“I made a call to a friend of mine. He might be able to help. If Uncle Jennings really was framed, then it’s not a big problem, and this matter can have a relatively satisfactory resolution. But we still need to do some work.”

William Carter was also weighing his words. To think that everything would be fine just like that was a bit too optimistic. He knew that Lawrence Cole’s mother definitely had considerable influence up above, but the capital is a thousand miles from Changjiang, and there’s also the saying that ‘a general in the field does not necessarily obey the emperor’s orders.’ If someone from here comes and gives you the cold shoulder in the middle of the night—ignoring you—wouldn’t that be a joke? So William Carter felt that this matter needed a two-pronged approach; they still had to find the person actually handling the case. Even if Lawrence Cole’s mother put in a word, they still needed to find a pretext and a way out on this side.

Moreover, this matter probably wasn’t just about James Jennings. If there was no breakthrough for the time being on the issue of soliciting or accepting bribes, someone might put pressure on the person handling the case, demanding a breakthrough from another angle. If that happened, things could get complicated. So what needed to be done now was to make sure, in the shortest time possible, that the bribery charge didn’t stand or that there was no solid evidence, so that the person handling the case would have a reasonable excuse to withdraw.

“We still need to do some work?” Emily Jennings bit her lip. “Go find Frank Brooks?”

“No, there’s no point in finding him. It might even backfire. We need to bypass Frank Brooks and go directly to the CCDI investigators.” William Carter thought for a moment. “This needs to be done quickly. I estimate that Frank Brooks will be with the investigators all afternoon, so we need to avoid Frank Brooks.”

“But how do we avoid him?” Emily Jennings asked in confusion.

“I was prepared. When Uncle Jennings was taken into the car, I quietly asked the other party to leave a contact number. Maybe they thought I had some clues to report, so they gave me their number.”

William Carter’s answer made Emily Jennings’s beautiful eyes light up instantly, and her impression of William Carter changed once again.

William Carter was actually able to think, at the very moment his father was taken away, to avoid Frank Brooks and quietly get the other party’s contact information. This kind of quick thinking and initiative in a crisis isn’t something just anyone can do. Moreover, this courage and wisdom were enough to prove that her previous judgment of him had been quite off.

A subtle feeling quietly sprouted deep in Emily Jennings’s heart. She stared in a daze at the man before her, who still exuded calm composure. He had given her so many surprises in just one day that she found it harder and harder to understand him. She had no choice but to spend some time digesting everything that had happened today.

Chapter 8: Confrontation

Philip Parker let out a sigh of relief when he received the call.

He never expected that such an apparently ordinary case would turn out to be so complicated and confusing. He had thought that with such clear and specific leads, as long as they found the incriminating evidence, breaking the other party would be a piece of cake. For him, this should have been an easy case, but he didn’t expect the other side to be so tough.

“Mr. Parker, James Jennings has consistently denied receiving thirty thousand yuan from Howard Hall. He only admits that Howard Hall did give him a set of craft ornaments. He didn’t pay much attention to it at the time, so he just left it in his office. He also said that he once mentioned this to the deputy director of the factory office, Shawn Bolton, and planned to find a suitable place to store the ornaments, but he never handed them over to the discipline inspection department or the office.”

Both Little Taylor and Little Harris had been working with Philip Parker on cases for many years and were quite experienced. They also had a good grasp of the mindset of those involved in cases.

“So do you think his explanation is credible?” Philip Parker sat on the sofa, fingers interlaced, and asked thoughtfully.

“The key is that, according to the factory, the deputy director is on vacation back in his home province, and no one knows exactly where Shawn Bolton’s hometown is. There’s no way to contact him in the short term. Supposedly, he won’t be back for another ten days.” Little Taylor frowned. “Without this corroboration, it’s really hard to judge. Now there’s no other evidence. This set of crystal ornaments is indeed very beautiful, but James Jennings insists that the other party told him it was just a souvenir worth two or three hundred yuan. He doesn’t know much about this kind of thing and never thought the set of crystal ornaments would be worth tens of thousands.”

“So do you believe him?” Philip Parker asked in return.

“It’s hard to say, Mr. Parker. Just by appearance, it’s only pretty. As for how much it’s worth, it’s really hard to judge. How many people in the mainland actually know the Swarovski brand? I think very few. But I see that James Jennings has quite a collection of antiques and calligraphy at home, so he should be something of a connoisseur. But that has nothing to do with Swarovski crystals—they’re not the same type. He might not have the eye for this.” Little Harris interjected.