Hanging by a Thread

by Margaret Evans

  “Maybe we could rent a truck?” Jenna suggested.

  “You mean like a big, fancy truck that didn’t need much work on it?” Kelly asked.

  Big, fancy truck.

  “Who has big, fancy trucks?” Laura posed.

  A motley of answers filled the room all at once, none of which were intelligible.

  Laura put her hands up to stop the noise.

  “Well, who do you think has a big, fancy truck, Laura?” Jade asked, a hint of snide in her tone. She scoffed at Laura and turned to the others with eyes rolling.

  “The military does,” Miles answered, looking up something on his phone. “I’ll check with a friend of mine.”

  “So, of course, we still don’t have a solution,” Jade put in, “in spite of all the suggestions people are making.” She turned to read her phone and grabbed her bag. “Oh! Gotta go. Emergency with the baby.”

  “What’s the emergency, Jade? Do you need any help?” Erica asked.

  Jade turned back to them with her hand on the doorknob.

  “I don’t need anyone’s help, thanks. I’m a good mother.”

  “What happened?” Miles asked.

  “My baby has started to crawl. Now I’ll have to chase him all over the place.”

  After the door closed behind her, Miles commented, “She doesn’t know what chasing is like until they turn two,” before focusing on his phone again.

  “Isn’t that one of the milestones you look forward to reaching and bragging about?” Jenna asked.

  “For most people, yes,” Kelly responded.

  •••

  “So the meeting’s over, everybody,” Rina announced.

  “But we haven’t decided on a replacement for the lost parade float,” Erica said.

  “Oh,” said Rina, “we can’t decide that unless the whole committee is here.” She was smiling, not turning red in the face, and looked pleased. She knew the men were on her side.

  Aaron Nilsson rose.

  “We can do that at the next meeting, right, Rina?”

  She nodded.

  Laura stood, too, and raised a hand.

  “Okay, wait a second—”

  “Meeting’s over, Laura,” Rina announced.

  “No, it’s not over. We just wasted about two hours doing absolutely nothing. We don’t even know if any of the other floats are in any kind of shape to use in the parade. That was the whole point of tonight’s meeting. We haven’t done that yet. We’re running out of time. Give me a show of hands—who wants to show up for a parade with no floats?”

  Miles looked up from his phone at the tone in Laura’s voice. He remembered her as the gutsy little girl who sold a lot of Girl Scout cookies. Her arguments could not be countered even if someone didn’t have cash on hand, she often took I.O.U.s payable in forty-eight hours, and she never took “no” for an answer. If he recalled correctly, she also sold the most cookies in Raging Ford year after year.

  “She’s right, gang,” Miles said. “I don’t want to keep coming back and interrupting my evenings with meetings that don’t accomplish anything. The Twins are playing tonight and I had to record it. We’ll go to the warehouse again. Does anybody know if the police will let us in yet?”

  Everyone turned to Laura.

  “No idea,” she said. “But I can call them.”

  “Okay, we can regroup tomorrow evening after the bicycle fundraiser.”

  “Hold on,” Laura said, tapping Connor’s name in her iPhone. After a brief conversation, she rang off. “Yes, we can go there Monday morning and look at the other floats. Miles, you call Jade and tell her to meet us there, and then our committee will be whole. The police will be there, so it won’t matter about the keys. It’s up to her to make the committee whole—or not. The rest of us will be there to look over the floats. How early do you all want to meet?”

  thirty

  Aaron Nilsson did not go to the bank after the whole SPDP&G committee had met earlier and looked over all the floats, pronouncing all but one ready to be cleaned up and used. A quick call was made to a handyman to come and take a look at the Green Beer Drinkers County Chapter float which apparently had sustained some damage to one of the plywood platforms from a significant spillage of green beer the previous year. He arrived within fifteen minutes and declared he would have the float safe and ready to clean up and use by the end of the day.

  And so, Aaron Nilsson wasn’t there when the seven FBI agents showed up with a subpoena to look at bank records and IT systems and network connections and all the other things that make up the giant and complicated web of information storage, retrieval, protection, and use in a bank. Apparently, he had a doctor’s appointment, and his second-in-command, Assistant Manager Sabina Morello, showed them to her office where they discussed with her what they were there to investigate and how they would need to do so.

  While the team would break up and cause minimal disruption of the bank’s daily work and transactions, three Information Technology specialists would be gathering “snapshots” of accounts, emails (current and archived), and activity logs, while two others would be gathering tape backups. They had brought boxes and other IT equipment for the purpose. The other two would be working with Sabina to get the names and contact information for every employee at the bank from present going back six years. And to ask her lots of questions.

  Sabina was helpful and cooperative, but when she got to Jessica Wright’s name, she broke down. After wiping away the tears, she explained to the agents that she had found Jessica’s digital fingerprints on the suspected fraudulent accounts.

  “Did you tell anyone?”

  “I told Aaron, my boss, the bank manager.”

  “And how did you find those fingerprints?”

  “I have special administrative accesses to everything.”

  “Doesn’t your boss?”

