Hanging by a Thread

by Margaret Evans

  Harry emerged from the barber shop next door.

  “I just got a text from Charlie,” he told them, just as Erica joined them from the florist shop. “Someone fell into the mine from the overlook side. They don’t know who it is yet.”

  “Oh, my gosh!” Erica said, looking around at everyone in sight, as if she could figure out who was missing and who might have fallen into the mine by thoroughly checking Taylor Street.

  “Everyone from town knows to stay away from the guard rail,” Nilsson pointed out. “Maybe it was a stranger out walking and not paying attention, and they leaned too far over the railing to look down. It can be very tempting.”

  “Here,” Miles said, handing the carry-strap of his laptop bag to Aaron. “I need to text my wife and see if she’s okay and tell her I’m okay.”

  Nilsson flinched, then caught the bag.

  “Something wrong?” Miles asked, tapping in his wife’s number.

  “You let go too quickly and caught me off-guard; my notebook is much lighter in weight. I’m good.”

  “How’d your bid on the glassware go?” Erica asked Laura as they waited.

  “I got it. Now I just have to find a place to put it.”

  “Congrats! You’ll find a place.”

  “You bid on glassware?” Miles and Harry asked together.

  “Yes,” Laura replied. “Special glassware. Hundred fifty-year-old etched glassware from the late Victorian era. Bowls, serving dishes, plates, glasses, cake trays, candy trays, you-name-it-trays. Beautiful stuff. Not worth a fortune, but nice. And pretty enough that I wouldn’t mind keeping it for myself.”

  “Are you selling it in the shop?” Harry asked.

  “That’s the plan. I just have to ask Connor if he can take me to the auctioneer’s building to get it all. It’s not going to fit in my Focus.”

  “Don’t you have a deadline to pick up your winnings?” Erica asked.

  “Yes. Usually seventy-two hours. These folks want it picked up in forty-eight. So I guess, if Connor can’t help me, I rent a truck day after tomorrow. In any event, that’s when I have to pick it up. I’ll leave early so my whole day isn’t shot.”

  Aaron handed the laptop back to Miles, waved goodbye to the others and looked down the street.

  “You parked in front of the dry cleaner’s,” Miles called after him. “Now all I have to do is remember where I parked.”

  Again, another wave from Nilsson, but this time over his head and he kept walking.

  Just then Harry spoke again, quietly.

  “Charlie says they think it might be that fellow who disappeared from the bank a couple of years ago—Paul Dotson.”

  Erica looked horrified.

  “Is that where he’s been all this time? Why didn’t they find him before now?”

  “No,” Harry answered. “He wasn’t there last week. They were down in that area, below the overlook, doing some preliminary explorations or whatever they do in the mine between blasting and shoveling it all away. It doesn’t look as if he’s been dead very long, but Charlie doesn’t know for sure.”

  “That’s two people dead from the bank,” Miles commented.

  Laura stood there in silence.

  She had seen the man recently, and now he was dead. Would they find another suicide note near him, similar to Jessica Wright? Or had someone killed both of them as she thought more likely?

  That meant there was still a killer on the loose in Raging Ford.

  thirty-seven

  Having a killer on the loose in Raging Ford did little to help the townspeople sleep well that night.

  Laura Keene slept like a baby. She had not expected to get a call from Connor around eight in the evening to come down to the police station “for a bit.” The bit turned out to be three hours, and when she finally got home, she crashed.

  She had a first-hand look at the murder board in the war room. There was a lot written on it in dry erase ink, lines drawn between the two murdered individuals and the bank, more questions than answers, and some big question marks. There was also a host of photographs, including ones she could have lived her life without seeing: Wright’s and Dotson’s dead bodies.

  She listened in silence as the team went through everything they knew, from start to finish, and everything the forensics team had uncovered, also start to finish. Then a man Laura didn’t know stood and gave them more information. He turned out to be Connor’s friend, Nolan Frye, the special agent from the Duluth FBI office, in charge of the bank investigation. After briefing everyone in the room on some of the latest information the FBI had discovered, it became clear to Laura that he wasn’t sharing everything. She’d have to check with Connor later on that.

  Lots of questions were asked and points were made, more was written on the board. She was studying everything that was on the board when she realized that everyone in the room was looking at her.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Do you want to ask anything?” Connor repeated.

  “I think the key is the golden threads that came from the gold dress that was planted in Wright’s closet. I’m convinced that’s the right trail.”

  In the corner of her eye, she caught a smile on Nolan’s face and mistook it for disdain. After the discussions wound down, Frye approached her and held out his hand.

  “Well, I’m very happy to meet the daughter of Frank Keene. I used to work as a support agent fresh out of the academy on cases where he was involved. What a mind! I’m interested in hearing what tips you off to the golden threads.”

  Nolan had some years on both her and Connor, but his tanned skin made him look like an outdoorsman like Connor. She wondered if he played hockey.

