Investigators

by W. E. B Griffin

  “If you have a pencil, Susie, I’ll give you the telephone number of my new office. Very classy. It gives me a splendid view of the polished marble floors and ornate bronze fixtures of the lobby of the First Harrisburg Bank and Trust Company. In case you want to call me in the next couple of hours.”

  “I don’t think that’s likely.”

  “You never know when you’re going to need a cop, and in case you do, you’ll have my number right at your fingertips.”

  “Next?”

  “Where are we going for lunch?”

  “Nowhere.”

  “Then where are we going for dinner?”

  “Nowhere.”

  “I thought maybe we could drive out to Hershey and have dinner in the Hotel Hershey.”

  “No.”

  “Well, any place you like is fine with me. What time shall I pick you up?”

  “You don’t know how to take ‘no’ for an answer, do you?”

  “We have a deal, fair maiden.”

  “I don’t know what you’ve got in your mind, Matt—”

  “Really? No feminine intuition at all? I find that difficult to believe.”

  “Damn you!”

  “I seem to have offended you. Since—my intentions being so pure and noble—I can’t imagine how, what I am obviously going to have to do is call your mommy, tell her how sorry I am, and ask her if she can’t try to fix things up between us.”

  There was a chuckle. Not a very pleasant chuckle, more one ringing of resignation.

  “And you really would, wouldn’t you, you son of a bitch?”

  “You can take that to the bank. The First Harrisburg Bank and Trust.”

  “I’ll pick you up in front of the Penn-Harris at half past six. We’ll have a quick and early dinner.”

  “To start,” Matt said. “You won’t have any trouble spotting me. I’ll be the handsome devil with the look of joyous anticipation in his eyes.”

  “Oh, God,” Susan said, and hung up.

  Matt put the phone in its cradle and only then noticed a mousy-looking female in her thirties standing in the office door. She held a deep metal tray full of strange-looking forms—bank records, probably, he decided—in both hands.

  “Mr. Payne?” she asked.

  Matt nodded. She came into the office and, with a grunt, laid the gray metal tray on the glass-topped desk.

  “These are the safe-deposit box access records,” she said. “When you’re through with them, would you please tell Dolores, and I’ll come and get them.”

  “Thank you,” Matt said, and smiled at her.

  He ran his fingers down the forms. Each form was metal-topped, and designed to hang from the reinforced side of the tray. Each form was for one box, and listed not only the names and addresses and social security numbers of every person authorized access to that particular box, but at what time, on what date, someone had the box, and for how long.

  What I thought Chase was going to get for me was a list of names of box holders matching—at least the last name—the names on my list. This tray obviously holds a card for every safe-deposit box in the bank.

  Is giving me more information than I even asked for, crossing over the confidentiality line, the way they always “cooperate” with the police in a situation like this?

  Or only when they trust the cop doing the looking?

  Or because of my father’s relationship with Chase?

  What difference does it make? Never stick your finger in a gift horse’s mouth.

  He had finger-walked his way through perhaps half a dozen of the records when the skinny woman came back, this time carrying a tray in which another kind of bank records lay flat.

  “These are the accounts in which you may be interested, Mr. Payne,” the skinny woman said. “Through ‘D.’ The sooner I can have them back, the better. So if you would just ask Dolores to Xerox the ones you’re interested in, then you could send them back. I’d really like it better not to bring you ‘E’ through ‘H’ until you’re through with these. Would that be all right?”

  “That would be fine,” Matt said. “Thank you very much.”

  Matt picked up the top record in the tray. It was a complete record, going back four years, of the banking activity—the dates and times of deposits; withdrawals; interest payments; and service charges—in a savings account of an individual whose last name—only—matched one of the names on the list Matt had prepared in the Personnel Office in the Roundhouse.

  The form (actually three forms, stapled together) under the first was a record of the same activity in the individual’s checking account.

