In life, Caleb Montgomery hadn’t been a man of religion; as such, his memorial service on Saturday morning was secular, and, not surprisingly, rather subdued and in keeping with my opinion that violent death rarely lends itself to anything but serious funerals. The people attending were quiet, their conversations hushed and held in small groups not larger than three or four. Most gripped mugs of coffee or tea, the hot beverages serving to ward off the chill of both City Hall, where the reception was held, and the topic at hand.
Photographs of Caleb at various stages in his life were displayed on stands and in frames all over the lobby. I found it hard to see pictures of victims of violence in their younger days. As a boy, Caleb had a bright, wide smile that spoke of wonder and innocence, with no idea what his future held.
I’d arrived at the same time as Bull and Julia. My grandparents were a handsome couple, her with her chic bob and high cheekbones, him with his thick white hair and commanding presence. They knew everyone at the service, or at least it seemed that way. Caleb Montgomery was of their generation, after all, and he and Bull had run in many of the same circles. And, as I found myself saying more and more these days, it was a small town. It was hard to tell how much Julia was actually processing, though. As I watched her with Bull, I saw she did very little of the talking.
When I’d arrived, Edith Montgomery and her brother Tom were perched on a low sofa in the foyer, occasionally standing to receive a hug or words of condolence. After I gave them both my regards, I stepped away. A few minutes later, I watched as Tom weaved through the crowd to the elevator, his phone in his hand, a sickly expression on his face. Edith watched him go, worry in her eyes. I wondered where he was headed. In the basement, there were restrooms and an exit to the parking lot. And on the second level, another foyer, much like this one; more restrooms; a vending machine; and offices.
Curious, I went to Edith. She shook her head at my concern and explained that Tom was weaning himself off the pain medication he’d been prescribed for his surgery, and it was causing him nausea. He needed the restroom and a few minutes of fresh air. Then an elderly couple joined us and I moved away, giving the trio space and privacy.
As it was Saturday, the building was closed to the public, the service by invitation only. I found myself watching the guests, wondering if Caleb’s killer was among us. It would be insane if he were; insane, but not unusual. If the killer had done it for the sensationalism, for the attention, then he would likely be here, here or somewhere nearby.
Maybe it was the man in the corner, the guy with the red tie who’d been staring at his phone for the last twenty minutes and not talking to a single person. Or perhaps the server, stationed behind the coffee and dessert table, who kept making eye contact with me, then quickly looking away.
“These things always give me the creeps.” The voice came out of nowhere, speaking soft, low words directly into my right ear. I stepped back, regaining my personal space, then turned.
Liv Ramirez lowered her voice even more. “Please tell me I’m not the only one?”
“What, who’s bothered by memorial services?” I shrugged. “Actually, I think they’re kind of nice. Sad, of course, but lovely to see people gathered and paying their respects.”
Ramirez laughed. “Paying their respects? That’s a good one. They’re doing nothing of the sort. They’re gossiping, and congratulating one another on not being the body in the box. Trust me, I’ve been here an hour and I’ve heard a lot of conversations in that time.”
“Anything important?”
She stared at me shrewdly. “Important to your investigation? No, no, I don’t think so. It’s mostly petty gossip along the theme of what it must be like to be burned alive. Or killed by a bomb. Et cetera. Old people with nothing better to do than sensationalize what was in all likelihood a mercifully quick death.”
“Do you really believe that, that Caleb died quickly?”
Ramirez shrugged. “It’s better than thinking the alternative, isn’t it?”
“I suppose. How are you feeling after last night’s activities?”
The fire investigator laughed. “You should have seen the looks on your faces when I pulled the knife. It was priceless. I’m fine. I’ve dealt with a lot worse. Those guys, they’re big and mean … but they’re also dumb. Put an alpha in front of them, even an alpha female like myself, and they usually fall in line. They want to be led; they don’t want to think for themselves too much.”
