by Claire Booth
‘And I just stood there with the phone in my hand. I didn’t know what to do. He was gone, so I felt a little silly calling the cops at that point.’
Hank cringed. If only she had. Then there’d be a police report. Concrete documentation of what sounded like a knock-down-drag-out.
‘But then I thought, well, what if she’s not OK? So I went over.’
He stared at her in surprise. She hadn’t seemed the type to insert herself directly in something like this. She pointed toward the Hardy back door.
‘I was in my kitchen and so I came out my back door and walked over to hers. It was wide open still. The kitchen was a war zone. Broken dishes and things all over. I called her name and she came out from the front room. And she was holding the bat. And I thought – well, my first thought was Good for her, to be honest – but I thought that I should still maybe call the police, or an ambulance or something. But she said no. She said it was fine. And there wouldn’t be any more problems after that.’
Lorna turned and looked at Hank directly. ‘And there weren’t. He came back a few times that I saw, but you could tell it was just to move his things out, and it was when she wasn’t home. And then the house went on the market this spring.’
By that point, she was working for Lew, Hank thought. He asked.
‘Her last job? It was at some retail company, working for the president. She seemed to enjoy it, said she was still trying to get the lay of the land, so to speak. I don’t think she ever told me the name of the company, though. I’m sorry.’
‘That’s OK.’ Hank smiled. ‘Have you heard from her since she moved?’
‘No,’ she said with a smile. ‘We were friendly neighbors, but we weren’t friends.’
Lorna seemed to be a person with a clear-eyed view of interpersonal relationships, including ones she was part of. That was a pretty rare thing.
‘I think she was looking forward to making a fresh start of things. She didn’t say as much – and she didn’t talk about the divorce process at all – but I got that feeling. That she was relieved to be leaving the house behind.’
Hank asked a few more questions, but Lorna couldn’t tell him much else about Tina Hardy. He started to walk back to the street but then thought of something. He turned back.
‘What about the dog? Did Darwood bring it back?’
‘Little Ginger? No. He told Tina he didn’t have her. Kept insisting that he didn’t know where she was. As far as I know, she’s never seen the poor thing again.’
ELEVEN
Every once in a while, something good came out of working in a small town. Sheila hoped this was one of those times. There was only one branch of Timmons’s bank in Branson. It was known for its friendly and personalized service. Hell, they even handed out doggie treats in the drive-thru if your pet was in the car with you. She’d heard that Hank’s Guapo had quite the reputation amongst the tellers. She doubted it was because of his good behavior.
She bypassed the line at the window and headed for the manager’s office. Pete Vanderlan met her at the door.
‘I saw you drive up, Ms Turley. Hard to miss that car. Are you here on official business?’
She said yes in a serious enough tone that he showed her right in and shut the door behind them. She took a seat in front of his desk and pulled out a sheaf of papers.
‘Uh-oh. Someone’s in trouble. Serious trouble, for you to be coming by in person. Usually, we just get those subpoenas in the mail.’
He plopped down behind the desk and pulled his keyboard forward.
‘It’s not a civil subpoena, Pete. It’s a search warrant. Signed by Judge Sedstone late last night. I need to look at somebody’s accounts. And safe deposit box, if he’s got one.’
Pete’s toothy grin disappeared. He smoothed down his tie – which had to have been a Father’s Day gift, it was so atrocious – and leaned forward eagerly. ‘What did he do?’
‘He got murdered.’
Pete’s jaw sagged. ‘Oh, my. Good Lord. How awful. One of our customers. Oh, my.’ He paused and tried to collect himself. ‘Who was it?’
‘Clyde Timmons.’
‘Oh, dear. He was a lovely gentleman. Always came in, never used the drive-thru.’ He started to type with shaking fingers. ‘He had three accounts with us. Checking, savings, and a CD. He and Nell paid off their mortgage nine years ago. Just before she passed away.’
