“And how do you suppose we’d go about tracking down something like that?” he asked impatiently.
“Gee, I don’t know, but then I’m just a helpless female, not even a real cop. I thought you smart boys with your big brains might come up with something.”
I hung up. It spared him the heartbreak of not getting an answer when he asked me who’d told me Draper might still be kicking.
Calling Freeze had been mostly courtesy, although I’m a sucker for playing a long shot. With no idea whether he’d poke around or not, I reached for a notepad and got out my phone book, propped my feet on the desk and settled in to do just that.
Draper’s bank accounts, at least the ones his lawyer and secretary knew about, were at Winters. I was wondering if he’d also had one somewhere else. Squirreling away a substantial amount of money you wanted to hide wasn’t something it would be wise to do in a small bank, given how many had failed in the last decade. It also might attract too much notice in such an establishment. Therefore, I began with the bigger banks, or at least the ones I knew. Armed with the unsharpened pencil that fit the holes of a telephone dial, thereby sparing my nail polish, I dialed the first.
“This is Laura Draper Jackson,” I said, putting the tiniest tremor in my voice. “My brother Harold died last week and I - I need to close out his bank account. Whom do I need to talk to, please?”
I was asked to wait, and after a minute a respectfully muted male voice came on offering condolences.
“I’m afraid you’ll need to come in.”
“Oh dear. Yes, of course.” I sniffed as if trying to hold back tears. “Could you just check ... see if perhaps it’s already been done? His lawyer may have said something ... I - I can’t remember. I’ve been so upset....”
He checked and returned with more apologies to say they had no record of ever having an account in the name Harold Draper.”
“Oh. Could I ... maybe I got the bank wrong. I’m so sorry. You’ve been so kind.”
I repeated my performance half a dozen times with similar results. Maybe I was barking up the wrong tree. Maybe Draper, if he’d even had a second account, had it under a different name. I tapped my teeth, flirting with the thought of calling Rachel Minsky and asking if she knew where Draper did his banking. Having seen her name and the spot where it fell in Draper’s appointment calendar, that might not be wise. After stretching my legs with a trip up the stairs to the loo, I went back to work.
It took me five more tries.
“I’m so sorry about your brother,” said the voice that came on. “I’ll get the paperwork ready to make it as easy as possible when you come in. I know it’s a difficult time for you. Don’t forget you’ll need to bring your key for the safety deposit box.”
My excitement soared.
“Thank you,” I murmured. “I’ll have to take the train from Troy, so it will be after lunch.”
We said polite good-byes and I did a little dance around my desk to work off the burst of energy I suddenly felt. Then I picked up the phone and called a second-hand store called The Good Neighbor. Plenty of people needed second-hand clothes, and the quality there was better than some. Things that weren’t in such good shape the store gave away free to people who needed them.
“Is Clarice there?” I asked.
She was the white-haired doll who’d started the place. It took several minutes before she came on.
“It’s Maggie Sullivan,” I said. “I need to buy a funeral hat, something with plenty of veiling. Can you fix me up?”
“I’m sure we have several. Shall I put them aside?”
“Just a couple. I need to borrow a black outfit, too.”
“It’s not a real bereavement, then?” She’d picked up on the ‘borrow’. “I won’t offer condolences, then.”
I’d helped her out a couple of times when she wanted to find out who was pinching merchandise out of the storage room. She returned the favor when I needed some kind of get-up to make me hard to recognize.
“And the outfit ... maybe on the matronly side?”
Clarice chuckled. “My dear, it taxes my imagination trying to picture you as matronly.”
* * *
The layers of black veil on the hat I got from Clarice were so thick I didn’t risk driving in it. I’d pinned my hair up in a prim twist which the hat covered. Clad in a boxy black suit a good five inches longer than I usually wore, I arrived at the bank thinking even Billy and Seamus wouldn’t recognize me. Mr. Hayworth, the man I’d spoken to on the phone, met me with such kind words I felt guilty over at least the bereavement part of my charade. He was a stoop-shouldered man with thinning hair. He ushered me into a small office and offered me a glass of water, which I declined.
“These are the records for his checking account ... and his savings,” he said, handing me two lined sheets with neat figures and initials of the bank clerk who had made each entry. “You’ll want to give them a look-over, I expect, before you sign the form I’ve attached to each. As you can see, your brother wasn’t a very frequent user of his accounts.”
“No.... No, he preferred to, ah, use cash whenever possible.”
Reading was all but impossible through the black veil. I had to tilt my head back to see underneath. What the sheets revealed was worth the effort. Draper had opened both accounts seven years ago, no doubt laying the groundwork for his swindle. The checking account had never had much in it. Thirty dollars in the beginning. The checks made out had all been to “cash”. Small amounts. Sporadic. Just enough activity to keep anyone from getting suspicious. There’d been two cash deposits, one for ten dollars and the other for twenty. Assuming this was the same Draper, the checking account was a red herring.
