"We think there were two of them. The beat cop who got a look at the car before he crashed his own said there were two of them. Makes sense inside here that there were two. I'm figuring they come in the front. One stays close to the door. The other heads for the counter. The receptionist gets it first." He pointed to the bloody spot under the desk where there was no body. "The guy in the office hears the shot. Comes out to see what's going on, but either he or the teller trips the silent alarm. He gets blasted. Both customers probably get it next. I'm guessing the teller behind the counter was last."
"Did the receptionist make it?"
"We're crossing our fingers, but she's in bad shape. She slid under the desk after she was hit. May have saved her life. They couldn't see her good enough to know if they'd killed her. It's a head shot, so don't go getting your hopes up for a witness."
"You said the teller was last. Why?"
"Oh, yeah. This you gotta see. Don't have a fucking hemorrhage, though, okay?"
"Why would I have a fucking hemorrhage?"
He led her around the counter, both of them stepping carefully over the old man. Grace noticed his tweed suit, shirt collar buttoned, the tie in a perfect knot. It had to be a hundred degrees out today when you figured in the humidity, and yet this guy had probably dressed up for his regular weekly trip to the bank. She was still thinking about the old man when Pakula knelt down beside the teller, gently lifting her head, the blond hair matted with blood sticking to her face, almost making it impossible for Grace to see the entrance wound. Until Pakula lifted the chin. Then she could see it, a small smudged black hole at the lower left jawline. The shooter would have had to have taken time to shove the gun up under her chin.
Grace met Pakula's eyes and now she understood. They both recognized the wound as a trademark, the signature of a killer who purposely shattered his victims' teeth so it would take longer to identify them.
"It's not possible, is it?" Grace asked.
Pakula just shook his head.
CHAPTER 21
6:05 p.m.
It must have been close to six o'clock when Andrew first heard it. Out here in the quiet the whirl of the helicopter blades seemed amplified, the sound echoing off the trees and water. At first he thought it might be the Life Flight- maybe there had been a car accident, some medical emergency. Except this wasn't a pass by, or even a low sweep to find a landing. No, this copter seemed to be circling, flying low over the treetops.
Andrew saved his file, closed the program and shut the lid of his laptop. He had been trying to use the laptop, discouraged and frustrated by the blank notebook pages, so white, so empty, staring at him. He left everything on the metal table in the screened-in porch, then searched for his shoes, sliding them on without doing up the laces.
It had taken only a few minutes to locate it, but now outside the cabin he could see the helicopter hanging a right to come back over the park. What in the world was it doing? Surely it wasn't checking out the storm? Was it a rescue unit or a pilot in trouble? There was nowhere to land-too many trees and even the pasture that bordered the park was too hilly with ravines and brush. On the other side stretched the Platte River -not much of a choice. If this guy had some sort of emergency, he'd picked a hell of a spot to try to land.
Andrew watched the helicopter almost scrape the trees, and this time it flew low enough that he could see the letters on its side: POLICE.
What the hell was the Omaha police helicopter looking for? Or rather who was it looking for? He wondered if this had anything to do with the call that made Tommy take off.
Andrew hurried back into the cabin. He pulled out the nine-inch TV he had brought with him. Rarely did he turn the thing on. Reception was awful out here. If he was lucky he could sometimes get one channel and that was with masterful manipulation of the bunny ears. He plugged in the set, turned it on and began to twist and turn, finally having some luck with Omaha 's Channel 7.
He glanced at his wrist-no watch-but it looked as though the six o'clock news was still on. He turned up the volume, a crackled sound track to accompany the rolling lines that blurred the station's anchors. Julie Cornell and Rob McCartney looked a bit purple and outlined in orange but it didn't matter. They were talking about a search for two suspects. Andrew turned up the volume once more.
"Again, that's south on Highway 50. Two male suspects in a late-model sedan," Julie explained as a map graphic showed the route. "The two men allegedly robbed the Nebraska Bank of Commerce late this afternoon. Police chased the suspects south on Highway 50. Details are still sketchy. We'll have more as information continues to come in."
Andrew shut the TV off. A high-speed chase on Highway 50? That was an accident waiting to happen. Maybe that's exactly what had happened. He didn't need to hear the media's speculation.
He glanced back out at the laptop and notebooks on the porch's table. Several loose sheets had blown off into the corners, probably gathering spiderwebs. One was stuck up against the screen, having impaled itself on a broken screen wire. The wind had picked up. The storm was getting closer.