"I should have known our daring rescue of Elizabeth wouldn't buy lasting goodwill with the Suit." Mozzie sighed and looked out through the glass wall with a glass of fine wine in his hand. Neal sat at his dinner table, surprised by Moz reaction.
"It's Peter," Neal pointed out. "He can't be bought." That was one of the things that made him admire Peter. It also meant he could not be Peter's hero and do whatever he wanted.
"Neal, you know what this means?"
"Yeah." Neal sighed. "If he doesn't let Keller's admission stand, it comes back at us."
"Like a Department of Justice boomerang."
"Right now, I can't see that far ahead. All I can do is remind Peter that I am an asset,
not a liability, starting with this case." He opened the file in front of him.
"A battle won cancels every other bad action?"
"Worth a try." At least he wanted more good actions than bad actions on the scale.
"Let's have a look." Mozzie sat down. "Oh, Manhattan Prep. Someone stealing lunch money?"
"Well, kind of. We're helping a scholarship student."
Mozzie browsed through Evan's well-prepped work.
"This Evan's a concise thinker," Mozzie noted. "A flair for color. A facility with numbers."
"And a massive crush on the daughter of the guy embezzling from the endowment," Neal finished and showed him a photo of Chloe.
"Oh, so the lowly commoner is in love with the daughter of the evil king who's trying to destroy his life? Does he have a shot?"
"He might, if she knew he was alive."
Mozzie glanced at him with a smile lurking in the corners of his mouth.
"Don't tell me. You rode into the classroom on your white stallion."
"Chloe is a teenage girl obsessed with 'Romeo and Juliet.' She's in love with love."
"So all we have to do is redirect her affection toward a more deserving and appropriate target - Evan?"
"Yes." Neal's phone beeped and he took a look at the text. "Peter's got a lead on the case. I got to meet him at the office." So much for the rest of the day off.
"I'm gonna finish this burgundy," Mozzie said, remaining where he was with his glass. "I have some thoughts on this."
"I take it you'll be playing the part of the helpful friar who brings the star-crossed
lovers together?" Neal asked, referring to 'Romeo and Juliet.'
"Sans vial of poison."
"Good." It had not been a pleasant realization that his old peaceful friend had put a price on Keller's head as revenge.
"I'm developing a theory on how Woods is embezzling," Peter said when Neal sat down in the conference room. He glanced at the material his handler had put on the screen for him. "Investments are the only element he has complete control over."
"Yeah, overhead, salaries… all the rest can be accounted for."
"If Woods is investing the way he says he is, the endowment should be higher."
"Maybe it is. Woods manages the account. The school only sees the numbers
he gives them."
"A fixed percentage of the endowment is scholarships. If he's under-reporting,
that explains why they're down."
"Yeah. Like Evan's."
"Graham Slater is the school's headmaster. If Woods is doing what we think he is,
Slater has to be complicit."
"Slater's obviously our way in," Neal nodded in agreement. It was likely that Woods was the one who started it all, and Slater had been talked into it. Or threatened into it.
"Which is why you're going back to Manhattan Prep tomorrow," Peter said.
Neal had so much enjoyed to be a teacher.
"Really?" He could not help smiling for ear to ear..
"I'm sending you back in for the good of the case, not rewarding you because you took matters into your own hands."
"I know," Neal nodded and stopped smiling.
"From now on, I make the lesson plan. If you're smart, you'll follow it."
Peter collected his things and left the conference room. Neal frowned.
"You mean the real lessons, or my lessons?" he called after him.
"What?" Peter returned to the doorway.
"Do you mean you'll be planning the lessons I'll have for Chloe's and Evan's class, or do you mean my life lessons?"
"As if either of them were up for debate," Peter muttered. "I, as always, will make a considerable effort to tell you what you should do and how, and you give me a satisfying impression of wanting to do exactly that. If you want a future outside of prison, as a free man, you think twice if you feel not to follow what I told you to do."
Peter sat on his small but comfortable patio with his beloved wife. He drank his favorite beer, and she enjoyed a glass of red wine. It was a fine ending to a working day that had gone on for too long, as usual.
"You're silent," El noted. "That usually means that you have had a tough day, and not left the work at the office." She gave him a look that might be a rebuke, Peter was not sure because she also had a little smile lurking in the corner of her mouth. "These past years, it usually means Neal's involved."
"It's Neal, alright," Peter said, sipping from his bottle.
"What did he do this time?"
"We were at a school, and somehow he ended up as a substitute teacher, teaching kids English literature." El giggled at this. "I walk in the classroom, and the girls were all glassy-eyed, like they saw that kid from those vampire movies."
She took this in as she sipped her wine.
"You know, I bet you Neal would be a good teacher."
Peter sighed.
"Which will validate him even more." Was he the only one seeing the problem here?
"What do you mean?"
"It's a pattern. Neal misbehaves, but because he's Neal, he doesn't face the consequences, and he gets a gold star for it." It was against anything he had been taught and stood for. That was not how things should work. But for Neal, he somehow seemed to do things the right way to get away with it, even if he shouldn't.
El studied him across the table.
"This is bigger than this case," she noted. Peter leaned his arms on the table, knowing he was entering dangerous territory.
"I have to go on record next week about what happened with Keller," he said, watching his wife.
"Oh." She put her glass down.
"Honey, if you don't want to talk about it, we don't have to."
"I am safe and sound on this patio with you. I am okay to talk about Keller. What's going on?"
"Only you and I know that Neal was involved with the art theft. There's no trail that leads back to him." Peter hated this situation.
"And Keller confessed to stealing it."
"If I sign off on this case, the art goes back to where it belongs, Keller serves life in prison, and I'm a hero for taking him down." It sounded so perfect, and was also, in his world, one big lie.
"But Neal gets away with it," El concluded the problem.
"Yeah."
"He had the treasure, and he didn't leave," El said, without hesitation. "He gave it up for us. I think that says a lot about his character." Her opinion was clear. Peter knew and appreciated that Neal did that. He had also been ready to go to prison for it. But one thing bothered Peter that overtook much of that glory.
"He had the treasure. That says a lot about his character." Peter had checked all their cases from the art theft until Keller turned up. That airplane that he and Mozzie suddenly had access to, Peter was pretty sure they had prepared to leave New York with the treasure.
"If you ask me, the right man is behind bars," El said.
Peter sighed.
"Just because Neal is not violent does not make him less a criminal. And it's not a matter of choosing. Both could be behind bars. It's a matter of what's right."
Now, it has El's turn to lean her arms at the table.
"And is the all-righteous Peter Burke absolutely sure that he is not just pissed because he didn't figure out how to prove that Neal had the treasure? Is there nothing personal involved?"
Peter didn't like her attitude.
"It's not personal, it's the law."
She smiled.
"Uhu… if you say so."