He had to stop. Several sniffs and a tissue dab later, he was able to keep going. He didn’t have much routine interaction with Mr Timmons, but had always enjoyed working with him on loans and such. He stopped typing. There was one thing Ms Turley might be interested in.
‘Mr Timmons did make an early withdrawal from the CD. Which was quite surprising. Not consistent with his saving profile at all. Twenty-two thousand dollars.’
She moved to get a look at his computer screen. The money had been moved into his checking account after incurring an interest penalty.
‘Where?’ Sheila said, pointing at the line item. ‘Where did it go?’
‘I have no idea,’ Pete said, sniffles forgotten. ‘He insisted on it in cash.’
Well now. ‘How much did that transfer leave in his CD account then?’ she asked.
‘Less than twenty thousand.’
‘And that account is pretty much his major savings, right?’
‘As far as we go, yes. He could have money somewhere else, but – and I don’t mean to sound pompous here – if he’s had everything with us since taking out a mortgage forty-nine years ago, plus several auto loans and his everyday banking business, then I think it’s safe to say that, yeah, we probably have his only savings.’
Sheila squinted at the computer screen. Didn’t they have alerts for stuff like this? Elder abuse training? For when old people unexpectedly withdraw large amounts of money? She started to say that, and then thought of a different way to come at it.
‘Can you tell how the CD thing occurred?’ she said. ‘Like, at the window out there? Or was it through online banking?’
‘Oh, it was here. I tried to talk him out of it. Even made him take a cooling off period. But he came back and insisted.’ He stood. ‘Let’s go out to the girls. They’ll be able to tell you more.’
Sheila barely kept from rolling her eyes at his word choice as she followed him out to the two teller windows. There was no one in line at the moment. Pete got all toothy again and was surely about to drop the word ‘murder’ like the bombshell it was. Sheila quickly laid her hand on his arm and asked to go behind the glassed-in counter. He let her in with some grumbling and left to go copy the warrant paperwork for his files.
The two women – one in her mid-fifties with short salt-and-pepper hair and a blonde in her late twenties, both white – looked like they were about to sit down for a particularly good Law & Order episode.
‘You were in with Pete an awful long time,’ the blonde one said. ‘Are you investigating something?’
‘Yes,’ Sheila said. ‘It’s about one of your customers, and—’
The gray-haired one interrupted. ‘Did they steal money? Embezzle, maybe?’
She had to smile. It made sense that financial crimes would be the first thing to occur to these two. She, on the other hand, would immediately think of violent death if police asked her about someone. To each their own.
She said no, there had been no theft, just a death. She gave them Timmons’s name and showed them a photo of him and his wife that Kurt had found in the poor man’s bedroom. She’d had to take it out of the smashed frame. Both ladies nodded immediately.
‘Oh, yes,’ said the older one. ‘He’s a regular. Been a customer since who knows when.’
He didn’t like the ATM, she said. So mostly he came in to withdraw the kind of small amounts that most people would use the outside cash machine for.
‘I think he was lonely. We gave him someone to talk to.’
‘What did he talk about?’ Sheila asked.
‘Oh, all the usual things �
� the weather, the traffic, the tourists. Nothing real personal,’ the older one said, then paused. ‘He had started mentioning an activity lately. He’d taken something up. Tennis? No, it wasn’t that. But something in a group, that he was enjoying very much. Shoot, I can’t think what it was.’
‘Did anyone ever come in with him?’ Sheila asked.
The woman tapped her chin. ‘No. It was always just him, since his wife died. Although he did mention his son once.’
Sheila smiled encouragingly. She didn’t want to taint the older woman’s recollection with a skewed follow-up question, so she forced herself to stay quiet. The teller thought for a moment.
‘It was something negative,’ she finally said. ‘Like, “My son is coming to town, and he always needs money.” Something along those lines.’
Sheila asked about the CD withdrawal. The older one pointed to the blonde, who was still holding the photo and tracing over Timmons’s face with her finger. She hadn’t yet said anything. The older one elbowed her. ‘I remember you telling me about that one, Allison. You going to say anything here?’