The savings account was a good deal more interesting. A series of deposits in the fall had brought it to nearly two thousand dollars. He’d drawn out most of it Friday before last, possibly the day before he died.
“Ah, here’s Mr. Charles to take you back to the deposit boxes. If you’d like to get out your key...?”
Mr. Charles was younger, with bifocals. His nod could have been either greeting or apology. He awaited instructions with a deference suggesting he held a position several steps below that of Mr. Hayworth. I pressed one corner of my hanky to my lips and started to sniff.
“Oh, I-I’m so sorry. I looked everywhere, and I couldn’t find ... I know Hal told me once where it was....”
Hayworth shifted uncomfortably.
“I’m afraid we can’t release the contents of the box unless you have the key.”
“But what if I never find it?” I wailed, trying to squeeze out a few tears.
“It’s how we ensure security–”
“Couldn’t I just have a peek? All I really care about is making sure Grandpa Fulton’s Union Army discharge papers are inside. He fought at Gettysburg, you know. Aunt Josephine’s in such a tizzy – great-aunt, really – fretting the family will never see them again, now that Hal’s died. But my brother was very responsible! He told me himself that he’d put them in his bank box. Only Aunt Jo’s so worked up we’re afraid she’ll keel over – what with her age and her weak heart....”
Hayworth was squirming. The other banker bent close to murmur to him. I dithered on.
“If I could just reassure her I’d seen the papers....”
Dabbing my eyes (no small feat what with needing to get under the veil without lifting it) I watched Hayworth draw back as if startled. A spate of whispering back-and-forth ensued. He swallowed.
“If she has a spell, everyone will blame me,” I whimpered.
“Mrs. Jackson–”
“They care more about those papers than they did about poor Hal–”
“Mrs. Jackson, please!” Hayworth puffed out a long breath. He passed a hand over his mouth. “This is ... most irregular. Highly irregular. Nonetheless, I - I think you should hear what Mr. Charles just told me.”
Thirty-six
Hayworth cleared his throat, then cleared it again
.
“I’m not sure this will ease your distress. In fact, I fear.... In any case, it seems only fair. The whole business is ... well, it’s odd, really. Please do remember that telling you this is highly unusual, since contents of safety deposit boxes are confidential–”
“Oh, I am so grateful!” I gushed. If I didn’t interrupt, I was afraid he’d never get to the point.
“Yes, well, the fact is Mr. Charles – inadvertently – has information about the contents of your brother’s safety deposit box.
Forgetting he probably couldn’t make out any expression through my veil, I looked expectantly at the younger banker. He straightened his spectacles.
“You see, ma’am, I took your brother back to get into the box the last time he was here. I’m generally the one who takes people back for them, and watches them put their key in, and gets their signature. Unless I’m off for the day or we get unusually busy, in which case another man helps.”
Did they give all bankers lessons in circumlocution? My borrowed get-up was getting uncomfortably hot.
“I don’t ordinarily remember names, not with so many customers, but I recall Mr. Draper. There are two small rooms where we put people so they can sit and open their box to put things in or take them out in privacy. Your brother wasn’t in his a minute before he came storming out and grabbed my arm. He asked what we were trying to pull – the damned box was empty.”
Mr. Charles grew pink at the edge of his ears.
“I do apologize,” he said, with a nervous glance at Hayworth, “but those were his exact words. I could see it was true. The deposit box was dangling open in one hand.”
“Oh, dear!” A dozen thoughts elbowed each other for my attention.
“Forgive me for asking,” Charles continued, “but was your brother, um, upset at the time of his death? Preoccupied? Perhaps not himself?”
“Really, Ethan! I hardly think–” began Hayworth.
“Why, yes,” I interrupted quickly. “How clever and - and kind you are to have noticed. He’d been jilted. By a girl he was hoping to marry. I think - I think he wasn’t sleeping. Why do you ask?”
Mr. Charles gestured uncomfortably with a card he was carrying on top of the metal box.
“He’d been in just a few days earlier. He must have emptied it then and not even remembered.”
I went utterly still.
“And that last time he came in was when again?”
He consulted the card in his hand. “Wednesday. Last Wednesday.”
Three days after Draper was fished from the river.
* * *
I sat in my car several minutes, sorting my thoughts. Someone had come in after Draper was dead, with the key to his safety deposit box and the skill to duplicate his signature well enough to gain access. Of equal interest was the previous time the box had been accessed: the day before Draper took his last swim. He’d come in almost the minute the bank opened. It had been an occasion when the other clerk rather than Mr. Charles took customers back.
