Return of the Dixie Deb (2 page)

“Can you blame her? Somehow this possibility didn’t get mentioned when your people were setting all this up last week.” She bit her lip and glanced down at the speedometer. All it would take to make the day complete would be to get pulled over by the local police for speeding—end of an abbreviated criminal career and back into the custody of the I. R. S. Good luck trying to extract herself again from the tangled mess of her tax situation.

“If you see a gas station, pull over. I could use a restroom to wash up. I’ve got this crap everywhere.” He ran his hands through his thick, dark hair.

“You don’t think there’s one of those all-point-bulletins out for us? Are we far enough away?” She took a quick look over her shoulder.

“We parked in back of the bank. No one should have a description of the car. The bank manager certainly wouldn’t help the investigating officers once she regained consciousness. I don’t think the state police are going to set up a roadblock because one small town bank was hit.”

“I guess I’m just not used to being part of a crime spree, small town or not. I thought attracting attention was supposed to be the point of this.” She looked over to where he was struggling to breathe. There was a certain vengeful satisfaction in seeing the F.B.I. suffer too for this mess.

“You might not believe it, but I used to worry about pulling the tags off mattresses.”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“I believe you, Jan. I’m not…” He cleared his throat and swallowed. “This assignment wasn’t my first choice either.”

She slowed to read a road sign. A stray dog, resting beside it, stood up and gave its tail a wag.

“There’s a town up ahead, Mac. Maybe we can find a gas station.”

“Good. Between the pepper spray and these scented wipes, I seem to be attracting mosquitoes.” He slapped at one and rolled it down his arm.

It sounded like he was breathing easier.

“Welcome to summertime in the South. It looks like there’s a station down there,” she said.

She took her foot off the accelerator and let the car slow.

“We could probably use some gas now anyway.”

Although the sign hanging out over the road looked like a relic from the past, the two pumps were modern enough. Children rode their bikes in slow circles on the blacktop parking lot.

“After I clean up, we can check the map and figure out where we are. Dang.” Mac swatted the back of his neck.

****

Jan leaned back against the frozen drink machine and waited for Mac. It had been a relief to change out of her robbery getup. It hadn’t taken her long to peel off the tea-length dress and pearls in the restroom and swap them for capris and a T-shirt. The coolness of the freezer on the small of her back helped with the day’s heat. She looked out to the parking lot where their car sat baking in the sun. Apparently, the government’s interest in pursuing justice didn’t extend to providing a car with functioning air conditioning. She tipped back her can of pop and took a long drink.

It was all too much.

She’d been on overload as she sat in the auditor’s office last week. The past six months had been too much. The government’s offer had left her momentarily wondering if she needed to have her hearing checked. The offer was only attractive when the alternative was prison. Even the F.B.I. agent they had paired her with seemed less than gung-ho about the project. And that had been before the pepper spray.

She pushed herself away from the freezer unit as Mac came out of the men’s room and looked around. She joined him in the parking lot, raising her can.

“Looks good.” Mac wiped the back of his neck. “I’ll go in and get something too. Well, I’m back to feeling semi-human. Why don’t you get the map out of the glove compartment and we’ll get a fix on our location before we call in?”

She found the map and took a seat on the curb in the shade while she watched him pay for his purchases inside.

He wouldn’t have been her idea of what an F.B.I. man would look like before last week. Something over six feet with dark hair and eyes, he looked more like a bouncer at a less-than-trendy bar. With heavy brows and strong lines around his nose and mouth, there was nothing conventionally good-looking about him, but he was a man women were going to notice. She would have, before she had taken her recent vow of perpetual chastity. Back in the I.R.S. office in Atlanta, he’d remained silent, intent as his superior outlined the deal they were offering, his eyes seeming to absorb everything.

Coming over, he pulled a bottle of water free from a six-pack and sat beside her. “Did you want anything to eat? Might be a while before we have another chance.”

