The Investigation

"Are you both sure no one else has a key to your apartment?"

"Jade, myself and the building superintendent are the only ones with keys."

"What about your sister or that guy Chad, do they have keys?"

"My sister doesn't and I know Jade never gave a key to Chad. Besides he's never been here."

"I always met Chad when we went out, I was still a little unnerved about anyone knowing where I was living after the break in."

"I don't want to frighten you but you were right, somebody has been in your apartment. We found prints where there shouldn't have been any. Whoever it was is still looking for something. We have to have missed something, someone thinks one or both of you know something. That means whatever this is about has to do with where you work or work that your involved in right now."

"That can't be right Boyd neither one of us could help someone who might want to rob the place to get their hands on something. The only thing I'm involved with are the Mark Twain manuscripts and Amy is just doing end of the quarter inventory."

"Jade, first your apartment was broken into, then your boss was run off the road, now Amy's apartment has been searched while your staying here, this all revolves around you Jade. Maybe you have been a witness to something your not aware of."

"I can't think of anything out of the ordinary Boyd, and as far as those manuscripts go I could never get them out of the building or even out of the vault without three other witness's, so what good would that do a thief?"

"Can you get me access to those manuscripts?"

"I'm sure Mr. Henry will let you look at them if it will help in your investigation."

"Good. First thing in the morning I'm going to want to take a look at them. I have to cancel a meeting I have in the morning on another case and schedule it for later in the afternoon until I look at those manuscripts. I have a feeling it has something to do with those manuscripts."

They shared the pizza he had brought for them and talked some more before Boyd said goodnight. He told Jade he would pick them up around seven in the morning and take them to work. Before he left he made sure they promised not to leave the room for any reason and not answer the door for anyone. He told Jade to make sure she used the safety lock on the door as soon as he left and for added measure told her to brace the chair up against the door.

He had spent more then two hours with Jade's boss looking over the manuscripts. He had told Boyd that so far he had determined that the writings looked to be genuine and was just waiting for the ink and paper tests to be verified. There were pages of parts of a story, a few letters written to another writer friend of his, some of his personal household journal, receipts for house expenses, wages to his housekeeper and things like that. He told Boyd that once they had been verified they would be worth millions.

He was still thinking about that when he arrived for his appointment with Mr. James Whiting. A few weeks ago his home had been burglarized. The robber or robbers had taken a couple of expensive paintings, his wife's jewelry, and had managed to break into his safe where they got over fifty thousand in cash, more jewelry, and a very important ledger that held the account numbers to three of his overseas bank accounts. He wasn't worried about any of the other things that had been stolen, he told Boyd he had insurance on all of it. It was the ledger he was worried about. He said he could lose more then a billion dollars if someone got hold of his account numbers and managed to figure out the passwords to the accounts.

"You mean to tell me that you still don't have any clues to who might have done this? What the fuck have you and your men been doing all this time if you haven't come up with anything yet!"

"Mr Whiting, we don't have much to go on and you know that. This was a professional job, no fingerprints were found, no tools had been left, not one bit of trace evidence was found. Have you contacted the banking institutions to see about transferring your money to a different account?"

"Look you idiot, if I don't have the account numbers I can't transfer any fucking money!"

"Tell me do you get bank statements from those accounts when you withdraw money? Are your account numbers on the statements?"

"How stupid can you possibly be! Then again a stupid cop wouldn't have any idea how the rich take care of their money! NO!! the account numbers are not on any statements. That is one of the precautions to safeguard the accounts in case someone gets hold of your mail, or breaks into your home and finds the statements or whatever. It won't take a good hacker to long to figure out the passwords if he has the right equipment at his disposal. Even if the money is moved to another account the only notice I'll get is that it was moved!"

"Mr Whiting there has to be some kind of precautions those banks have in case something like this happens."

"I already have a friend in the state department working on getting around the red tape. All the shit I have to go through to prove that I am the rightful owner of those accounts can take weeks. The accounts could have been emptied out by then!"

"Were your account numbers and passwords both kept in the safe?"

"No, they were kept separately just in case something like this happened. That way the thief wouldn't have access to both."

"Where do you keep your passwords?"

"They are kept in my office safe but even if someone managed to get hold of them it would be useless to them because they are in code."

"Who besides yourself knows that your passwords are in code or knew that you had the account numbers in your home safe?"

"My wife, my accountant, two of my vice presidents, and my lawyer? But if your thinking it might be one of them your mistaken because none of them know what to look for to use the codes."

"You said that it wouldn't take a good hacker to long to come up with the passwords, so why couldn't it be one of those five who arranged for the theft? Are you on good terms with all of them? Does any of them have bad feelings towards you? What about your wife, is your marriage solid?"

"My wife signed a pre nuptial agreement when we got married, she would get nothing if we divorced. As long as she stays married to me she can spend as much of my money as she likes, but believe me I know what every penny she spends is spent on. She doesn't have access to any bank accounts nor cash, she has a credit card that I have set up where she can only get no more then two hundred dollars a week in cash on. She also knows that she gets followed wherever she goes she just doesn't know when or how often I have her followed. The biggest reason I know she isn't involved is because part of the agreement states that if she is caught fooling around with anybody, not only does she not get a dime from the divorce but she would then have to pay back every penny she had spent during the marriage. That's the reason she has her own credit card, I'm no fool and won't be made a fool of either."

