by Sijal Aziz
Simon arrived home at around midnight.
He went straight to bed as he had to be outside the second district police station by 8 in the morning to tail detective Derek Markus.
Detective Derek reached home around midnight. He had brought the case files home. Once he was in bed, he took out Kate’s file and read her email one more time.
Although Kate had run away from him twice, but he had to give it to her, she had single handedly provided Derek all the leads in the case.
Detective Derek took out Kate’s picture from her file and stared at it. Kate was drop dead gorgeous and she had spunk and brains. Something he had not seen in beautiful women before except Jennifer.
Women were either beautiful or brainy. He wondered what Kate would be like in bed. His last thoughts before he finally dozed off, were of him and Kate having hot steamy sex together in his bed.
CHAPTER 23
Kate read the email three times. For all she knew the detective could be lying to her. But she had to take her chances as there were no other options.
Kate reached the Valley Trail at 6:00AM in the morning. She kept a watchful eye around her to make sure she was not being followed.
Once in the park, she looked around for suspicious police activity, there was none. She then started canvassing the area for possible escape routes, there were plenty. She only hoped that she would be able to get the message across without getting caught. There were a number of joggers running around the trail.
She hid behind a rock at a vantage point that showed people entering the trail.
At 6:20 she saw detective Markus enter the trail. There were no police officers with him or around him as far as she could see.
Detective Derek sat down on a bench.
Kate looked closely at the detective to check if he was wearing an earpiece. He wasn’t. She looked around to see if anyone was acting suspicious. There were some joggers around. Kate waited until she was sure that they were not circling around. When she was sure that there were no joggers circling around and no one suspicious around, she headed in the direction of detective Derek Markus. Either she will be safe or put in jail and prosecuted for a murder she did not commit. But that was a gamble she would have to take.
Detective Derek could not see Kate anywhere. He had now been waiting for her for thirty minutes.
“Maybe she is having second thoughts”, Derek thought.
But he still continued to wait, because he really wanted to meet her.
He was about to get up and look around when he heard, “Detective Derek”
He turned around and saw Kate standing behind him.
She was beautiful when he had first seen her but even in haphazardly cut hairstyle and dyed hair, she looked even more stunning.
Detective Derek tried to focus his mind on the situation at hand. Images of them having sex in his bed from last night started flashing in his mind.
“Ms. Hawkins, I thought you were not coming. If you can please take a seat here”, Derek said motioning to the space on the bench next to him.
“I would rather if we’d walk around”
“Sure”
They started heading down the trail, neither of them talking.
It was Derek who broke the silence first.
“I am sorry that you had to go through all of this. But you are still not in the clear. The only reason I am not arresting you and putting you in jail is, because I know you are innocent and there is a lot more to your boyfriend’s murder than what meets the eye. I am under strict orders from my captain to arrest you within this week. I have given the circumstances a great deal of thought and have come to the conclusion that we should work together on this”
It was true detective Derek had thought about nothing else but Kate in the past 2 weeks.
“So, you will not arrest me?”
“No, you can have my word on it. I will not arrest you, because if I catch you now, they will immediately put you in jail and give you a speedy trial so that everyone can save face”
“Save face?”
“Oh, maybe you don’t know, but my office is under a lot of pressure from the mayor to apprehend you as quickly as possible. Your arrest could mean political gains for a lot of people and my station has become the laughing stock of the whole district thanks to the media. It’s not every day, that a young and beautiful woman runs away from police and police cannot find her. I am just glad the press is not making me part of the news for letting you escape”
In spite of herself, Kate smiled at detective Derek’s description of her.
“So, detective how come you are just finding evidence now? Why didn’t you look for it before?”
“Please call me Derek. Its police procedure. If we find strong evidence of guilt from a suspect, we don’t focus on looking for further evidence or suspects. We just focus on establishing a motive.
In your case we had hard evidence against you, so no one bothered to look for anything or anyone. But once you ran away and I had to look for you, I had to investigate where you could be hiding by meeting your friends and tracing your roots.
I also think that the person who murdered your boyfriend was in your apartment to murder you.
But since your boyfriend was there first, he murdered him instead. Since there are absolutely no security cameras in your apartment building or street so we have no idea who he was”
There was a look of utter shock on Kate’s face.
“I want you to share your phone number and address with me so that I can get in contact with you when needed”, detective Derek said.
Kate hesitated a bit but then shared her hotel address and phone number. If Detective Derek had wanted to arrest her, he would have done so already, she thought.
Detective Derek also shared his mobile number with Kate.
“Do you know anything about an Ian Richards? He was working in the Gamma testing department at your office”
“Yes, he was Alison’s ex-boyfriend who was killed in a car accident”
“Well he wasn’t, he was murdered. He was in a driverless car and someone hacked his car and killed him”
“How do you know the car was hacked?”
