Bannon Brothers

by Janet Dailey

  “No, of course not. I was getting to that.” Doris finished her coffee. “Do you have any cookies?”

  “I will find some.” Bannon got up and rummaged in the kitchen cabinets again. “You will talk.” He returned with a small plate.

  Doris selected a gingersnap and nibbled on it. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  She leaned back into the cushions. “Anyway, I took out what was in the files and stuck the papers I copied for you back in.”

  “How’s that again?”

  “I made a second set that day,” she explained. “After you left. Call me compulsive.”

  “Never.”

  “When I was done, the box looked pretty much the same. Except for that folder”—she nodded at the Montg’ry file—“which I swiped.”

  “You took a risk.”

  Doris sniffed. “You don’t know Petey like I know Petey. He won’t notice.”

  “Someone else might.”

  She glared at him. “I did the best I can. Do you want the stuff or not?”

  “Hell yes. But I want you to stay out of the line of fire.”

  Doris sat up and began to organize the fanned-out folders. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “Someone has to.”

  “I can take care of myself, Bannon.”

  “You sound like someone else I know.”

  “And who would that be?” she asked. “Your mom? Give her my regards.”

  He promised to do that, then watched her make stacks and piles out of the jumble of paper. Doris had her methods.

  When she was done, he started in on the pile nearest to him. There were duplicates of material he’d seen, and a lot of other stuff, none of it compelling. After about twenty minutes, he yawned hugely, not able to stop.

  “Cover your mouth,” she chided him. “Do you need another cup of coffee?”

  “No, I don’t think so. There just doesn’t seem to be anything much here.”

  She selected a folder he hadn’t looked at. “Try this one. It has a few more letters from Ann Montgomery’s so-called new mother. Remember that one I found out at the storage warehouse?”

  “Yeah. You said you copied it by hand. Did you bring that?”

  “No. But I will.”

  Bannon sat up straight. “Now you’re talking.” He opened the folder and glanced at the first few letters, which were photocopies. “No originals?”

  “Dunno. I didn’t get a chance to get through everything in the box.”

  He nodded. “I understand. But we all know that photocopies don’t cut it for a handwriting comparison.”

  “What are you getting at? Are we preparing evidence for court?”

  “Not yet. I’m just trying to think like a detective, I guess.”

  “Go for it, Sherlock,” she said jokingly. “This case needs one.” Doris set aside another folder as he read through the photocopied letters in the one he held. “I forgot to ask what’s happening with the news show. Did they send you any more leads?”

  “I have to call Kelly.” He gestured vaguely to the mountain of printouts from the TV station he’d left in the corner. “They sent over all that the day after the broadcast. I waded through it. Mostly—”

  “You don’t have to tell me. Lunatics and busybodies. Half the reports in the Wainsville PD files are interviews with nut jobs.” She sighed. “Big waste of everybody’s time.”

  Bannon gave a curt nod of agreement as he read through the new-mother letters. They were short, no more than two or three paragraphs each. No salutation. Undated. It struck him that the tone varied wildly, from guilty to gloating. “Hmm. Whoever wrote these was all over the map, emotionally speaking.” He laid out several on the table. “I wish we had a way to put them into a time frame.”

  Doris flipped one over. “There’s a PD date stamp on the back that says when each came in.”

  Bannon countered that with a dismissive wave. “That indicates when they were received and entered into evidence at the police department. But they were sent to Montgomery, right? Or his wife? No telling when they got them.”

  Doris went through the other piles. “I don’t really know. Maybe there are envelopes in here.” He read on as she combed through the stacks for several minutes. “Nope. Either they got tossed or they’re clipped to the originals. And God knows where those are.”

  Bannon snorted. “That’s a grand old Wainsville PD tradition. Rubber-stamp everything and lose it fast. No wonder some of our cases never get to trial.”

  He moved to another folder and a greeting card slipped out. The illustration showed a bird singing on a branch. Little musical notes floated around it. “This isn’t a photocopy.”

  Doris looked at it curiously. “I didn’t see that.”

  He opened it and looked inside at a poem, four lines of flowing script that leaned to the right. His mind searched for the right word for the style and suddenly it came to him—calligraphic. But the card was printed. He read it silently.

  Of all the joys there are on earth

  The gift of love has greatest worth

  A little angel is ours to hold

  And cherish forever, a girl of gold.

  The last three words rang a bell. Then he remembered—the same words had appeared on that scrapbook card at Erin’s. But that had been handmade by her mother. This card looked standard, the kind of thing that sold in the millions. He handed the card to Doris, who read it aloud, then examined it front and back.

  “Looks almost new,” she said. “No signature or anything. Do you think the kidnapper sent it to the Montgomerys? That is sick.”

  “I guess so, if it’s in the box. It was probably bought from a drugstore card rack twenty-some years ago. There’s no way to trace it now.”

  She closed the card and looked at the floating musical notes. “Wasn’t there a song like that, way back when? ‘Girl of Gold’?”

  “Could be. I’ll ask my mom. She knows all the old tunes.”

  And that was because she and his father used to go dancing every Saturday night until the week before he died. The thought made his heart constrict. He would definitely call her when Doris went home.

