Deadly Interest

by Julie Hyzy

  “Moving ahead . . .” I said, resting my elbows on the table’s edge.

  “Yes,” he said, with a soft look in his eyes. “Moving ahead . . .” He reached across the table and ran his index finger over the back of my hand. It was a small, tender gesture, and I should have enjoyed the tingle of pleasure that shivered up my arm. Instead, I felt detachment, as my logical left brain tried to convince an eager jury of hormones that I hadn’t sent my heart to San Francisco.

  Colleen picked up the payment, giving me a reason to move. I sat back, pulled my hands to my lap and asked, “So, what brought you to banking?”

  Mimicking my position, David sat back in his chair, a smile on his face that I’d have characterized as amused. “I inherited the financial gene from my father’s side. He owned several small banks. When he passed on, I sold them to a holding company and when I decided to strike out on my own, I realized banking was what I knew best.”

  Colleen left us with the credit card receipt, along with her thanks and wishes for our pleasant evening. He signed the small form with bold flourish. “Why do you ask?”

  “Just curious,” I said. “You and I have had a lot going on over this past week—”

  “And very little of that has been pleasant,” he interrupted. “Until tonight.”

  I acknowledged his observation with a nod. “But I really don’t know you at all.”

  “Would you like to, Alex?” His voice was like butter, and an alert feminine part of me reacted. From the change in his dark eyes, I could see he knew it had.

  I made a show of glancing at my watch. Just after seven o’ clock. The performance started at eight.

  “Would you like to walk around?” he asked.

  Teeming with tourists and browsers, the busy center of the pier boasted an eclectic mix of indoor shops. Although David asked me several times if there were any I’d like to explore, I just wasn’t in the mood to fight the knots of busy customers who crowded the tiny boutiques full of plastic souvenirs. I much preferred empty places during off hours, and antique stores, with creaky floors and memory-smells.

  We headed up the escalators and through the glass-topped arboretum. I pulled my coat on as we stepped out the doors and took a deep breath. “You know,” I said, surveying the relative silence outside, “even though there are still piles of dirty snow hanging around, I can smell that spring is coming.”

  David took a deep breath, pressing his hands to his chest. “I smell mostly dead fish,” he said.

  I gave his upper arm a playful slap, which he evidently took that as an opening. He took my hand and asked, “Would you like to go for a ride?”

  Before I could answer, he canted his head toward the giant Ferris Wheel, its long spokes aglow with thousands of lights, turning slowly in the crisp night air.

  “Oh,” I said, happy to have caught his meaning. “Do we have time?”

  The ticket seller informed us that one complete circuit around took just over seven minutes. But the line looked like it would take at least twenty. Our meandering through the promenade of shops had unfortunately taken too long.

  “Next time,” David said, still holding my hand.

  “Next time.”

  “Promise?” He gave my hand a squeeze.

  I smiled up at him and remembered Jordan’s directive to just have fun.

  “Sure,” I answered. “I promise.”

  * * * * *

  As the play ended, and the curtain calls began, I applauded with gusto. I had a smile on my face and a lightness of heart that I hadn’t felt in a long time. Everybody had been right. I needed a night out. Shakespeare’s comedy, The Merry Wives of Windsor, had been just the right touch. I’d been captivated by the character Falstaff, and had had to look twice when he first strode onstage. With his dark-haired bulk and his blustering, imposing personality I thought for sure it was Dr. Hooker up there. We occupied seats very near to the thrust stage of this cozy theater and even up close, the resemblance was so strong, that I checked the program to see if perhaps the psychiatrist had a younger brother actor.

  David leaned to read over my shoulder. “Who are you so interested in?”

  “All of them, actually,” I said. It was the truth. “But this guy,” I pointed to Jason Noble’s picture in the Stagebill program, “looks just like Diana’s psychiatrist.”

  “The one who won’t tell you anything?”

  “Yep.”

  After the last bows, David pressed his hand against the small of my back to guide me out of the theater, headed back toward the parking garage. Along the way, he pulled me from the mass of departing Shakespearean patrons to look out the full-length windows to the south. “It’s a beautiful night,” he said.