  “No, Aaron can barely respond to an email. I’m always doing things for him.”

  “Has he ever asked you to do anything unethical or anything that made you uncomfortable?”

  She shook her head, tears welling in her eyes again.

  “Nothing unethical, but watching the employees always made me uncomfortable. It was as if he didn’t trust anyone.”

  “What do you think happened with these accounts?”

  “I don’t know. Everybody thought it might have been Paul Dotson because he, you know, disappeared.

  But then I found Jessica’s fingerprints all over everything. The last time the FBI was here investigating, that evidence wasn’t there. And once I found her moving things around again, but it looked like she was trying to put

  everything back the way it was before her fingerprints showed up.”

  “Jessica has the same accesses you do?”

  “Oh, no. But she can do some things. Actually, I was very surprised to find she had those skills. If you have the skills, you can get around a lot of things.”

  “Why do you think she was doing that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Was Jessica friends with anyone in particular?”

  Sabina hesitated before answering.

  “Well, it was just office gossip, but we all thought she and Paul were dating. I never knew that for sure, but I know they had lunch together now and then and heard they went to trivia conventions.”

  The agent tried another tack.

  “And did you report any of Wright’s finagling in the accounts to your boss?”

  “Oh, yes. Right away.”

  “What was his reaction?”

  “He told me to do nothing but keep watching her.”

  “He didn’t confront her with it?”

  “I don’t really know. But in the weeks before she disappeared—” Sabina had to stop and wipe away the tears and blow her nose.

  “Take your
time.”

  “She was…edgy and nervous. I went up to ask her about a project she was supposed to be working on, and she jumped out of her skin.”

  “Why do you think that was?”

  “I didn’t know, but Aaron told me to check the logs to see what she was doing, and that’s when I discovered she was trying to put things back the way they were before her name and login showed up, like she was covering up her actions.”

  The interview went on for two hours.

  When they began to ask about her own technical skills, and those of the staff, she was very forthright in her answers.

  “There are—were—several of us here who could find our way around the network and systems. I’m not the only one.”

  “Do you ever work at home?”

  “Not usually…”

  “But you can.”

  “Yes.”

  “Show me how you do that.”

  While Sabina was showing the agent how the remote connection worked, one of the IT specialists came in to ask her about their information storage in the cloud. She showed them both how to log in and access it.

  “Are you the only employee with remote access?”

  “Paul Dotson had it. He was a supervisor. Nobody else did. Just Paul and me.”

  •••

  Right before the FBI arrived at the Raging Ford Bank and Trust Company to scrape away the dust and cobwebs from every digital corner of the bank, Connor was in his office at the station talking with Jack Flynn and telling him what was about to happen and why.

  Flynn was furious.

  Connor saw it in his rigid silence, the paling of his skin, the refusal to look Connor in the eye.

  “I couldn’t tell you until right now. They called me this morning at six and said wait until after nine o’clock before I talked to you.”

  A curt nod was the response.

  “We have one dead body and another person still missing.”

  “I know.” Finally he looked at Fitzpatrick. “She’s done nothing wrong. She doesn’t have it in her.”

  Connor nodded.

  “I’m sure they’ll find that out. Let them do their job. She’ll call you when she can.”

  “When they’re done grilling her.”

  “I know the agent in charge. He’s a good man, and I made sure he knows who she is.”

  Connor tried to imagine how he would feel if their roles were reversed. He wasn’t sure he would handle it as well as Flynn. But that wasn’t his job right now; it was to make sure the processes of law enforcement and investigation were followed to the letter.

  When both men rose, Connor put his hand on Flynn’s shoulder. “I will call you the minute I hear anything.”

  Flynn nodded his appreciation and went back to the Comm Center.

  Connor thought he knew how hard that was to go back to a job and do it with your fiancée potentially in trouble with federal law. Everyone in town had to know what was happening at the bank. Anywhere Flynn would turn, there would be someone who looked at him and knew what was going on with Sabina.

  By early afternoon, when no word had come, Connor went to Flynn who was, at that moment, alone in the Comm Center.

  “They don’t want us to interfere, but I will go and find out what I can.”

  •••

  Fitzpatrick stopped at Second Treasures on the way because he wasn’t sure he could face whatever was happening at the bank without first talking to Laura. Not Harry—Laura. He needed a shot of her wisdom.

  Connor had come in through the back, something he did only when he wasn’t prepared for the public who showed up in her shop. He texted her that he was there, and she closed the shop immediately and headed to the back.

  His face told her something was wrong.

  “What’s happened?” she asked, drawing him to the kitchenette where she pulled a fresh batch of brownies from the oven and shut off a timer. She set them on the stove top to cool. Connor didn’t even look at them.

  Several minutes passed before he could speak. When he did, he sank into one of the chairs as if he were exhausted.

  Laura remained standing, leaning against the refrigerator.

  “That subpoena I was going to request for the bank’s records and logs?”

  “Did you get it?”

