thirteen

Bear’s words hung in the room like fog.

Cal asked, “Larry, where were the hard drives kept?”

“In the security room.” Larry tipped his head toward the break room door. “It’s locked all the time and only the Mendelsons and Mr. Thorne have complete access. We keep the alarm system, CCTV, and other security equipment in there. I can’t even get in without Mr. Thorne’s approval.”

Cal noted that. “Any way to tell who opened the security room?”

“Should have been.” Larry shook his head. “The room’s recorded, too, but the recordings were on the hard drive.”

“How convenient,” I said. “The killer knew exactly how this place works.”

Bear said, “Cal, get crime scene in there to check it over.”

Cal made a note, gave Larry an exaggerated nod, and left.

Larry watched him go. “Man, Calloway Clemens is just too cool. You guys never knew he played? You don’t know what you’re missing.”

“Let’s focus on this, Larry. Who knows about the security system?”

He thought a moment. “Everyone, Detective. It’s pretty standard stuff for banks. But if you’re asking who has access cards, well, the Mendelsons and Mr. Thorne, of course. Karen Simms and myself are allowed access to certain things but it takes one of them to let us in.”

“Certain things?” Bear asked.

“We have part of the alarm codes and vault combinations for opening in the morning and closing at night. It takes two people—we call them A and B people—each has half the alarm codes and half the combinations to lock and unlock the bank building and the vaults. The Chairman and Mr. Thorne are A people. Marshal, Karen, and I are B people. It takes one of each to unlock anything at the bank.”

“What about this building, the annex?” Bear asked.

“No, the annex is different. The Mendelsons, Mr. Thorne, Karen, and I can all access this building alone.”

I asked, “Why is that so different?”

Bear asked that, too, and Larry said, “No money stored in here. Well, none that we knew of. Now you gotta wonder about the Chairman’s private vault, right?”

Yes, we did.

Larry went on. “In this building, only the security room is A and B access, Detective. So it takes dual control to get into it.”

“Maybe the keys have been copied,” Bear said, watching for any reaction from Larry. “Or maybe the door was left unlocked.”

“No way. Mr. Thorne is a fanatic about that room. When he came to the bank a while back, he changed the locks, restricted the keys, and even put in a steel door so it couldn’t be forced. He redid the security system, too. He trusts nobody.”

Bear re-read the alarm reports several times and drained his coffee cup for a second time. “Larry, do you know where Marshal and Thorne were these past few days?”

“They were doing some audits or something at other branches. Yesterday, they were an hour south of here in Harrisonburg.” His face flushed a little and he looked toward the open break room door. “Look, don’t tell them—please don’t—but I checked their access cards against the alarm lists. Neither of them came or went in the building for the past two days. They weren’t around.”

Bear looked at him. “Why’d you do that? Do you suspect one of them?”

“One of them?” Larry’s eyes went round and his mouth cracked into a wide smile. “Detective Braddock, I wouldn’t put it past either one of them. With their A-B access, they can get into anything in the bank together. Anything. But if I had to pick just one, I’d say Marshal.”

Marshal? “Hey, I don’t like these guys, Bear, but they’re bankers. They’re too boring to be killers.”

“Why Marshal, Larry?” Bear watched Larry glance at the door again. “And don’t cut any corners.”

Larry lowered his voice. “The Chairman and Marshal have been fighting for over a year—real bad, too—about money, staffing, family stuff, even the Chairman’s old pals from the war. Marshal threatened to have him tossed off the board.”

“Can he?”

“No—I don’t think so, anyway.” Larry shrugged. “He also threatened to have him ruined. His reputation, I mean. Marshal kept saying the Chairman saw things and was mentally unstable. He threatened to bring that to the Board of Directors.”

Bankers love scandals like rats love leaky ships. And nothing rocked your investments like a nut-job running the till. Marshal might not have had the power to remove him from the board himself, but he could stir up a scandal and just watch all the board members join hands to pack William’s office.

