Knitting Bones (9 page)

“We can continue this conversation down at police headquarters,” offered Roose.

“No, no, that’s not necessary,” said Tony, finding his voice, but keeping his head down so they wouldn’t see how relieved he was they didn’t know about the check scam.

“So you admit stealing various items while picking up and distributing mail in the course of your duties?” said Roose.

“Well…what the hell. Yes, I did it. How did you find out?”

“You jerk, you left the iPod in your locker!” said Mitch.

“How come you went into my locker?” demanded Tony, raising his head. “That’s my private space!”

“No, it isn’t,” said Roose. “If you’d read your employment contract, it says very plainly that your locker is subject to search.”

“So you searched everyone’s locker, I suppose,” sneered Tony, hoping to catch them in a lie.

“No, of course not,” said Roose, surprised. “But we noticed that the rash of thefts stopped after your accident, so that gave us probable cause to look in yours.”

“Oh.” Well, that was what he’d been afraid was going to happen anyhow. “So what happens now?”

“You will leave the premises under escort,” said Roose, glancing over his shoulder at the thug, who did his shoulder trick again. “Since you are terminated for cause, you will forfeit your benefit package, including health coverage. However, I am obliged to inform you that there is a provision for you to continue the coverage at your own expense. You will receive a booklet in the mail explaining the program, called COBRA, how it works and the cost to you. The booklet will also describe other rights you have; for example, to appeal the firing. Mitch has the other contents of your locker in that grocery bag on his desk and will carry them out of the building for you. I’ll take your Heart Coalition ID card, please.”

Tony wordlessly unclipped it from his jacket and handed it to him.

“I’m sorry this had to happen, Mr. Milan,” concluded Roose in a less formal tone. “We were looking forward to being a part of your finding a new structure for your life.” But he didn’t offer to shake Tony’s hand before he left the room.

Nor did the pissant say another word as he carried the bag ahead of Tony, who was followed by the thug. They went up the elevator, across the lobby, and out the front door. Mitch set the bag down on the sidewalk, offered Tony an ugly triumphant grin, and walked back inside, the thug behind him.

T
ONY
didn’t like his job, but he didn’t like getting fired, either. Especially since getting fired meant they’d cut off his health benefits. Oh, yes, there was COBRA; but he’d had a friend in the same mess, and paying for his own health insurance turned out to be very expensive.

So now Tony absolutely had to go close that Heart Fund bank account. He swiveled on his crutch to start up the street toward the bank, and someone called out to him, “Hey, you forgot something!”

He turned back and saw a short, thin man in jeans and dress shirt pointing snootily at the big paper bag. Tony nearly told the man what he could do with it, but realized he was in no condition to back up his attitude with muscle. So he went back, picked it up, and carried it half a block to a trash can where he stuffed it in.

He went down the street to the dark granite façade of First Express Bank. He’d picked this big downtown branch of the bank for his scam for two reasons: First, it was close to where he worked, so he could drop in easily; and second, it was big, so he could remain anonymous.

He went in and paused just inside the second set of doors to reconnoiter. And was immediately nudged from behind by a tall, young, frozen-faced woman with a lot of magnificent red hair, a green silk suit under an open leather coat, and an attaché case that probably cost more than Tony’s entire wardrobe.

“Pardon me,” she said frostily, “but you’re in my way.”

“I beg
your
pardon,” he said, matching her tone but moving a couple of yards sideways—this was no time to make a scene—“I’m still getting used to this crutch.”

She sniffed unsympathetically at his crutch and went on her way.

He considered the row of windows along one side of the low-ceilinged, maroon-and-gray-carpeted room with its square pillars, fenced-off office section, and stand-up table with holders for deposit and withdrawal forms.

He had already prepared a withdrawal slip at his apartment, so he got in line to present it at one of the four windows where a bank clerk stood. He wondered if there was ever a time when all ten windows were manned. Certainly he’d never seen them all open.

The pleasant-faced woman behind his window looked at the slip, punched some numbers into her computer, and said, “This will empty this account. Do you wish to close it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, smiling, feeling that little tingle he loved when getting away with something. He could almost feel the cash in his hand.

“There’s a separate form we’d like you to fill out to close an account.” Noting his crutch, she added, “If you like, there’s a place you can sit down while you work on it.”

“Do I have to fill out the form?” he asked. “I’m in kind of a hurry. Doctor’s appointment,” he said, adding a plaintive note to his voice and drooping just a little on his crutch.

