Without A Hitch

Morales flipped through her file trying to give the impression she was reluctant to accept the offer, but her nervous foot tapping gave away her real mindset. “All right, but I’m not offering anything in return,” she said, although her tone suggested she would listen to any reasonable counteroffer.

“Done,” Beckett said. “We’ll stipulate to all of them.”

A few moments later, Beckett and Morales notified the judge of their agreement. He was pleased.

It started snowing lightly as Corbin and Beckett left the courthouse to walk back to the office. “Why didn’t you ask for something in return?” Corbin asked. “She would have offered something. That was pretty obvious.”

“I didn’t want to risk it. Before she can offer anything, she’ll have to run it by Pierce, and that gives them time to think things through. I’d rather take the deal while it was available.”

Corbin shook his head and stopped walking. “You know what? You’ve been going on and on about being super moral and super ethical and how you can’t let an innocent man go down for your crimes-”

“What’s your point?!”

“Doesn’t it go against Beaumont’s interests to have you stipulate to something like this? Philly’s a long way from D.C., and subpoenaing these people won’t be easy or effective. I’ll bet only one or two of them would even show up. That means most of the charges would have been dismissed. But you,” Corbin pointed at Beckett, “you just stipulated to them because it served your interests. You cut that deal to make your problem go away, and you never once thought about the effect on Beaumont.”

“If we don’t stipulate, then everything blows up. Is that what you want?” Beckett shot back.

“It’s no skin off my ass. I don’t care about Beaumont. I just want you to realize what you did.”

“You want me to turn myself in right now?!”

“Is that a threat?” Corbin asked acidly.

“Get off my back, Alex,” growled Beckett and he turned to leave, but Corbin grabbed his arm, stopping him. Corbin started to speak, but didn’t, and Beckett jerked his arm away from Corbin. They glared at each other in silence.

Chapter 32

The next week passed unpleasantly for Corbin and Beckett. They barely spoke and rarely stayed in the same room. When they were in the same room, the tension and anger between them hung over them like a storm cloud waiting to burst. Toward the end of the week, however, the anger receded a bit as they began finding evidence that helped their case.

“We may have gotten lucky,” Corbin said, sliding into the chair at Beckett’s desk.

“What have you got?”

“Take a look at this.” Corbin handed Beckett a packet of documents. “This is the bank paperwork from Penn Bancorp. The manager who opened the account is Maggie Smith. She’s on their witness list. Like most of the banks, Penn Bancorp’s application paperwork is about fifteen to twenty pages long, with everything except the first page being boilerplate. But take a look around page twelve.”

Beckett flipped to page twelve where he found a photocopy of Alvarez’s fake drivers license.

“I don’t know how they missed it, but this will blow up on them,” Corbin said. “I think they assumed everything after the first page was just boilerplate. I almost made the same mistake.”

“This is good stuff,” Beckett said, but without excitement.

“Should we ask for more paperwork from the other banks?”

Beckett stared at the ceiling for a couple seconds. “No, let’s not risk tipping them off.”

“I’ve also gone through all the videos; they have some problems. There is no one who remotely looks like Beaumont on the Penn Bancorp video. The teller from the other bank, Natasha Freet, she’s wrong too. There is no way the guy she fingers is Beaumont. But even more interestingly, I’m having problems putting together how this mystery guy actually opens an account.”

“What do you mean?”

“It looks to me like the guy isn’t opening an account. He’s doing something else, maybe getting a safe deposit box?”

“I’ll take a look,” Beckett said, again without excitement, which caused Corbin to raise an eyebrow.

“Do we need motions on any of this?”

“No, not at this point,” Beckett responded.

“Do you want me to start contacting banks?”

“For what?”

“To see if they have more paperwork that might help us?”

“No, let it go,” Beckett said indifferently.

“Should we interview the guy from the mailbox store where Beaumont stole the mail?”

“No, I don’t think that will help either.”

“Something about his tone worries me,” Corbin said, rubbing his temple with his thumb. He stared at the gun in the open suitcase. He’d been staring at it the entire time he spoke with Alvarez. It was a black nine-millimeter semi-automatic with a fifteen round clip and no serial number and it gave him a sick feeling in his stomach.

“What do you mean?” Alvarez asked anxiously.

“We’ve found some good evidence, the kind we can use to make Pierce look like a fool at trial, but Beckett doesn’t seem to care. It’s strange. It’s like a personality shift. I’m not sure what he’s thinking.”

“What do we do?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“I know you want to give him a chance, but facing seventy-five years is a game changer. You need to do something now!” Alvarez blurted out.

Corbin remained silent. He kept staring at the gun.

“I’m just saying-”

Corbin cut him off. “The trial is coming up in a couple weeks. I’m pretty sure he won’t do anything before the trial.”

“You just said you don’t know what he’s thinking anymore,” Alvarez retorted. “Look, he’s unstable, right? What if he killed himself? What if he left a note and then shot himself? You could get off the case and no one would blame you. Beaumont could go down for his crimes and we could move on with our lives?”

“Are you finished?”

“No, I’m not. You’re playing with fire every day you let this continue. There’s not going to be some magic solution at the end of the day. You need to act. If you don’t, this isn’t going to end well. You’re going to wake up one morning and find out he’s ratted you out!” Alvarez’s voice became shrill as he spoke.

“I’m going to say this once and not again,” Corbin replied harshly. “I will do what needs to be done, but I will do it on my schedule, not yours.”

“No, you’re doing it on his schedule.”

Corbin hung up the phone. He had another message from Penny. He hadn’t returned her call in a week now. He wouldn’t return her call tonight either.

Chapter 33

Nothing changed in the Washington office in the month Corbin was gone, though it felt different to him. Buildings often feel differently when you haven’t been in them for a while. The smells change, old sights seem new, and everything seems slightly out of place. In this case, the walls seemed more dingy and the threadbare carpet seemed a little more worn, the stale smell of old coffee seemed a little more sour, and the people seemed a little more depressed and gray.

The only reason Corbin was here now was that Kak left him an angry message demanding that Corbin start