The Investigators (Badge of Honor 7)

“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.