Hollow Point

by Mike Ryan

  Tyrell looked at him strangely, like he was talking to someone else. “What do you think I am? A rookie or something?”

  Recker smiled at him. “I’m just saying.”

  Tyrell waved at him then left the bar. Recker and Haley stayed a few minutes longer to finish their drinks and discuss things a little more.

  “You really think he’s gonna come up with something?” Haley asked.

  “I do. Wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think it’d work.”

  “Well, sometimes people throw crap at the wall and hope that something sticks. Doesn’t mean they believe that it will.”

  “I think Tyrell will find out something,” Recker said. “He knows enough people that he’ll find someone who’ll start talking. I believe that someone knows something. Somebody has to.”

  They stayed another five minutes, then when their drinks were finished, started leaving. Recker went to the back office to let Charlie know they were going and to thank him for letting them use his place. When the two Silencers got back to the office, Jones had some news for them.

  “Well, Tyrell’s gonna hit the streets again,” Recker said. “Armed with some extra funding, of course.”

  “We may not even need it,” Jones said, typing away, not even bothering to look at them entering the office.

  Recker’s mood quickly perked up, thinking, and hoping his partner had found something. “Why? What’s up?”

  “I’m not sure but I may have found a common link. Nothing concrete yet, but it’s a start.”

  “What’d you come up with?” Recker asked, sitting at the desk next to him, eagerly looking at the screen.

  Haley also pulled up a chair, sitting just behind the two men, looking between their shoulders.

  Jones finished up what he was typing before explaining. “Three months ago, Officer Jennings opened up a new bank account with a five-thousand-dollar deposit.”

  “OK?” Recker asked, not seeing a connection so far.

  “Officer Bridges did the same thing three months ago.”

  “Nothing we can really pin down,” Haley said.

  Jones put his finger in the air, indicating he wasn’t done yet. “Officer Wheaton opened up a new bank account six months ago.”

  “That’s three,” Recker said.

  Jones still wasn’t done. “And five months ago, Officer Clemont did the same.”

  “All with the same amount?” Haley asked.

  Jones nodded. “All with the same amount. Five-thousand-dollar deposits.”

  “That is a pretty big coincidence.”

  “I’m still not done. None of these new accounts were opened up in those officer’s names.”

  “Then whose were they?” Recker asked.

  “Names of relatives. Mothers and wives mostly.”

  “How’d you pick up on it?”

  Jones gave an unassuming shrug. “Well, nothing came up in their personnel packages or their records, so I just figured I would try to dig a little deeper. Jennings was the only one who did not open up an account in someone else’s name.”

  “I wonder why?” Haley asked.

  “Jennings was not married, and his parents were already deceased. He also was an only child and he did not have any children of his own either.”

  “Oh.”

  “Figure out where that money came from?” Recker said.

  “Unfortunately, no. They all deposited checks from a newly established security company. They all had the words “Consulting” written in the memo line.”

  “Trying to make it look legitimate.”

  “Indeed,” Jones replied. “But, I’ve checked the company’s history and they are as phony as a three-dollar bill.”

  “Not a real company?”

  “Fake name, fake owner, fake business account, all come back with dead ends.”

  “How ‘bout trying to get into the bank account footage?” Recker asked. “If we can get a picture of the guy opening the account, maybe we can hone in on him.”

  “Unfortunately, that is no longer possible.”

  “Why’s that?” Haley asked.

  “Because the bank only keeps their security footage for six months. There is nothing left to check.”

  “Figures.”

  “What about the bank account itself?” Recker said. “Can you get into it? Find any other transactions that might go somewhere.”

  “I’ve already been ahead of you. There are no other transactions, and while the account is still technically open, there is no longer any money in it.”

  “Damn.”

  “The account was opened a year ago with a small deposit of a thousand dollars. It was built up over the next three months until it reached a total of thirty thousand.”

  Recker didn’t need any further explaining to know what that meant. Thirty thousand dollars, six officers, five thousand each. The account was opened specifically to pay them in a manner which would not draw suspicion. If it was investigated, it would seem they were being paid consulting work by a security firm, which was not unusual work or behavior for cops who were looking for a part-time or side gig.

  “Seems pretty clear that something’s going on here,” Haley said.

  Recker and Jones both agreed with the assessment, though neither voiced it right away. Recker always had that hunch anyway, so it wasn’t exactly a surprise for him. But it was the link, the one piece of evidence they’d been looking for that confirmed his suspicion. After a few minutes of silence, Recker looked over at the computer genius.

  “Well? What do you think now?”

  “I would say that you were right,” Jones answered, shuffling a few papers around. “I would say that is definitely a link.”

  “And a shady one at that.”

  “What now?” Haley asked.

  “We keep digging until we hit gold.”

  “Perhaps it would be wise to let our detective friend know about this,” Jones said. “Assuming he doesn’t already. Maybe he could shed more light on it.”

  Though Recker wasn’t sure Andrews could tell them more than they already knew, he agreed to call him anyway, just to cover all the bases. After a few rings, Andrews picked up, sounding like he was out of breath.