  He set the card aside. “Mind if I keep it?”

  “No. Eventually I’ll switch everything back the way it was. But I think I’ll copy these copies on my home printer-copier thingy.” She paused and gave him a worried look. “Am I getting paranoid?”

  “You’re smart. I was going to suggest that myself.”

  Doris leaned back into the cushions when Babaloo made a stealthy foray along the top of the couch toward her, his paws pressing silently into the black leather. “Here, kitty kitty,” she cooed. The cat took over her lap and another purr-o-rama began.

  Bannon concentrated on the folders and let Doris have her feline fix. He read silently through most of the material for half an hour, then set a few other papers aside with the odd letters. “Copy these for me, okay?”

  “Sure.” Doris reached out to put them into an empty folder and the cat jumped down to the floor. She took the opportunity to slide everything else back into the bag. “I gotta go. Let me know what’s going on with the TV station. Just so I can stay out of Hoebel’s way.”

  “I take it he didn’t approve.”

  “He’s always ranting about something.” Doris raised an eyebrow. “And he was fuming about you going public from the second you were on the air. If you do it again—are you going to do it again?”

  “Like I said, I gotta talk to Kelly.”

  “Oh, right.” She used both hands to push her slim self up from the couch. Bannon was on his feet before her, going to get her coat.

  He helped her into it sleeve by sleeve. Then she looked into his mirror to adjust the collar. “Thanks for the coffee, RJ. We shall confabulate in the near future. If I can find my keys. May I have a cookie for the road?”

  He offered her the plate again and she took one, holding it in her teeth when she began to head out, the bag full of f
iles over one shoulder. Her hands were rummaging through her coat pockets. A few seconds later, she held up her car keys.

  “Got’m. G’bye, Ban’n.”

  He clapped her on the back. “See you around. Thanks for stopping by.”

  Bannon took a break and made himself a plate of food, nothing special, but it was hot and filling.

  When he’d finished it, he called his mother. It was good to hear Sheila Bannon’s fond voice asking the usual nosy questions about his health and how he was otherwise. They chatted in a desultory way as he wandered in and out of the kitchen. He finally got around to asking her about the song when he spotted the card where he’d left it on the coffee table.

  “Mom—remember when you and Dad used to go dancing?”

  “Yes, I do. Those were the days.” Her voice was soft.

  “I was wondering. Was there ever a song called ‘Girl of Gold’?” He brought the card into the kitchen and flipped on the overhead fluorescents, which were painfully bright. “It has to do with a case—”

  “The Montgomery case?”

  “Yeah. Gee whiz, you could be a detective.”

  His mother laughed a little. “It’s the only case you’re working on, honey. And you’re not even officially reinstated.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “Okay, let me think.” He was silent while she pondered, still studying the card in his hand. He squinted at it.

  Was he seeing things?

  Beneath the bright light, he would swear there were faint pencil lines under the calligraphy of the poem. He squinted harder. The lines, if they had been there, went away. Then he looked at the back of the card. There was a familiar card-company logo. It definitely wasn’t handmade.

  “Bannon?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I was talking to you.”

  “Sorry. I got distracted for a sec.”

  “I can’t think of a song by that name. Or lyrics. I guess you could look it up online. Is it important?”

  “Maybe. That’s what I’ll do.”

  After another minute or two, they exchanged affectionate good-byes and Bannon examined the inside of the card one more time, which was easier to do when he wasn’t cradling a tiny cell phone between his shoulder and his ear.

  There were pencil lines. Very faint. But definitely there.

  Bannon found his laptop and fired it up, ignoring the antivirus pop-up reminders and others that pointed out the obvious fact that his computer was connected. He clicked on the Internet icon and searched for the phrase “girl of gold.”

  Not a song title. Not lyrics. Nothing was just like it. There were some near misses, though, phrased differently, for a great old spy movie and a classic TV comedy series. But it wasn’t a catchphrase. The card was one of a kind.

  Okay. He wanted a really close look at it.

  He got up and went into his bedroom, dragging a wheeled box full of electronic gear, freebies from his brothers, out from under the bed. Bannon separated coaxial cables from game consoles and other gadgets, swearing at the tangle of stuff until he found what he was looking for: a small digital microscope that connected to a USB port.

  “Gotcha.”

  Deke had given it to him, saying the high-res screen display oughta come in handy for a detective, but Bannon had never had a reason to use it, although he’d installed the software for it. He went back to his laptop and plugged it in, waiting for his hard drive to find the relevant program to run it. Then he switched the microscope on and slid the card under the lens, positioning the lettered part in a small circle of light and looking at his screen.

  Bingo.

  The lowest magnification clearly showed that the calligraphy wasn’t printed but had been done by hand. Using the touch pad on the laptop, he cranked up the dial icon to increase the magnification as high as it would go. Now he could see the way the ink had flowed out of the pen. He took a few screen shots at both levels of magnification and saved them in a folder. Then he shut off the microscope and leaned back in his chair.

  Girl of gold.

  He wanted to get another look at Erin’s handmade card. Not that he could verify a connection between that card and this one, but he couldn’t rule it out either.

