by Mary Daheim
“But he didn’t waive the requirement for customer accounts?”
“Oh, no. That’s why I’ve got this problem. There’s a code, too, on our computers. We have to enter that. It’s supposed to be secret, but in a small bank like ours, it isn’t.”
I nodded as comprehension began to dawn. “So it’s possible that any of you, from Marv on down, could authorize the liquidation of a customer’s funds and put it into your own account?”
Rick blanched. “I’m afraid so. But nobody would do a thing like that! They’d go to jail!”
“If they got caught.” Remembering my duties as a hostess, I offered Rick a drink of some kind. He refused at first, then surrendered to a soda.
In the kitchen, I poured us each a glass of Pepsi. Rick had followed me, and seemed inclined to linger. Perhaps he felt safer there than in the living room. Milo Dodge couldn’t see through the log walls of my little house.
“You don’t remember signing Leo Walsh’s car payment authorization, right?” I indicated a kitchen chair to Rick. We both sat down.
“That’s why I think I’m going mental,” Rick said in a pitiful voice. “It was about then that Ginny wouldn’t talk to me anymore. Otherwise, I would remember, because Mr. Walsh’s proxy arrangement was new. And he works with Ginny. It would have … sunk in.” Rick’s eyes strayed to the far corner of the kitchen where I kept an old galvanized milk can filled with straw flowers.
For the moment, I wanted to avoid talking about Ginny. “Who handled Grace Grundle’s CDs?”
Rick turned his blue eyes back to me. “Mrs. Grundle? Anybody. I mean, we can’t offer personal banking in the way that a big branch can.”
“But who waited on her when she came in recently to redeem one of her CDs?”
Rick’s high forehead wrinkled. “Denise, I think. I was on break. But we all went looking for it when it didn’t show up on the computer screen.”
“No luck?”
“Not for the one she was asking about. Mrs. Grundle said it was good for a year and due in early November. But we went back through the records for all of last fall, and she hadn’t been issued any CDs since 1990. Those had already been rolled over.” Rick was squinting in a perplexed manner, as if he could visualize the computer monitor that listed Grace Grundle’s assets.
“Mrs. Grundle is a bit … confused,” I remarked. “That’s why she has proxy banking, right?”
Now Rick turned very red. “I’m not supposed to talk about this stuff. It’s confidential. Gosh, I feel like such a dork! But I’m so upset, I don’t know what to do!” He wrenched himself around in the chair; I halfway expected him to burst into tears.
I was suffering from ineffectualness. Finance wasn’t my strong suit. “Have you talked to Mr. Petersen? To either of them, Marv or Larry?”
“How can I? Not now, with Linda dead and whatever else is happening at the bank.” Rick pushed aside his glass of Pepsi. Maybe he was denying himself any small pleasures as punishment for his imagined sins.
Getting up, I went over to the window above the sink. At an angle, I could see Fir Street. There were no cars parked there, except for the pickup that belonged to the family across the way. Rick had left his car in my driveway, presumably to mislead the sheriff.
“The coast is clear,” I announced. “It seems to me you need a sympathetic listener. A sensible soul who understands you.” I paused, waiting for Rick’s reaction.
“Ginny?” Her name came out on a hush.
“Ginny. No woman can resist a man whose defenses are down. Trust me, Rick.” I couldn’t suppress a grin. “If Milo Dodge is really looking for you, her house is the last place he’d go. He must know you two have broken up.”
Clumsily Rick got to his feet. “Everybody knows that,” he mumbled. “Everybody in Alpine always knows everything.”
Escorting him to the door, I put a hand on his arm. “Then give them something new to talk about.”
“But …” He straddled the threshold, just inches out of the rain. “Maybe Ginny won’t see me.”
I gave him one last pat. With his forlorn, lost-puppy expression and the need for comfort brimming in his eyes, Ginny couldn’t possibly throw him back out into the rain. “Take a chance,” I said. “Go for it.”
Rick went, at least across the soggy grass to his car. Through the front window, I watched him reverse onto Fir Street and drive away. There were a dozen questions I’d been burning to ask him, but, as he’d realized, the answers would violate customer confidentiality. Despite my ignorance of financial matters, the situation at the bank was coming into focus. If Rick could tear off his emotional blindfold, he’d be able to see what was happening, too. Maybe Ginny could help. After all, she kept the books for The Advocate. If any staff member could sort through Rick’s work problems, it would be Ginny. And in the process, maybe she and Rick would resolve their personal problems.