  “Hey, hey,” Andrews said, sitting in the chair at his desk.

  “Just run a marathon?”

  Andrews took a few more seconds to collect his breath. “No, no, I was just on the other side of the office. Wanted to make sure I wasn’t in earshot of anyone.”

  “Oh. Well, I got some news,” Recker said. “Not sure if you already know it or not.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Jennings deposited five thousand dollars in a new bank account a few months ago.”

  “Uhh, yeah,” Andrews said, shuffling folders around on his desk until he found the right one. He opened it up and started looking at it. “Yeah, it was some consulting work he did on the side or something for some security firm.”

  “I take it you didn’t look too deep into that.”

  “No, just a cursory look. Everything seemed on the up and up, why?”

  “It’s a fake company.”

  “What?” Andrews asked, not believing it.

  “There’s nothing real about it.”

  “We ran the basics, everything seemed to come back fine.”

  “Should’ve dug deeper,” Recker replied.

  “Even if that’s true, though, that doesn’t prove anything.”

  “It does when you look at the other officers who also opened up false bank accounts with a five-thousand-dollar deposit.”

  “We didn’t find any evidence of that.”

  “Should’ve looked harder. One was opened in the name of his wife, the other three in the names of their mothers.”

  Andrews sighed loudly into the phone, clearly frustrated. “All six got checks from the same security company?”

  “You got it.”

  “Do I need to check this place out?”

  “No, don’t bothe
r, it’ll be a waste of time,” Recker answered. “It’s a dead end, I’ve already checked it.”

  “We still haven’t gotten any leads that suggest any of them were anything but clean.”

  “Well, six officers who are now dead and all opened up bank accounts with a five-thousand-dollar check from a false business sure does raise a lot of red flags, doesn’t it?”

  “It does. But where do we go from here?”

  Recker thought for a few seconds before replying. “Maybe we need to dig into bank accounts for everyone on the force.”

  Andrews’ eyes almost bulged out of his head. “Everyone on the force? You know how long that would take?”

  “Plus, wives, spouses, parents, kids, uncles.”

  “That’s a massive undertaking. That’ll take months, maybe years, if it can be done at all. You need court orders to check the bank account of everyone on the job.”

  “You need court orders,” Recker said. “I don’t play by the same rules, remember.”

  “But if we’re gonna catch the guy behind this, I need solid evidence that I can take into court and put him away with. If they put me on the stand, I very well can’t just say The Silencer gave it to me, can I?”

  “I suppose not. I’ll get back to you when I have more.”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Andrews said hurriedly.

  “What?”

  “You have anything else you need me to run down?”

  “No, that was it.”

  “You don’t happen to have the bank statements with those deposits, do you?”

  “Why?”

  “If you do, send them to me, maybe I can use them and talk with their relatives and figure out what’s going on. Maybe one of them can tell me something.”

  Recker didn’t reply immediately, but thought it wasn’t a bad idea. He wasn’t sure how likely it was that one of the cops told anyone in their family what they were doing, especially if it was illegal, but he figured it was probably worth a shot.

  “All right, you’ll get an email within the hour with what you need.”

  “Thanks. If any of them say anything interesting, I’ll let you know,” Andrews said.

  The two then hung up, though their conversation gave Recker an idea. He didn’t know how workable it was, or how long it would take, but he thought it might just work. But it would depend on Jones’ ability. Before telling the others what he was thinking, Recker put his hands in his pocket and paced around the room for a few minutes, trying to get it straight in his own mind. Jones didn’t want to wait any longer before finding out what was on his mind, though.

  Typing on the keyboard, Jones looked up over his laptop. “Mind sharing what’s going through your mind?”

  Recker stopped upon hearing his voice, though he didn’t hear the entire question. “Huh?”

  “You’re pacing. Something’s going on in that head of yours.”

  “Oh. Well, I’ve got an idea.”

  “Splendid. What is it?”

  “Not so sure you’ll think it’s splendid when I finish saying what it is,” Recker said.

  “Why is that?”

  “Because you’ll be doing all the work.”

  “Oh. If I know you as well as I think I do, I’m going to say this is going to require quite a bit of computer skill.”

  “More than me and Chris got for sure.”

  Jones looked a little beleaguered, knowing his workload was likely going to increase dramatically sometime in the next few minutes. “Might as well just say it.”

  “I have an idea about how to identify who else might be involved in this.”

  “Let me stop you right there,” Jones said. “Now you’re assuming there is someone else involved. Maybe all the work has been done.”

  “I’m guessing not. I have a feeling the net is gonna catch a lot more fish before this expedition is over.”

  Jones still looked troubled, but wanted Recker to get on with it. “Well, continue.”

  “We know six officers got a five-thousand-dollar payment. What if we check into the backgrounds of everyone else to see who else got a five-thousand-dollar payment?”

  Jones sat there motionless, batting his eyes for a few moments as he stared at Recker. He couldn’t believe what he was saying. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but are you actually suggesting we check into the bank accounts of every single member of the police force?”

  Recker made a face as if he’d just been hit with a sharp object, knowing how intensive it sounded. “Yes?”