  If I get one of these—two of these—for every account holder in this bank with the same last name as the names on the list I gave Mr. Chase, I’ll be in Harrisburg for a month.

  Which, considering the rockets that went off when I kissed Susie last night, might not be entirely a bad thing.

  For Christ’s sake! What the hell’s the matter with you? Get that stupid idea out of your mind, once and for all!

  He reached for the telephone, dialed the operator, and placed a collect call to Sergeant Jason Washington.

  “Matthew, my boy! How are things in the capital of our great Commonwealth?”

  “Well, I am into the bank.”

  “So, apparently, is the opposing side,” Washington replied.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You first. You seemed surprised.”

  “The . . . level of cooperation is much more than I expected.”

  “Perhaps it’s your charm,” Washington said. “I understand you were to take someone to dinner last night. Did that happen?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Was the evening fruitful? In a professional sense?” Was that a dig? Or was he just being clever?

  “I think so.”

  “But nothing specific to report?”

  “No.”

  “Are you somewhere where you can conveniently and confidentially telephone? There’s someone else you really should talk to.”

  “Wohl?”

  “Matthews.”

  “I’m in a glass-walled office off the lobby of the Harrisburg Bank and Trust Company,” Matt said. “It’s private enough, but I would have to call him collect.”

  “Give me the number—I should have thought of that anyway—and I’ll suggest he call you. The unattractive lady bandito has apparently struck again.”

  “Really? Where?”

  “I have only the most rudimentary facts. But I suspect Jack Matthews is happily anticipating providing you with every last detail.”

  Matt read the telephone number and the extension off the phone to Washington.

  “I am sure that you will be hearing from Matthews within minutes,” Washington said. “And there is one more thing, Matt.”

  “What?”

  “Peter Wohl is concerned that you might do something foolish. So am I. Allow Mr. Matthews’s associates to deal with this beyond the limitations of what you were ordered to do.”

  “Okay.”

  “If you were to disobey your orders, and Wohl, so to speak, threw the book at you, he would have my complete support.”

  “You have made your point.”

  “I devoutly hope so,” Washington said, and hung up.

  Three minutes later, Dolores, after first knocking, put her head into the door of the office.

  “There is a Mr. Rogers of the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society on line three for you, Mr. Payne. Do you want to take it?”

  “Thank you,” Matt said, and picked up the telephone. “Payne.”

  “Can you talk?”

  “Didn’t you just hear me talking?”

  “Christ, Matt!”

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Rogers? Don’t tell me I’m overdrawn again?”

  He could hear Matthews sigh.

  “The Farmers and Merchants Bank of Clinton, New Jersey, was held up yesterday morning. We just heard about it, and I just talked to our Newark office—they have jurisdi
ction. Same modus operandi as the Riegelsville job. Same description of the perpetrator. This time, the haul was nearly sixty thousand dollars.”

  “Hairy legs and all?”

  “That wasn’t mentioned. But the unattractive, heavy makeup, earrings, et cetera, et cetera. For reasons I can’t understand, Newark sent the surveillance-camera film to Washington—to the Anti-Terrorist Group; I suppose they issued a ‘Report Similar Events’ notice—before they processed it. I called Special Agent Jernigan, and he’s promised to send me whatever the camera shows by wire as soon as it’s processed. I’ll be very surprised if it turns out to be someone else.”

  “Sawed-off shotgun, too?”

  “No. That’s the one thing that doesn’t fit the modus. This time it was a sawed-off carbine.”

  “Explain that to me, please?”

  “One of the witnesses—the bank guard—got a good look at it. The stock had been cut off behind the pistol grip, and then rounded with a file. And the barrel was cut off back to where the forearm whatchamacallit holds it. You understand?”

  “What’s the purpose?”

  “Concealability, obviously. And presumably our friend thinks he now has the latest thing in terrorist machine-pistols. Those were M2—fully automatic carbines—they stole from Indiantown Gap.”

