“John, how’s everything going over there? Have you found Loretta?”
“Not yet, Senator, but I do need a little help. I need to get in to talk to someone from the Wissler family about Frederick Wissler, Whitaker’s relative, but I’m not sure how to go about doing that. I’m guessing for people at their level I can’t just go round and ring the doorbell. I was hoping you could call them and get me the high society pass for a meeting.”
“There’s high society, and then there’s ‘old’ money. I don’t know anyone from the family personally, but I’ve dealt with their peers before, and they usually consider anyone from our side of the pond as nouveau riche. Still, I’m not without my charms. I’ll make some calls and see what I can do.”
“Thank you, Senator. I’m sorry for having to ask for so many favors lately.”
“Don’t worry about it, John. Just remember this the next time I need you to come speak at an event.”
Taylor groaned internally. Her tone suggested she was playing with him, although that didn’t mean she wasn’t serious either.
“You can count on me, Senator.”
“Okay, I’ll call you back after I work my magic. It will take some time, so I can’t promise it won’t be until very late there.”
“That’s fine, Senator. Call me as soon as you can.”
They said their goodbyes, and Taylor dialed the next person he needed to speak with.
“Mr. Taylor?” Graf said.
“Yes, Inspector. How’s the arm?”
“It’s fine. The bullet fragment just passed through some muscle. The doctors said that, in a month or so, I should fully recover.”
“Good, I’m glad to hear it. Any news on the files or the shooters?”
“The files are just a mix of records, old photos, things like that. We will keep going through them, but on first pass, there doesn’t look to be anything pointing towards your friend or the reason for Frau Wissler’s death. It is pretty clear someone has gone through these files, which means there’s a good chance that anything important was already removed.”
Taylor knew that Graf meant Whitaker when he said ‘someone.’ He also knew that their check through the files was focused on clues that would lead to her. Since they had already written off Frederick’s death as natural causes, Frieda’s suspicions as the delusions of an old woman, and decided her death was at the hands of Whitaker, they had no reason to look beyond that. Which also meant they could have, and probably had, missed something. That didn’t mean that Taylor would be able to figure out what that something was that they missed since any clues into Frederick’s death and Frieda’s request to Whitaker would all be guesses at this point. He still had to try, though.
“I know you’ve gone through them, but is there any way I can look through the files?”
“I don’t think so. Those files are evidence in a murder and now an assault on a police officer. We can’t have you messing up the chain of custody.”
“What if you had an officer stay with me while I looked at them at your station? That wouldn’t break custody, and I might find something that you missed. Whitaker had the address for this stashed away, and the files were still inside, so they had to contain something of use. Besides, if I’m wrong and you’re right and whatever was in the box was already removed, they wouldn’t help you at trial anyway.”
There was silence on the other end of the line for a long time. He could hear small noises on the other end, so he knew Graf was still there and thinking it through, so Taylor waited him out.
“I will let my department know you are coming and that you should be allowed to view the files under supervision only,” Graf said, emphasizing the last point. “None of those files are to leave, do you understand Mr. Taylor?”
“Perfectly. What about the gunmen. Any word on them?”
“We got back preliminary identification on them. They are local criminals known to work in that area. One was wanted in a recent armed robbery of tourists on the same street, in fact.”
“It seems a stretch that we go to that specific address and would be jumped right before we went inside by street criminals. I find it hard to believe it isn’t connected.”
“I admit the coincidence seems extreme, which is why I said our preliminary identification. We will continue looking into the men's’ background, but they are known to us. These men were common street criminals. They have no history of working as muscle for anything organized and have no association with anything that would suggest that. Everything in their history supports the conclusion that it was an unrelated attempted robbery, as farfetched as that seems. Still, I have men working through their known associates to track down their third friend as well as looking for a connection between them and this case.”
“So no foreign connection, then?” Taylor asked.
“No, like I said, common street criminals with no history of any kind of foreign contacts. Why?”
“No reason, I’m just having trouble believing this is unrelated.”
“I understand your misgivings, and as I said, I share them. We will continue to look into it.”
Taylor had heard the tone Graf used in the past enough to know that he wasn’t planning on looking into it seriously. He’d go through the motions and maybe assign it to someone else, but despite his protestation, Taylor knew Graf was done with that angle.
Taylor just couldn’t buy it. They might be just randomly hired armed muscle without any prior history, but there was no way that wasn’t planned. While Taylor knew coincidences happened, there were coincidences, and then there was this kind of thing. What he couldn’t do, at least not yet, was mention his