She gave him a look of compassion, but said, “I’m sorry, but we can’t close an account without the form.” She handed him a single sheet of white paper. “Both sides, I’m afraid,” she said.

“All right.” He sighed, wishing he’d decided to leave the account open with a dollar in it. Should he say he’d changed his mind? No, she might wonder at that, and his whole flimsy house of cards would come down if anyone started wondering. “Where can I sit down?”

“Over there,” she said, pointing to a distant corner, where there stood a small wooden table and a pair of swivel secretarial chairs.

Tony made a pitiful display of traveling to it, which was not entirely faked. His leg was aching and the arm using the crutch was complaining of too-long use. He sat down and began filling out the form, which wasn’t complicated. There was a little space for him to write, in his own words, the reason he was closing the account.

He frowned over it for a minute or two, then wrote,
Relocating to St. Paul.

St. Paul was an inspired answer. Tony thought it was simply amazing how a lot of people living in Minneapolis treated St. Paul as if it were on the other side of the state instead of just across the river. Of course, he knew a lot of people in St. Paul who bragged that they had never been to Minneapolis in their life. Tony was an anomaly because he was not afraid to go back and forth, but the bank didn’t know that. He was sure First Express would agree that if he was moving to St. Paul, he would not want to bank in Minneapolis anymore.

Still smiling at his clever ploy, he got back into line and soon was talking with the same bank teller.

“Oh, this is a business account,” she said, looking over the form.

“Yes, is there a problem with that?”

“Are you an officer of the company?”

“Yes, ma’am, I’m chief financial officer.” That was the title Tony had given himself when drawing up the phony company’s organization papers.

“One moment, please.” She walked away and he frowned after her. Were they going to make a fuss? It didn’t matter—did it? He hoped not, but in any case this was taking more time than he had been prepared to give. His con artist sense was setting off alarms. He knew he should walk away now, right now, but he needed that money.
Stick it out,
he told himself.
It’s gonna be all right.
He promised himself a dose of Vicodin if he stayed.

Which reminded him, he was down to his last four pills. He should have called in a refill of the prescription this morning, but how was he to know what his goddam lying boss was up to, telling him to come in for some “routine paperwork”?

He wondered what the full price of a month’s worth of Vicodin was. A lot, probably. He’d have to go easy on them. Or maybe buy them off the street. But that was dangerous because sometimes you didn’t get what you thought you were buying.

The clerk was gone for a long time, long enough that the nice little thrill was long gone before he saw her coming back. He smiled at her, but she wasn’t going to give him his money just yet. “Do you have some identification?” she asked.

“Sure,” he replied and leaned on his crutch while locating and bringing out his wallet. He handed her his driver’s license.

She looked at it, then at him. “No, I mean some identification to show you work for the Heart Fund.”

“Oh. Of course.” He’d been asked for the identification card before, and generally a flash of it—too quick to let them see it read Heart Coalition, not Heart Fund—was all it took. But there was no card to flash today; it had been taken away from him earlier by the pissant’s boss. He reached into his jacket pocket, pretending surprise when he didn’t find it, and began poking around in other pockets. “I’m so sorry,” he said at last, “we’re packing up for the move and I guess I forgot to bring it along.” He raised the ante on his smile from friendly to ingratiating.

She looked again at his driver’s license and then at him. He said, “I probably don’t look much like my photo. I was in a car wreck.”

But the accident hadn’t changed his hair from dark brown to auburn, or added twenty pounds to his once-buff frame—by-product of a job that let him sit a lot and turn his prison-built muscles to flab.

“I need to have you speak to one of our account managers,” she said and walked away again.

Tony was blowing hot and cold by now and sighed heavily several times to help him keep his temper. He turned to watch the clerk go into the gated compound and speak to a woman behind a desk. And his heart sank: It was the cold-faced redhead who had complained about him blocking her way into the bank.

After a little conversation, the clerk straightened and gestured at Tony to come over.

Their conversation didn’t take long; less than ten minutes later Tony was on his way out of the bank. He was in a rage, though he’d concealed it with all his con artist’s skill. And, really, she hadn’t been as shirty as she might have been. He had told her that he must have left his ID card at the office and inexplicably didn’t have a business card on him, either. That was harder to explain—every business person carries business cards. He had to say they were making new ones up with the new address. She nodded as if that sort of thing happened all the time—and who knows? Maybe it did.