  “ ‘Presumably our friend thinks’?” Matt quoted.

  “I fired a carbine modified very much like this one on the FBI range at Quantico. They look great, very menacing, but—”

  “I’ve fired one, too,” Matt interrupted. “And also at Quantico. But on the Marine Corps’ known-distance range.”

  “Okay. Then, knowing that there’s a good deal of recoil in a carbine, you’ll understand how hard this ‘modifica tion’ would be to control, even single shot, without the stock. If he tries to fire it full automatic, he just couldn’t control it. The danger here is—”

  “If he should try to take a shot at a cop, or one of you guys, he’d be more likely to hit a civilian,” Matt finished for him.

  “Right.”>

  “What is this clown doing, acting out a fantasy?”

  “That bombed building was no fantasy, Matt.”

  “No,” Matt agreed. “Anything else?”

  “How did your dinner with the girlfriend go?”

  “What do you mean, ‘girlfriend’?”

  “Chenowith’s, not yours, of course.”

  “I must have missed something. I thought the Ollwood woman was his girlfriend.”

  “Right. So what?”

  “Yes or no?”

  “No. I have carefully gone through everything. I have had plenty of time, you see, waiting patiently by my telephone to hear from you—”

  “Screw you, Jack,” Matt said amiably.

  “—and there is nothing to suggest that the Reynolds woman is, or has been, romantically involved with either male.”

  “ ‘Either male?”

  “I didn’t mean to suggest that. But who knows? These people don’t consider themselves bound by the usual conventions of society. If it feels good, do it.”

  Christ, is that a possibility? There is no boyfriend. Has been no boyfriend . . .

  “How did dinner go?” Matthews asked.

  Well, pal, we had dinner with Mommy and Daddy, and Daddy taught me how to cook a London broil, and then we went to the country club. En route, the female suspect got pinched for speeding, and I talked a local uniform out of writing the ticket. At the country club, I taught the female suspect to eat Roquefort on crackers with a sip of cabernet sauvignon, and we talked about mutual friends, and then the female suspect kissed me for approximately one-tenth of second, whereupon my heart nearly jumped out of my chest. Moments later, my wang tried very hard to break through my zipper. And then I tossed and turned most of the night, thinking about it.

  “All right,” Matt said,

  “Are you gaining her confidence? Do you think she suspects you’re in Harrisburg for any reason but the cover story?”

  “Yes and no. That was two questions.”

  “Are you sure she’s not suspicious? That’s a clever female, Matt. She might be able to conceal her suspicions from you, to see what you’re really up to.”

  “Hey, I was told to liaise—whatever the hell that means—with you, not have you question my conclusions.”

  “What’s the matter with you?” Matthews asked, sounding shocked.

  “Nothing. Why should there be?”

  There was a pause, then Matthews asked, “What happens next? Are you going to see her again?”

  “Dinner, tonight.”

  “You haven’t picked up on anything?”

  “Our relationship is not yet at the point where I can ask, ‘Hey, Susie, by the way, what do you hear from your friend, the bomber and bank robber?’ But I’m working on it.”

  “You will, of course, call me if you do pick up on anything? I mean, presuming you got out of the right side of bed that morning?”

  “Yeah. Of course I will. But for Christ’s sake, don’t expect miracles.”

  “Be careful, buddy.”

  “I will.”

  Matthews hung up.

  Ten minutes after her conversation with Matt Payne—while part of her mind was still occupied with wondering why she somehow just hadn’t been able to tell him that not only would she not have dinner with him tonight, but that the fun and games was over, period, don’t call me anymore, period—Susan Reynolds received a telephone call from Jennifer Ollwood.

  “Hi,” Jennie began.

  Susan gave her a telephone number and hung up. She rose from her desk and put her head in the door of Appeals Officer, Grade IV, Veronica Haynes.

