Chapter 7: Bailed out and over my head

I’VE BEEN SITTING at the courthouse for an hour and they just started the hearing on Brenda’s bail and release. Because it’s federal, she didn’t get the fast release she threatened last Tuesday. I feel so bad for her having to sit in an actual jail for a week! Boohoo.

Catch and release

I said ‘Hi’ to Jordan when I came in, but mostly these court cases are a lot of sitting in the back of a big room in which almost all the action takes place at the front in very quiet voices that no one in the audience can hear. There’s no jury. It isn’t a trial or even a hearing. This is where the two—or if I’m counting correctly, six—lawyers argue with each other over whether it is safe to trust her on her own recognizance and how much bail is adequate to assure she won’t jump bail.

I could give them a tip—she’s going to run. Jordan already suspects that. All they can do is argue about making it as costly as possible for her to leave and then watch to see if they can catch her. A condition imposed was that her passport be surrendered. After another hour of haggling up in front, the judge pounded the gavel and announced bail had been set and paid, and Brenda was released on her own recognizance. There was a stern lecture to the prosecution regarding having an airtight case on the software counterfeiting charge in two weeks or he would dismiss it.

Jordan finally separated himself from the prosecution team and came back to sit beside me. The judge called a recess for lunch with the next case to be heard at two o’clock. Before long we were the only ones still sitting in the back of the courtroom.

“Well, the game’s afoot, as Sherlock would say,” Jordan said. “She’s being followed and I’m heading out to be near Madison Park when she gets there. We don’t want her in the house for long before we move in with the search warrant.”

“She’s going to run, Jordan,” I answered.

“She’s going to try,” he smiled. “This is a federal case and her passport has been collected. She would be stopped at any border.”

“Any wagers on that?”

“No. But, despite what our judge said, we’ve got an airtight case against Barnett, Keane, and Lamb and she is the major shareholder. Bradley Keane’s wife holds a twenty-five percent share now that he’s gone. I’m sorry her retirement fund is looking a little weak at the moment. She seems like a nice woman. With Simon out of the picture, Brenda holds the remaining seventy-five percent.” Jordan paused. “I shouldn’t do this, but do you want to ride along for the search? You’d have to wait in the car until we’re done but I wouldn’t mind the company.”

Was he making a pass? What an exciting date to ask me out on if he was. Either way, I wasn’t in the mood for it at the moment. I just wasn’t able to socialize with business interests right now.

“Sorry, I’ve got an appointment back at the office with Lars,” I said. “Why don’t you call me next time you’re doing a drug bust? I’d really like to ride along for that.”

“You know I don’t do drug busts,” Jordan answered. Apparently, my sarcasm was too subtle. Jordan’s a nice guy but you know what? Sometimes he’s a little dense.

“You know what you could do sometime?” I asked. “Stop by with the file on this case, especially Brenda’s profile and arrest record. I’d just like to scan through it once for clues on where the real money was going and where it was coming from.”

“That’s probably just a little out of bounds,” Jordan said. “But I never turn down help from D.H. Investigations.” I bit back a response that D.H. Investigations was out of business now that D.H. was dead. Jordan didn’t deserve that and it’s really just my bitterness showing through. I want Dag’s last month on earth to have meant something. I was afraid the whole thing was going to blow over and the person he fingered as the culprit was getting away.

I left the courtroom and headed back to the office.

Last will and testament

Everything started popping about the same time this afternoon. Jordan called and told me they recovered the backup disks from Brenda’s home office. She was furious. It was a pleasure to watch her rant about planted evidence but she couldn’t deny those were backup disks for Simon’s computer. They were all neatly labeled and were in the desk.

Unfortunately, the warrant had limited scope. They could search for backup disks to the computer and once they found them, they really couldn’t search the house for anything else. He thought Brenda’s housekeeping was amazing. I kept my mouth shut.