“From the surveillance video and the hard drive and because the hard drive of the car had been erased. Our IT department has been trying to recover data for the past two days but nothing so far”
“Can I take a look at it?”
Detective Derek took some time before answering, “Sure, I will bring it to your hotel at 7:00.
In the meantime, I want you to contact me immediately if you see anyone following you. I can’t be 100% sure but I think your company will be looking for you”
“So, what am I supposed to do now?”
“Tell me about Kent and Cooper, why are they going to such lengths to keep whatever they are doing hidden”
“Well based on my work in Gamma testing department, I know there is a back door in the new drone software, they have left it there deliberately. I am thinking they are planning to use that backdoor and use the drones to kill people”
“It doesn’t make any sense. Why would they do it? I mean, don’t they want more contracts from the government? What would leaving a backdoor mean for them. Killing a few Americans isn’t exactly going to do them any good”, Detective Derek asked Kate.
“Well if there are hundreds of drones in the air and all of them are given a command to shoot indiscriminately then it’s not going to be a few Americans, it’s going to be tens of thousands of us.
Each drone can be armed with fifty bullets. Also factor in the deaths and injuries caused by the stampedes when the drones start shooting indiscriminately and people start running to save their lives.
Maybe they are planning to sell backdoor access to the Russians or some terrorist organization so that they can get enough money to live comfortably forever”, Kate replied.
Detective Derek stared at Kate for a while before answering, “I like the way you think but still w
hat does not make sense to me is why kill the goose that lays the golden egg, I mean why jeopardize Kent and Cooper, it is already earning billions”
“Maybe money is not the only motive, maybe its political, we will never know, would we detective?
Unless the persons behind this are caught?”, Kate replied after thinking for a while.
“Please call me Derek. I already feel bad for making your life a living hell. If I had investigated the murder before deciding to take you in for questioning, you could still have been free”
Kate looked Derek straight in the eyes and said “That is right Derek”
“Have you had breakfast?” Derek asked Kate.
“I could not sleep all night. I was afraid that you were going to arrest me. I was too tense to have breakfast in the morning. Now I am starving”
“Me too, I am very hungry. There is a fast food diner just across the park and it would be open now. Should we go there?”
“Sure”
They made their way to the fast food diner.
When they had ordered food detective Derek said, “I am buying, it’s the least I can do after putting you through all that trouble”
Kate nodded.
“So, what now, will I be free now. Will the police stop looking for me?”
“No, I am the only one who knows you are innocent. As far as the rest of police is concerned you are still a fugitive and a murderer, and they are on a look out for you. I have however not shared details of your new appearance with anyone, so they are looking for the old you”
“When will you share information with the rest of the force that I am innocent?”
Detective looked into Kate’s eyes and said, “My investigation is not finished yet. There are too many unanswered questions. If I share anything now, it will be booted out the front door and your old murder charges will stick. So, we need to get to the bottom of this first”
“I am so tired of this”
Derek put his hand on Kate’s, “I am trying to do this as quickly as possible. But based on the sensitive nature of this, meaning me not wanting you to get caught, I cannot get extra detectives to work on this”
“Ok. Thank you for all your efforts. I am sorry, I am just so tired living like this. I want to be free again. Free to do whatever I want, whenever I want”
Without taking his hand off Kate’s hand Derek continued, “This is what we are going to do now. We have to look into Alexander Cooper.
Try to find out which countries he has visited, has there been a break in his normal routine at the office, which foreign nationals he meets more than once every 3 months, etc. I cannot get a warrant to do this so I would need your help in this regard. Are you aware of any such incidents?”
Kate liked the word ‘we’.
“Hmm. I mostly kept to myself at the office because my job was really interesting. So, didn’t hear much from anyone about Alexander Cooper. Alison, however, would be the right person to ask this, since she loved to gossip and she was always hanging around different cubicles listening to everything around the office”
“Your friend Alison has been quite helpful in my investigation. I will interview her again”
“Yes, she is quite a character but she a true friend. It is in situations like these that you realize who you can trust with your life”
Kate looked into detective Derek’s eyes and for a moment both of them didn’t say anything. Kate then realized that Derek’s hand was on her hand and she hastily took it away and said, “I better leave now before someone recognizes me. Thank you for breakfast I will see you at 7:00.
“Yes, of course. Remember you can call me anytime during the day or night, if you think someone is following you or for anything else”
“Will do, bye”, Kate left.
Detective Derek watched Kate leave. She was beautiful.
Although what she had done meant that she was very strong but there was this naked vulnerability and tenderness about her that made detective Derek want to wrap his arms around her to keep her safe. On top of that vulnerability she had the body of a goddess and the combination was maddening.
