John Miller - Too Far Gone

“Good. Kenneth, I don’t know what I’d do without you. I depend on your expertise, loyalty, and discretion. Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” Decell closed the phone and smiled. I know where you’d be without me. And so do you.

After the banker had finished placing the counted bonds in the valise, he locked it, placed LePointe’s key on the table beside it, and stepped back, folding his hands so they covered his sex, posing like a mortician beside an open casket.

“Two and one-half million in ten-thousand-dollar denominations is the confirmed count,” the banker said, opening his fountain pen and placing it beside a document.

Decell crossed the room and lifted the valise.

“Please sign the receipt, Mr. Decell.”

Decell looked at the document and shook his head. “Dr. LePointe authorized it, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” the banker said nervously. “He did. Over the phone.”

“Are you satisfied that the man on the phone was Dr. LePointe?”

“I’ve known William since grade school,” the banker replied. “It was he.”

“And they’re his bonds to do with as he sees fit, right?”

The banker nodded.

“Then you can ask him to sign.”

“But I’m turning them over to you-”

“He said to, right?”

“Yes. But you are taking possession.”

“Okay. Hit REDIAL on my phone, or call him yourself and tell him he’ll have to come sign the receipt. I’m not going to put my name on any piece of official paper.”

“Why?”

“Well, for one thing, I can’t possibly repay it if anything happens to it. If the FBI comes to you, you’ll tumble to the badges and show the receipt to them, and they’ll come to me and I’ll have to account for it by explaining why I picked it up and what I did with it, which would be problematic. I doubt Dr. LePointe would like having his private business thrown back in his face by the authorities. Dr. LePointe is a major depositor and his family the major stockholder in this institution. You want to go against his wishes, be my guest. Maybe nothing will happen, but maybe the board of directors will suddenly decide this institution could use some fresh blood in your position. Dr. LePointe is under a great deal of stress, and where his family is involved…” Decell shrugged. “I’ll just leave the bonds here and you can explain it to him. Maybe he’ll just get in his car and come get them himself and sign your paper and have no ill feelings about it.”

“Take them.” The banker wiped the beads of perspiration from his upper lip with a handkerchief he pulled from his suit pocket. “Do you need an escort?”

“I don’t,” Decell said, patting the gun in his shoulder holster. He lifted the valise and walked casually from the office.

The mayor of New Orleans and the governor were making another one of the many announcements that Alexa had heard earlier during the day. “I have ordered the police to close off inbound traffic to New Orleans. As of four o’clock, all lanes of state roads are designated as outbound lanes only. We are opening the Superdome as an emergency shelter for residents who cannot leave the city. I have directed that city transit buses will carry residents to the shelter. Residents are directed to immediately evacuate Orleans, Jefferson, and St. Bernard parishes, in an orderly manner. Again, I want to stress that this is a mandatory evacuation and all residents in the affected areas must leave or they will be forcibly removed from their property by law enforcement officers.”

Alexa switched off the radio. She could use her identification to go where she needed to. Grace Smythe kept invading her thoughts as she drove to meet Manseur in his office. She would have sent the supposed West letter to the FBI labs, but she didn’t want to lose the time it would take to courier a package to D.C. on the next flight out. She gave it to Manseur when she walked in, along with the envelopes containing her Glock magazines and some articles of Gary West’s Casey had given to Alexa for collection.

“Tell your lab to hurry it up. We need to check for prints on the West letter. They’ll probably find Casey West’s, William LePointe’s, and Kenneth Decell’s. I seriously doubt you’ll find Gary West’s on either his envelope or the letter.”

“What about the letter carrier? Whoever picks up the mail and gives it to LePointe?”

“The envelope has a crack-and-peel stamp and a peel-and-stick flap, so forget DNA. And to answer your question, there’s no mailman, because there’s no cancellation mark.”

“So whoever came up with this brilliant subterfuge didn’t actually bother to mail it.”

Alexa nodded. “Decell maybe, on LePointe’s behalf. He told me Kenneth Decell had read it.”

“Not Decell’s work,” Manseur disagreed. “He was too good a detective. He would have either mailed it or had LePointe say the letter was delivered to the gate by courier. I suspect LePointe just showed it to Decell, who didn’t bother to look at the envelope, or doubted anyone would ask LePointe for the letter.”

“Know what I think?” Alexa asked.

“No man ever knows what a woman is thinking.”

Alexa smiled. “This letter was supposed to be misdirection, which opens an interesting avenue.”

“I’m listening,” Manseur said.

“I’m wondering if he knew that by the time anyone started snooping, it wouldn’t matter.”

“Because the hurricane would destroy evidence?”

“No. Because he knew that Gary West was going to be home before that. The letter might be an impromptu ruse designed just to get Evans to call us off.”

“So we didn’t find out about Sibby?”

“No. What if Gary’s abductor contacted LePointe, and he’s going to pay a ransom to get Gary West back safely? Doesn’t want us in the way. How he accomplishes getting Gary back-whatever deception or ruse he employs-becomes irrelevant then because everybody’s happy and Gary’s back and nobody is going to look too closely at anything else. So Sibby stays hidden, which has been undone, but he wouldn’t have known that would happen at the time he was pulling the plan together.”

“Makes sense,” Manseur said.

“Although I can’t prove it yet, Sibby’s vanishing act from the hospital, Gary’s abduction, and the Fugate murder are directly related,” Alexa said. “The tipping of the press at this moment is too coincidental. The same people are behind the grab and tipping the press to Sibby’s exit from River Run. I have a feeling that they knew about Sibby before they grabbed Gary, and they may have killed Fugate and framed Sibby. Maybe she didn’t leave earlier because she hadn’t done anything-didn’t know Dorothy was in the basement.”

“That’s a stretch. I mean, it might be true, but there’s nothing to support it but your hunch. And the press might have been snooping on their own.”

Alexa nodded. “LePointe and Fugate were much more than coworkers. It’s just my gut talking, but I think that not only did LePointe know Sibby was at Fugate’s, but he knew Fugate was dead, and was only surprised that I brought it up. I’d bet his and Fugate’s phone records will tie him to her.”

“He’ll have plausible denial. You may well be right about the ransom,” Manseur said. “It would explain one thing.”

“What?”

“Why Kenneth Decell arrived at his office two hours ago, picked up a briefcase, and then went to a bank. He left the bank twenty minutes ago carrying said valise and proceeded directly to Dr. LePointe’s house, arriving there twenty minutes after you and Casey West left.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because my old partner Larry Bond staked out Decell’s office.”

“Your partner’s working on this case?” Alexa asked.