by Alec Peche
“Of course, call me as soon as you’re ready to discuss the file. It’s big because a lot of work was done on it at the time, but fortunately it’s already on a computer file so there’s just a few written notes I have to scan for you to have the complete binder on the case.”
They ended the call and Damian rubbed his face, contemplating what to do next. The call from Natalie had helped to clear some of the cobwebs from his brain. The short nap should hold him through the rest of the day and he’d go to bed tonight at his normal time to get back on California time.
He needed physical activity at the moment, so it was outside for that spot of fishing followed by finishing Hermione’s room. He’d also unpack, do laundry, and catch up on any snail mail. With his afternoon and evening planned, he got to work.
While he was painting Hermione’s room, he had his computer read out loud the files in Natalie’s bank heist, taking notes on questions as they were raised in his mind. He’d not tried this technology before and while the computer’s voice lacked human pauses with punctuation, it was a good way to do two things at once.
By the night’s end, he had a full page of questions to discuss with Natalie and a small, but private space finished for Hermione. They were coming over on the week-end for dinner and to see her new space. Other than the location and the paint color, she hadn’t seen the space since he initially suggested it to her.
It was nearing his bedtime and so he wrote an email to Natalie with the suggestion they talk at a set time the next day. If she was still awake, it would give her time to look up the answers now or in the morning. As he drifted off to sleep, he was surprised by the many positives in his life. In the immediate years after his family’s deaths, he never thought he’d see positives in his world.
Chapter 3
As planned, he and Natalie spoke about the Willow Glen Heist, as the police had termed it since that was the neighborhood in which the bank was located. Natalie was running down his list of questions reading and answering them as she went along the page.
“Is the bank still open? Yes, but since that time it’s merged into another banking company.”
“Are any of the employees still working there? Don’t know, I’ll visit the bank tomorrow and assess that question.”
“Are any of the original cops or FBI team members still working? I think so, but I’ll confirm tomorrow.”
“Have any of stolen goods shown up on eSale or some other online reseller? Don’t know if we ever looked there and I’m not sure how we would.”
“Has any of money shown up that was stolen from the bank? At the time, a trace was put on the money, but after three years that went away.”
“Was there anything else in the safe deposit boxes other than money or jewelry? Yes, I must have forgotten to send you the list.”
“Are there pictures of what was in the safe deposit box? Yes, in some cases.”
“Has anyone done a recent fingerprint or DNA analysis of what was found in the vault? That’s complicated. There were a ton of prints and DNA trace because customers and bank staff go in and out of the vault all day, every day the bank is open. Some of the DNA was collected but not analyzed as a decade ago it was even slower than it was now and while the bank robbery was terrible, no one was hurt or killed so it had a lower priority than some of the murder cases at the time. I’ll look into the evidence to see if any of it needs processing.”
Damian had Natalie pause after her response to this question of hers and said, “You mean to tell me that despite the FBI and the SJPD being in on the case, that there were insufficient resources to process some of the evidence?”
“Yes that’s correct.”
“Wow.”
“Think about it Damian, there were perhaps a thousand different pieces of trace DNA in that vault. Most employees’ trace couldn’t be eliminated without taking samples from them and they’re well within their rights to refuse our request; likewise it was the same for customers. It was too complicated if not impossible to sort through a thousand pieces of trace to determine who the bank robbers were. Frankly if the robbers were smart, and these guys appeared to be, they would have worn protective gear to ensure that their DNA was not left behind in the vault.”
“Okay let me think about that for a while and see if I have any ideas on what to productively do with the evidence.”
Natalie continued down Damian's list of questions and he was quite pleased with himself on some of his question since he felt like he’d been at half brain power the previous evening.
“Were there any similar robberies to this one? Attempts yes, successful, no. Usually they make too much noise and someone catches on.”
“Why this bank? I don’t know.”
“Can I get you a list of the bank note serial numbers? Some of them. Why, what are you thinking of there?” Natalie asked.
“I had a vision of writing a program that would go and match every bank transaction to those serial numbers in the time since the robbery. It would be a massive undertaking as I would first have to access those systems across multiple bank systems as well as the U.S. Treasury and I would even like to look into some of the currency conversion systems that move U.S. dollars into another currency.”
“That's an interesting idea. I don’t recall them trying that in the case file.”
“Of course they didn’t; they don’t have the technical expertise to do that.”
“Of course, Damian, I forget what is easy and ordinary for you, isn’t for the rest of the world. I always feel dumb around you but I realize that most of the world should feel dumb around you.”
“Stop with the flattery or I’ll refuse to help you on this case.”
“I think the case has caught your interest and you feel the same pull that I do to try and solve it. I think even if for some stupid reason, I fired you from this case that you would go on to solve it on your own.”
