by Mark Gannon
So that was the reason she was out here. “Yes I did talk to coach. And I need to talk to TT. What with everything going on at the bank I forgot. I better do that soon. Football practice is going strong and I need to tell him something before the season gets too far along.”
Emily visibly relaxed and said, “Good. TT has been upset lately. He needs to get the football thing straightened out.” Emily gave another look of disgust at my trailer house and stood up and dusted herself off. “As much fun as it is visiting you I better get trotting along.” Assuming I would be watching, Emily made a show of her departure with an over swing of her backside. She had to strut her stuff no matter what male was watching. It was her way of saying ‘See what you’re missing.’
I was glad she was gone. Now I had the house to myself. And it was my house and no one else’s house. Thinking how much I enjoyed my solitude I had second thoughts again about involvement with anybody.
Since I already had a sandwich with Judy I only made a small tuna, mayo, pickle on rye. Dan and Biscuit were waiting by the fence as usual. After sugar cubes and hay I sat with my faithful audience and talked out loud. “It has been a tough three days gang. You might have gone hungry Saturday night but you could lose a few pounds anyway. This has been the most adventure I have been around since my senior trip. The problem is I am a lot older and don’t bounce back like I used to.
I have been shot at and tromped on and I didn’t get a lick in myself. I just got beat and never landed a punch of my own. I really feel bad for Charlie. All those years invested in the bank and a couple of pukes destroy that public trust in a matter of hours. If I ever get a chance to land a few on Slick I am going to take advantage of the opportunity. He may be dangerous but sometime somewhere I will catch him without his guns and I’ll take him apart. I can’t remember the last time someone beat on me and I didn’t get in at least one good lick. This is personal in a lot of ways. The worst of it is they made a clean get away and I will never get my chance at him.’
“The best of it is Judy. I am more than a little confused. Being around Emily convinces me that I want nothing to do with woman. The few times I have dated since the divorce have been wrecks. Every time Emily comes around it reminds me of the bad times. But when Judy is around I feel good and upbeat like life might be good again. It feels like the old dream of family and doing things with a special someone is in reach.’
“There is something I am missing about all this. It’s in the back of my mind but I am way too tired to think right now. You guys are just lucky I have enough energy to feed you tonight. So what is it that I am missing? Well when you think of it let me know so we are all on the same page. I am off to bed. You two keep a lookout for trouble. Let me know if you see something suspicious.”
Chapter 36
To Hell With Intuition
Nothing happened in the night. At least nothing that Dan or Biscuit told me about. Back at the bank the rest of the week was something close to ordinary. The Ice Princess found ways of tracking me down and demanding sales reports. The customers actually expected answers on their loan requests. Loan Committee continued to be a chilling experience. Judy and I pretended nothing else had changed either. Well I pretended, I don’t know about her.
Reggie Klein was in chewing on his lot in life or whining was more like it. “I’ve been talking to Ned up at the hospital. I’m glad he is feeling better and out of the coma and all but I think that medicine they are giving him is making him stubborn. He won’t listen to anything I have to say about that upper pasture development.”
I jumped in with, “What do you mean making him stubborn? Like he wasn’t before?”
“That upper pasture idea is really gaining some traction with all the money men but it isn’t making any head way with Ned.” Reggie shook his head in slight disbelief. “I can’t believe he doesn’t see any sense in it. He thinks he can go on ranching until dooms day. It’s a shame. He could make a real killing developing that piece.” I think Reggie meant he could make a real killing but I didn’t argue. After asking me to help change Ned’s mind and reminding me it was in the bank interest he went off to connive elsewhere.
After Reggie left I called the title insurance company about the Jasper title policy. They still didn’t have a line on the previous joint owner who hadn’t signed the deed. A little birdie told me Ted Brown, the needed signature, was back in town and up at the nursing home. Now it would seem to most people that I should just trot up to the nursing home and get Ted’s signature so I could finalize the Jasper loan. But the truth is I have a developing phobia about nursing homes. I just can’t stand the smell of the places.
