Chapter 4 - What Elsa Left Behind
Ronaldo didn't look at Sal.
Sal didn't move.
For twenty-two years, trust between them had required almost no words.
Now one word sat between them.
Salvatore.
“Say something,” Sal said.
Ronaldo closed the laptop.
“You were at her apartment.”
“Yes.”
“You found nothing.”
“Yes.”
“You knew her schedule.”
“Yes.”
Sal's face hardened.
“If you think I touched her, ask me directly.”
Ronaldo looked at him.
“Did you?”
“No.”
No hesitation.
Ronaldo believed him.
Not because of loyalty.
Because Sal had never lied well.
“Then why your name?”
“I don't know.”
They replayed the video.
This time Ronaldo noticed Elsa wasn't looking toward the apartment door.
She was looking at her phone.
Salvatore wasn't the person entering.
It was the caller.
They examined the laptop metadata.
A contact named SALVATORE had called Elsa eleven seconds before the recording ended.
But the number wasn't Sal's.
Someone had created a false contact.
“Someone wanted her to believe it was me,” Sal said.
“And wanted me to find this.”
Ronaldo stood.
It was a trap built in layers.
The disappearance.
The fake call.
The laptop in Victor's office.
Sal's name.
Someone wasn't merely stealing money.
Someone was dismantling Ronaldo's trust.
That afternoon, Bev examined the accounting records.
Elsa's hidden ledger revealed eleven years of diversions.
$8.4 million.
Victor had authorized many transfers.
But not all.
Some bore credentials belonging to a second person.
Bev went pale when she saw the initials.
SG.
Salvatore Greco.
Sal laughed once.
No humor.
“They're thorough.”
Ronaldo studied the entries.
Then noticed something.
“Sal doesn't type dates this way.”
Bev looked at him.
“What?”
The records used month-day-year.
Sal had been born in Sicily and retained one habit from childhood.
Day-month-year.
Every handwritten date he'd produced for twenty-two years followed that order.
The forged records did not.
“Someone copied his authorization but not his habits,” Ronaldo said.
Bev sat down.
“Who knows him well enough to frame him?”
Ronaldo answered immediately.
“Someone close.”
They began with access records.
Seven people could enter both the Wacker offices and Calumet administrative systems.
Five were eliminated quickly.
Victor remained.
So did one other.
Beverly Vance.
Bev stared at her own name.
“That's convenient.”
Ronaldo looked at her.
“You've worked here nine years.”
“Which means if somebody wants you alone, I'm an excellent person to remove.”
Sal folded his arms.
“Or an excellent person to hide behind.”
Bev looked at him.
“You think it's me?”
“I think that's what we're supposed to think.”
For the first time that day, Ronaldo almost smiled.
Elsa had taught them that.
Look at the error.
Then ask whether it was meant to be found.
They returned to Elsa's apartment.
This time Ronaldo went himself.
He didn't search.
He walked.
Her shoes by the door.
One crooked picture.
Three books stacked beside the sofa.
A grocery list attached to the refrigerator.
Coffee.
Milk.
Rice.
Soap.
Peaches.
Ronaldo stared at the final word.
Peaches.
He remembered Elsa's story about her mother.
Seventy-nine cents.
Not ninety-nine.
The story that had made him laugh for the first time in years.
He opened the kitchen cabinet.
Three cans of peaches.
One was lighter than the others.
He opened it.
Inside was a flash drive.
Sal stared.
“She knew you'd come.”
“No.”
Ronaldo held the drive.
“She knew I'd remember.”
They connected it to Elsa's laptop.
One audio file.
Ronaldo played it.
Victor's voice.
Then another man's voice, distorted by distance.
Victor said, “She knows too much.”
The other man answered.
“Then make her leave.”
“And if she won't?”
A pause.
“Make Falcone believe she did.”
Ronaldo replayed the second voice.
Once.
Twice.
Five times.
He knew it.
But he couldn't place it.
Then Sal reached for the keyboard.
“Slow it down.”
They did.
Behind the voice was a sound.
A clock.
Three notes every quarter hour.
Ronaldo knew only one clock that made that sound.
It had stood in the same office for seventeen years.
He unplugged the flash drive.
“Wacker.”
They drove back.
The building was empty.
Ronaldo took the elevator upstairs.
The hallway lights were dim.
At the far end was the office containing the clock.
The door was closed.
Sal reached for his jacket.
Ronaldo put one hand on the knob.
May you like
Before he turned it, someone inside said:
“I wondered how long Elsa's peaches would take you.”