Boyd had not met Mrs. Whiting yet but he would bet a years salary that she was young and beautiful. Why else would he have had such a tight pre nuptial drawn up? Men who had been married twenty or thirty years didn't have that type of attitude toward their wives.

He remembered a police charity event he and his wife attended the year before her death. His wife had commented on how many state representatives there had young beautiful wives hanging on their arms. One particular state representative was so unattractive his wife whispered in his ear the only reason the beautiful young woman on his arm had married him, was for money. "I'd bet she has to be ten sheets to the wind before she can stand to let him touch her." Greed and money do make for strange bedfellows.

"Mr Whiting, somebody close to you is responsible for this, I have no doubts about that. I would suggest that you move the passwords someplace else that only you know about before that is the next thing you have taken from you."

"I don't have to worry about that, they are already someplace where they are more then safe from being stolen or of getting into the wrong hands."

"Ok. Let us know if your friend at the state department is able to get you your account numbers for you. I'll be talking to your wife and the others just to make sure that they can be eliminated as suspects in the next couple of days."

Boyd had spoken with Jade and Amy's bosses a short time ago to arrange time off for the two women. His instincts told him that the women were both in danger. Amy, just for being Jade's friend and the fact that they now lived and worked together. He called Mrs Whiting to make an appointment to speak with her later that day. He called Jade next to tell her that one of his men would be stopping by with food for the ladies and not to move until he came by later to talk to them.

He had been right about Mr. Whiting's wife being young. She was a knockout. On a scale of one to ten for beautiful women she was a hundred. One look at her and you knew she spent hours in a gym or with a personal trainer. Boyd flipped open his badge then introduced himself.

"Come in officer how can I help you?"

"I have a few questions Mrs. Whiting," he said following her into the spacious living room of her home. I'm following up on your husbands case. I need to know where you were at the time of the robbery."

"I was at the gym until one, then I had lunch with Martha Combs at Cabaro's, we were there until about two thirty. I left and went to the dry cleaners to pick up my husbands tuxedo. I had an five o'clock appointment with my masseuse and left promptly at six. My husband picked me up and we went home to dress for a dinner engagement that evening."

She had a solid alibi for her entire day, he had already checked out her whereabouts that day. It was also a day that her husbands investigators had tracked her the entire day. Just because she had a clear alibi didn't mean that she wasn't somehow involved in the robbery. With the amount of money that was at stake if she were involved, she would make sure she could verify her whereabouts the entire day to try to get the suspicion off of her. What had set off the warning signals to Boyd was the flippant way she had explained her day.

"Do you have any idea of whom might had committed this robbery Mrs. Whiting? Someone that you might think would like to get even with your husband for some reason or another?"

"My husbands a very rich man detective, almost anyone could want to get their hands on his money. One of his biggest worries is that I might get kidnaped and held for ransom. I have bodyguards that follow me all the time, even I don't know who they are, I just know that they are around me at all times."

So she calls the private investigators her husband has following her bodyguards. Maybe she does feel that they are around to protect her instead of spying on her, but his gut said that was not the case. Boyd was getting the feeling that there was more to Mrs. Whiting then she showed to the public.

After he left the Whiting home, he headed back to the office before going to see Jade and Amy. He wanted a deep background check on Mrs. Whiting. He wanted to know what her life had been like from birth until the present day.

"Ladies I have cleared it with your bosses to let you two have a couple weeks off until we can figure out what is going on. Amy if you would call your sister I'm going to have one of my men drive you to her place and stay with you while we try to figure this out. Jade your going to be staying with me if you don't have any objections about that arrangement."

"As long as you make sure that Amy and her family are safe I don't have a problem with it."

I have a couple of things to do first so I'll take you back to your apartment so you can pack your things. I already have one of my men there waiting for you and I've taken the liberty of having your locks changed today with two dead bolts installed on the door."

The women packed their things, Amy called her sister to let her know she was coming. She explained what was going on and the reason for her prolonged visit. They sat around talking with Chuck, the officer Boyd had left there to watch over them. Chuck was going to be driving Amy to her sisters and would be staying with them until this blew over. They had to make one stop at their workplace so the girls could turn in their keys and badges so that no one might possibly get hold of them and use them to get access to the building.

"You take care of her officer, I would hate to lose Jade."

"Jade hugged her boss thanking him for letting her have the time off and for caring about her safety."

"Don't you worry none dear, I've decided to take a couple weeks off myself now that I don't have anything pressing to take care of here. The manuscripts were picked up by their owner this morning so I'm going to be free for a while."

"Mr Whiting picked them up before you finished your tests?"

"Who did you say! Who do those manuscripts belong to?"

"Is something wrong Boyd?"

"Did you say Mr. Whiting? Mr James Whiting by any chance?"

"Yes that is the clients name. How do you know Mr. Whiting officer," Mr. Henry asked.