  “Do you know how massive an undertaking that would be?”

  “Uhh, yes?”

  It was one of the few times Jones seemed dumbfounded and at a loss for words. “I, uhh, I don’t even know where I would start.”

  “Well you dug up these guys.”

  “These guys as you put it, I was looking at specifically. Do you know how many officers there are in this city?”

  Recker looked at Haley for backup. “What was it at last count, over six thousand? Something like that?”

  “I believe so,” Haley replied.

  “And you want me to check every single one of them?” Jones asked. “And by this question, I’m assuming you don’t mean just the officers themselves, but their extended family as well?”

  Recker knew how tall a task he was asking and just smiled widely. Jones wasn’t ready to give up on telling him just how big it was, though.

  “Six thousand officers,” Jones said. “Then if you get into spouses, kids, parents, siblings, I mean, the results could be staggering. We could easily reach thirty to forty thousand names before we are done.”

  Recker tilted his head. “Possible.”

  Silence filled the room for a minute as Jones thought about how massive a request he was being asked. He had no doubts he could do it, but he knew he couldn’t do it quickly. Certainly not fast enough for their purposes. There was just no way it could be done by himself in a fair amount of time. Probably not for months. And that would be with him working basically around the clock and not devoting any time or resources to any of their other cases. It was a thought that didn’t hold a lot of value to him.

  “I just don’t think it would be the best use of our time . . . my time. Could it be done? Yes. But the time involved,” Jones said, shaking his head. “How many other people will not get helped because we’ve gotten sidetracked on this one issue. A big issue to be sure, no doubt about it, but still . . . one case as opposed to hundreds of others. And with the evidence starting to point toward criminal circumstances, I’m not sure it’s a time investment that’s worth making.”

  Recker listened intently to what Jones was saying and sighed, knowing he was right. The plan could work, but it would just take too long. He nodded in agreement to forget about it. Then Haley snapped his fingers, not ready to let it go so quickly.

  “I got it,” Haley said.

  “What?” Recker asked.

  “Something similar. But maybe better. And maybe faster.”

  Jones was equally intrigued and sat up straighter in his chair to listen. “Well let’s hear it.”

  “Same thing basically, but instead of checking each individual name, we check the bank instead.”

  Jones’ heart sank again, once more realizing how much work that entailed for him. “Do you know how many banks are in the Philadelphia region?”

  Haley shrugged, not having any idea. “Gotta be what, a thousand?”

  “Maybe two,” Recker said.

  “That’s infinitely better than checking thirty thousand names.”

  Jones was still not impressed. “Do you know how long and difficult it is to hack into a bank’s system?”

  Haley threw his hands up to answer the question. Recker, putting some serious thought into it, thought it could really work though. It was much more practical than his previous plan, he thought.

  “I’ve got a better way to make it go more smoothly,” Recker said.

  Jones didn’t seem so convinced. “I wo
uld love to hear about it.”

  “Can you devise a program to only look for certain things in a bank’s system?”

  “It can be done.”

  “Every officer’s payment has been a flat five thousand dollars. Once you’re into the bank’s system, have it only look through deposits of exactly five thousand dollars over the past six months. There can’t be that many. I mean, how many people will put in a five-thousand-dollar check?”

  Jones slouched down a little and leaned back in his chair, putting his index finger on his lips as he thought about it.

  Haley tried to make it sound a little easier of a task. “And it’s not really even a few thousand banks. Some branches have dozens or a hundred. That’ll make it go by a little easier.”

  Jones looked over at him. “Don’t try to sugarcoat it.”

  “So, what do you think?” Recker asked.

  Jones sighed, not really wanting to take on such as task, but reluctantly agreed. “I suppose I can give it a shot. I love how you two make it sound so easy for me.”

  “Hey, we’re willing to help. But like you always say, you got your skills, and we got ours.”

  “Now you’re using my own words against me.”

  Recker laughed, but then got more serious. “Hey, if it gets to be too much or is more difficult than we thought, then we’ll try something else.”

  “Agreed. I’ll do my best. But in the meantime, I’ll hope like heck Tyrell finds something before I do. And that’s the first time I’ve ever hoped that someone else found information before me.”

  “It certainly would make things easier, wouldn’t it?”

  13

  As Jones started hacking his way into different banking institutions, the team still hoped Tyrell would be the one to come up with the missing piece. They all felt like they were close, closer than it appeared they were. Recker thought with the right piece, everything would fall together. Jones figured he could start with the smaller banks and eliminate them a little more quickly, or he could start with the bigger banks, the ones with multiple branches, that way he could eliminate a bunch at one time. He figured it was better to get rid of the most amount possible and started with some of the bigger ones.

  Recker was in contact with Tyrell every day, keeping up to date with his progress. Five days had passed since Recker had given him the envelope stuffed with money and he was hoping they’d have a little more to show for it by now. Unfortunately, just as Tyrell had suggested it might go, it seemed to be no different than the first go-round. Nobody seemed to have anything to say. He wasn’t through with all his contacts yet, but he wasn’t expecting much to change. Tyrell had just left the apartment of one of those contacts when Recker called.