‘Shush. I’m replaying it in my head.’
That drew a shrug from the older one that was half-exasperated and half-indulgent. Finally, Allison was ready. She handed the photo back to Sheila.
‘A week or two ago he came in, and I was expecting him to just get out his normal forty bucks. But he didn’t. He told me he needed to cash out part of his CD.’
‘For twenty-two grand?’ Sheila said. ‘Shouldn’t that raise some red flags, with his age and all?’
Heck, yeah, Allison said. She asked him all the questions on the elder abuse form, and then still didn’t give it to him. She walked him right over to Mr Vanderlan’s office instead.
‘Did he tell you anything about why he wanted to take out that much money?’
Allison shook her head. ‘He just kept saying it was for the best. And he looked sad and happy at the same time.’
‘That doesn’t make sense,’ the older one said.
‘Well, that’s how he looked. If you hadn’t been busy flirting with that podiatrist at your window, you would’ve noticed.’
The older one got red and changed the subject. ‘Did something happen when Mr Timmons died? You all don’t usually come in here when our clients pass away.’
Sheila told her without including any details. The two women reached for each other.
‘I need you both to think once more, just about any little thing that you can remember regarding Mr Timmons. Even if you don’t think it’s important.’
She let them sniffle for a minute and was just about to move to the door when the older one spoke.
‘There was one day, maybe a bit before the CD withdrawal, when he came in and did get his normal forty bucks. Then he walked away and I remember I laughed, because he didn’t grab his lollipop like he always did.’ She pointed to the big glass bowl on the customer side of the counter. ‘I grabbed one and was going to go give it to him in the parking lot. But a car pulled up quick as anything, and Clyde climbed in and they raced off.’
‘I don’t suppose you remember what kind of car?’ Sheila said.
‘Oh, yes. It was a cherry red Caddy.’
Darwood Hardy taught in the English department. He did one general freshman course, but his specialty was some esoteric, horrible-sounding literature from a place Hank was pretty sure wasn’t even a country anymore. He was, according to the faculty web page, ‘the world’s foremost expert’. Hank rolled his eyes. Then he put away his phone and got out of the car. He’d deliberately parked on the far eastern edge of campus so he would have to walk through it. He strolled through Lowry Mall and passed by Ellis Library, where he’d spent many an evening working on research papers during his last two years of school.
Things had boomed on campus since then. There was a student recreation center that was a cross between the Taj Mahal and an Olympic training facility. There was a new quad, south of the old quad. There were actual non-nauseating dining options in the student union instead of just limp fries and greasy pizza. But Lowry Mall was still paved in bricks, activists still tilted at windmills in Speakers’ Circle, and some of the oldest academic departments still occupied their premium spots in grand buildings around the center of campus.
He headed for Tate Hall, which housed the English department and sat just to the southeast of the original quad behind Jesse Hall. He stopped and stared at the administration building’s bright white dome and remembered Jerry’s guffaw as they made their way inside that night during their senior year. He walked a short way around the huge building to get a better view of the dome and noticed a bounce to his step. Even with all the changes, this place made him feel good. The vise around his chest had eased since he got to town, and now as he walked around the campus, he felt a little twinge of normal. Not quite as off balance and suffocated and desolate as he had been since the crash.
He walked through the double doors and asked the first person he saw. She directed him down several hallways. He ended up in front of the Foremost Expert’s closed office door. There were no posted office hours. He sighed. Now he’d have to find the department secretary. He was about to head back down the hall when the door opposite swung open. A woman who was the right age to be a grad student popped out with her arms full of books.
‘Oh, hi. Can I help you?’
He must look pretty out of place to be offered assistance that quickly. He asked about Dr Hardy.
‘I think you just submit your papers online.’ She smiled indulgently. ‘He won’t be back until next semester.’
