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.