I hoped so. It would be nice to think that there were people who could create happy endings for themselves. I wanted to do that, too. All the while that I was cleaning house, I’d tried to sift through my reaction to Tom’s telephone call. I hadn’t come to any conclusions, but at least I had a clean floor.
Maybe I’d sort through my desk drawers and find some answers. Then again, maybe I wouldn’t. It was possible that there weren’t any answers. It was probable that cleaning out the desk would only depress me. The drawers were stuffed with memories. It wasn’t a good idea to look at them on a rainy Saturday afternoon with an empty Saturday night looming ahead.
Instead, I called Leo Walsh.
Chapter Thirteen
LEO WAS NOT only home, but he sounded sober. I was surprised, having expected my ad manager to spend his weekend in the bag. What I did not expect was that he wasn’t particularly pleased to hear my voice.
“Oh, it’s you, babe.” Leo sounded disappointed. “I just got back from Snohomish. It’s hell driving in this rain. How do you people put up with it?”
“We natives like it,” I answered, trying to sound aloof. My ridiculous impulse to ask Leo to dinner died a-borning. “Say, have you any way of knowing who authorized the payments for your rent and whatever else you set up at the bank?”
“Hell, no. At least not yet. I haven’t gotten a statement this month. I’m a W, remember? I’m at the end of the cycle. When the statement comes, it might show a teller code. Why do you ask?”
I opted for candor. “Something odd is going on at the bank—besides or maybe along with Linda’s murder.” The words sounded harsh; maybe I felt like trampling Leo’s feelings. He’d already bruised mine.
“Oh, swell. I finally try to get my finances in order and then it turns out that my trusted bankers are a bunch of swindlers. That’s typical of my luck. What next? My paycheck bounces on Monday?”
Annoyed, I snapped at Leo: “Don’t be a jerk. The Advocate is solvent. And don’t go spreading around this stuff about the bank. I’m not absolutely—” There was a click on the line; I recognized it as Leo’s Call Waiting. “Go ahead, I’ll hang up—”
But Leo interrupted, asking me to hold. With an impatient sigh, I did. It took Leo at least a full minute to come back on the line.
“Sorry, babe. The flu bug has hit town. It seems to go away and then come on again. I suppose the germs hang around until April, like the rain and snow.”
“That’s about right. You have the flu?” I was more surprised than sympathetic. “Why did you go to Snohomish if you’re sick?”
“No, it’s not me. I’m too ornery to get the flu.” Leo gave a little laugh. “Say, you want to put on your fishing boots and wade down to the Venison Inn for dinner?”
“I was there for lunch.” And, I wanted to add, about six other meals since the previous weekend. “I’m housecleaning. I feel like staying in tonight and admiring my dust job.”
“Oh.” Leo was sounding disappointed again. “Now I’ll have to go get some food at the store. I’ll probably drown between here and Safeway. The only thing I’ve got i
n the fridge is a jar of horseradish and two kosher dill pickles.”
If Leo expected me to feel sorry for him, he was right. I didn’t want to, but in the wake of Milo’s frustration and Rick’s despair, my defenses were down.
“I’ve got some frozen prawns. How do you feel about yakisoba noodles?”
Leo felt very good about yakisoba stir-fry. In a chipper voice, he said he’d even bring the sake—to go with the yoba. I ignored the terrible pun and told him to show up around six-thirty. Then I put down the phone and wondered what hath Emma wrought.
Leo arrived, not with sake, but a bottle of California Chardonnay. “I ought to try some of the Washington wines,” he said, putting his feet up on my coffee table, “but as a rule, I’m not much for wine of any kind.”
“I know, you’re a Scotch drinker. Like Milo.” I handed Leo his beverage of choice. He’d get two drinks before dinner and one glass of wine while we ate. I wasn’t going to send a hammered Leo driving down the hills of Alpine. He might end up with something worse than a sprained ankle.
