It was now obvious to Dan that Alan had adopted Andrew Slate’s identity and had come east. In his haste to protect his daughter, Wyatt Slate probably never collected his son’s wallet which would have contained a driver’s license, Social Security card, and other personal identification. Dan was now sure that Alan was in possession of all of that information. A shave, haircut, and a few other touches and Alan Gordon was reborn as Andrew Slate, a man with a clean record and with no one looking for him.
If Alan Gordon was posing as Slate, Dan’s whole framework shifted. While nothing in Slate’s background suggested violence, everything in Gordon’s did. Alan Gordon seemed capable of killing that woman on Memford Street the other night.
Now a major problem arose as security was monitoring the new Slate twenty four hours a day. If they discovered he was a killer, their first call would be to Dan and the second to the police. Dan had to do something quickly to prevent that from happening until he was sure. He was okay with Alan passing himself off as Slate to avoid prosecution; letting him loose to murder was something else.
“Lisa, come in here,” he said on the phone.
As his secretary entered, Dan tried a new tact.
“Get me Mr. Postadolas. I want to talk money,” he said figuring that would get Louis’ attention.
As before, within two minutes, Louis was sitting in the chair in Dan’s office. This time there was a faint smile on his lips as if he were expecting more good news about the ocean of money.
“I’m sure you already heard that we’re being swamped with new clients, and money is starting to roll in faster than we can count it. We’re already booked solid for two years, and we’ll need to hire new bookkeeping staff,” Dan said laying it on. “Now, we can start to do cost cutting to increase our profits even more. We’re spending mucho bucks on security when we can cut it down by a third…eliminate the night shift. We don’t need it any more.”
He stopped to look at Louis’ reaction. Not sensing any objection, he continued.
“We use the money we save on that and we put it into sales where it’ll pay off even more. It’s win-win for us. What do you think?’
Louis continued his slight smile. He knew that Dan had fulfilled what he had promised so far, so he figured that Dan must have thought out the rest of this plan very carefully before presenting it. He also liked the fact that Dan was keeping him informed all the way.
“Do it,” he said tersely. “Anything else?”
“No,” Dan said smiling. “I’ll handle it immediately.”
After Louis left without his customary warning at the door, Dan called Lisa to tell security to take the night off effective immediately. He’d have her handle the third shift termination tomorrow.
CHAPTER 15
Dan was monitoring Slate all alone as he had done before. Everything seemed normal until Slate pulled his disappearing act once again. This time he drove to Grand Street and parked his car in a movie theater lot. He then walked four blocks north and three more east with Dan tracking him on his tablet all the way, keeping him no more than four hundred feet away at any time. Slate cut down a side street going north again. Two more blocks brought him to Oak Street where the tablet showed he stopped. Dan cautiously got as close as he could without being seen. This time he brought along a pair of binoculars. He scanned the area until he spotted Slate standing at a diagonal across the street from house number 116. There was a light on downstairs of the two story house, and the flickering lights from the television set played on the curtains. All Slate did was watch the house, and Dan watched him.
An hour went by and then another, but Slate never changed position. There was something or someone in that house that held his complete attention. Then the light went out downstairs and clicked on in the second floor. Dan could see the shadow of a single person moving around in the room before it settled and the light switched off. Slated waited some more.
A half hour later, he walked briskly across the street and disappeared into the darkness around the back of the house. Dan stayed still and waited, hoping he was making the right decision. Was this a late night interlude with a married woman or…he didn’t want to think about the or part. Fifteen minutes later Slate emerged from the back of the house and began tracing his steps to his car. He drove toward home with Dan following every step of the way until he was certain that’s where Slate was going, then he raced back to the monitoring room.
Inside Dan saw a similar re-enactment with the bleach, gloves, and clothes. Now it was time to wait until the morning, or was it? Picking up one of the phones the security team had used, Dan called 911. He knew there was no way the call could be traced on this special phone. He told the operator he had seen a disturbance at 116 Oak Street and to hurry, then he hung up. Dan got in his car and drove back toward the address. The street was now cordoned off and police cars and an ambulance had already arrived. Circling around, he parked a distance away then joined the crowd gathering behind the newly installed yellow crime scene tape. After a half hour, the paramedics wheeled the victim out. their lack of haste indicated she was dead. Crime scene personnel had arrived and the task of collecting evidence had already begun. Dan left the scene certain that Slate was responsible; the morning news would indicate the extent of his crime.
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