  It was.

  “Come on,” he said. He had my coat draped over his arm and now he held it for me to slip into. We stepped outside into the chilly air, and I blew out a breath in front of me, watching it curl and dissipate in the darkness. There were lights along the perimeter, but the lake was black, and as uneven waves slapped against the walls, sometimes splashing over the edges, I wanted to close my eyes and fall asleep to the sound.

  “Walk with me?”

  We headed east along the path in silence, taking our time to get to the far end of the pier. Even though the night was cold and my feet were in heels, I enjoyed the freedom night air always seemed to provide.

  We rounded the far end and I leaned against the railing, looking out into the lake and sky, realizing I could barely tell where one ended and the other began. A far off structure blinked a single red light, but otherwise I faced an expanse of blackness, hearing only the steady hits of water against the sides near my feet, cooing pigeons wandering nearby, and city background noises, faded to near quiet.

  The freshness of the late night felt wonderful, and I smiled up at David, grateful for the evening’s enjoyment. “Thanks,” I said. “I had a wonderful time.”

  A breeze off the lake twisted my hair around my head and I smiled even as I shivered.

  “You’re cold,” he said. He stood behind me and wrapped his arms around mine, pulling me close—his chest against my back—sharing his warmth. Pressing his cheek against the side of my head, he whispered, next to my ear, “It doesn’t have to end this early.”

  I’d learned the hard way that the body can respond even when the heart does not. Trouble came when the two were confused. David pulled me closer, and dipped his head to place a kiss on the side of my head. I took a deep breath, and steeled myself against the pleasant feel of the gentle stubble of his cheek, soft on my own. He smelled so good.

  “I should go,” I said.

  “Alex,” he said, and being so close, I not only heard my name, but I felt the reverberations of his voice in my head, “why don’t you be a little selfish, just for one night?” Still tight behind me, he trailed a finger down the left side of my face, and along my collarbone.

  I brought my base needs under control enough to shake my head. “No, really,” I said. “Thank you, it’s been a lovely evening, but I think it’s best I head home. Busy day tomorrow.”

  I pulled away to face him but couldn’t read his eyes in the dark. “Of course,” he said, with a nod.

  Taking my hand again, we started back the way we’d come, and he asked, “So what does busy day on a Saturday mean to a beautiful girl? Do you have a date?”

  I grinned at him. “No. No date.”

  “Good,” he said with an accompanying hand squeeze. “So, what do you have going?”

  I told him about my plans to search through Mrs. Vicks house, now that I had Barton’s permission to do so.

  “What do you think you’ll find?”

  “Honestly,” I said, “I have no idea. Something out of place, I guess.”

  “Be careful.”

  “I will.”

  “Don’t let Barton accompany you.”

  I glanced up, but still couldn’t read those eyes. “He won’t. I convinced him that I do my best work alone. And,” I add
ed, “I have those files that Owen put together for me. I don’t know what I expect to find in that information, either, but it’s a place to start.”

  “What exactly is in those files?”

  “Didn’t you look at them?”

  David shook his head. “No, the envelope was sealed. I didn’t open it.”

  “I’m expecting that it’s simply copies of checks. Mrs. Vicks wrote even-dollar-amount checks every month for years. It’s probably nothing. Maybe it’s money she sent to Bart. Or her savings plan. Or a retirement account. But I don’t like to leave loose ends, so I’m following up.”

  “You’re tenacious,” he said.

  “I take that as a compliment.”

  “Exactly how it was meant,” he said. Tugging me close, David leaned down to whisper in my ear, “When I spoke with Owen today, I asked him if he could get me a copy of Mrs. Vicks’ will for us to look at. He should have that for me by Monday.”

  “Is that legal?” I asked.

  “You’re consulting for us. I could put you on the payroll temporarily, if need be. I think it’s a gray enough area that there’d be no problem. Plus,” he added, “it isn’t as though you’re going to broadcast the information before it’s released to Barton, right?”