The memory of his accident spurred me to ask a question that had been niggling at the back of my mind for almost two weeks. “Say, Leo, how did you get to work that Tuesday after you fell? Did you drive?”
Leo was in the process of lighting a cigarette. I was beginning to feel as if I were spending my life in a smoke-filled casino. “That Tuesday? Shit, I don’t remember.” He didn’t look at me as he shook the match into oblivion and tossed it in what was usually an immaculate marble ashtray.
It was useless to press the point. If Leo had been involved with Linda, it was none of my business. Unless, of course, he’d killed her. I choked on my bourbon.
Jumping off the sofa, Leo circumvented the coffee table and slapped me on the back. “Hey, what’s wrong, babe? Go down the wrong way?”
Spluttering, I nodded. “Ice,” I gasped. Leo’s hand lingered on my back. Shakily I pulled myself out of the chair. “Excuse me.” Racing off to the kitchen, I poured a glass of water. I didn’t really need it, but I had to escape Leo’s hands.
He was standing in the doorway, watching me with a worried expression. “I should have learned the Heimlich maneuver,” he said. “Or is that only for chunks of beef?”
I gave him a quavery smile. “It’s not for ice,” I replied. “Ice melts. Beef doesn’t.”
We returned to the living room, decorously resuming our seats. “Tell me about the bank,” he said. “I don’t like the sound of it.”
Leo had me on the spot. Though not a newsman, he was a staff member. If I’d shipped Rick Erlandson off to confide in Ginny Burmeister, I could hardly keep secrets from my ad manager.
“It’s hard to explain because I don’t know all the facts,” I said, wrapping both hands around my bourbon glass. “It sounds as if Marv Petersen wanted to sell out to the Bank of Washington, or at least merge. BOW sent one of their auditors—Dan Ruggiero, the man we saw at the Venison Inn—to look over the books. He must have found something that queered the deal, because when I called BOW’s headquarters in Seattle, it was off. Now Milo is conducting an investigation, and rumors are flying all over town about missing funds and lost accounts. They’re not just picking on you, Leo. I could name half a dozen people who are having problems.”
Leo brandished his empty glass at me. Dinner preparations had been made before his arrival. The work with the wok would take less than ten minutes. I got Leo another Scotch and freshened my own drink.
“An embezzler, huh?” he remarked, taking a big sip. “Who? The list of suspects is pretty short.”
I agreed. “Denise is too dizzy, Rick is too honest, and Larry wouldn’t steal from the bank he’s about to take over. Marv, of course, wouldn’t need to, unless he’s a secret gambler or sniffing coke, neither of which sounds right.”
“A woman,” Leo said. “Marv’s been married to that dumpy what’s’ername for about a hundred years, right? Some flashy broad in Everett could have him by the short hairs.”
My initial reaction was to disparage such an outlandish notion. But it wasn’t entirely incredible. Solid citizens such as Marv Petersen often were undone by wily temptresses. The thought made me smile.
“Let’s leave Marv out of it for now,” I suggested. “It’s more likely that Christie Johnston or Andy Cederberg is the culprit. Christie and her husband, Troy, are on their way out of town tomorrow. I have this feeling they may not be coming back.”
Leo frowned. “Christie? The cute brunette? Okay, I’ll buy her over that Cederberg guy. He wouldn’t have the guts.”
“Maybe not.” I wasn’t considering Andy too seriously myself. “You’re forgetting someone, though.” I watched Leo closely. “Linda Lindahl.”
Instead of leaping to Linda’s defense, Leo scratched his left ear. “Linda? She was the bookkeeper, right? Easy for her to juggle the figures.” He shrugged. “If she did, and it came out, that could be a motive for murder.”
“So it could.” My spirits plummeted. Until Leo spoke, I hadn’t made the connection between the supposed embezzlement and Linda’s murder. “You mean that someone killed her because she’d loused up the buyout?”
Leo gnawed on a forefinger. “It’s possible. The problem is that the person most likely to be furious is also Linda’s father. Dads don’t usually strangle their daughters—even if sometimes they feel like it.”
A scenario in which Marv Petersen killed Linda was not only unlikely, it was repugnant. I preferred the picture of Marv himself as the embezzler, keeping his Everett mistress in jewels and furs and hot little sports cars.