And maybe he just imagined there had been a steely glint in her eye as she listened to his lies.

Anyway, they had shaken hands and she had told him he could bring his ID back later today and she’d be pleased to close the account for him.

But for Tony, that opportunity had left the building.

A
LLIE
was on her way out the door to a Tai Chi class when Godwin came knocking that evening. “I think we may have a development,” he announced. “But I’m not sure.”

“Come in, come in,” she said at once. “How can I help?”

“Do you have a better photograph of Bob than this?” He held out a newspaper clipping.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” she said, looking at the photo on the clipping. “I mean, okay, this is cut out of a newspaper, but it’s his official photo at work, and it looks just like him.”

“Are you sure?” Godwin turned the slip of newsprint around and studied it. “I saw him at the banquet, and when I saw this picture, I thought the real Bob was a few years younger and a few pounds heavier than this photograph makes him look. And his nose—I don’t know; somehow it just doesn’t look a lot like him.”

“May I see it again?” Allie took the clipping, which had a story attached to it about the theft and disappearance. “Well, maybe I’m just used to that picture. He had it taken two years ago, so I’m not sure how you can think Bob is younger than he looks in this photo.”

“Do you have some other pictures of him I could see?”

“Certainly. Come in to the living room, sit down. I’ll be right back.” Allie tossed her jacket over a club chair and went off into another room.

Godwin sat on the very comfortable sofa in the beautiful living room and allowed himself a few moments of nostalgia. Not long ago he had been living with a wealthy attorney, and their home had been furnished in almost as costly a fashion as this, if in a more progressive style. The attorney was dead now, and Godwin was living in much more modest surroundings. Though far from poor, he sometimes felt the change keenly.

Allie came back with three scrapbooks of various sizes. The biggest had a green-and-tan cover of what looked like real leather. “This was our vacation in the Southwest this past summer,” she said, and opened the album on the coffee table in front of Godwin. Its pages were beautifully decorated with ribbons, stickers, and fancy calligraphy, among which were pasted photographs and parts of photographs of Allie, their two teenaged children, and Bob smiling, frowning, laughing, and looking solemn or silly at the Grand Canyon, Carlsbad Caverns, Meteor Crater, the Petrified Forest, and across the Navajo and Apache reservations.

Allie was about to open the next album when Godwin said, “No need, no need. I agree that the photograph in the
Strib
is a good one.” He leaned back on the couch and continued, “The reason I was asking about a better photo is that Ramona Tinsmith thinks it wasn’t Bob who accepted the check, but someone else.”

“Who?” demanded Allie.

“Ramona Tinsmith. She was at the banquet.”

“Yes, yes, I know Ramona. I mean, who was this other person?” Allie was staring at Godwin with frightening intensity, the scrapbook forgotten in her lap.

“I don’t know. I didn’t believe her at first, but the pictures you showed me make me wonder if the person I saw, and Ramona saw, might really have been someone else.”

She closed the album slowly, frowning in thought, then turned toward him, gesturing sharply. “No, wait, that can’t be right. For one thing, how could it happen? Where was Bob in all this? Are you saying he managed to talk Bob into changing places with him?”

“I don’t know how it happened. He didn’t sneak up to the microphone, he was introduced as Bob Germaine, and he gave a little thank-you speech.” Godwin was struck with an idea. “Do you have a copy of it somewhere? The speech Bob was supposed to give?”

“No, not here, it would be at work, on his computer. He writes his own speeches, and spends a lot of time on them, even little ones.”

“So you see, if we can find someone who remembers even part of the speech given at the banquet, we can compare it to the speech Bob wrote. That will help prove if it was Bob or someone who made up a speech of his own.”

“But if it was someone else,
where was Bob
?”

“I don’t know that, either. Maybe this other guy knocked him on the head so he could take Bob’s place.”

“And then—?”

“And then I don’t know. But we’ll find out, I promise, we’ll find out. Who knows about Bob saving his speeches on his computer?”

“The people he works with, I suppose.”

“Anyone else?”

“Well, me. I think the children do—certainly they’re annoyed enough by Bob’s rehearsing the speeches all over the house.” Allie thought. “I don’t know who else does, really. Maybe a lot of people. It wasn’t a secret or anything.”

Godwin made a note in his pretty little notebook. He was almost trembling with excitement. He’d found a clue, a real clue. And even better, he’d drawn a conclusion based on the facts—and had an idea where to look for a solution!