“And Thorne? What’s his deal?”

Larry looked down and sipped his coffee, making a face like it was cold. “Not really sure. I just don’t like him. He’s, well, flashy and pretentious. He thinks he’s better than all of us—and that included the Chairman. He acts all respectful and such in front of others, but I’ve seen his emails and heard him on the phone. He thinks William and Marshal Mendelson are idiots.”

“Being arrogant doesn’t make him a killer,” Bear said.

“It doesn’t make him innocent, either.” Larry watched Bear for a moment before adding, “And he dug around the Mendelsons’ offices every chance he got. I’ve seen him several times coming out of them when they weren’t in the building.”

It struck me that Larry Conti, the mild-mannered suddenly-a-hero security guard had been keeping his ear tuned in to the bank’s goings-on very well. Maybe too well. “Bear, Larry’s playing at something. A promotion, maybe?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Bear chanced a glance at me but when Larry followed his eyes, he said, “What’s your beef, Larry? You just threw your bosses under the bus. And now you’re driving the bus.”

“No, I’m doing my job.” He went to the sink and dumped his coffee. “I resent being treated like a dumb-ass security guard—if you know what I mean. The Chairman understood me and treated me real good. Not friendly so much. Just good.”

Bear considered that. “Okay, sure. Anything else strike you between Marshal and William that we should know?” Then he waited and watched for signs of a lie.

So did I, but neither of us found any.

“One thing.” Larry took a breath. “Marshal asked me to keep tabs on the Chairman after banking hours. Marshal leaves around four and the Chairman works late. He even asked me to check the alarm and access card reports every morning and let him know if there was anything suspicious going on with his father.”

Bear’s eyebrows raised. “Did you?”

“Well, yeah, I had to. And if I didn’t or if I lied, Marshal could find out anyway. I figured maybe it was a test or something.”

“Did you see anything unusual?”

Larry nodded. “Yeah, but there was one thing, you know, I thought I should keep to myself for a while.”

“Like what?” Bear leaned forward. “Come on, Larry. Quit playing games with me.”

Larry took out his cell phone, clicked through a couple applications, and brought up a series of photographs he showed Bear. I looked over his shoulder.

The photos were of a woman dressed on a long green trench coat with a scarf wrapped around her shoulders obscuring her face. Only in one shot was her flowing black hair showing over the scarf. Never did any of the photographs unveil her face. In one of the photos, the woman was coming out of a house that Larry said was William’s. In another, she was leaving the private entrance to the executive suite here at the bank annex. In others, she was around town—alone here and there.

“Who is she?” Bear flipped through the digital photographs again. “Did you ID her?”

“No, I have no idea who she is.” Larry reached for his phone, but Bear held firm. “There was no record in our visitor logs. When I hinted around with the Chairman about the times I saw her at his place, he lied and said he was somewhere else. So I figured it was personal—you know, some kind of thing. I never told Marshal about her.”

I said, “A thing? He’s a billion years old and you think he has a thing?”

“He’s loaded,” Bear said. “What else happened?”

Larry walked to the break room door and looked out into the hall. He turned back around. “For weeks I’ve been telling Marshal about the Chairman’s movements. He seemed fine with that. Then he asked me if I’d like to make some extra money outside of work. I told him sure, but only as long as it was nothing more to do with the Chairman. I didn’t feel right checking up on him like I was—especially outside the office.”

“And?”

“Marshal got weird and dropped the whole thing. He wanted someone to regularly follow the Chairman after hours. He said he was worried his father was losing his mind and memory—you know, like Alzheimer’s or something. I refused and he let it go. Then when I asked him about it last week again—I thought maybe I should help after all—he said no, that he’d changed his mind.”

Bear asked, “Larry, do you think he got someone else?”

“Yeah, I do. And so did the Chairman.”

“William?”

Larry nodded. “Yeah. Look, I told you, he treated me with respect and I appreciated that.”

“And?”

“And I told him everything Marshal was up to.”