“Or,” Leo went on, following me into the kitchen, “Linda found out about the embezzlement. Maybe she blew the whistle and turned over whatever evidence she had to Dan Ruggiero. In which case, the crook had to shut her up.”
Turning up the heat on the wok, I poured out a measure of tempura sauce. “But it was too late by then. The Bank of Washington already knew.”
“Maybe they didn’t know who.” Leo passed his once-again empty glass under my nose.
Tossing green onions into the wok, I ignored his desire for a refill. Indeed, something Leo had said suddenly struck me: “That’s it! Linda had dinner in Sultan with Dan Ruggiero!”
“Oh?” Leo sounded skeptical. “When was that?”
“The Tuesday before she died. Somebody saw them.” I guarded my source from Leo. “This person recognized Linda later from her picture in the paper but didn’t get a good look at the man she was with. But he was wearing a suit. Who else would do that in this part of the world except a banker?”
Leo stared into his empty glass. “You might be right. Are you sure Linda wasn’t having dinner with Andy Cederberg? He dresses as conservatively as that Ruggiero guy.”
The onions, water chestnuts, green pepper, mushrooms, and prawns were sizzling happily. I threw in the yakisoba noodles. “So do Marv and Larry, if it comes to that. But why would Linda and Andy go to Sultan to have dinner? They could speak privately any time at the bank.”
“That’s true.” Wistfully, Leo set his glass down on the counter. “It makes you think, though.”
Using a wooden paddle, I stirred the noodles in with the other ingredients. “About what?”
“About Andy. And Dan Ruggiero. They dress alike. From a distance, they look alike. Somebody tried to run Andy down by that park.” Leo moved closer to me, and I stiffened. But instead of pinching my backside, he pinched a prawn from the wok. “Maybe it wasn’t Andy they were trying to hit. Maybe it was Dan Ruggiero. Has your hotshot sheriff thought about that?”
The hotshot wasn’t home when I called after Leo and I finished dinner. He wasn’t at the office, either, according to Deputy Sam Heppner. Sam thought his boss was probably in Startup, paying a call on Honoria Whitman. I thought so, too. Maybe she was forcing him to listen to Gustav Mahler.
“I warned Milo not to let Christie Johnston leave town,” I grumbled. “He said he had no grounds to detain her. I thought he was talking about the mu
rder. Maybe he was, but it seems to me that if he’s conducting an investigation of the bank, its employees shouldn’t be allowed to go out-of-state.”
From the sofa, Leo was giving me a cockeyed look. “You’ve zeroed in on Christie, huh, babe?”
Despite my resolutions, we were down to the dregs of the Chardonnay. Thus, my tongue was loosened. “Rick Erlandson mentioned Christie as the person who didn’t get a cosignature on a phone request for money-market funds. How do we know anybody actually made the request? Why couldn’t Christie sign for the transaction and make off with the money?”
Leo, who was looking as hazy as I felt, considered. “She could, I suppose. I’m the last one you should ask about banking crap. Half the time I never bothered to record the checks I wrote. Sometimes I didn’t even sign the damned things. I’m glad to be free from all that. Or am I? Free, that is.” He stubbed out his cigarette in the now full ashtray and leaned back on the sofa.
“It’ll get straightened out,” I murmured. “Eventually.”
“Yeah, sure. ‘Leo Loses Shirt in Bank Scam.’ I can see the headlines now. What size type are you going to use?”
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Leo.” I grabbed the ashtray, intending to empty it in the garbage. Leo grabbed my leg.
“I like to wallow around in self-pity. Want to wallow with me?” His tone was wry, but his brown eyes were oddly disconcerting.
Abruptly I pulled free, spilling some of the cigarette butts. I didn’t dare bend over to retrieve them. “No, Leo, I don’t. And frankly, I don’t think you do, either. Let’s have some coffee.”
This time Leo didn’t follow me into the kitchen. But his voice did. “You hear about how I worked my ass off for fifteen years on a paper in the San Fernando Valley and got canned for falling down drunk in my wastebasket? You hear how my wife ran off with a goddamned guidance counselor? You hear how my kids hate me for forcing my wife to commit adultery? You hear how I lost my house and my good car and the boat I almost had paid for?”