  “You know I run a thrift shop,” she began and continued at his nod. “I get bags and boxes from lots of different people. But the one thing that’s common to all of them is that the things in those boxes and bags are consistent. It’s a box of old towels or sheets, or it’s a bag of old blouses and shoes. It was a surprise to me that a brand-new, expensive sports coat showed up in the bag of old baby clothes. Then I found the golden threads. What were they doing there? And not just one or two. It looked like gobs of them jammed into the pockets, sleeves, and under the lapels and collar. Why do that?

  “Was it to make sure we didn’t miss them? I didn’t find the trail, though, until I signed up as a consultant here and Connor told me about the gold dress in Jessica Wright’s closet. It didn’t smell of lavender, like everything else in the closet, and it looked like it had been vandalized because it was still new and couldn’t possibly have been worn out. So what were we to think? It was a set-up. Follow the money on it and you find a credit card that wasn’t on her credit report, and mind you, a credit card with a really high limit or no limit at all, maybe an American Express Platinum Card or something like that, and the dress was ordered online and shipped to a post office box, paid for by the same credit card, I think.”

  When Laura stopped to catch her breath, she realized several officers and others she didn’t know had gathered to listen. Connor now stood next to her.

  “No, I didn’t tell her about the Amex card,” he said.

  Two obvious FBI agents put their heads together and nodded to Nolan.

  “So why should we follow the gold, so to speak?”

  “Because I think Jessica was the one being blackmailed. She didn’t have an extravagant lifestyle, but she was emptying her retirement and savings accounts in large chunks, month after month, with nothing on the outside to show for it, except being more nervous and edgy at work. I understand from what you said earlier that you found logins with her user name and password where money was moved around from account to account, including an account in her dead brother’s name. That could have been set up as the blackmailer’s proof that she needed to pay that person. Find out how her dead brother’s account got set up i
n the first place and where those funds came from. These things were done remotely, I think you said, and Jessica, according to your IT forensics team, never had remote access.”

  “But Paul Dotson did. He could have set her up.”

  “It doesn’t fit. And now he’s dead, too.”

  “So we can’t ask him.”

  “No, we can’t,” she conceded. “But we can still pursue those golden threads. I am convinced they will take you to the killer. The one thing my father always told me is that where there’s greed, it never ends because nothing is ever enough.”

  Nolan shook her hand again as Connor moved to steer her away. By the time they got to her car, she looked apologetic.

  “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you, Connor. Sometimes I talk too much. Maybe this was a mistake.”

  He kissed her on the forehead.

  “I was proud of you because you weren’t afraid to express your opinion, which, by the way, matches the FBI’s.” At her surprised look, he continued. “They’re going after the gold threads and what they’ve found on them. And yes, I know they haven’t told us everything they found yet.”

  “So now we wait?”

  “So now we wait.”

  •••

  In the morning, Laura opened her shop as usual, to the usual crowds, rushing to get in their contest entries before the deadline. The plan was to bring the signed paperwork that Father Barlow was holding and the sealed entry box to the St. Patrick’s Day Gala at the Community Center, where they would read all the entries, announce the winner or winners and give out the prizes. The cutoff would be when the store closed on its last day of business before St. Patrick’s Day, three days away. Today, there were lines going out the door and past Erica’s florist shop, waiting to get their entry guesses into the box. She had to cut them off around one o’clock to take a quick lunch break but promised she’d be back in thirty minutes.

  Connor’s text that he was at the back reached her shortly after she turned the Closed sign outward and locked the front door. She ran to greet him.

  “Any news?”

  “Not yet. Our forensics team is doing their thing on the overlook by the mine. If there’s anything there to find, they’ll find it.”

  “It’s hard to wait.”

  “Yeah, it is. I hear you won the bid on some antique glass?”

  “Yes, it’s beautiful. I might want to keep it for myself. Haven’t decided yet. But I need help picking it up and I have to get it by tomorrow.”

  “They didn’t give you much time. How much is there?”

  She showed him the quantities and the estimated cubic feet of the lot, as well as pictures of some of the pieces.

  “They look nice. I can probably put the middle seat down in the SUV and fit it all in. I won’t need to borrow Ian’s truck.”

  “Would he lend it to you after what happened a few weeks ago?”

  “He doesn’t know that it was in any danger.”

  She hid a smile.

  “I have to open up again. No time for a real lunch. Come, follow me.”

  She led him through the kitchenette where she grabbed a brownie from the latest batch and offered him one. She wolfed it down and swallowed it by the time she got to the front door, unlocked it and turned the Open sign outward. The crowd outside formed a three-person-wide line.

  Connor looked surprised.

  “It’s the contest. Time’s running out.”

  As the pair stood aside to let in the tide of contest-hungry people, they continued their conversation.

  “What time do you need me to come pick you up?”

  “Early. How does eight o’clock sound? We can be back before the shop opens.”

  “I’ll be here. Do you know where this place is? Oh, I forgot, you don’t know your way around anymore. Do you have an address?”

  She threw a look at him.

  “Of course I know where it is. You just be here by eight. Oh, look, we have some employees from the Raging Ford Bank and Trust Company. Hi Sabina!”

  “I absolutely love chocolate and I want to put in some guesses. I dragged the others along with me. This is Stevie and Liam.”