“Natalie, you might be right!” Damian said with a laugh.
“I still have more of your questions here but it sounds like you have an enormous task in front of you by trying to do a worldwide match of U.S. currency serial numbers. I wouldn’t even know where to start on such a database. Where do you even find a list of every location that uses a scanning machine to look at U.S. currency?”
“I admit it’s going to be a large undertaking, perhaps larger than any other data search that I’ve ever done. I also want to play with the trace and fingerprint data from the case, but I want to get going first on this bank list.”
“Okay, will you keep me posted on your progress? I’m guessing you won’t have answers for two to three weeks.”
“I might have information sooner than that, but I’ll keep you posted.”
They ended the call and Damian sat back thinking of the huge task in front of him. Checking his watch, he decided to check in with the ladies to see if they were ready to play SF Bay water polo. He got a reply that they were and so he put his new water polo net in his boat along with the ball and his wetsuit and set off across the bay to Ariana’s house. He had the fast two seater boat that would get him there in under ten minutes as long as he didn’t have to dodge too many ferry boats in the bay.
Two hours later after vigorous play and a filling lunch, he was heading across the bay with Hermione so she could see her new room and stay the night. Once school started, she’d only be able to stay with him on Friday and Saturday evenings. He would take her back to Ariana the next day especially since she was looking for some last minute school stuff.
It was the first time he would spend alone time with Hermione on his island since she’d come into their lives four months ago. Maybe by staying with him, she’d learn to trust him with more information about her parents. They spent some time fishing and cooked dinner together, then she passed time on the computer keeping up with her school friends while Damian went to work on the list of financial institutions that he’d need to search for currency serial numbers. Then he heard a gasp from Hermione and
looked over to find tears running down her face.
“Hermione, what’s up? What’s upset you?” he asked as he walked over to the girl to look at what she was looking at on the computer.
Then he frowned.
Chapter 4
He was looking at a Facebook page with a message written in symbols. He didn’t know what Asian language the words represented but he guessed it was Chinese. He knew that Hermione spoke both Spanish and Chinese, but he’d been unaware she could also read it.
‘我们做得很好，找你。’
“Hermione, can you translate that for me?”
The child just sat there, mute, tears continuing down her face. Damian put his left arm around her shoulder while his right hand copied the phrase into translation software. It translated to:
‘We are doing fine, searching for you.’
That was a strange phrase. The English was awkward, but maybe that was just the translation software, so he asked Hermione.
“Hermione, do those words mean ‘we are doing fine, searching for you’?”
“Yes,” she said in a faint voice and then added, “It’s proof that Mom and Dad are alive.”
Great, why did he have to have this emotionally charged moment with Hermione when Ariana wasn’t around?
“Are your parents native English speakers?”
“What does that mean?”
“Is English the first language they learned?”
“Yes. Why?”
“The phrase is very awkward for an English speaker.”
“What do you mean?”
“If I wrote such a note to you, I would say something like, 'Honey we’re looking for you and we’re doing fine'. This phrase has nothing personal in it for you to know that your parents typed it and the grammar is poor and it’s weird that they didn’t start with the search for you rather than the fact that they were fine.”
The teenager had settled a little bit after the tsunami of emotion that had hit her with the message.
“Are you suggesting that someone besides my parents wrote the message?” Hermione asked, finally understanding the point that Damian was making.
“Maybe. I don’t know your parents style of writing nor what gets lost in a translation, but this doesn’t sound like the two people that produced you. There’s not even an ‘I love you’ in words or symbols.”
“I want it to be from Mom and Dad,” Hermione said determinedly yet acknowledging that something wasn’t right with the sentence.
“I know,” replied Damian quietly.
There was silence for a while and then Damian broke it by suggesting, “How about if I go back and survey your home - I’ll see if the man is still there and if there are any changes that were made. I’ve checked periodically and your parent’s trust is continuing to pay the bills so the house should be in good shape.”
“Okay. Can I come with you?”
“No. If the house is under surveillance, I don’t want anyone to see your new look. Is the post from your parents a reply to your post about drills being canceled that you wrote last May?”
“No.”
“That’s another reason to think it’s not from your parents. I could use handwriting software to see if the word usage matches your parents, but then I’d need something that they wrote that you have in your possession.”
“Okay, I’ll find something.”
Wincing, he thought this conversation with Hermione was squeezing his heart. He felt like he was slowly destroying her dream that the message was from her parents and that they were alive and looking for her. That was the ultimate thought that every child who had loved her parents, but had been separated from them wanted to hear. He looked over at Hermione and she was searching something on her phone.