To wiggle out of signing anything, I’d manufactured a fresh flood of tears and fled with a mumbled apology, saying perhaps I should come back when I wasn’t so upset. I did allow maybe my brother had taken great-grandpa’s papers to Cousin Charlotte. With luck that would keep the two bankers from getting worked up.
Now I knew that Draper had kept secret accounts at a second bank. That he’d taken out most of his savings and emptied his safety deposit box a day before he was killed. That somebody who didn’t know the accounts were depleted had come in pretending to be him. I took off the black hat and ran my hands through my hair.
Before I returned my mourning weeds to Clarice, I wanted to put them to use a few more times. First I drove to the house Draper owned. I tried the neighbor on the right first, again introducing myself as Draper’s sister.
“Hal mentioned a friend of his who drove a reddish car,” I said. “An Ambassador, I think he said. The car, not the man. But I simply can’t remember his name. Do you happen to know?”
The neighbor looked like she’d just gotten back from having her hair done. It was glossy and smooth and she kept patting it from time to time.
“I’m afraid we didn’t know Mr. Draper that well. He was extra man at the Thortons’ dinner parties a few times, always very pleasant. But I can’t recall seeing a car that looked even remotely red. They’re mostly black and gray, aren’t they? My husband’s quite crazy for cars. I’m sure he would have talked about it if he’d seen something like that.”
I said that reminded me I was supposed to look at the tires on the one in Hal’s garage. It was on her side of Draper’s house, and it gave me an excuse to peek without fear of arousing suspicion. Mercifully it had a window on one side, so I didn’t have to resort to picking the lock on the overhead door. I peered inside and saw the tan Buick Cecilia had told me about.
No one answered at the house on the left. I tried two places across the street. One of them was a middle-aged woman who said she simply didn’t know what they’d do now when they needed someone to pair a single woman at dinner. Neither she nor the other woman I talked to had seen a car resembling the ambassador.
That left Ingrid, the masseuse with the formidable phone presence. Sometimes people kept lockers at places where they took saunas and such. I didn’t expect to find wads of cash from Draper’s secret bank accounts, but I might find something.
The place was in the basement of a tailor’s shop on Wilkinson. That made it convenient for men like Draper to duck out for steam and back pounding whenever it suited them. A sign above the door said simply Sauna and Swedish Massage. I went down the concrete stairs and stepped inside.
A bent over guy with a walrus mustache bigger than all the rest of him looked up.
“You not selling, ja?” he said, surveying my black ensemble.
“Not selling,” I agreed. “I was hoping to speak with Ingrid.”
He surveyed me some more and sniffed with decision.
“She gives massage now. Five minutes more. You wait.” He pointed to a hard-looking wooden chair.
It was as hard as it looked. The man with the walrus eyed me to make sure I wouldn’t swipe anything. Moving like a man half his age, he disappeared through a door in the corner. Two identical wooden desks placed end-to-end formed a sort of counter. They were light wood, smooth but not glossy, and once you got past the idea they weren’t finished, they weren’t bad to look at. The room had a Spartan feel, but there wasn’t a smudge or particle of dirt in evidence. Someone had painted the telephone a deep, bright blue. It was the only thing that might pass for decoration.
The walrus man returned and settled onto what I now realized was a stool behind his desk. A few minutes later a woman in a narrow white duster came out. A brief exchange in a foreign language sent the man out again. She turned to me.
“I am Ingrid,” she said, advancing.
As I rose, I saw she was probably five-foot-ten and built like a wrestler. I decided not to offer my hand in case I wanted to use it in the next day or so. Her blonde hair formed a braid on top of her head. The stolidness of her expression would have discouraged even Frank Keefe.
“I’m Harold Draper’s sister,” I said. “I’m here to collect his things. And - and to thank you. He told me once that a massage from you made the whole week go better.”
Ingrid blinked.
“Sister.” She surveyed me. “Someone has died?”
“Yes.”
“Is him? Mr. Draper?”
“Um, yes.” The paper had run half a column or so on the body pulled out of the river. It had mentioned Draper’s name, but the story hadn’t been prominent. Ingrid clearly hadn’t read it.
She bowed her head.
“I am sorry,” she said. “Please wait.”
She turned and disappeared back through the door in the corner. Moments later she reappeared. In her hand was a leather satchel.
“He was moving, I think? He had missed his massage for some weeks when
he came and left it.”
She handed it to me. The weight pulled my arm down. The bag itself locked. Another lock circled the handles.
“Yes. Moving,” I repeated.
I felt lightheaded.
I hadn’t come here expecting to find a bag full of cash, but I was afraid I just might have.
Thirty-seven
I felt jumpy all the way to my car and twice as jumpy once I got in. Although I was disguised, I’d realized standing in Ingrid’s place with the bag in my arms that my car wasn’t.
Tough Cookie (Maggie Sullivan mysteries) Page 19