There was no way I was going up to the nursing home and hunting up an old fart for a signature. Absolutely no way. I needed to think of some way of talking someone else into doing it. And that wasn’t going to happen until things settled down around the bank. How long could I stall the Jaspers on signing loan papers?
Without being able to finalize Jasper’s loan I needed to move onto the next item on my To Do List. It was time to dig out Harley’s loan request. I left his loan proposal in the stack of work on my desk before the Trail Ride. So where did I put that stack? It was somewhere in my office. I found the proposal in my bottom drawer of my back credenza. I didn’t remember what his idea was this time around – he brings in so many.
A quick scan of the front page brought it all back. It was a picture of his Subway sandwich shop with a coffee shop addition. The addition was a huge espresso cup sitting on top of what looked like a French café. The incongruity of the chic coffee shop combined with a fast food sandwich shop struck me as ludicrous. It is very hard to give a loan proposal serious consideration when you keep chuckling at the main selling point. How many people are going to pay for upscale coffee when buying a commodity sandwich?
Then I tried to sit back and think about it from a different angle. I was all for the Subway shop when Harley wanted financing for that. After all everybody ate sandwiches. I love sandwiches. It had to be a hit. And it was successful. The Pizza Hut was a great idea. Everybody loves pizza. I love pizza. The Pizza Hut was very successful. But an upscale coffee shop? I never bought any coffee except black regular coffee. How many people will shell out three or four bucks for a fancy shmancy coffee? It might work in California but not in Spearfish South Dakota. On the other hand Harley studied these things and seemed to have a knack for picking winners. But a fancy coffee shop next to a Subway? I just couldn’t warm up to the idea.
Loan officers need to keep their personal preferences out of the objective decisions on loans. It is okay to say that but to actually do it is a lot harder. In studying Harley’s proposal he had all the objective reasons for a coffee shop. It included stats on how much coffee consumer’s drink, what percent are upscale sales and the saturation for that product in Spearfish. He included gross profit margins, traffic studies and parking lot considerations. To back that up he had two years of projected cash flow to support the discussion on profit margin and debt service.
Harley had this wired. And because of my personal lack of coffee snobbery I was having a hard time buying in. A good comparable was my lack of taste for the upscale beers. If it was up to my personal taste buds all the new microbrew beer industry would never have emerged. But John loves all that new exotic beer industry. John was the prime advertisement for why the microbrew beer industry would be around for a long time. So I need to set aside my personal preference for plain old regular coffee and get with the day. This was going to be hard to write up a recommendation with the credit display but that’s where this was headed. So I did what I shouldn’t – I procrastinated. Harley’s proposal was laid to the side while I found something else to work on.
Charlie walked by about then and stuck his head in to my office. “Are you going to have anything for Loan Committee this week? I haven’t seen any credit displays from you.”
My face showed surprise when I replied, “With all the excitement it has been hard t
o concentrate on loans and banking. I have a couple of requests that I am working on but nothing done yet.” As long as Charlie was handy I asked him about a change in terms on one loan that showed on the report this morning. “Isn’t it a little soon after Junior’s demand for a higher interest rate for Bob’s Tire Shop to be dropping it back down?” The morning reports showed the loan interest rate being reduced from Wall Street Journal Prime plus two percent to minus one percent.
Charlie smiled and told me, “That is an interesting change of banking for Bob. Blake renewed the line last week at the higher rate as agreed to at Loan Committee. But it seems Junior’s wife had a flat tire the other day and Bob came by and saw her. So being the nice guy that he is, he stopped and changed the tire for her, then took the flat to the shop, fixed it, and took it back to the house and replaced that little doughnut tire. She was so grateful that she insisted Junior make sure the ‘nice young man’ have the best loan rate we give out at the bank.” Charlie had a quiet laugh with me at Junior’s expense then smiled and was ready to move on.
