Page 51 of Protecting Bianca

“This guy called in sick the day the package was delivered, and I found out that his brother owns a farm. He had the means and opportunity to do the crime.”

“Yes. But what is his motive?”

My research only took me so far. I hadn’t had time to theorize a motive yet. “Does it matter? If we can link him to the farm in the days leading up to the delivery, we can worry about the motive later.”

“That may be how special ops works, Jager, but it’s not how we work here.”

“That’s right. You wait until someone gets hurt or killed to make an arrest.”

We stared each other down, but there was no animosity there—only frustration.

I sighed. “Fine. What do you suggest we do next?”

“Chaudhary is speaking to the barista where Tagert buys his morning coffee. We ran some surveillance on him, and he doesn’t miss a day. When we spoke to him, he said he went for a coffee that morning and then drove to Central Park for a walk.”

“He lives in Queens. Why would he go to Central Park? Doesn’t make sense.”

“Maybe not. But we’ve got to check it out.”

“When do you expect Chaudhary back?”

“I don’t know. But I’ll call you when we find him.”

“Fine. Anything else?”

“Yes. I didn’t just ask you to come here for an update. I could have done that by telephone.” He pursed his lips and rubbed the back of his neck. “Tagert must have paid that delivery guy a substantial amount of money to deliver his package. I don’t think he accepted a check. We’d need to subpoena his bank statements to see if any large withdrawals occurred leading up to that day.”

“Right.”

“Well, we don’t know who Tagert is working with or what capabilities they have, so I’m afraid showing up with a subpoena will make Tagert jumpy. He makes one phone call and with the press of a button, all his transactions are erased.”

“It doesn’t work like that. There’s always a footprint. But what are you asking me?”

“The word in the office is you’ve got the skills to hack into anything, even private bank records. Do you think you can do that with Tagert’s account?”

“Of course I could. But it would be illegal and inadmissible in court.”

“I’ll worry about getting a warrant for the search. You hack into that account.”

“You got it, Detective.”

“Good.”

Khan’s phone rang. “It’s Chaudhary.” He swiped on the screen. “Hello?”

“Yeah.” He listened as his partner communicated what he’d learned. “All right. We’ll have to figure something else out.”

He hung up the phone, and I nodded once. “So, what did he say?”

“The barista doesn’t remember if he came in that day or not. He said he’s there every day, so he doesn’t see why he wouldn’t have been there that day.”

“Not exactly a solid alibi.”

“Not exactly.”

“What about the park? Can anyone place him there?”

“We’ll send some officers with Tagert’s photo there this afternoon. I’ll let you know if anything comes up.”

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