinson said confidently. “At that time, I didn’t think much of it. But now, it makes me wonder who would address the person in front of you in the third person, unless….” He let the sentence hang for a moment. “Unless he was not talking about the person in front of him.”

  “That was smart; you could have made an excellent detective,” Edgar said, eliciting a proud smile from Robinson. Edgar didn’t mind saying a few glowing words to stoke Robinson’s ego because he needed him to continue to break the bank’s protocol and share more information.

  “Name of the bank and the account number?” Edgar asked, opening up his pocketbook to take notes.

  “Let me check…,” Robinson said as his hands danced on the keyboard. “LCI Bank and the account number is 389451902.”

  “LCI Bank, where is it located?”

  Robinson held one of his fingers as he pushed a couple of keystrokes. “Lahore.”

  “He was going home,” Arya thought to herself.

  “Cashier’s check?” Edgar asked, lifting his gaze from the pocketbook.

  Robinson’s fingers continued to dance on the keyboard as he pulled up the image of the cashier’s check on the screen. “It seems it was made to Tangier Travels and….” He paused as he traversed to a different screen on his computer. “It seems the check was cleared on September 10th.”

  “I guess he purchased tickets for his escapades with his mistress,” Robinson said with a mischievous smile.

  “I hope it was worth it,” Edgar smiled, encouraging Robinson’s silly banter.

  Arya was not surprised by Edgar’s act of indulging Robinson. They had employed these acts of friendship and camaraderie when they wanted a subject to open up and divulge information readily.

  “About the safe deposit box?” Edgar opened his request with a smile.

  “I don’t know…. I already broke a few rules here by disclosing Samir’s financials with our bank.” Robinson’s voice trailed off.

  “Robinson,” Arya lowered her voice to almost a whisper. “We shouldn’t be telling you this.” Arya glanced at Edgar.

  Edgar, taking the cue from Arya, played along with Arya’s ruse. “We can trust Robinson. He will keep it as a secret.” Edgar, looking at Robinson, flashed a thumbs-up sign to express Robinson was on their side.

  Robinson couldn’t help himself from flashing a smile. He fell for their ploy hook, line, and sinker.

  “You are right – it is related to the 9/11 investigation,” Arya whispered.

  “Oh, my God! I was right.” Robinson’s jaw hit the floor. “Was Samir involved?”

  “That we can’t tell. It is classified,” Edgar said, finding a way to raise the stakes, and, at the same time, not disclose anything about it.

  “Now you know why we have to look at the safe deposit box right away.” Arya brought the focus back on the safe deposit box.

  “Just a peek….” Robinson slowly rose from his chair. “You cannot take anything from the box,” Robinson reiterated his concerns for opening the safe deposit box. “If my boss comes to know, I might lose my livelihood. It is a strict no-no in my line of work to open up someone’s safe deposit box without their permission… or without a warrant.”

  “You can count on us.” Edgar gestured towards Arya.

  Robinson’s eyes followed Edgar’s hand and found Arya gesturing her agreement with Edgar’s statement.

  With that commitment, Robinson seemed satisfied. He gestured for the detectives to follow him as he walked out of the room.

  Edgar and Arya waited patiently as Robinson placed his right hand on the fingerprint reader which was installed on the wall next to the steel door.

  “Permission Granted.” The words flashed across a small screen, which was right next to the fingerprint reader.

  “This was newly installed last week.” Robinson gestured towards the fingerprint reader, eliciting a customary nod from the detectives.

  The small screen refreshed and displayed a new set of instructions. “Enter your access code.”

  Robinson positioned his body in a way that would cover his finger movements to the detectives, who were standing right behind him before entering the access code.

  Arya, seeing the extreme precautions taken by Robinson, rolled her eyes, and leaned closer to Edgar. “I feel like we are about to enter Fort Knox,” she whispered, prompting a chuckle from Edgar.

  Within a few seconds, a loud clicking sound filled the long corridor, announcing that the large steel door could now be safely opened.

  “That is some state-of-the-art security for a consumer bank,” Edgar said, looking at Robinson. “We don’t even have that in the evidence room.”

  “What can I say…? The days have changed, and the customer demands that level of security nowadays.” As they walked into the safe room containing the safe deposit boxes, Robinson explained that this type of security would soon become a standard across all the banks in the country.

  “This way,” Robinson pointed towards the north section of the safe room. Edgar and Arya followed Robinson and walked past several safe deposit boxes.

  “I didn’t imagine it to be this big,” Arya said aloud, looking at the number of safe deposit boxes adorning the safe room.

  “I get that response quite a few times,” Robinson replied with a customary smile.

  “Here it is…; 1190.” Robinson pointed at a large ten by ten safe deposit box. “This one is Samir’s.”

  “He had a big boy,” Edgar whistled.

  “Sure he did. That is the largest size we offer to customers in this branch.”

  Arya gestured for Robinson to open the safe deposit box. “Let’s see what he has in there.”

  Robinson pulled his master key from his pocket and inserted it into the keyhole of the box. They all heard a slight click sound when Robinson turned the key counterclockwise and unlocked the box.

  Robinson shifted his gaze towards the detectives and gestured to indicate that the box could now be opened.

  “Thanks.” Arya let her gaze hang for a moment on Robinson
to express that he could now step out of the room.

  “Sorry, I can’t.” Robinson explained that he had to stay in the room.

  “We are not going to take anything,” Edgar chimed in.

  “I know, but still….” Robinson searched for a better way to tell the detectives that he had to stay in the room to ensure nothing was removed from the box.

  Arya touched Robinson’s shoulder. “We get it. Just like us, you have a job to do.”

  “Thanks for helping us with the investigation. We understand you are going out on a limb for us.” Edgar smiled.

  Robinson was a stickler for rules all his life. Usually, he would have never broken policy and allowed the detectives to look into a customer’s account or a safe deposit box without a judicial warrant. However, Robinson knew that they were not living in normal times. 9/11 changed everything. If his small transgression with the policy helped with the 9/11 investigation, he was all for it.

  Robinson gestured his appreciation for their understanding and stepped back for Arya to open the box.

  As Arya slowly lifted the top of the silver-colored safe deposit box, Edgar moved next to her to get a better view of its contents. They were not sure what to expect, but, for sure, they didn’t expect to find a pile of cash and multiple passports. There were three separate stacks of money, each was secured with a rubber band, and they all looked different.

  “Different countries,” Edgar said, as he took one of the stacks in his hand.

  “Saudi Dinar.” Arya gestured towards the stack in Edgar’s hands, where the currency notes had the picture of the Saudi King Abdullah. She picked up another stack and said, “Egyptian Pound,” and it had the image of the Sultan Hassan Mosque on the banknotes.

  Edgar picked up another stack and lifted his gaze towards Arya with a quizzical look.

  “Pakistan rupee,” Arya said, pointing at the picture showing the Islamia College in Peshawar.

  Edgar was stumped listening to Arya. “Are you making this up?”

  “No, she is not,” Robinson answered from the back. “I am quite surprised…, no, quite impressed, with your knowledge.”

  Arya could see that both of them were quite bewildered. “When I was a kid, I collected currencies from all over the world…. It was my hobby.” She threw her hands.