Detective Derek hoped that once this was over, he could take Kate out on a real date and get to know her better.
CHAPTER 24
Derek checked the time on his watch, it was 9. He took out his phone and placed a phone call to Alison.
“Ms. Garner, I want to interview you again. Can you please drop by the station in about half an hour?”
Alison was at the office, “Sure detective, anything to help Kate, let me talk to my supervisor”
Simon reached the station at eight and started waiting for detective Derek. When he still hadn’t arrived by 9:20, Simon started getting restless. He was cursing himself for not tailing detective Derek from his home when he saw the detective’s car pull up in front of the station. Simon sat there waiting for the detective to come out of the station again promising himself that he will not let the detective out of his sight again.
Alison reached the station exactly 30 minutes later.
Detective Derek guided her to the interview room.
Once they were seated, Detective Derek asked, “How long have you been working at Kent and Cooper, Ms. Garner?”
“I think this is my seventh year at Kent and Cooper. Is everything alright?”
“Yes, I am trying to look at another angle. Kate told me that you are best person to ask about office gossip. So, I just need to get to the bottom of something.
During these seven years, have you ever seen something that did not fit, like someone visiting Mr. Cooper who was not from the IT field, any fights, any incidences when the office was closed for a period of time, any unscheduled vacations by Alexander Cooper or another management member assigned in the Gamma department, anything that was not normal”
“Well I don’t know much but there was a time about 4 years back when Mr. Cooper was not seen at the office for six or eight months and his partner and his girlfriend took over in his absence.
They made a mess out of the office and we were all afraid that the company was going to go bankrupt and we will end up losing our jobs. A number of us got together every week outside the office to discuss our options.
However, everything went back to normal once Mr. Cooper was back. Not only did the office take on new clients but we also won major governmental contracts after that”
Detective Derek looked excited, “Very good. Can you tell me exactly when that was? I mean the period when Mr. Cooper was not at the office?”
“I don’t know exactly, when he went away but we got really worried in August of 2015 when Mr. Kent could not bring in any new clients. None of us had any work to do and he started firing people as there was nothing for them to do”
“Ok Ms. Garner you have been very helpful. Just one last question before you go, has anyone approached you after my visit to your office yesterday?”
“No”.
“Ok, that will be all. Thank you for your time”
Alison was dying to ask detective Derek what it was all about but decided against it.
Detective Derek hurried over to his computer and thought how the detectives did things in old days. Without a warrant they would not have to been able to get any information. Now with a computer and internet you could solve almost 50% of the case online.
He happily typed away “Alexander Cooper news 2015” on google and started reading.
There were several news articles about Alexander Cooper winning some contracts for Iraq and pictures of him with several doctors, Iraqi minister for science and technology and the minister for health.
The Iraqi newspaper had posted several pictures of him at a dinner party in Iraq in May 2015 where he was the chief guest. In one of the photographs, Alexander Cooper was standing with a stunningly beautiful woman and the Iraqi minister for science and technology. The caption under the picture read, “The Iraqi minister with his daughter and Alexander Cooper, of Kent and Cooper”
Detective Derek printed the news articles from all the newspapers and online news channels and continued.
There were quite a few articles from local Iraqi newspapers gossiping about Iraqi minister’s daughter’s affair with Alexander Cooper. A news channel also posted a picture of the two engaged in earnest conversation at a local restaurant.
There was one last article about the daughter of Iraqi minister’s being killed by a drone in July of 2015. There was a picture of her under the article with her intoxicating smile and the picture of Iraqi minister in mourning. The Iraqi minister seemed to have aged 10 years compared to his previous picture taken 3 months before his daughter’s death at the dinner party.
Detective Derek could not find any news of Alexander Cooper in Iraqi or US newspapers after July 2015.
Detective Derek checked for news from 2014 and there were consistent stories about Alexander Cooper and his photographs with various very hot women in 2014. But after July 2015 it was as if he did not exist. Then after November 2015 he appeared in the news again. The photographs changed though.
Up till March 2015 he was always featured with young, hot and sultry women wrapped around his arm but from November 2015 onwards the pictures changed, and he could be seen standing with the mayor, the president of United States, high-ranking officials from DARPA, Department of Defense, NSA and presidents of various other countries.
It looked as if Alexander Cooper’s priorities had changed after his return from Iraq. Derek printed everything and filed them.
When detective Markus still hadn’t come out of the station by 6:15 Simon headed home to change cars, hoping that detective Markus would still be around when he came back in his regular night car.
Detective Derek checked the time and it was nearly 6:15. He walked over to Jeff’s desk, but he was not there. He looked around for the hard drive from the driverless car and found it, in one of Jeff’s desk drawers. He took it out, picked up the file and headed straight to Kate.