Before Charlie walked away I said, “That is good news for Bob and his business. Who told Bob about the reduced rate? Blake?”
Charlie nodded and said, “I think Bob is smart enough to know how it came about. I doubt if he takes repaired tires to everyone’s house and changes them out. That is one of the reasons his business is successful.” Charlie smiled and added, “That is one more business that we should keep as a bank customer.” Charlie was happy about the result. He has worked a lot of hard years for the bank and he hates to lose a customer due to Junior.
I didn’t want to go out for lunch and had decided to try to make up for not bringing lunch back for everyone the day before. So I stopped at the grocery store on my way in and picked up fixings for sandwiches. I sent out an e-mail to all the employees that I would put together a sandwich for any and all takers in the bank break room.
I was amazed at the mundane tastes of the staff. Even though I had a lot of extras like jalapeno relish, fancy mustard, sweet relish, four different kinds of bread, three kinds of olives, chopped green and yellow peppers, diced red onion, seasoning salt, regular and light mayonnaise, sour cream and five different luncheon meats and special meat balls, no one wanted anything special. Almost everyone chose one meat and only one or two toppings and plain bread and was happy. I kept offering to put together something special for everyone but there were few takers. The fact that I would have plenty of leftovers didn’t bother me because I knew I would use them at home.
When Judy came in I pestered her until she let me make a sandwich with a little something extra. Putting together a sandwich is one of the few things I do well and frankly I want to show off for Judy. When I got done with Judy’s sandwich, Mary Beth showed up and I only sold her on something very basic.
As I put the finishing touches on Mary Beth’s sandwich the conversation was on the robbery. Mary Beth said, “I wish I could waive my hand and get all the issues with the safe deposit boxes settled. It’s a night mare trying to see that everyone gets their personal papers back and all the little trinkets. The worst part is my patience is almost gone. Waiting on elderly customers trying to remember what all they put in a safe deposit box over a period of twenty or thirty years and then trying to remember if they took it out or gave it a nephew is aging me.”
Judy nodded her head in agreement. “If I answer one more rubber neckers question of what was it like to be kidnapped, I will just flat out scream.”
Mary Beth smiled in empathy. “And that damn flirty Nancy caused all of this. I would love to drop kick her all the way across the bank.”
Because of my personal attention from him I added, “Don’t forget our friend Slick. If I can ever get my hands on him when he isn’t waiving a pistol in my face---.” My voice trailed off as I visualized how I would pound on Slick given the chance.
The three of us all understood the feelings of the others. We had too many of the same emotions. Mary Beth muttered, “Nancy wasn’t smart enough to think of this by herself. She had to have help.”
Around a bite of her sandwich Judy said, “Slick was vicious but he wasn’t a brain. There had to be somebody else. I mean hitting us like they did was not the usual bank robbery scheme. Somebody with some smarts had to help. You don’t think up something like that without some gray matter.”
I started off muttering under my breath and increased in volume as I went along. “Somebody else. That’s right. Somebody else. Nancy said something about another person when Slick was shooting at me down in the basement. She said ‘She wouldn’t like that.’ Meaning she didn’t want anyone murdered and upping the felony charges that were possible. Nancy had to mean a third party – a female.
We all sat in silence for a moment letting this thought settle in. Judy cut the silence by saying, “That’s right Mitch. Remember when I was talking about Larson getting shot as the helicopter landed. Nancy mentioned a third party then too.”
Mary Beth was the fastest to the next thought. “So that third party might still be here in Spearfish. If no one knows who they are they don’t have to hide.”
Judy was on to the next conclusion. “It could be somebody that we see every day.” Her expression changed to a horrified look. “It could be somebody we work with. Somebody at the bank would be the logical suspect.”