“I don’t have much of an appetite.” She folded the map and pointed with a finger. “Here’s where we are now—Harrodsburg, southwest of where we, well, where we were earlier.” Automatically, she lowered her voice. “It doesn’t look that far, but taking the back roads the way I did, it was about an hour’s drive.”

“Yeah, we should be able to pick up a local station on the radio and see if there’s any news coverage on it yet.”

“Maybe the government could give the media a nudge?”

“Not a good idea.” He shook his head. “Don’t want to make it obvious and get people wondering. The press needs to make the connection with what happened years ago on their own.”

She rubbed her temples.

“The robberies were a big story hereabouts. Never solved, it shouldn’t be too long before someone connects the dots.” He studied the map. Leaning into her, she was physically aware of him. Unconsciously, she held her breath.

“Okay, I’m going to call in. See what they’ve got set up for the debrief.”

He stood and pulled out his cell phone, walking over to stand by the car. He opened a door and fanned it back and forth.

She rested her pop can against her aching forehead. Debrief. Update. Another lesson on how to more efficiently knock over a bank.

Seven days ago, still recovering from being deserted at the altar, saddled with a business in foreclosure, and unable to explain thousands of dollars in undeclared income, she couldn’t have imagined her life could get worse.

She’d been wrong.

****

Whittaker brought someone else with him to their motel room. She had been nibbling half-heartedly on the crust of her vegetarian pizza when Mac got up to answer the knock on the door. Stepping inside, the other man clapped Mac on the shoulder and turned to her.

“I’m Special Agent Jake Derossiers.” He offered his hand with a smile. “Glad to meet you, Miss Thimmons. Looks like you both survived the excitement today.”

Excitement?

She wiped her fingers on a napkin and gave him her hand glancing over at Whittaker. “You mean we’re lucky the customer wasn’t packing more than pepper spray.”

“Well, it’s not possible to anticipate all contingencies. We learn and move forward. The next bank visit should go more smoothly,” his boss said.

Visit
? Somehow, she didn’t think the crowd back at the bank was thinking of their presence quite that way.

Warren Whittaker placed a file folder and tape recorder on the desk and gestured at the chairs. “Why don’t we all sit down and talk about what did happen. Agent McKenzie, you can begin.”

She curled her legs under her in the armchair and wrapped her arms about herself. The man who had accompanied Whittaker was younger than Mac, tall and lean with a narrow face and wire-rimmed glasses. In contrast, Mac’s dark bulk made him seem like someone who might stare out at you from the other side of a wanted poster. Derossiers leaned forward, hands clasped, ready to listen while Whittaker took notes at the desk.

“The bank manager had been instructed to review robbery procedures with her employees a couple days before the incident, to stress the importance of complying with demands during a hold-up. The teller didn’t attempt any resistance?” Whittaker asked.

“No, she complied with all Jan’s directions.”

“Except for screaming when the pepper spray went off.”

“Yeah.” Mac looked at her and grimaced. “Well, it was a tense situation.”

“How long were you in there?” Derossiers asked.

“Eight minutes before the lady outside started banging on the door. I pretended to miss obscuring the camera with the spray paint. Things were going along okay until then. The manager tried to shoo her away, but she wasn’t having any of it. I told her to admit the woman. I was afraid she might create a scene, draw a crowd.”

“Yeah. Her name’s Stella Purvis, apparently a long-standing bank customer. A news crew from the local TV station interviewed her while I was there,” Derossiers said.

“Are they talking about the old robberies? The Dixie Deb ones?” she asked.

Derossiers shook his head ruefully. “No, and there may be a problem.” He looked over at his supervisor writing in his file.

It didn’t sound good. Her antennae went up. Mac stared at him too.

“The footage from the surveillance camera isn’t the best. Apparently, it’s an old system. I don’t know if local media is going to want to air it,” Mac’s fellow agent said.

“And no one thought to check that out before we went in?” Jan pushed herself out of the armchair to pace over to the window. “This…We could have been killed in there if Stella What’s-her-name had been carrying a gun instead of pepper spray. And it was for nothing. How…”

“Yeah, it’s something we missed.” Derossiers sounded genuinely regretful. “We’ll definitely check into it in the future.”

