“Yeah, I read about that.” Rughurst glanced at the priest. “Maybe prayer is helping after all.”
“It couldn’t hurt.” Zoo was eager to get back to this case. “You here from the beginning of this one, Rug?”
“Practically. I got here while the techs were working. Your guys have the tapes-at least up to where the perp cut the power. They don’t look like they’ll be much help. But you never know what the experts can squeeze out of them.”
“How’s it look to you, Rug?”
“It looks like the price you pay for opening a bank in this god forsaken neighborhood. Like opening a candy shop in a building filled with chocoholics.”
“The mayor liked it.”
“Sure, it looks good for the city. Return, renaissance, whatever the hell. But this is still a trouble spot. How come there wasn’t any police presence?”
Tully shrugged. “They didn’t want it. Adams’s idea. Thought it would create the impression that the bank people were afraid … like they expected trouble.”
“They’d have to be nuts if they didn’t expect trouble.”
Quixotic is the word they’re looking for, thought Father Tully. But I’m not going to give it to them.
“You saw the tapes, Rug: whaddya think? The perp look like a local?”
Rughurst massaged his chin, which was cleanly shaven. “Yes. Looked like he was wearing an old sweater and maybe jeans. Couldn’t see much of him from the waist down. And a cap covering his ears and pulled down low over his eyes. What I can’t figure is why Ulrich opened the door for him.”
“Maybe he had his piece out and Ulrich decided he’d stand a better chance with the perp inside where he might be able to wrestle the piece away. I mean, if the guy’s holding a gun on you and all that’s between you is plate glass, you can be pretty sure if you don’t open the door he can waste you from outside.”
“Yeah, could be, I guess. In fact,” Rughurst added, “the tape does show Ulrich making a move on the perp. That’s when he bought it.”
“It makes sense all right,” the lieutenant agreed. “But the way this scenario is playing out, Ulrich could’ve opened the door because he didn’t want to be inhospitable to one of the neighbors.”
Rughurst burst out laughing, but stopped quickly when a few of the grief-stricken employees looked at him sharply. “If it was a neighbor, his feet weren’t touching the floor.”
“Spaced out, you think?”
The agent nodded definitively. “Whoever heard of taking a bank vault with a hammer?”
“That what he used?”
“That’s what it looks like. He must’ve had a sawed-off sledge. He bashed the vault pretty good. But all he did was make dents. He must’ve been pretty high. Probably still is.”
I know the answer. They don’t know about the threatened executives. But how am I ever going to get them to listen? This playing detective was fun, actually, but in this situation very frustrating. Father Tully made a mental note to ask Bob Koesler about it-either on his return or during one of his inevitable phone calls.
“Well,” Zoo said, “we’d better get on with this. The media will be breathing down our neck.”
“Can you blame them?”
“Not this time, I guess. This is made to order for them-all this prepublicity and all.”
The two officers, agreeing to keep each other posted, parted with a handshake, Rughurst nodding a pro forma good-bye to the priest.
Zoo and his faithful shadow crossed to Sergeant Moore, who had just ended an interview with one of the employees. “How’s it going, Angie?”
“We’re making good time, Zoo … but we’re not coming up with anything significant.”
“Anybody remember someone hanging around this building over the past couple of days?”
Moore frowned. “Yeah. Trouble is there’s been a lot of that. The locals were fascinated with this new toy on the block. Not very many are gainfully employed, so watching the comings and goings here was almost better than TV … at least it was live entertainment.”
“Nobody even a little extra suspicious?”
“Oh, a couple. We’re following up on them. A lot of our people are on the street, so we’ll probably come up with something soon. It’s just frustrating for now. Whoever did this was so dumb-”
“Or high.”
“Or high,” Moore agreed. “If he was on drugs, even if he’s down by this time, he’s probably still up emotionally. In any case, it shouldn’t be that hard to collar him. That’s what’s frustrating. We are so close and still so far.”
“Hang in there,” Zoo encouraged. “I’m going back to headquarters. Let me know if anything breaks.”
“Right, Zoo.” Sergeant Moore nodded. “Glad to meet you, Father.”
“Same here,” the priest responded.
Eleven
Lieutenant Tully and his brother were in the car, heading back toward downtown Detroit. They drove in silence. Mostly because Father Tully was reluctant to speak.
“So,” Zoo said finally, “how do you feel about your first homicide?”
“It’s hardly my first. I’ve been at the scene of more of them than I want to remember. It’s my first experience in the investigative side of a killing. And that is fascinating.”
Zoo smiled. “It gets to be routine. The thrill is in the chase. This one won’t be very thrilling. Just dogged investigative work: keep asking questions until you find someone with the right answer. It’ll happen; it just takes time.”
Silence for a few more minutes.
“Did I tell you much about that party I attended night before last?” the priest asked.
“The one at Adams’s place? No, not much, as I recall.”
The priest turned slightly so he could measure his brother’s reaction to his words. “I managed to meet everyone at the party. Outside of Tom Adams, I can’t say anybody else there wanted to meet me.”
Tully snorted. “That kind of party, eh?”
“I guess.”
“What was the lineup?”
“There was Adams. Then there were the three executive vice presidents and their wives. And the two candidates for the new branch. As the party developed, there was a double of odd man out-Joel Groggins and me. The rest of ’em had no trouble relating to each other. Groggins and I were left hanging … so we hung out together-”
“Wait a minute. What about Mrs. Ulrich? She wasn’t in that tight inner circle.”
A good sign. He’s listening to me carefully. “No, she’s not,” said the priest. “But that didn’t seem to bother her any. She made a late entrance and sort of took over … maybe not as the life of the party, but as a significant guest.”
“Okay. So you and Groggins-he’s the construction guy?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. So you and Groggins were sort of walled off.”
“Yes.”
“And his wife is the Nancy we just spoke to in the bank.”
“Yes.”
“So?.”
“So, while nobody else seemed to want to make conversation with us, he and I talked all through the meal.”
“I don’t want to rush you, but I’m going to be dropping you off at the rectory. Does this story have a point?”
“The point is Groggins gave me a brief sketch of each of the main characters and their interactions. There was an air of tension in that room and Groggins’s accounts made the friction pretty clear.
“Alonzo, it boils down to this: The vice presidents-and necessarily their wives-felt threatened by the real possibility of being fired.”
“Fired! Why? What for?”
“It all stemmed from the creation of this position of manager of the new branch. The two final contestants both volunteered for the job. The thinking was that Adams would want to reward whoever made a success of the job. The only feasible reward would be an executive vice presidency. And that meant that one of the present executive VPs would be elbowed out.
“Hmmmm.”
“You could feel something in that room. Fear-fear that could lead to violence.”
“I think …” Zoo began cautiously. “I think I know where you’re going.”