We all stopped again for some unsettling thoughts. The thought of one of our own bank family being in on the robbery in addition to Nancy was a horrible thought to all three of us. We work in a small bank of under twenty employees. We all live in a small town and know each other really well.
Nancy being a bank robber was not that disturbing because she was not on the staff that long and most of the women in the bank didn’t like her due to her flirting. But for one of our longer term employees to be in on the robbery was like being betrayed by family. It shook us to think it may be someone we have coffee with every day, go to games with and maybe have a beer or a meal with. And they were still here right beside us.
Mary Beth voiced it best with a simple, “Yuck!” Judy and I nodded in agreement. With lunch about over we decided to get together after work to follow up on our lunch discussion. As the afternoon wore on I kept dwelling on the fact that a conspirator was among us. I eyed each and every employee with speculation. Well not every employee. Not any of the male employees as much as I wanted to throw Steve Blake under suspicion. Well maybe not very many of the employees at all. It is just hard to think of your coworkers as felony criminals. But it sure is distracting.
The whole idea of a criminal in the bank bothered me a lot. So much so that I gave John a call to discuss it. After all if you have a difficult mental problem you want the best brain power you can find. As usual John listened and offered encouragement. Not only did he offer encouragement to the idea he offered his house as a meeting place. So after work we all trooped up to John’s.
Chapter 37
Suspects
The beer cellar was safe since Frank wasn’t present. But Mary Beth, Judy, John, Greta and I all sat down in the family room. It felt so restful and safe in John’s house looking out over the canyon and mountains. It was hard to reconcile the safe warm feeling sitting there to the trauma of the last few days. No one in Spearfish is exposed to bank robberies, beatings and kidnappings. But that all happened to us over the last week. It was going to take some time and some mental gymnastics to get over the emotions especially the feeling of vulnerability.
I started the discussion with, “I want to put all of our brain power together and figure something out. I want to recap the situation to start with so we are all up to speed and on the same page. Not to be melodramatic but this is serious. Mary Beth, Judy and I are all of the opinion that there is a third person involved in the bank robbery. Both Judy and I heard Nancy make reference to this third person as a female.
“None of us think Nancy or Slick have the kind of smarts it takes to come up with a robbery scheme that is this original. So we
think there may still be a third member of the robbery gang and we think it is a bank employee. We think it has to be someone from the bank that has knowledge of the safe deposit box system. Somebody who knows what safe deposit boxes had the most valuables.
“The police can’t find Nancy or Slick. But if we all put our heads together, we have a chance to sneak up on this inside person, whoever it is, and hand them over to the Sheriff. And when that happens, we will all feel better and we may get information from them for a line on Nancy and Slick. And Mary Beth and Judy really want Nancy and I really want to see Slick get his. So we need to think this through and figure this out. This is our chance to get them both and get a rotten egg out of the bank.
“In addition it is our only chance to get the stolen items back for the customers and keep the bank from going broke paying for all the theft. We need to make this happen.” That is as long winded as I have been at one time for years. Everyone else must have thought so too as they were all sitting back with a look of surprise on their faces.
John piped in next. “Wow that was quite some speech, Mitch. I didn’t know you could string that many words together at one time.” John shook his head in mock disbelief and then his diplomat mode kicked in. “Greta and I certainly cannot fully understand the emotions you three have run through over the last few days. Nobody can understand who has not gone through it. But I do know you need some closure and retribution. But since we are your friends and admire Charlie and the bank, we want to help as much as we can. So we’ll let you three lead as we go through the female employees and try to assess their criminal capabilities.” The last was said with a bit of a devilish grin.
Mary Beth took that as her cue. “We have eighteen employees at the bank. Seven of those are male and eleven female. Hopefully we can rule out the two female bank employees sitting here. Does anybody have any objection to taking the two of us out of running?” I was about to make a smart remark but was cut off at the pass with hard looks from everyone present. “Okay that leaves nine female employees to run through the lineup. I thought we would start with the most obvious ones to eliminate.