  I knew that big business often exploited these gray areas to their own benefit. And the truth was, I wouldn’t use the information for anything more than my own investigation, which was, at best, amateur. Still, something didn’t feel right.

  “I’d feel better if I got Barton’s permission on that.” I said.

  “As you wish.”

  He held the car door open, but stopped me just before I slid into the seat. Under the fluorescent lights of the deserted parking garage, I could read his eyes this time, very well. Too well. The raw desire I saw flickering there made my heart beat faster, till I could almost hear it bang outside my chest. “Thank you for tonight, Alex,” he said. He leaned in to kiss me, cupping my face with his free left hand.

  And I kissed back.

  Chapter Twenty

  I ripped open the fat envelope the moment I got home.

  Quick glance at the kitchen clock. Already after one in the morning. David had dropped me off back at my building so that I could pick up my car and drive home—which I did, as fast as the laws allowed. I couldn’t wait to see what Owen’s department had prepared for me.

  I thought about how I wanted to get an early start in the morning, and I promised myself I wouldn’t go past one-thirty. Reaching into the oversized envelope, I grabbed the manila file folder; I needed to curl its thickness in order to ease it out.

  Whoever had put this package together had done a thorough job. Savings and checking account statements for every month over the past twenty-three years were paper-clipped together, month-at-a-time, with copies of all the even-dollar-amount checks over one hundred dollars, that I’d requested. All set up in chronological fashion. All neat and easily surveyed.

  I started from the beginning.

  The first questionable check, for two-hundred dollars, had been made payable to cash. Fair enough. Maybe Mrs. Vicks needed spending money. Or maybe she added regularly to her savings account. I checked that statement, but found no corresponding deposit.

  The conscientious person who’d provided this folder had also provided me copies of the back of each check. I examined that now, expecting to see Mrs. Vicks’ signature, but instead was surprised to find a stamped endorsement: “For Deposit Only,” followed by an account number.

  I dropped my high-heeled shoes to the floor with a clatter, and tucked my left ankle under me as I tilted the photocopy to read it better. Another stamp sat in the center of the check, this from the bank that had accepted it. Judging from the blurry copy, the deposit had taken place about five days after the check had been written. I could barely make out the bank’s name.

  Five checks later, all with identical endorsements and following nearly identical patterns of written and deposit dates, I was able to finally decipher in which bank these checks had been deposited. Second Federal Bank of Dubuque.

  Iowa?

  It could be an investment account, I surmised. But that didn’t feel right. I didn’t know what would persuade Mrs. Vicks to send regular checks to an out-of-state account, but I intended to find out. Most of the elderly women in my neighborhood, particularly those who had been widowed, were exceptionally savvy in terms of investments, but almost without exception, they preferred to keep their interests close to home. Iowa made no sense.

  There was no way that Second Federal of Dubuque would give me the account-holder’s name on this, no matter what ruse I could come up with, but—I thought as I slapped a stack of copies against my hand—perhaps David could find out.

  In the meantime, I still had a stack of this to get through.

  By three in the morning, I’d changed into my typical sleepwear of ratty T-shirt and shorts, brushed my teeth, and scrubbed my face till it felt as pink as it looked. I’d tried three times to get to sleep, but the fact that I hadn’t gotten through all the months’ information bugged me and made me return to the solitude of the kitchen table, with only the buzz from the overhead light and the click-step motion of my wall clock to keep me company.

  Mrs. Vicks pattern changed only occasionally. Every few years, the dollar amount of the Iowa checks went up, and every so often an individual hundred-dollar check would surface. At Christmas and Easter, she wrote checks to the church, and every March fifteenth, she wrote one out to Barton, with “Happy Birthday, Son,” noted in the memo.

  Eight years ago, the Iowa payments stopped, though the church donations and birthday gifts continued. I continued my scrutiny of her statements and was surprised to find something I’d missed. Regular even-amount checks started up again two years ago.

  “Hmmph,” I said aloud.

