Chapter 8

Ed parked his van across from the building that Horizon had its offices in and waited. It was still a little early and he saw lights in a few offices. In a short while he saw 2 men walk out of the front door. Ed saw that they didn't use a key to get out, so he knew that the front door was unlocked at least. Ed went to the front door and went into the lobby. He quickly went to the stairway and went to the 2nd floor. He slowly opened the door and looked into the hallway. Seeing no one, he went to the next floor and looked into the hallway. A cleaning crew was vacuuming the carpets and dusting the fixtures. This was why the building was still open. Ed quietly closed the door and went up to the floor where he knew Bynum's office was. Ed put his ear to the door and didn't hear any noise or voices on the other side. He pushed the stairway door open and stepped into the hall.

Ed quickly walked to Bynum's office door. The door had crime scene tape across it. Ed shook his head. The room should be guarded until the crime scene was sure that nothing was missed. Normally, this was several days after the crime and sometimes-even weeks or months. He put on a pair of latex gloves. He took out the set of lock picks in his pocket and looked at the lock. Damn! Double sided lock he thought to himself. Ed knew that this made his task much harder. Unlike in the movies, picking a lock was not done in seconds. Sometimes, with high security locks, it took hours of uninterrupted work. The lock was not a high security lock but it was a good one. It took Ed about 35 minutes to open the door. Ed paused and tried to listen for an alarm or dialing that would indicate that a silent alarm was being sent to the alarm company. Hearing nothing, he pushed the door all of the way open and went in.

Ed had an idea of what he was looking for so he went right to Bynum's desk. He turned on the computer, hoping that Bynum didn't have a password on the desktop files. Ed would not try to enter the company files fearing that he would trigger an alarm at headquarters. The screen lit up and Ed went into the computer and searched every file that he could. He found nothing of interest. Ed started opening the desk drawers. The drawers were all unlocked. He shook his head. The crime scene crew hadn't relocked the drawers to protect any potential evidence. He went through the top drawer and found nothing. In one of the side drawers Ed found about 25 computer disks. They had clients' names on them and account numbers. Ed looked at the names of the clients. One of the disks toward the bottom didn't have any client name on it or other ID. Ed opened the CD-ROM drawer and inserted the disk. He double-clicked "MY Computer", then the drive and saw that the disk in the CD-ROM was "untitled". He double clicked the CD-ROM saw that the disk in the CD-ROM drive held picture files. Ed opened the first picture file. The picture came up on the screen and Ed saw Betty and 2 men. It was the same picture that Betty had shown him at his apartment. Ed took the disk out of the computer and put it in his pocket.

Ed heard the stairway door open and ducked behind the desk. He realized that he had left the computer on and the screen was glowing brightly. Ed slowly reached only his hand above the desk and turned the monitor off. The cleaning crew started the vacuum and went about cleaning the offices and the hallway. They made no attempt to open the door with the crime scene tape and it took about 45 minutes for them to leave the floor.