J.D. Trafford - Michael Collins 03 - No Time To Hide Read Online Free

paused, and then continued. “He had opportunity and he took it.”
    “Explain,” said Gadd, and Vatch obliged.
    “On the night Joshua Krane was murdered, Krane and Mr. Collins went to get the account numbers and passwords from a safe deposit box as part of a potential settlement agreement with the Justice Department.”
    “Why?” Gadd asked, just as they had rehearsed the night before.
    “Krane had been accused of bribery and various other bad acts while securing very large contracts from the Defense Department. We are talking billions of dollars. The money in those accounts was going to be used by Krane to pay back some of what had been stolen and also as a penalty.”
    Vatch paused and waited. Gadd nodded her head and he continued.
    “In the confusion that night, either before or after Krane was killed and Mr. Collins was shot, Michael Collins got those bank account numbers and then later illegally transferred the money to his personal accounts.”
    “And Michael Collins had no authority to make those wire transfers, true?”
    “That’s true.” Vatch spoke directly to the grand jurors. “That money either belonged to Krane, Krane’s family, Krane’s company or the victims who had been defrauded by Joshua Krane. I don’t know who it belonged to, exactly; I’ll leave that to the lawyers. I just know that the money didn’t belong to Michael Collins.”
    Gadd nodded earnestly, allowing the jurors a few moments to process the information.
    “And to you, as a trained law enforcement officer, what did this mean?”
    “It means that Michael Collins committed wire fraud.”
    Gadd nodded, making sure to give the jurors time to write down the words “wire fraud” in their notebooks. She liked the term ‘wire fraud.’ It sounded like Michael Collins was an old-time mobster.  “And then?”
    “And then motive wasn’t too hard to figure out.” Vatch leaned forward. “Michael Collins had grown up pretty poor, and the temptation to get rich quick isn’t unusual for his type. Then he disappeared. People don’t normally ditch all of their belongings and move to Mexico,” Vatch smirked. “It made him look very suspicious to me.”
    “Are you saying that Michael Collins arranged to have Joshua Krane murdered?”
    Vatch shook his head.
    “I can’t say that. It’s possible, but I can’t say that for sure. There were others who also wanted to kill Krane and take the money.” Vatch paused, unsure of how much detail he should provide. “I just know that Michael Collins took the money and ran.”
    Vatch caught the eye of a few jurors. They nodded at him, despite their dislike. Then, Vatch nodded back. His honesty had apparently just scored a few points.
    “A few years ago,” Vatch continued. “Collins had come back to New York. His girlfriend was in trouble, and we had an opportunity to make an arrest. But things got complicated.”
    “How so?” Gadd knew that Agent Vatch was going to talk about Lowell Moore, Patty Bernice and the Maltow file. It was complicated testimony that she would try to avoid at the actual trial, but in the safety of a grand jury room, Gadd wanted to see how it would play out. She wanted to practice, just in case Vatch had to testify about it at the actual trial. Without a judge or defense attorney in a grand jury proceeding, there wasn’t any better place to test Agent Vatch.
    “Well, I had been focused on Michael Collins from the beginning. But, it appears that there were multiple people who knew about these bank accounts and wanted to take the money from Krane. A den of thieves, so to speak.” Vatch paused. He smirked, hoping that somebody would find him humorous , but nobody laughed. He was back to being an asshole.
    “The law firm where Collins worked had mishandled a case, called Maltow . The firm had missed a major deadline, which resulted in the case being dismissed. Rather than come clean, the senior partner, Mr. Lowell Moore and his assistant, Patty Bernice, tried to