“Still, it could have turned ugly. One of them could have pulled a gun. The bar was packed. It wouldn’t have been good.” I sipped my coffee, once again watching the crowd. “You’d be the idiot literally bringing a knife to a gunfight.”
Ramirez laughed. “That’s why I like you, Gemma. You tell it like it is. I don’t know that I’ve ever been called an idiot this early in the morning.”
After a moment, she turned serious. “It’s the one thing I don’t like about small towns like this, though. You all are a closed-off bunch to newcomers. And if it’s someone a little different? Someone ‘not from around these here parts’?” She whistled. “Then watch out. You should see the stares I get at the grocery store.”
Before I could respond, my cell phone buzzed. It was Finn.
“Excuse me, I’ve got to take this.” I stepped away from Ramirez and answered. “Monroe. I’m at Caleb’s service. What’s up?”
“I’m at the First Pillar Bank and Trust. Get your ass down here, we’ve got a robbery with shots fired and a security guard, badly injured.”
By the time I arrived on the scene, the first responders had established a perimeter with yellow tape and traffic cones. I parked as an ambulance pulled away from the curb, lights flashing, sirens screaming. Inside my car, I threw on a dark blazer over the black funeral dress I wore and clipped my badge to the lapel. Crowds milled about in front of the shops on either side of the bank—a yoga studio to the north, a natural foods store to the south. Many of the bystanders had cell phones out and were recording the scene.
Finn stood at the bank entrance, under a green-and-white-striped awning, fuming. “There’s got to be seventy-five people on the street at this very moment and no one saw a thing. Not a goddamn thing.”
His estimate of the crowds felt right. It was obvious that a packed Saturday-morning yoga class was just letting out, and at the grocery store, ads in the front windows advertised rock-bottom sale prices on seasonal goods. It would have been crowded at both places.
“Nothing? Not even the perp’s getaway?”
Finn shook his head. “He fled on foot, the bank teller is sure of it. After that, things get fuzzy. He could have ducked into any one of these stores and exited the street through a back door. If he had a partner with a car, waiting, or even a parked car somewhere close by, he could have been on the highway in less than ten minutes.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe someone saw something and will come forward.” We walked into the lobby, careful to avoid the small plastic flags that the crime scene techs were already laying down. The flags were like game pieces against the rose-colored marble floor, as though we’d stumbled into a life-size world-conquering board game. My heels clacked against the tiles, each step taking me farther into the belly of this new, fresh hell.
I asked, “What do we know so far?”
“The Saturday shift is minimal: two tellers, a manager, and an unarmed security guard, Michael Esposito. Four people in total. The perp timed it perfectly. He entered the building at one minute to noon, just after the manager and one of the tellers had left for their break. No customers. The man approached the front counter and demanded all of the cash in the till. When the teller, a sweet old broad named Dee Bullock, hesitated, he pulled the gun.”
Finn paused, surveying the lobby, then pointed to an overturned stool in the corner, near the front entrance. “Esposito, the guard, was seated there, on the stool. As Bullock gathered the cash, the perp aimed the gun at Esposito and instructed him to lie facedown, on the ground. By this time, it’s about two minutes after noon and both Bullock and Esposito are following bank protocol for this sort of situation.”
“Don’t resist, the money’s insured?”
“Yes, exactly,” Finn said. “But then things go off script: according to Bullock, as the perp is exiting the bank, ten grand in hand, he stops, bends down, whispers something, then shoots Esposito in the back. Twice. I don’t know if he’s going to make it, Gem.”
“But the guard wasn’t a threat…” I stared at the pool of blood congealing on the marble floor. The scarlet blood and pink tiles made me think, strangely, of Valentine’s Day.
Bullet wounds. Bleeding hearts.
Finn said, “You’re correct. Esposito was unarmed and did not put up a fight.”
“Could the robbery be a cover-up? Maybe Esposito was the target all along and the money grab just a distraction, a way to get to the guard.”
