A mistake the man soon regretted.
The following morning Bea let Jack sleep late. When he returned from wherever he had been, doing whatever he did, he usually slept around the clock and awoke with his batteries fully charged. It was an ability she envied.
She fixed her customary boiled egg and toast, fed the cats, and left the house by eight o’clock. She could hardly imagine the Old Man closing the bank for anything short of a world war, but yesterday’s events had interrupted the usual routine.
As she drove Abraham up Dover’s Lane toward Elm Street the sun was already beaming down on the town, promising another hot day. The lawn sprinklers that had been illegally turned on during the night had been shut off. Everything appeared normal. And yet… there was the faintest shimmer on the air, like heat waves rising from the earth.
Evaporation, Bea thought with annoyance. My lawn’s going to dry out and I’ll have to water the geraniums when I get home.
She noticed Hooper Watson crossing his front yard; a stocky, bowlegged figure who walked as if he had just dismounted from a horse, though he did not ride. His round red face would have looked almost cherubic if not for the greasy ring of graying hair that encircled his bald dome. The former sheriff resented the encroachment of age and still made it his business to know what was going on in Sycamore River.
Some people said he was just plain nosy.
Bea pulled up at the curb and called, “Hooper!”
He turned a blank stare in her direction. His rumpled clothes looked as if they had been slept in.
Been hitting the bottle already, thought Bea. “Hooper, over here!”
He tottered to the car and leaned in. “How you, Bea?”
“I’m fine, but… do you know if the S and S will open today?”
Watson pulled back a grubby shirtsleeve and attempted to read his watch. “’S too early, Bea, way too early.”
“I know that, but we had some difficulties in there yesterday that might have—”
“I’m not the sheriff anymore, I got voted out last year, remember? Did you vote for me? Hunh? Didja?”
“Did you hear about our problems?” she countered.
The puffy, unshaven face loomed close to hers. She struggled to keep from inhaling bad breath diluted with whiskey fumes. “I got my own problems, Bea. The wife’s gone off with a traveling salesman or some such. Again. Y’know anything about that? Nadine come in to get some of my money, maybe?”
“No, but the bank—”
“Trouble’s not limited to the bank. Nadine threw a fit yesterday ’cause her false teeth stuck in the bathroom glass. Like melted bubble gum, all that pink plastic. The bastard she’s running around with prob’ly don’t care, he might like her better without teeth anyway. He prob’ly…” Mumbling to himself, he weaved away down the sidewalk.
There was a time when I thought Hooper Watson was an attractive man, Bea recalled. I certainly have a talent for narrow escapes.
The employees’ entrance in the parking lot behind the bank had a heavy steel door that gave access to the keypad in the security hallway inside. Bea had not yet programmed her new AllCom, so she opened the door using her old one. There was no other way to enter.
Once inside she discovered she was the first employee to arrive. She used the AllCom again, keying it with Oliver Staunton’s private number. The Old Man’s gruff voice answered—he hated being disturbed at home.
“Is the bank going to be open today?” she asked him.
“Unless hell freezes over. I’m leaving right now and we’d better not have any more trouble; you keep a sharp eye out, Bea.”
What does he think I could do about it?
5
Shay Mulligan lived on the edge of town in an area where homeowners could have horses or a family-sized swimming pool. His son kept a horse in the stable at the rear of the property. Shay’s veterinary clinic was adjacent to the house. It was life in the country without being fully committed. No one made a fuss about barking dogs.
Shay looked forward to his daily run; it was a self-imposed discipline. Five miles every day of the week, rain or shine, was a ritual with him. He preferred to go in the late morning, before lunch. Or instead of lunch. Running kept his head clear and his reflexes quick.
By eleven that morning no more patients were in his waiting room and the appointment book was empty until two. Shay left his veterinary nurse, Paige Prentiss, in charge of the clinic with instructions to contact him if an emergency came in. Tall, tanned and competent, in school she had been the captain of her soccer team. She wore no makeup, but her hair, the color of brown sugar, hung to the small of her back in a glossy braid.
“Before you leave,” she said, “remember where we’re going this evening.”
“Hmmm?”
“The fund-raiser for the Daggett’s Woods Conservancy. I told you about it last week and you said you’d join me.”
Shay snapped his fingers. “Sorry, Paige, I guess it slipped my mind. I have a date for tonight.”
“Angela Watson?”
“Who else? But I’ll go to the next one, I promise.”
“There might not be another one: you know what we’re up against. This was important, Shay.”
“Okay, I’ll write a check for it as soon as I get back,” he assured her.
His nurse looked dubious. For a man with a degree in veterinary medicine, her employer was lamentably absentminded. He never forgot anything pertaining to the animals and their welfare, but things like bills to pay and family birthdays to commemorate flew right out of his head.
Paige had concluded she could never be romantically interested in a man who would not remember her birthday.
Beginning at the grove of cottonwood trees that marked the boundary of the old Miller estate, Shay’s customary route for running took him past the derelict Miller mansion with its graffiti-covered walls, across the fields to Nelson’s apple orchard, two miles along the bike path that circled Alcott Park, and then back to the clinic, the long-established practice founded by his father. His parents now lived in a retirement community in Florida.
Today Shay’s nearest neighbor, Gerry Delmonico, happened to look out a window and saw him go by. Gerry shouted, “Hold on and I’ll join you!” In less than a minute he emerged from his house clad in cutoffs and a T-shirt. “I don’t have to be in the lab until later,” he said, “so I was doing some work on my taxes.”
Gerry’s long black legs took one stride for every two of Shay’s, but when he tried to alter his pace to accommodate his companion, Shay protested. “Hey, pal, don’t do me any favors.”
“Don’t worry,” Gerry said amiably, “I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.” They jogged in silence until he remarked, “Speaking of fire, we’re having a barbecue on the deck on Saturday. Come on over, anytime. Gloria said to tell you to bring Angela.”
“You’re supposed to tell me? You can’t just ask me, nice and polite-like?”
“My wife said tell.”
“That’s why you have a wife and I don’t.”
Gerry cast a sideways glance at Shay. “You don’t have a wife because you don’t know a good thing when you see it.”
“I do too. Tonight I’m taking Angela to that new French restaurant, Chez Pierre, and I’ve got cash for a big tip. Remind me to tell you what happened while I was at the S and S, by the way. You’ll never believe it.”
They ran on.
Halfway down the bike path on the way home Shay slowed to a trot; a walk; then leaned forward and put his hands on his knees. Gerry turned and came back to him. “What were you saying about the bank?”
“Tell you in a minute. Stitch in my side.” Shay took a deep breath and slowly straightened up. “That’s better. First, let’s agree not to talk about Angela, I already heard enough on that subject. I know a problem when I see it. If I married Angela I’d have to take the whole package, including her man-crazy mother, when the woman bothers to come home, and her alcoholic father. I can’t set foot in their house without one or the other starting in on me.”