  But how to take it and bring it back without her freaking out was going to take some thought.

  His cell phone rang in his shirt pocket, startling him. Bannon stared blankly at the number on the little blue screen, not recognizing it. What the heck? He flipped it open.

  “Hello.”

  “Bannon. Kelly here. How are you?” Her tone of voice was smooth and seductive.

  What did she want? Give it three seconds. No, two. She didn’t waste time. “Doing fine. You?”

  “Pretty good.”

  “Believe it or not, I was just about to call you.”

  She laughed, a silvery sound. “What about?”

  “Oh, I figured you could update me on the website response. Still getting a lot of hits or what?”

  “Some. Snail mail too—enough to fill up a couple of big boxes for you. But it’s been dropping. Dramatically. We were wondering,” she purred, “if you’d like to do another. The producer of the segment would rather put you front and center. A high percentage of our female demographic thought you were hot.”

  “Really.”

  “Well, you are, Bannon.”

  He was glad she couldn’t see him smirk. Kelly would have teased him unmercifully for it.

  “I wouldn’t know,” he replied.

  “What do you say? Want to come in again?”

  He took his time answering. Montgomery and his oily lawyer might blow a gasket if they saw him on the news a second time. Not that he cared. So would Hoebel, though. Bannon did plan to badge up and go back to work. Someday.

  And then there was Erin. Whoever was watching him was watching her too. No, he really didn’t want to get his face on TV again. Not just now.

  It was best to stall.

  “Same deal? Scripted questions? No control over the final result?”

  Kelly laughed again. “Let’s talk.”

  “When?”

  “My, my,” she mocked. “What a lot of questions you’re asking. Mmm, before I forget, I have one for you. Your brother Deke—do you have a contact number for him?”

  “I can give him your number if you like. He’s on assignment.”

  She pretended to sound blasé. “Oh, okay. No big rush. I had an idea for a series—something focusing on the secrets behind the news, if you know what I mean.”

  Bannon didn’t, but he mumbled something affirmative.

  She forged on. “As in super secret. I want authentic stories of real undercover agents and special forces types. Men who risk all. Dangerous dudes.”

  That would be his two brothers. But he thought of the lady Linc had sent over, Karen Michaels, feminine and, in a subtle way, fierce. He decided to give Kelly a jab. “No women?”

  She didn’t miss a beat. “Do you know any who qualify? I’d love to feature them. We could double our ratings if we get both guys and girls watching.”

  “Ah—no. Not offhand.” Karen Michaels, or whatever her real name might be, was connected to Linc in some very personal way, and Bannon had no idea if the relationship was even allowed under the ever-changing rules of the military.

  Again he heard silvery laughter. “You’re lying.”

  “Good guess.” He got off the phone after some small talk, making no promises other than to pass her number along. Let Deke deal with her. Kelly was only a couple of years older than his youngest brother. They could be great for each other.

  Bannon picked up the card with the bird on it and read the poem inside again.

  He might have stumbled on the first clue. Three little words. Sometimes that was all it took.

  CHAPTER 10

  Montgomery sat at a grand piano picking out tunes with one hand. The other hand felt oddly sluggish and he rested it on his thigh. His hard pull yesterday on the reins of a recalcit
rant horse had most likely strained the tendons.

  The melody line was all he could play of some old song—it was older than he was, he thought morosely. The plaintive notes sounded through the empty house.

  No servants, as far as he knew. No guests. No business associates. No Caroline. That suited him just fine.

  He had no idea where she had gone. The late-morning sun slanted through the windows, laying down stripes of light on the antique carpet, a treasure of intricate silk that no one was allowed to set foot on. Except for him. She could not refuse him everything. Monty stopped and rose from the piano bench, taking pleasure in walking on what was essentially his money, even if she was the one to spend it.

  Not for much longer. The way things were going, he might have to close her charge accounts and take away her credit cards. She seemed to have forgotten that the bills landed on his desk.

  Caro’s acquisitiveness had amused him when he’d been able to indulge it. Now it sparked fights. Lately he could barely summon up the energy to withstand her outbursts, but somehow, he did. He had to force himself to think straight and pierce the cloudiness in his mind. Montgomery knew that something was the matter with him, but he was damned if he would see a new doctor or endure more inconclusive tests.

  The result would be the same. Another prescription. Different side effects. Sleepless nights and a stream of bills. To hell with all of it.

  Caroline would pretend to care. She was rather good at that, but her sympathy was edged with desperation that gave her away.

  He wasn’t going to give her what she wanted. The slow, bitter unraveling of their relationship was following a course that was familiar to him. He had an inkling that she hoped to become his widow more than she hoped to become his wife—if he would be so kind as to marry her and immediately drop dead of natural causes.

  Montgomery smiled faintly. She had probably imagined herself in a dramatic but chic black veil and fitted black suit, a bereaved but lovely young woman. Standing by his grave and brushing away a single tear.

  He’d always believed that animals could sense the approach of death. Perhaps Caroline’s instincts were accurate.

  His morbid thoughts grew darker and a heavy sense of foreboding weighed on his mind.