  I scanned the statements for a pattern before pulling out the backup information. Monthly checks, in the amount of two-hundred dollars, written with the same regularity as before. When I pulled the copies out, I expected to see that they’d also been made out to cash. When I saw the payee on these checks, however, I couldn’t believe it.

  Dr. Thomas Hooker.

  I sat back in my chair, hearing the accompanying squeak of the metal legs protesting my fidget. I asked myself why in the world Mrs. Vicks would be writing checks to Dr. Hooker. The answer, of course, was that she’d been paying for Diana’s therapy, but for the life of me, I couldn’t imagine why.

  Standing, I stretched out my back, humming with pleasure as built-up tension dissolved in a scale of cracking noises. I walked into the darkness of my back porch to gaze out at the tiny yard and look up at the sky through the heavy double-hung windows that rattled oh-so-softly in the early morning breeze.

  Despite the fact that it was a real room that opened to the rest of the house, the porch was always cold in winter, hot in summer. Frosty air surrounded it on three sides now, and the linoleum was nippy under my stocking feet. Rather than seek out the warmth of my bed, I stood there, perversely enjoying the chill. My body craved sleep, but my mind kept leaping from Mrs. Vicks accounts, to Barton’s talk of reward, to my night out with David.

  And then, to William.

  They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder. On me, it was having the opposite effect. The longer he was gone, with no word, the more I questioned what it was I expected from him, and the more I questioned why I did.

  Leaning my fingertips on the sill, I pressed my forehead against the cool pane of glass and stared for a long while at nothing. I thought about what Jordan had said about seeing something that wasn’t there.

  With the kind of clarity that can only come when one is alone and staring at nothing at four in the morning, emptiness washed over me, mixed with an unexpected sense of relief.

  In that moment, I knew Jordan was right.

  Birds in the nearby trees chirped to one another, back and forth, their high-pitched cries both lonely and hopeful, as we all waited
together for the sun to rise.

  Glancing around the empty room, I suddenly wished I had a pet. A cat, a dog. Maybe both. Lucy would like that. Lucy loved animals.

  With an ache, I realized that she’d be headed back to school in another week and I hadn’t yet made any effort for the two of us to spend time together. I vowed to rectify that tomorrow.

  * * * * *

  I picked up Lucy on my way to Mrs. Vicks house when I finally got myself moving at ten in the morning. So much for that early start.

  Aunt Lena placed a tin of still-warm oatmeal raisin cookies in Lucy’s hands before we left. “So you’ll have something to snack on,” she said. “And come back here when you’re done; I’ll put together some sandwiches or something.”

  I’d been about to say she needn’t bother, when it dawned on me that this was Aunt Lena’s way to contribute to the investigation. “That’d be great, thanks.”

  “And here,” she said, thrusting a rubber-banded bundle in my arms. It must have weighed seven pounds. “I’ve been taking in the mail.” Her careworn face tightened, and she shook her head. “Always looks bad to have mail piling up at a house. Tells the world that nobody’s home. In Evelyn’s case, though . . .” she let the thought trail off.

  Uncle Moose accompanied us, to make sure it was safe before letting his two nieces have the run of the place. “Your folks called again last night,” he said on the short walk between houses. “They thought maybe they should come back, but I told them everything was okay and they should try to enjoy their trip.” He gave me a man-look, the unsure, “did I handle that right?” look that guys get sometimes when presented with confusing matters of family and protocol.

  I patted his arm and could feel the strength of it, even beneath the spring jacket he’d put on. “I’m glad you did,” I said. “Good job.” I meant it. They’d been looking forward to this trip for over a year. Nothing would be served by having them rush home from Luxembourg.

  At Mrs. Vicks’, we used my Aunt Lena’s keys and I swallowed a peculiar combination of tight gut and dry throat that buzzed its way up from my feet when we first pushed open the front door. The last time I was here I’d been brutally attacked, and although I knew in my heart there was nothing to fear today, I still felt shaken enough to be grateful for Uncle Moose’s burly presence.