"Mr. Whiting had a break in at his home a week before your place was broken into Jade. Now you tell me that the owner of those manuscripts is the same Mr. Whiting. The two robberies are linked together and I think I know why."

"Are you serious? How can they be linked, why would they be?"

"I can't explain more right now, but I can tell you for certain that they are linked. Mr. Henry take special care not to let any strangers into your home in the next week or so. I'll be talking to you again in the next couple of days so please stay close to home."

"Chuck, don't let her out of your sight, you even stay in her room with her at night, neither one of these women are safe until these guys get caught. Billions of dollars are at stake here so their lives would mean nothing to them to get what they wanted."

"I'm going to stop by the precinct on the way to pick up some more clips just in case. I think you ought to send Sam along if this is as big as you think. We need to protect her family as well Boyd, they could be in just as much danger as the girls are."

"I was just thinking the same thing, I'll call and let him know he's going with you. Give him a half hour to gather up some clothes then I'll have him meet you at the station. Be careful Chuck and make sure your not being followed. I'm going to call Jim Woods, that's his district and arrange for added police protection on the house and her sisters family twenty four seven."

"Can you please tell me what this is all about?"

"Look hon, Mr. Whiting had a ledger stolen from his safe that has his overseas bank account numbers in it. He said we're talking billions of dollars here. He has the passwords to his accounts in some kind of secret code that I'm now positive have something to do with those manuscripts your boss was working on. Which means that whoever stole the ledgers knows about the secret codes and is the reason that your apartment was broken into and Mr. Henry was ran off the rode."

"Oh my god. I think you're right, why else would my apartment have been broken into or Mr. Henry being ran off the road. Amy's in danger as well just because she's my friend."

"I wish I could look at those manuscripts again. I can't see Whiting agreeing to that now that he has them back in his possession. I have to try, I'll give him a call anyway, maybe he'll surprise me and let me have a look at them."

"That won't be necessary Boyd, they were all filmed and put on disc while they were being documented. Mr. Henry has the disc in the safe at work."

"Come on we're going back before he leaves for the day."

"Anyone of these could hold the key to a code or codes for that matter. Each page could be used in some form of code officer. Unless you knew exactly what you were looking for and the right document it could take months even years to figure it out, even with today's modern technology."

"What if the person knew which page or pages held the code, how long do you think it would take a expert hacker to figure out the code?"

"That depends on just how intricate the code was. Take the three letters from the Zodiac killer that have never been deciphered even with today's technology. Or how about how we used the Navajo code talkers unwritten language in WWII, the wind talkers code could never be broken by the Japanese. If any of these pages hold any kind of key to a secret code you would have to know exactly how the code was used in order to decipher the message."

"So unless you knew exactly what you were looking for it would damn near be close to impossible to figure it out, is that what your saying?"

"Yes, but on the other hand if you had some idea of where the code was located, let's say it's found on the household expense page, you would be halfway there already to be able to break the code with any modern cryptology software. Personally, all codes can be broken today, nothing is safe anymore. The only truly unbreakable code in history would have to be the Navajo code talkers."

"One more question Mr. Henry, if someone were to break in here would they be able to get their hands on this disc?"

"Nothing is impossible officer but it would be damn near impossible to break into the vault. The security is in line with that of Fort Knox. Even the officers guarding the vault are wired with blood pressure and heartbeat monitors. The slightest change in either of those sets of the alarm and the place goes into automatic lock down."

"You mean all the exits are blocked off with security guards?"

Mr. Henry laughed, not hardly officer, it's a bit more complicated then that. You explain it to him Jade," Mr. Henry said, still chuckling to himself.

"When this place goes into lock down Boyd, three inch thick steel plates are immediately dropped to block off all exits, all entryways, every window, and every door. Every elevator is shut down and all sent to the lower level of the basement where the doors remain locked tight until they are opened from the outside. Steel plates automatically cover the tops of each elevator so no one can escape into the elevator shafts. All the heating and cooling ducts are blocked with steel plates as well, anyone who might be inside are stuck there until they too can be released from the outside."

"Holy shit, does sound like Fort Knox."

"We also have state of the art infrared security Boyd. We can pinpoint heat signatures of any person or persons who might be in a shaft. The armed forces uses the same kind of technology that we have."

"Three years ago we had a painting brought in from a woman who had purchased it at a yard sale for two dollars. She said she bought it for the frame originally. Her small daughter wanted to keep the picture so she thought she would clean it up and put it in a cheap frame for her. Some of the paint came off as she was trying to clean it. She noticed a signature underneath the paint and said she almost had a heart attack. She brought it in for us to validate the signature. After numerous tests done to the small area where the paint had chipped off it was positive that whatever was painted underneath was painted by Picasso. It took us almost a year to strip away the second layer of paint."

"Two months later it was sold at auction for one hundred and thirty three million dollars," Mr. Henry explained.

"The entire time the painting was here the third floor was kept on permanent lock down. We had three shifts of workers who did nothing but work on restoring the painting day and night. It was a pain in the butt, but a necessary pain to protect the painting," Jade explained to him.