  “Cover for me, will you, Veronica? I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

  “Make it half an hour,” Veronica replied. “Fifteen minutes isn’t really long enough for an early-morning quickie, is it?”

  “Is that all you ever have on your mind?”

  “Yeah,” Veronica said, after appearing to have given the question serious thought. “What’s more important?”

  “I can think of some things.”

  “Some things that are as much fun?”

  “Yeah,” Susan said, after appearing to give Veronica’s question as much serious thought as Veronica had given hers.

  “Have fun,” Veronica said. “Keeping one eye on the clock, of course.”

  Susan rode the elevator to the lobby and left the Department of Social Services Building. She walked to a car wash three blocks away. That morning, on her way to work, knowing Jennie—or less likely, Eloise Anne Fitzgerald—was going to call, she had had her Porsche washed.

  While it had been going through—she hadn’t liked to think what the brushes and felt washing pads were going to do to the Porsche’s paint job, but doing this seemed necessary—she had walked to the corner, where there was a pay telephone booth, and written down—and later memorized—the number.

  She entered the phone booth, took the handset off its hook, held the hook down with her finger, and pretended to be having a conversation until the phone rang.

  “Hi,” Jennie said again.

  “Hi, yourself. How are you?”

  “Well, you know. Fine. Why shouldn’t I be?”

  Being a fugitive from justice, wanted for murder, and that son of a bitch you’re living with comes immediately to mind.

  “And the baby?”

  “He’s just wonderful!”

  And what’s going to happen to him when Mommy and Daddy are hauled away in handcuffs?

  “Jennie, is something wrong? I don’t think these telephone calls, so many of them, are really smart.”

  “Why don’t you come see the baby?” Jennie asked cheerfully.

  “First of all, I don’t think—I was just there—that’s such a smart idea. As much as I’d like to, Jennie.”

  “Bryan has something he wants you to keep for us,” Jennie said.

  What? Another bag full of money he stole from a bank?
<
br />   “Really?”

  “Like the last package, only a little bigger,” Jennie said. There was a touch of pride in her voice.

  My God, don’t tell me he actually did rob another bank!

  I’ll have to get a larger safe-deposit box. The one I have is nearly full of money he stole.

  “Jennie, I really don’t think coming there so soon again makes sense.”

  “Bryan wants you to,” Jennie said. “He says you know why.”

  If he’s arrested—when he’s arrested—he doesn’t want to be found in possession of money the cops will suspect came from one or more so far unsolved—or is the word “successful”?—bank robberies. He wants the money to pay for his defense.

  I sometimes think that Bryan really would like to be caught, and put on trial. He thinks that with a good lawyer—and himself skillfully playing the role of noble young intellectual courageously standing up for moral principle—he will not only walk out of the courtroom a free man, but into a role as Hero of the New Order.

  And, of course, Jennie has been mesmerized into going along with his fantasies. She thinks the father of her baby is the Scarlet Pimpernel.

  “Jennie, there are reasons I can’t come there anytime soon. You’re just going to have to tell Bryan that, and to put the package someplace safe where you are.”

  “What reasons?” Jennie asked, almost indignantly.

  “Good and sufficient reasons, Jennie. I’m sorry.”

  “You better tell that to Bryan yourself,” Jennie said.

  “I don’t want to tell him—”

  “Just a minute, Susie,” Jennie interrupted. “Hang on.” The son of a bitch is there. Probably sitting in his car. Let Jennie do the work.

  What I should do is just hang up. But if I do that, he’ll make her call the office, or the house. What the hell am I afraid of? If he comes on the phone, I’ll tell him why I don’t want to go get his “package” for him.

  Bryan’s voice came over the line. “Hey, Susie, what’s going on?”

  “I told Jennifer there are reasons I can’t meet her.”

  “So she said. What are the reasons?”

  “One of them is that the last time I spoke to you on this subject, you told me that was the last time.”

  “You know we need money,” he said, “and this was too good to pass up.”