“We’ll look into it, of course. It’s a strange place to do something like that, though. Busy, public place like this…” Finn trailed off.
“Bullock said the perp whispered something to Esposito. Do we know what?”
“No idea. The paramedics whisked him away, unconscious, as I arrived. You think this is a strange case so far, just wait.” Finn pointed to an area behind the overturned stool. “Check it out.”
I walked over and looked down at the object that lay there. It was still and silent and deadly: a long-barreled pistol that vaguely resembled a semiautomatic Luger.
Surprised again, I glanced at Finn. “The perp left the weapon?”
“It’s not Esposito’s gun, that’s for sure.”
We crouched by the gun, careful not to touch anything.
“Why on earth would he leave the gun? Look, see that writing on the rear of the receiver? Does it look like a series of Japanese characters to you? Serial number, perhaps?”
Finn agreed. “Ballistics should be able to tell us what the symbols mean.”
I summoned a nearby officer, a burly sour-faced man with hands the size of ham hocks. The officer bagged the gun and added it to a box of other evidence already collected. The pistol was now part of the crime scene, and would be examined for fingerprints and other trace evidence. Finally, it would make its way to ballistics, where an expert would examine the firearm and ammunition, if any remained in the weapon.
Before he left us, the officer stared down at the blood and shook his head. “I play softball with Esposito. I hope he makes it. I heard the bastard who shot him was too much of a coward to show his face. That right?”
Finn nodded. “He wore a mask.”
The officer leaned over as if to spit, then thought better of it. This was a crime scene, after all. “Shoot. Well, I’ll get this evidence over to forensics right quick. Hope you catch the son of a bitch soon.”
Finn and I made our way to the far wall of the bank, where a long service counter held three teller stations. I asked, “A mask? Like a Halloween mask?”
“Not exactly. It was a gas mask. Bullock said it looked like something out of a history museum. You know the kind? With the large, dark bug eyes and a long snout. It sounds almost worse than a Halloween mask, in my opinion. A little too close to reality.”
A Japanese pistol and a gas mask … like something out of a movie … I tried to connect the dots but came up empty, though something niggled at the back of my mind, something I’d seen or heard.
I realized we hadn’t talked about the bank teller yet. “Any chance Bullock was a part of this?”
Finn snorted. “Doubtful. That’s her in the photo right there, holding a jar of her three-time prize-winning apple butter. Don’t look at me that way, I heard all about it before she, too, was whisked away by the paramedics. Something about her heart, palpitations maybe.”
I went to the framed photograph on the wall and held back a giggle. It was hard to imagine Dee Bullock orchestrating or aiding an operation such as this one. The frame read “Employee of the Month,” and the woman in the portrait must have been nearly eighty years old. She smiled beatifically at the camera, her white curls tight against her scalp, her large round eyeglasses last popular in the 1980s.
In her hand was a jar, and in her lap an enormous cat snoozed.
Finn said, “Bullock’s been with the bank for thirty-two years. She has eighteen grandchildren and runs a nonprofit out of her house. Rescue cats.”
“Cats, huh?” Already moving on, I scanned the lobby and wondered what we were missing.
Ten thousand dollars was nothing to laugh at, but this was a small bank branch, with few customers. Had the perp hit one of the larger branches up the street, he’d have walked away with at least double the cash, if not more.
This was too clean of a job, too well organized, for an amateur. But it was risky; a robbery in the middle of the day, even timed perfectly, had the potential to become a disaster, very quickly.
This was bold; like Caleb Montgomery’s murder, it made a statement.
It was curious to think about Caleb’s death now; the two crimes were obviously unrelated, but there were subtle similarities there, lurking beneath the surface.
“How about the manager or the other teller?”
Finn pointed to the street. “I’ve got an officer interviewing them in the coffee shop across the street. Nothing there that screams they’re involved. They, like Bullock, are longtime employees. Both married, each with a couple of kids. Steady folks.”