Knowing that he was thrusting another dagger in the kid’s heart, he added, “There’s probably nothing on the phone from them since you got it after you left your house. Would you like to look at your old phone that I retrieved from the creek?”
Hermione continued looking down at her phone and Damian watched her, trying to guess at her thinking. He knew she had heard his question, but she seemed unable to respond to it.
With tears glistening in her eyes she looked up at them and said, “I have so little from my parents. Perhaps they have little from me as well and have forgotten what I look like or how good I am at swimming.”
“I don’t think so. I find myself imagining what my daughters would have looked like now and I think about their personality quirks and wonder if they would have gotten stronger or receded as they grew older. My oldest played in Little League and I wonder if her love of the game would have stayed with her and if she'd be heading to college on scholarship. I haven’t forgotten my children after seven years and I’m sure your parents haven’t forgotten you after just a few months.”
Hermione went to him and hugged him tight and mumbled into his shirt, “I’m sorry I’m making you think about your daughters.”
“Hey, I find myself thinking about them every day as something catches my attention and it brings back a memory, but it’s okay as I honor them in those moments.”
They just stood there a while, the lost teenager clinging to the adult that was keeping her safe, and then finally she leaned back and said, “Let’s go look at my old phone and see if anything is there.”
Damian heaved a silent sigh of relief as he felt the crisis pass.
“Okay, we can look at it on this computer as I copied the contents here,” Damian said pointing to a computer in the lab. With a few keystrokes, he brought up the directory for Hermione’s old phone. She stared at the file labels and decided that the best place to look was email followed by texts for a sample of her parents’ writing.
“Should we look for Mom or Dad?” Hermione asked.
“We’ll need both since we don’t know which of your parents might have composed that message.”
A short time later she had a short and long communication from each parent. Damian ran it through his software that used artificial intelligence processes to compare word usage. After entering the information, the computer suggested that there was a thirty-five percent guess that the message matched her parents’ normal pattern of communication.
“Thirty five percent is better than zero,” Hermione said.
“Yes, but it’s much less than even odds that’s it’s a match. I think it’s unlikely the message was written by your parents. By the way, I assume they knew how to write in Chinese?”
The question made Hermione pause. Then she said, “I never saw them write Chinese, but maybe they used translation software for the message since they knew I spoke it.”
“True,” Damian agreed and left it at that. As a parent, he knew that wasn’t a message he’d would have ever written his family if he was on the run and had time to drop them the shortest of notes.
“When are you going to visit my home?”
“Probably tomorrow night. I’ll want to do what I did last time and that means waiting until at least nine at night so I can have the cover of darkness.”
Looking over at the ‘window’ in her bedroom, she could see it was dark outside. She asked, “Why not go now?”
“I wouldn’t leave you alone on this island,” he said simply.
Hermione looked at him and judged his feelings to be resolute on the subject, so she dropped it. Tomorrow would be good enough.
“Should I respond to the message?” Hermione asked.
“That’s a good question,” said Damian weighing the pros and cons in his mind. Then he said, “How about if you used a single emoticon that means something to your parents, but no one else. That way it looks random if some bad people wrote the message and if your parents did, then they’ll know you’re also alive and well.”
“Okay,” Hermione said as she started looking for the right emoticon that would convey those feelings.
“I’m going to respond with a swimmer. It won’t make sense to most people but it will to Mom a
nd Dad. Can I enter it now?”
“Yes. Any computer in my lab will bounce around the world before indicating its physical location is Siberia. But let’s reply in the morning as we don’t want it to look like you immediately read the message, okay?”
Hermione nodded and then she changed the subject. “Do you think I’ll make the water polo team?”
Damian was delighted with her change of conversation and said, “I haven’t seen the other girls play, but you’re a strong swimmer and that seems like half the skillset you need to play. Is the swim coach also the water polo coach?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’ll get on the team. He saw a lot of promise in you during the short swim year so I’m sure he’ll recognize it again.”
“Okay. I think I'll head to my room and read.”
“What are you reading at the moment?”
There was a brief moment of glee that flashed across her face and she said, “I downloaded Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I’m so excited to read it.”
“Well don’t stay up too late or Ariana and I will beat you at water polo tomorrow.”
She just smiled and retreated to her new bedroom and closed the door.
Well, Damian thought, at least she’s talking to me and she’s not mad nor does she think I’m stupid. With a teenager that was a total win.
Chapter 5
Damian was cooking breakfast the next morning - pancakes with syrup and yogurt. That should give the kid carbohydrates and protein to play hard at water polo, then go shopping with Ariana for her final school needs.
“How do you like the book?” Damian asked.
“It’s great and it’s sad,” she replied.
“Why sad?”
“Because I truly believe this is the last book she’ll ever write. I want more Harry Potter books.”