Susan Florist had been a clerk at a bank. There’d been a heart-attack death there-a disgruntled customer denied a loan extension. Also a series of threatening letters related to the bank’s foreclosure on farmland. Since Susan was a part-time employee, nothing in the bank’s actions likely would have drawn attention to her. Evie hadn’t come across any reports of an attempted bank robbery, or a bank employee embezzling funds, or someone acting inappropriately toward female staff.
Evie moved her shoulders around to loosen them, started to think about missing Deputy Scott Florist, but then stopped and circled back to his wife, Susan. The bank was a hub of the community. She would know people’s financial business as a teller handling deposits, working a customer-service desk. Things like bank balances, bounced checks, church contributions, those behind on paying back a loan, those spending more than they could afford, child-support payments. Financial matters were always emotional flash points when there was trouble. Susan would be in a position to see and hear a lot of personal information about people in the community.
Evie thumbed through the case files she’d brought with her, looking for the write-up on Susan and her work history, took her time reading through it. Susan had handled opening accounts, provided access to the safe-deposit box area, and worked the front counter taking deposits and processing withdrawals. She hadn’t been involved with loans or business accounts or reconciliation of problems. But the general tasks she routinely handled would have been enough to learn personal information about the bank’s clients.
Evie circled Susan’s name on her notes, circled the bank, and wrote out a simple statement: You know my secrets, and I think you told someone, maybe your husband.
Evie tapped her pen against the notepad, intrigued by the places that possibility could take her. A couple had a joint checking account, but the wife kept a secret account as a just-in-case cache? One with statements going to another address for privacy? Someone worried about a violent streak in her husband? Maybe someone withdrawing a bunch of cash, cleaning out an account in preparation for bolting, and Susan was the person who assisted in the withdrawal…
Yes. There might be something here. Whether it led to the family’s disappearance was a different question. But Susan would have known at least some of the community’s secrets, and someone could naturally conclude she’d told her husband some of those secrets. A good line to tug, Evie thought as she put a Carin Lake fishing spin on it-she was throwing out a line for ideas and had just hooked something that felt big.
Should she mention the idea to Gabriel? No. Not yet. Ideas were fragile things. There would be any number that didn’t get into her net before she found something worth sharing with him. She’d pursue this one on her own and see where it went. The fact she’d come up with one possibility told her she’d find more.
Back in the post office after a quick stop to buy a radio, Evie returned to the timeline. The music helped the place feel friendlier, echoing down the long room like a concert hall. Evie found herself moving in step to the rhythm as she moved back and forth between the files and the wall.
Susan Florist had been an organized woman. Evie fully appreciated that as she taped more calendar pages up. Susan had used a month-at-a-glance layout, one or two words capturing the daily schedule. Doctor. Baseball practice/Joe. Spanish class. Haircut/Scott. The woman had laid out the Florist family’s life in neat orderly boxes and archived the expired pages. Evie started with the month the family disappeared and went back in time. She fit almost two years’ worth of the calendar pages in towering columns on the wall. Finished, Evie pulled out a chair, put her feet up on another one, and carefully studied the results.
Susan Florist, tell me something interesting about yourself. I know it’s here, buried in these dates. Your son’s life. Your husband’s. Yours. What do I need to see?
She reached over for the roll of sweet-tarts, peeled off another. She scanned and absorbed month after month of the Florists’ lives. She wasn’t looking for any particular item. She was simply reviewing the routines, the interruptions. Car in for maintenance, the dishwasher breaking, a visit to the vet, the places someone would interact with Susan more often than Scott, and vice versa. A birthday party invitation for Joe, scout meetings, youth group, or places with just Susan and Joe, without Scott.
New notations appearing… Joe at Mike’s, Yates/dinner here, some coffee/10 a.m. reminders. The Yates had moved into the community? A new couple who also had a son, Susan is making time to get to know the wife, the boys are in school together, have them over for a meal to introduce them to her husband? That might be a useful thread-new people in town. A look at school records could give her a sense of who had arrived the year or two before the Florist family disappeared. You might tell new people something about your lives, what’s going on, invite them to your home. Sometimes disguised monsters came to visit-
“Evie.”
Her elbow popped against the edge of the chair, and her feet slid off the second chair and smacked on the floor.
Gabe smiled apologetically. “Sorry,” he said.
She rubbed her elbow. “Sure you are.”
“Look at the bright side. Maybe it will take attention away from the other aches and pains.” He laughed at the look she gave him. “I am sorry. Listen, I’m heading out to do more interviews. Want to come along?”
He’d interrupted a train of thought that was going somewhere, and she had to push down irritation at his reasonable question. She shook her head. “Thanks, I’m good.”
“Okay. You spook easy-that’s interesting to know. I’ll whistle my way in next time.”
“Fine. Good. I hope an interview goes somewhere.”
He chuckled and disappeared out the door.
She walked over to make sure the door was locked, fixed herself a sandwich while she was up, and returned to rescue the second chair, get settled again. She shook her head to clear the interruption, looked at the calendar pages, and pulled the schedule information back into place piece by piece.
New people coming into their lives, showing up in their schedule… someone new who has a dark and dangerous side. Would he maybe come in via Joe? A new coach for Little League, a new dad of a teammate? It seemed most likely through Joe. Or through Susan via a woman, a wife, a girlfriend. Not directly through Scott, not stepping into their personal lives. The door would open through Joe or Susan. Unless it was a new guy at work… She paused on that thought. Yeah. A nice cover. Scott brought someone new into their lives, someone new on the job. If it’s a cop, they think he’s safe and have no hesitation about letting the person into their lives.
Evie could feel when the moment of concentration peaked and the idea began to fade. She tried to get the feeling back, but it wouldn’t form. It didn’t mesh with the calendar, she realized. New people coming in via Susan and Joe were there, but not Scott. No fishing dates, no golf outing, no guy stuff-little markers that should be there. Evie wrote herself a note to check school records on the possibility of a new couple showing up with a boy Joe’s age, but the rest of the what-if wasn’t holding together.
She stretched, ate another sweet-tart, went to the last calendar month of their disappearance, month by month in reverse order, and looked for another possibility. Something else was here somewhere.
Evie heard the post-office door open, knew it was Gabriel, and didn’t look up. He was whistling the same tune as when he’d come in with an update on his interviews and when he brought in dinner. She didn’t mind the whistling, but the song fragment looping in her head was annoying.