The Investigators (Badge of Honor 7)

“Matt, boss.”

“What have you got?”

“A forensic-evidence team is on its way here—here being the safe-deposit vault of the First Harrisburg Bank and Trust—to see if they can lift some prints from, and in any case, photograph box 421 and its contents.”

“In other words, you served the search warrant?”

“We didn’t need to; it was an unauthorized box, still under the control of the bank. The defense can’t claim that the accused had a right to privacy by keeping something in a box that wasn’t under his control. The lady let us into it. And a Harrisburg police stenographer is about to type up her statement, which ties Calhoun to it with a big red bow.”

“Good job!”

“The difficult takes a little time, the impossible a little longer.”

“What’s in the box?”

“What looks like thirty, forty thousand dollars. Maybe more. I’m going to wait until they take pictures and maybe lift some prints before I count it. But a whole great big bunch of money! And a wristwatch that looks like something a drug dealer, or a pimp, would have on his wrist.”

“A Rolex, maybe?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Have you got the serial number? It’s on the back of the case.”

“No, but I can get it in thirty seconds.”

“Get it,” Wohl ordered.

A minute later, Matt had read the serial number to him over the phone.

“Mr. Marcus Brownlee,” Wohl said, “has given us a sworn statement that his Rolex watch was taken from him at the time of his arrest, but never made it from the place of his arrest to either the evidence room or personal property at Central Lockup. Tiny just got the serial number of said timepiece from Bailey, Banks and Biddle—”

“And it matches?”

“It matches.”

“Who is Marcus Brownlee?” Matt asked.

“Didn’t McFadden fill you in?”

“I didn’t hear that name.”

“One of the drug guys the Five Squad busted at the Howard Johnson motel,” Wohl explained.

“Then we have them.”

“It’s not quite that simple,” Wohl said. “I’ll fill you in later. What I want you to do now, once you work the box, is get Calhoun and the watch—the money would be nice, too, but that can wait—back to Philadelphia.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Be damned careful with the chain of evidence on this one, Matt, if I have to tell you that. And make sure Mutt and Jeff do.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where’s Calhoun now?”

“McFadden and Martinez have him at Harrisburg Police Headquarters.”

“Have them bring him to South Detectives at Twenty-fourth and Wolf,” Wohl ordered. “We’re using the First District detention cells downstairs as our own Central Lockup.”