When Witness X arrived at the Professor's office it was clear that he was perturbed.
"Finally." He said with a roll of the eyes. "You certainly took your time since your last visit."
Betty didn’t care for his tone, but said nothing.
He snatched the bag of photos from her. Hoping to fill in the blank spots of the mystery. He rifled through her latest haul but didn’t find what he wanted. The last piece was still missing. If it was in the bank, she had not run across it yet. It was an obvious omission. The Professor could see Carson's smug smile in the courtroom again. His blood began to boil. His pulse pounded in his ears. He looked for something to break.
Unaware of his state Betty asked, “Well?”
“No, no, no, no. It’s not here!” He threw a hand full of the photos.
He turned toward her looking crazed and yelled. “You’ve got to use your head, girl! He’s tricking you somehow! Don’t be so stupid.”
She yelled back at him. “Don’t talk to me like that! I’m the one out there! I’m the one doing all the hard work, the dangerous work! I’m not the one sitting behind the desk. They might kill me if they catch me! I need your help, but not bad enough to take any abuse from you! I spent a lot of time collecting and making those enlargements! I’m tired, and frustrated, too. I barely get time to sleep and the last thing I need is the person I’m depending on turning into Mr. Hyde!”
He felt provoked and was about to explode.
Betty drew her dart gun and said. “You'd better think carefully before you say your next words.”
He had no idea what the strange gun would do to him, but the prospect of getting shot if he didn't simmer down had as calming an effect on him as his pills. He didn’t know if she would really shoot, but took her threat seriously. Based on everything else she was capable of, he figure it best not to challenge her. Besides, she was right, he was getting too worked up. He collapsed in his desk chair, defeated. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath then apologized. "You're right. I'm sorry. I’m just getting caught up in all the…"
“Hope?” she asked.
He said. “I was going to say anticipation. What does that gun do?”
She holstered the gun. “You don’t want to find out. Let’s get back to business.”
He agreed.
He picked up the strewn photos from the floor. “I will go though these more thoroughly. I’m sure there is good information in them. You rarely bring me things that aren’t useful. You were a good student.”
He looked to the pile of documents and shook his head. “We just need one big issue to build the case around.”
Then the phone rang. It was his second wife reminding him that he'd missed dinner again. By the time he was done with the call Betty had disappeared.
Although he had no idea who Witness X was, their relationship was based on honesty. Their partnership was about the mission and both were committed to the task. Above all else they had to stop Carson.
The Professor began locking his office and opted to conduct student appointments in his classroom. His office had become a sort of war-room. There were papers pinned to walls and wrapped all around the room with red strings and notes linking ideas. His desk was covered with carefully organized paper puzzle pieces. Categorized boxes were stacked on the floor. To the untrained eye it looked like the work of a madman, but the Professor was trying to solve a problem through organization. Every idea had its place on the crime map.
The Professor stood in his office and reviewed the work. Carson's influence was far reaching, more so than the Professor had imagined. Witness X had done exemplary work, but there was still a key piece of information missing. They needed the thing that connected the stories, the thing that belonged in the blank spots. There was a big one in the center of the clutter. That piece told the bigger story, and it was still in the bank somewhere.
One night, while in the bank basement, Betty stumbled onto a folder that had been misfiled. It’s contents were a spider web of graft and nepotism that channeled money to its architects. It was the missing piece of the Professor’s puzzle. It was a front company called Schadenfreude.
It provided camouflage for the Citadel Bank, Carson, and several of the Silver Spoons who secretly made up its board of directors. Their strategy was to get between honest, hard working people of the Citadel and their cash flows. They paid out small percentages to acquire other people’s capital through nefarious financial products over time. They were moneychangers redistributing wealth from the average and poor people to the rich. The income gap between the classes expanded until the Citadel was divided into haves and have-nots. The poor had no money to spend and the rich sat on the piles of gold like dragons and kept it out of circulation.
The Silver Spoons and their like were insatiable and hungered for more. So they expanded systems of credit, like margin accounts, with inflated numbers that represented nothing of any true value. They created money by simply writing numbers on paper and their accounts swelled. Massive amounts of wealth and economic power became concentrated into a small group of people. They preserved their personal wealth but total wealth shrunk. It created a volatile system.
Then they continued their feeding cycle. The institution used its influence and deception to keep its representatives alive while the public lost. They looted the citizens by shifting their losses to tax payers while transferring federal money to their corporation. They took government lifeboats and left the women and children and the crew to go down with the sinking economy.
The Citadel Bank was one of the largest in the country and Carson was its President. He personally helped destabilize the country's economy and cause the crashes.
The set of files Betty discovered contained a confusing array of accounts, names and numbers that the Professor would eventually decipher. She rushed the sinister discovery over to him.
The Professor’s eyes darted over the new evidence. Betty was anxious with anticipation. She feared she misinterpreted her latest discovery and worried he would reject her efforts. Instead he smiled and said one word. “Jackpot.”
She smiled. “Really?”
He nodded as he read. “You really did it Mrs. X. I suspect you’ve just made the Citadel a better place for the rest of us. I'll take it from here.”
Overall Betty enjoyed collaborating with him. The mission that bound them felt important. She was done with her part, and though she didn’t like it, she had to hand her control over to the Professor. She hoped he would do his part and Carson would end up behind bars.
In the weeks that followed she went about her routine, Jewel's routine, and waited for something to happen. It seemed like it took forever.
One day while walking back to work from lunch in her platinum blonde disguise, she noticed how the bank windows were behind bars. It seemed like money was locked in a prison, like criminals. The thing we loved most and the things we feared most were both treated the same way. It seemed odd.
Then she entered the building to a commotion. She was just in time to see Carson being taken away in handcuffs by policemen. She felt elation rise in her, but her eyes met Carson’s so she pretended to break into tears and ran into the ladies room crying. Alone in the washroom, she laughed as Carson was hefted into the paddy wagon.
She celebrated the victory by quitting Jewel’s job at the bank the very same day.
Her first detective mission was a triumph. The good-girl won. The bad-guy was in jail and the people of the Citadel were saved. She skipped through the city, sure that her father was up in heaven looking down on her with pride. Everyone who knew her would have been proud, if she could actually tell anyone what she'd done. One person could make a difference in the world.