  “Nice to meet you. Connor, I have to take care of my customers now, but I’ll see you at eight o’clock sharp tomorrow morning out back.”

  thirty-eight

  Friday morning, 8 o’clock sharp…

  Laura pulled into her space behind the shop, glad she’d beaten Connor there, and grabbed her box of donut delights freshly baked by Will Kovacs from the seat. She tapped in the security code on her back door and looked around. What was that crunching she’d heard? But it must have been an animal; wildlife was everywhere here, and she ignored the sound and went inside.

  She poured two thermoses of coffee for the ride to the estate warehouse and was checking that her last tax return to do that evening was in order. She made sure the front door of the shop was still locked and heard Connor’s SUV pull behind her car in the drive out back. After letting Connor in, she handed him the two thermoses and picked up the donuts. Halfway out the door, she remembered they would be gone for a good two hours.

  “Let me run upstairs and make sure I turned everything off. Take me a sec.”

  And she was back downstairs coming out the back door in about thirty seconds, but as she turned to tap in the security code, out of the corner of her eye she saw two things: the thermoses sitting on the hood of Connor’s SUV and Connor’s cop face in place.

  She tilted her head to ask the question, but he interrupted.

  “Come on, Laura, lock the door. Let’s get going.”

  Unusually abrupt for him, she narrowed her eyes.

  “Lock the door, as your boyfriend told you, honey.”

  Laura froze.

  “Lock it, Laura. Do as he says,” Connor directed. “He’s got a gun pointed at your head.”

  At that, her eyes dropped to Connor’s empty holster and a smashed cell phone next to his vehicle, and she looked up to see his nod to her. She locked the back door and turned to see Aaron Nilsson, the bank manager of Raging Ford Bank and Trust Company, eyes wild and aiming a big handgun at her with Connor’s service weapon tucked in his pants.

  “Drop your phone and stomp it right now, missy. Okay, now let’s roll, folks,” Nilsson said. “We have places to go. Oh, bring the coffee. And I could use some of whatever’s in that bakery box you have there.”

  •••

  Connor was driving with Laura in the front passenger’s seat.

  She was angry. She’d just paid off the iPhone. Not to mention the donuts. She’d splurged on her favorite chocolate éclairs and several new flavors for Connor. Now that crazed man in the back seat waving a gun between the two of them was cramming the luscious sweets from the Kovacs Bakery into his face, pieces of them falling everywhere.

  The radio crackled and Nilsson barked at Connor.

  “Don’t touch it. Don’t answer. Nothing.”

  “If I don’t respond, they’ll wonder what I’m doing and where I am. I have to respond.”

  Nilsson laughed and coughed, almost choking on the donuts.

  “By the time they come looking, it won’t matter, so don’t worry.”

  He directed them to drive out to Highway 148 and take an exit not familiar to Laura.

  “We know you didn’t mean to kill her,” Connor offered.

  “Shut up! She was such a mess, I had to. Dotson thought, as he was supposed to, that she took all that money and he went into hiding rather than turn her in. He was supposed to turn her in. I set it up to look like he was hounding her, hunting her down, eventually driving her to take her own life. She sent the money to a post office box and I cashed her money orders to make my wrist stop hurting and set me up someplace nice. Instead, the silly girl found Dotson and they figured it out together that they h
ad been set up. Now the money’s half gone, because I spent it on painkillers and can’t get any more, and I don’t know what to do. So shut up while I try to think.”

  After a silence, Laura picked up the conversation.

  “You did a good job at the bank.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “You were well thought of; people respected how you ran the bank.”

  “Oh, yeah. I know. They just didn’t pay me enough for the things I needed. Bank managers are just like everybody else. Overworked and under-compensated. And when I got in that bicycle accident, it kind of made it hard for me to live without painkillers. I met this guy—turn right here.”

  Laura snuck a glance out of the corner of her eye and saw the man was sweating, wiping the back of his hand that held the gun against his forehead.

  Connor swerved around the corner, just making the turn, and continued down the rural road, its edges still covered in the remnants of what they had all hoped was the last snowfall of the year.

  “You were saying you met a guy,” Laura prompted.

  “Why do you care? I can’t—”

  “I think you got a bad break. It wasn’t your fault,” Connor continued, flashing Laura a quick glance to let him do this.

  “Hey, this coffee’s pretty good. Is it Starbucks?”

  “No, I made it,” Laura answered.

  After a brief silence, Nilsson spoke again.

  “Too bad. You could have made millions with this coffee. More than Kevin Johnson. He’s just sitting there laughing at you.” He chuckled.

  Laura and Connor fell silent.

  They continued down the country road until Nilsson said, “Here! Turn left here—right between those trees.”

  Connor’s SUV scraped through the narrow opening between the trees, branches scratching the windows and vehicle sides. He hit a pothole and Nilsson swore.

  “Now I got coffee all over me. Can’t you drive?”

  “Are you burned? That was hot coffee,” Laura said, taking another opportunity to touch this man, if anything or anybody could, to stop the insanity.