I nodded and glanced up at the three cameras set high in the ceiling, each with a different view of the bank. “Tell me we got lucky.”
“We might have. A tech is checking footage.” Finn rubbed the back of his neck, uneasy. “I’ve got to say, I don’t like this one bit. Esposito was on the ground, vulnerable. Whoever shot him has a violent streak. And he might be out there now, on our streets. Just like the bastard who killed Caleb Montgomery.”
“Hey, Detectives?” The voice belonged to a crime scene tech, a young woman who at that moment leaned out into the hallway from a door a few feet away. She had an excited look on her face. “You better come take a look.”
We joined her in the small, cramped room. It was little more than a closet, with a low wooden table that held a computer and two monitors. Dozens of cables ran from the computer to terminals on the floor, then continued up to the ceiling. I assumed they were linked to the cameras on the other side of the wall.
The tech pecked at the keyboard, then hit Enter as a “play video” icon appeared. A strong sense of déjà vu swept over me. It had only been a few days since Finn and I had traveled to the Cathedrals and watched the mine manager, Frank Poe, hit Play on a similar video.
A similar video, of a similarly strange crime.
The recording offered a clear view of the muscular man who entered the bank, though his head was tilted and it was impossible to see his face. The images were in black-and-white. We watched in silence as the man slipped a gas mask on, then stood where he could train his gun first on Esposito, then on Bullock. My earlier thought had been correct; it did look like something out of a movie. I half expected military troops to start storming the bank or B-52 bombers to pepper the sky with their loud engines.
On the screen, Esposito lay down and placed his hands over his head. Across the bank lobby, Dee Bullock moved slowly from one till to the next, pulling cash out of each drawer and stuffing it into the bag the perp handed her. Her mouth opened and shut, over and over, though it was hard to tell if she was speaking or simply moving her lips and jaws in shock, like a fish caught suddenly out of water.
“Is there sound?” I asked.
“No,” the tech responded.
The man grabbed the bag of cash from Bullock’s hands before she was finished. Maybe he’d gotten frustrated by her slow movements, or by her talking, if that was in fact what she’d been doing. Then he bent over, fiddling with something on the counter, while Bullock threw her hands over her face and covered her eyes, unable to take any more.
The gunman moved on to Esposito. For a moment, it appeared as though he were going to step over the security guard and walk out, but then he paused. I watched in horror as he leaned down, put his mouth to Esposito’s ear, then stepped back and shot the guard in the back twice, with absolutely no hesitation between shots.
Finn, the tech, and I all flinched as Esposito’s body twitched in response, then went deathly still.
“Gas Mask Guy leaves at this point.” The tech lightly touched the screen. “Watch, you can see Bullock lean down a bit to hit the panic button. Then she makes her way to Esposito.”
On the screen, Bullock reached the security guard and rolled him over. The bullet had gone through him and blood began to spill forth. Bullock removed her cardigan and pressed it against his chest, trying to stem the flow, but it was a losing battle. The cardigan quickly turned dark. Finally, paramedics and uniformed officers entered the building and attended to the employees.
Something bothered me about the video. “Play it again, please.”
Finn asked if I’d seen something.
“Maybe.” I watched as on the screen, the scene unfolded again. “He’s slipping something under the counter, did you see?”
I stepped out of the closet and quickly made my way to the front of the lobby, my heels beating a rapid staccato on the floor. I peered under the customer counter, between the wood shelf and the granite top. Something was there, something clear and plastic.
“What is it?” Finn asked. He and the tech had followed me.
“I’m not sure,” I said, and ran a gloved hand under the counter.
Finn gripped my arm, holding it in place. “Are you sure you should do that? It could be a trap.”
He was right, but I was too close at that point, too committed and too curious. I tugged at the plastic until I felt it pop loose, then pulled it out.
“Oh my God,” I breathed when I saw what it was.
Confused, the tech asked, “Is that a … comic book?”
“Not just any comic book. It’s Ghost Boy.”