  “The FBI beat me to it. It’s within their purview anyway, but at least they gave me a heads up. They’re over at the bank today with a complete IT crew, confiscating all their records, logs, tapes, and interviewing everyone, including Sabina.”

  Laura’s eyes widened.

  “Poor Jack.”

  “Yes, poor Jack. And I don’t know what to say to him. It’s been going on for hours now, and I haven’t heard a thing. I told him I would go down to the bank to see what I could find out.”

  “Did you find out anything? What’s Aaron doing about it?”

  She did something she didn’t often do, which was to make a cup of tea for him.

  “Aaron’s at a doctor’s appointment, and I haven’t been there yet. I got sidetracked,” he said and looked up, watched her make the tea. “You know I don’t like tea.”

  “You’ll like this tea.”

  Laura sat while he sipped the tea which she laced with two teaspoons of cream and waited for him to finish it.

  “So tell me about the bike ride. Who all was there?”

  “‘Who all?’ Watch out—your Maryland is showing. Most of the guys from the station, Max and Nicky and their wives, couple more guys you don’t know that were friends of Ian’s. Eric Williams and his wife didn’t show. Don’t know what happened there. Oh, your good friend, Colin Anderson, showed up. Had a pretty young lady with him.”

  Laura’s eyes widened.

  “Who was she?”

  “No idea. He didn’t introduce her and the two of them stayed apart from the rest of us. Let’s see—Erica and Torrey were there, Jenna was there but not to ride. She was running the thing. Didn’t see Kelly. Oh, Will’s new fudge-maker, Mahoney, was there. More people that neither of us knows very well. It was a pretty good turnout. We’ll have to wait and see how much money was made.”

  “Anything exciting happen?”

  “In the crowd watching us ride down Mosquito Lane, or among the cyclists?”

  “Either,” Laura answered, both ears on alert for good gossip. Taking the girl out of the small town for eleven years may have happened, but the reverse certainly hadn’t.

  “Ian was riding, and Maddy and the two boys were in the crowd. Nothing really exciting. Shannon didn’t go; the baby had an ear infection. Oh, Sam Larsen rode and beat me by at least two miles.”

  She smiled. Not the time to tell him he was closer to thirty than Sam.

  “Didn’t you say Jack Flynn and Sabina Morello were going? She was so excited at the shower. I bet she can’t wait for the wedding. How did Jack do on the bicycle? Any problems?” Laura was referring to Jack’s prosthetic lower leg.

  “No problems. He rides like a pro. Funny your mentioning Sabina being excited at the shower. She was certainly hyped up yesterday before the race.”

  “Maybe she had a bunch of energy drinks, the ones with concentrated caffeine. I did that once studying for finals, and I was literally bouncing off the walls and ceiling.”

  “Yeah, probably. We were all putting our bikes together, getting on helmets, making sure everything was set, and Jack was talking to Sabina, asking her what was wrong. I couldn’t help but look and I saw her shaking her hand like this.” He shook his wrist as if he were trying to get something off his hand that was stuck on it.

  “Was anything wrong?”

  “She said no, she just had a muscle cramp in her wrist. Made a joke about opening too many wedding presents.”

  “Oh, speaking of which, we have to get together on their gift. Don’t forget
.”

  “I won’t.”

  Then she took him by the hand and indicated he should rise.

  “What was in that tea?”

  “Licorice and a little magic.”

  “Magic?”

  “Something that starts with the letter ‘L’—Rose always poured me a cup when I needed it.”

  They wrapped their arms around each other then Laura leaned back to speak.

  “It was the murder and the missing man. There’s nothing you could have done to prevent the FBI from coming back.”

  “I would have handled it a little more…light-handedly.”

  “Jack knows that. And I told you it’s not Sabina.”

  “And how can you be so sure?”

  “Gut feeling. There’s something going on at that bank. Someone else who works there is engaged in some kind of funny business. Can’t put my finger on it, but I’m convinced it’s not what it looks like.”

  He kissed her forehead, put his hands on her shoulders.

  “I need facts, lady, not gut feelings.”

  “Okay, remember I said the accounts had probably been changed since the last time they were examined by the FBI? Let’s wait to see what they find this time around. Their experts are pretty technodexterous.”

  “You just wanted to use that word.”

  She smiled.

  “Their IT forensics team will find whatever somebody wanted to hide or delete, regardless of how careful or clever they think they were. I guarantee it.”

  “Now you sound like an infomercial.”

  “Go find out what you can and tell Jack what you can. And don’t forget to tell me…any little hint that you can. Now go. He’s waiting.”

  This time he held and kissed her.

  And then he left.

  thirty-one

  Things couldn’t be much worse than they already were. At least that’s what Dotson thought until he approached the bank on his bicycle and stopped near the woods to the west. He had a really good vantage point from here.

  He was not worried that anyone would recognize him. His appearance had been changed three times since he left, and yet again after Jessica’s body had been discovered. He could not believe such a horrid thing had happened, but he had suspected foul play from the first when he found her car abandoned in the park. He crept through the scanty forest closer to the bank as part of the crowd, drawn from several nearby towns as well as Raging Ford itself.