“Castor lets him in. They argue.”
“They fight.”
“Castor gets dead,” Max said as he scanned the room with his camera and then he stopped. “I wonder if the guy shot him and then cut his throat, or the other way around?”
“I’m guessing that the killer cut his throat first and then he shot him twice when he was on the ground,” she said and began rifling through the stack of papers lying on Castor’s desk.
“What’s this?”
“What you got?”
Carmen examined the papers. “They’re international shipping manifests from a company called Ingram International, lots of them.”
When she saw a full shredder next to his desk, and a trash can full of shredded paper, Carmen grabbed a handful.
“He was shredding these shipping manifests. We should take some of it.”
“No, Carmen. We could face charges for tampering with a crime scene,” Max warned.
“Like we’re doing now?”
“Withholding evidence, obstruction of justice. I could go on and on ?
??”
“All right, Max, all right.” Carmen paused. “Just make copies of the shipping manifests.”
Max quickly made copies of the manifests and they were outside when the police arrived. When the news truck got there, Carmen reported the story for the 6 o'clock news.
Chapter Seventeen
Milton Petty picked up the remote and turned off the television. The news he just heard wasn’t what he wanted to hear. He hated when things are left half done. Milton leaned back on the couch and thought about the situation.
Things were so much simpler in the old days, he thought. Back then, me and Kwame would have had this shit handled and handled right. Maybe that’s what needs to happen here.
The longer he sat there, the more the idea of doing it himself appealed to him. After a while, Milton got up from the couch and he went in his office. He poured himself a scotch and sat down at his desk. He hadn’t been in there too long when there was a knock at the door.
“Come.”
“I have Mr. Bonner and Mr. Hamilton here to see you, sir,” Jesse, the houseman said.
“Show him in.”
“Yes, sir.”
A couple of minutes later, Jesse showed Walter Bonner and Barry Hamilton into the office. Milton had assigned them to contain the situation that was caused by Richard Castor’s carelessness.
Castor had become involved with Katana Jackson, who, before her death, worked at Abbate Construction. He recklessly allowed her to overhear a conversation with Bonner about the flash drive. Outraged by what she heard, without his knowledge, Katana took the drive from Castor’s safe and then sought out the advice of her friend, Larry Brin, a congressional aide. She knew that he had recently helped Carmen expose Marietta Dynamics illegally receiving forty million dollars in government contracts.
“The situation that was caused by Katana Jackson has been contained,” Bonner said.
“I just watched the news.” Milton got up from his desk and walked to Bonner. “Carmen Taylor reported that Richard is dead.”
“Situation contained, just like you ordered.”
“The situation is not contained if Carmen Taylor is alive to report the story.” Milton walked toward the door and opened it. “The situation will be contained when Carmen Taylor is dead.”
“I’ll see to it, Mr. Petty.”