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.”