“Yeah, and it was just Olivia and her mom. Her dad took off when she was little.” Will made a face, clearly unable to imagine a father like that. “Her mom did okay with her bookkeeping job, she said, but she would’ve had a hard time with college if she hadn’t gotten-”
McCrea cut the boy off. “What did you say she did?”
“Who?”
“Ellen Bain. You said she was…?”
Will looked at him, confused. “A bookkeeper. At the new resort.”
Fergusson sat up straight.
McCrea extended his hand and tapped his palm. “Ellen Bain, who died in an auto accident at the end of July, was a bookkeeper at the Algonquin Waters. Tally McNabb, who committed suicide in October, was a bookkeeper at the Algonquin Waters.”
“Yeah, but…” Will’s forehead crinkled. “It’s got to be a coincidence. Tons of people work for the resort.”
“Chief Van Alstyne always says he doesn’t believe in coincidence.” Fergusson put her cup down. “Did Tally and Ms. Bain know each other? Did they have the same job responsibilities?”
Will shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“We’ve got to find out,” Fergusson said.
“No, we’ve got to tell the chief,” McCrea countered.
“Eventually.” At his look, she spread her hands. “I’m just saying we should come up with something more solid if we want him to reopen Tally’s case. I’m overdue for a visit with her mother. I can ask her how Tally got her job, and what she might know about Ellen Bain.”
“Stop.” Avoiding issues in group was one thing. Acting out that avoidance in real life was a whole other ball game. Sarah pointed to Fergusson. “You are not Daphne from Scooby-Doo . We are not going to get into a purple van and ride around town looking for a spooky old house.”
“All I’m proposing we do is ask a few questions.”
McCrea studied the priest. “Are you sure you’re not all hopped up on this idea because you’d like to show up the chief?”
“No!” Fergusson paused. “Well. Maybe a little.”
“Okay. I’m in.”
“Me, too,” Will said. “What should I do?”
Fergusson gave McCrea a go-ahead gesture. “Get back in touch with Olivia,” McCrea said. “Ask her if her mother was behaving oddly at any time before her death. Ask her if she ever mentioned Tally or Wyler McNabb.”
Will nodded. “I’ll IM her when I get home tonight.”
“See if she can get us a look at her mom’s bank balances and investment reports.”
“Investment reports?” Sarah was losing control of the session. Again.
“It’s clear Tally stole a million dollars, and it’s a pretty sure bet her husband was in on it with her.” McCrea had an expression Sarah had never seen before. It was, she realized, his cop face. “If the money’s been found at the resort”-Fergusson nodded-“it’s a good bet that they had an accomplice to help hide it. Accomplices usually get paid off.”
“Unless,” Fergusson said, “somebody decided to cut her out of the picture.”
“Yeah.” His mouth compressed. “I’ll go talk to the HR people at the Algonquin Waters.”
“But you’re still suspended,” Sarah said. “Isn’t that-I don’t know, illegal?”
“I’m not going to arrest anybody.” He grinned suddenly. “Like Reverend Clare said, I’m just going to ask some questions.”
Will looked at her slyly. “What are you going to do, Sarah?”
She shook her head. “I guess I’m going to put on an orange turtleneck and drive the van.”
It was one of the easiest stings Russ had ever set up, even given the tight time frame. Nichols contacted Seelye on Saturday morning and told her he’d found the money after a search of Tally’s house tipped him off. Lyle had soothed Ms. LeBlanc’s fears and assured her that no one would even know an arrest was occurring in her resort’s basement-they would use the employee exit to get in and out. Even persuading Tony Usher to fly up to Albany and run the operation with him had been a cinch. Bringing down a lieutenant colonel could be tricky, politically, but the prospect of bringing home six hundred grand-they had counted the remaining bricks and scanned their FDIC routing labels before replacing them on the pallet-was enough to paper over his concerns. Within twenty-four hours, Tony had found an ambitious CID investigator to be another witness, and right now, at ten o’clock on Monday evening, the man was hidden behind a screen of empty boxes not five feet from the money. It was his small camera stashed in the piping above, recording everything that happened.
Russ and Tony were in another blind, this one with a partial view of the employees’ exit. They could see Quentan Nichols shifting from foot to foot in front of the door. He was dressed in a cleaning-service uniform. They had gotten three of them; Kevin, mopping close to the hotel-side employees’ entrance, had one, as did Lyle, who was playacting sleep in the darkened break room. At least Russ hoped he was acting.
“He’s going to walk a trough in that cement if he doesn’t stop pacing.” Tony kept his voice down. They’d set up a blower farther down Broadway’s corridor to mask any ambient sounds, but no one wanted to take any chances.
“He’s got a right to be nervous.” Russ shifted on his box. The combination of cold and inactivity was making his hip ache. “He’s betting everything on this.”
“Nichols isn’t the first soldier to go stupid and start thinking with the wrong head.” Tony sighed. “And Seelye, sad to say, isn’t going to be the first officer to be tempted by all the money they’ve got floating around over there. The stories I could tell you-” He broke off as Nichols grabbed the handle and opened the employees’ entrance.
Lieutenant Colonel Arlene Seelye stepped in. She was dressed as anonymously as Nichols-dark jeans, dark shirt, dark windbreaker. Nichols said, “Colonel,” but she held up her hand. She glanced around her, then strode past him into the corridor. She walked up toward the hotel-side entrance and back down, past Russ and Tony, past the CID captain, past the loot itself, scanning left and right. She poked her head into the darkened break room but didn’t turn on the lights. Evidently satisfied, she returned to Nichols’s side. “Quentan Nichols.” She looked him up and down. “I’m still not convinced you’re not yanking my chain. What’s really going on here?”
Nichols took two dancing steps into the corridor, like a nervous junkie about to make a deal. Now they were both under one of the dangling fluorescent lights. In perfect focus for the camera. “I told you. I waited until Tally McNabb’s old man was gone and then I searched that house from basement to attic. I found a reference that made me think it might be here, and it is.”
She shook her head. “I think you knew all along. I think she made you a partner when you agreed to help her steal that money from Balad Air Base. So why do you need my help now?”
“I didn’t know where it was! I didn’t even know what it was she was moving!”
Russ tensed. Keep cool, Quentan. Don’t jerk the line. Just reel her in.
Nichols breathed in. “It’s too much for me to shift. And it’s too much for me to deal with. I’m offering you a fifty-fifty split. I show you where it’s stored, you launder the money. If you don’t want in, the door’s that way.” He pointed.
Seelye paused. “Okay. I’m in. Show me what you’ve got.”
Beside him, Russ felt Tony Usher’s muscles bunch as he clenched his fist in triumph.
Nichols and Seelye passed them. Russ could hear the soft scrape of the cardboard tower moving over concrete, and then the rumble of the dolly being rolled into the corridor. “Help me with this,” Seelye said. “I want to see what we’ve got.” There was a faint grunt and then the sound of plastic slapping onto the floor. There was a long pause. Russ looked at Tony. The JAG officer shook his head. Russ nodded. They wanted her to take the money into possession.