W. Griffith - The investigators

"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."

"Inspector Wohl," Wohl said.

"Matt, boss."

"What have you got?"

"A forensic-evidence team is on its way here-here being the safe-deposit vault of the First Harrisburg Bank and Trust-to see if they can lift some prints from, and in any case, photograph box 421 and its contents."

"In other words, you served the search warrant?"

"We didn't need to; it was an unauthorized box, still under the control of the bank. The defense can't claim that the accused had a right to privacy by keeping something in a box that wasn't under his control. The lady let us into it. And a Harrisburg police stenographer is about to type up her statement, which ties Calhoun to it with a big red bow."

"Good job!"

"The difficult takes a little time, the impossible a little longer."

"What's in the box?"

"What looks like thirty, forty thousand dollars. Maybe more. I'm going to wait until they take pictures and maybe lift some prints before I count it. But a whole great big bunch of money! And a wristwatch that looks like something a drug dealer, or a pimp, would have on his wrist."

"A Rolex, maybe?"

"Uh-huh."

"Have you got the serial number? It's on the back of the case."

"No, but I can get it in thirty seconds."

"Get it," Wohl ordered.

A minute later, Matt had read the serial number to him over the phone.

"Mr. Marcus Brownlee," Wohl said, "has given us a sworn statement that his Rolex watch was taken from him at the time of his arrest, but never made it from the place of his arrest to either the evidence room or personal property at Central Lockup. Tiny just got the serial number of said timepiece from Bailey, Banks and Biddle-"

"And it matches?"

"It matches."

"Who is Marcus Brownlee?" Matt asked.

"Didn't McFadden fill you in?"

"I didn't hear that name."

"One of the drug guys the Five Squad busted at the Howard Johnson motel," Wohl explained.

"Then we have them."

"It's not quite that simple," Wohl said. "I'll fill you in later. What I want you to do now, once you work the box, is get Calhoun and the watch-the money would be nice, too, but that can wait-back to Philadelphia."

"Yes, sir."

"Be damned careful with the chain of evidence on this one, Matt, if I have to tell you that. And make sure Mutt and Jeff do."

"Yes, sir."

"Where's Calhoun now?"

"McFadden and Martinez have him at Harrisburg Police Headquarters."

"Have them bring him to South Detectives at Twenty-fourth and Wolf," Wohl ordered. "We're using the First District detention cells downstairs as our own Central Lockup."

"I don't understand," Matt said.

"I'm not trying to shoot you down, Matt-right now you're at the head of my good-guy list for tying Calhoun to the box-but right now you don't have to understand. Just do what I told you. I'll fill you in later."