Chapter 4 - The Witness Who Was Never Supposed to Exist|
The bank had been closed for eleven years, but its records had not vanished.
Matteo discovered that before noon.
The institution had been absorbed by a larger private bank after a corruption scandal, and its sealed archives were now held in a storage facility outside Chicago. Access required a court order, proof of identity, and a legitimate reason to reopen a dormant account.
Matteo had the money to hire the best attorneys in the state.
What he did not have was time.
At eleven forty, Gabriel Shaw entered the study with a printed report.
“The technician who authorized the camera restart wasn't the employee listed in the system.”
“Who was it?”
“Someone used a supervisor's credentials. The login originated from a terminal in the administrative office.”
“Who was working there?”
“Peter Voss.”
Matteo frowned.
“Voss has been with us for nine years.”
“Ten. He was hired three months before Adrian's death.”
“Bring him in.”
Gabriel hesitated.
“He hasn't come to work today.”
Matteo's gaze sharpened.
“Find him.”
While the security team searched the property, Norah went to her room and retrieved a folded piece of paper from the lining of her old handbag. She had carried it for years without understanding why she could never bring herself to throw it away.
It was a fragment of a letter written in her mother's hand.
If anything happens to me, find the man who witnessed the fire. He was there before the police. He knows what Adrian carried out of the building.
The final line had been torn away.
Norah placed the paper on Matteo's desk.
“My mother left this inside a book. I found it after she died.”
He read it twice.
“Do you know who she meant?”
“No. But I remember hearing her speak to someone named Peter.”
Matteo looked up.
“Peter Voss?”
“I don't know his last name. She called him Peter. She told him he had one chance to make things right.”
Gabriel returned with a second report.
“Peter Voss rented a storage unit under an alias last month. The unit was emptied yesterday morning.”
“Where is he now?”
“His car was found abandoned near the river.”
Norah closed her eyes.
“He's dead.”
“Not necessarily,” Matteo said.
“You don't believe in coincidences.”
“No.”
He turned to Gabriel.
“Find every person who has worked for this family since before the fire. Nobody gets warned. Nobody leaves the city without our knowledge.”
Gabriel nodded and left.
Matteo faced Norah.
“You said your mother knew Adrian. Did she ever mention what he carried out of the warehouse?”
“She said he had a list.”
“What kind of list?”
“Names. Payments. Dates. She said it was proof that the people who controlled the city weren't the ones everyone thought they were.”
Matteo leaned back.
His father had died two years after Adrian. Officially, a stroke. Unofficially, the result of a succession struggle that left three captains dead and two neighborhoods burning.
If Adrian had possessed evidence of corruption inside the organization, his death might have been more than a tragic accident.
“Why didn't your mother take the evidence to the police?” he asked.
“She didn't trust them.”
“Did she trust anyone?”
Norah looked at the fragment.
“Adrian.”
Matteo said nothing.
For the first time, he wondered whether his brother had known he was going to die.
That afternoon, Matteo and Norah drove to the cemetery where Elizabeth Bennett was supposedly buried. Two guards followed in a separate vehicle, but Matteo instructed them to remain at the entrance.
Norah led him to a modest stone near the back wall.
The inscription was simple.
ELIZABETH BENNETT. BELOVED MOTHER. NEVER FORGOTTEN.
Norah knelt and brushed fallen leaves from the stone.
“She hated funerals,” she said. “She said people spent too much time honoring the dead and not enough time protecting the living.”
Matteo stood beside her.
“Was she afraid before she died?”
“Not at first. Then, during the final week, she started checking the locks every night. She made me memorize a telephone number and told me never to call it unless I saw a black car with a broken left headlight.”
Matteo felt a chill.
“Did you ever see that car?”
“Yes. The night she died.”
He turned toward her.
“Why didn't you tell the police?”
“Because the police officer who took my statement was driving it.”
The cemetery seemed to grow quieter around them.
Norah rose slowly.
“He told me the car belonged to a witness. Two days later, he came to our house and asked whether my mother had left anything behind.”
“Did you tell him about the letter?”
“No.”
“Good.”
She gave him a hard look.
“Don't praise me for surviving something I never should have faced.”
Matteo accepted the rebuke.
They returned to the car, but before they reached the gate, Norah noticed a man standing beside the stone wall.
He wore a dark coat and a baseball cap. His face was partly hidden.
He raised one hand.
Norah stopped walking.
The man placed something on top of Elizabeth's grave, then turned away.
Matteo signaled to the guards, but the stranger was already moving through the cemetery.
One guard pursued him.
The other retrieved the object.
It was a brass key.
Number seventeen.
Beneath it lay a folded note.
Matteo opened it.
The deposit box is bait. The real evidence is where Adrian learned the truth.
Norah read the words over his shoulder.
“Where did Adrian learn the truth?”
Matteo stared toward the cemetery gates.
“My father's house.”
He folded the note and slipped it into his pocket.
“There's one problem.”
“What?”
“My father's house burned down six years ago.”
May you like
Norah looked at the key in his hand.
“Then someone wants us to believe there's nothing left to find.”