‘Uh, no, I’m not a student. I just needed to speak … where is he?’
Her opinion of him switched instantly from charming old fart-slash-nontraditional student to idiot adult.
‘Out of the country. It’s listed in all the department information. He’s only teaching the one class here and it’s all done online.’
‘Wait. Out of the country? For how long? I mean, when did he leave?’
‘I have no idea. August, probably?’
He was gobsmacked. If that turned out to be accurate, Foremost Expert was eliminated as a suspect.
She shifted the books she was holding. ‘He’s been over there all semester. He’s teaching his famous “Protest Literature behind the Iron Curtain” class.’
She turned to leave but the way she’d said ‘famous’ made Hank stop her.
‘Do you not like him much?’
She shrugged as best she could with twenty pounds of Southern Gothic writers in her arms. ‘He’s … very sure of himself.’
Conceited.
‘And … talkative.’
Verbose.
‘I see. Ah, thanks for your help. I appreciate it.’
She nodded and walked off down the hall. He stood there and tried to get his investigative bearings. He’d have to check Hardy’s customs records to make sure, but if the guy had been in Eastern Europe all fall, he hadn’t bundled his ex-wife into the trunk of a car and dumped her body off the Missouri River Bluffs. Or something similar. He could have orchestrated her disappearance and used an accomplice here in town, Hank supposed. But it wasn’t very likely. It definitely didn’t make him as good a suspect as someone with a confirmed presence here in town. So now Hank was forced back where he hadn’t wanted the investigation to go – to Lew and his scraped knuckles.
TWELVE
Sadly, it didn’t appear that Mr Timmons belonged to a church congregation. Or a synagogue. Or even a Buddhist temple. Not that there was one of those in Branson, but still. Sam would have taken any of them. They were easy to get in contact with, and they knew things about their members. All he had on Mr Timmons was a library mailer, which just meant that he’d probably donated at some point. And a bocce ball newsletter from some nationwide organization. He sighed and then thought hard.
Several of the local resorts had bocce courts. There was no public one, as far as he knew. He started a list and an hour later was sta
nding at the front desk of the Stoney Mount Resort, one of many that dotted Indian Point, a jut of land that extended into Table Rock Lake just west of Branson. It was a collection of one-room cabins rentable on a weekly basis. He looked around the empty lobby and rang the bell. And out popped Jermina Templeton. Dear Lord.
‘Sammy Karnes. Well, I’ll be. You haven’t been around in forever. I heard you was a cop, but I didn’t believe it.’ She looked him over as he stood there in his uniform and then batted her overly made-up eyes. ‘Guess I was wrong. You fill that out real good.’
He hadn’t realized his former classmate worked here. If he had, he would have started his canvass somewhere else.
‘Hey, Jermina. How long you been working here?’ He wasn’t going to ask how she was doing. That would lead to a long and painfully detailed update about people he’d been deliberately avoiding since they all graduated from high school. And slinky, rumor-starting, innuendo-slinging Jermina was at the top of that list.
‘Oh, just a month or two. I was up at Calico Cabins before that. But it wasn’t, uh, the right fit for me, so I moved on.’
Which meant she’d been fired.
‘You know me,’ she said, leaning over the counter and winking at him, ‘I’m always looking for better opportunities.’
Sam suppressed a shudder. He explained that he needed to know if Branson residents were allowed to use the resort’s bocce courts.
‘What’s those?’
Dear Lord.
‘One of the amenities. For guests. Is there anybody else I could talk to? Where’s your manager?’
She snapped out of her come-hither lean in a huff. ‘He ain’t here. All you get is me.’
What about a maintenance worker?
She considered that. ‘There’s some old guy who wanders around. With, like, garbage bags and stuff.’
He decided to take that as permission to go look for the man. He hustled out, pretending not to hear her ask for his cell number. He wandered around for about ten minutes before he found the ‘old guy’, who was actually only about Sheila’s age – she sure would have had something to say about that if she was here.