The
future?
Oh, good. More staged bank robberies as she perfected her new career in crime. She leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes. In back of her, she heard Whittaker clear his throat.

“It’s no use crying over spilled milk. We need to learn from this and make the necessary modifications to insure better results. There is a positive aspect. It seems this woman, Stella Purvis, is a longtime local resident. She was living around here when the bank was robbed by the Dixie Deb.”

The Dixie Deb
. A week ago sitting in the I.R.S. office back in Atlanta, she couldn’t have imagined how her skin would crawl hearing those words.

She straightened up wearily and went back to sit in her chair.

“What happened at the bank today,” Whittaker was saying, “may provoke memories of the past. If Mrs. Purvis starts talking, and she seems the type who enjoys an audience, people may remember…”

The Dixie Deb
. It was the label press across the South had given the woman who had held up banks across Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, along with her male cohort, a quarter century before. The story had received massive coverage at the time. Tall and immaculately turned out in cotillion dresses or suits, pearls, and vintage hats, she and her companion had knocked over a series of small town banks before mysteriously disappearing from sight.

The Dixie Deb
. In the pictures Jan had seen of the notorious female bank robber, the woman had given the impression of aristocratic Southern gentility as she opened her leather attaché case with white-gloved hands, her silent companion holding his gun on the hapless bank customers. A similar briefcase was now in the trunk of their rental out in the parking lot. She tasted blood from her bit lip.

The money from those earlier hold-ups had never been recovered; the crimes never solved. Was that the bone that stuck in Whittaker’s throat? Back in Atlanta, his mouth had tightened as he had explained the deal they were offering her, his finger thumping the old pictures of the “Deb” emphatically.

Their offer was simple and thorough. All federal charges for income tax evasion would be dropped and her license as a C.P.A. left untouched in return for her co-operation in the undercover operation. They needed someone to impersonate a new version of the Dixie Deb and see if the original’s vanity or curiosity caused her to resurface.

So what were her credentials? Well, she was tall, thin, Southern, and in trouble with the law. How much more qualified could someone be?

She looked up. Mac was asking questions about the next few days.

“We’ll lay off for a while. There was an interval of a week or so when the Dixie Deb started the bank heists. Once the two of them seemed to gain confidence, they knocked off a couple a week.”

Wow
! What a thing to anticipate. She propped her head on her arm.

“We’ve got a map here of some locations you can investigate. We’d like the two of you to scout them out tomorrow.” Whittaker gave a nod in her direction. “Give us your feedback and we’ll get the local bank people on board.” He pulled a map out of his folder and spread it on the desk. “You can see we’re including northern Alabama along with Georgia. I’ve circled some possibilities for you.”

Derossiers came over to kneel beside her chair as Mac took the map.

“How you doing?” His gray-brown eyes were concerned.

“I wish this were over.”

“Yeah, I hear you. Hopefully, it won’t be too long. I’m going to be shadowing you two as your local contact. Assistant Director Whittaker will be going back to the Atlanta office.”

She nodded glumly. She’d go back to Atlanta too if she had a chance to get away from a hundred degree heat, humidity, and bank customers armed with pepper spray.

At the desk, Mac was folding Whittaker’s map.

“Ready to go, Special Agent Derossiers?” his supervisor asked.

“I’m going to hang out here for a while and go over some things with Agent McKenzie. He can give me a lift back to where we’re staying, sir.”

Whittaker gave a curt nod as he gathered up his things.

“I can imagine how nerve-racking all this must be.” Derossiers touched her arm. “But Mac and I started out together at Quantico. I feel like I’ve always known him. You couldn’t have a better man at your side.”

He rose easily as Mac got the door for their boss.

She closed her eyes as Mac and his friend picked up the pizza boxes and pop cans.

“I’m getting rid of the trash, Jan,” Mac said.

She nodded, trying to relax as the door clicked behind them. The air conditioning unit was making sounds of protest. Jan held a hand in front of the vents. The output seemed half-hearted at best.