Chapter 3 — The Third Drawer

Marcus had been thorough. He had always been thorough.The folder contained: a seventeen-page typed document with footnoted sources; a series of financial records, printed and annotated; photographs of several individuals, labeled in Marcus's hand; a copy of the Briar case file with sections highlighted in three different colors; and a single handwritten note on a folded piece of notepaper that he had clearly intended to be found last.She read the typed document first.Marcus's analysis, written in the precise academic style he'd developed since leaving the force, told the following story:Raymond Briar had not been killed by Gerald Morrow. He had been killed by Vincent Calloway, a professional who had completed at least four similar jobs in different cities over the past decade, none of which had been connected to each other because they were designed not to be. Calloway was employed through Meridian Consulting Group, a shell company with registered addresses in three states and no actual employees.Calloway had been hired by a woman named Diane Reiss — Raymond Briar's silent business partner in a third company that did not appear in the official record of his assets. A company that had been siphoning money from Briar and Morrow's main business for three years. Briar had discovered this and told Reiss he was going to expose her. Reiss had made a call.Gerald Morrow had been framed. The financial motive was real — the dispute was real — but the murder was Reiss's, not Morrow's. Someone had seen the existing dispute and used it as a frame, planting the fingerprint, placing the fiber, bribing the parking attendant.The name at the department that Marcus had mentioned on the call was on page eleven.She read it.She read it again.She put the folder on the passenger seat.She sat in the Keller University parking lot for a long time, looking at the name Marcus had written with full sourcing and three separate pieces of corroborating evidence.Lieutenant David Whitmore.Her commanding officer for six years.The man who had supervised the Briar investigation.The man whose name Marcus had told her specifically not to mention.She started the car.