Cindi Myers - Cold Conspiracy

Susan Whitmore was a trim woman with very short platinum hair and piercing blue eyes. “Tom filled me in on the phone,” she said after introductions were made. “Just tell me what you need, Sheriff, and I’ll do my best to help.”

“Michaela Underwood made a date to go snowshoeing this morning with a man she told her sister she met here at the bank Thursday,” Travis explained. “He returned Friday and asked her out. We need to find this guy and talk to him. All we have is a first name—Al. If we can spot him talking to her on your security footage, we’re hoping that will help us locate him.”

“If you find him, we can look at the time stamp on the image and I can link him to a particular transaction,” Tom said. “That should give you a name if he was cashing a check or making a deposit, or a payment on an account with us.”

“Do you have a particular time you want to look at?” Susan asked. “Or the whole day?”

“Let’s start with twelve thirty to three,” Travis said. “When Michaela was the only teller working.”

“All right.” Susan inputted information into a computer and pulled up a black-and-white image showing four screens—ATM, front door, back door and a wider shot that took in most of the lobby. She clicked on the lobby view and enlarged it. “We’ll start here, since this gives us a good view of Michaela. I’ll scroll forward and stop on any male customers.”

Jamie and Travis leaned in as Susan began to forward the film. Michaela waited on an older couple, a young woman with a child and two middle-aged women. Then a single man approached the counter. “Stop,” Travis ordered.

Susan stilled the film. Jamie studied the image of a slender man, maybe six feet tall or just under. He wore a dark knit hat pulled down on his head, the collar of his dark coat turned up.

“Can you zoom in?” Travis asked.

Susan enlarged the image until it began to blur. Travis furrowed his brow. “Is there another camera, focused on the teller, which would give us a view of his face?” he asked.

“No,” Susan said.

Travis sighed and stepped back. “The way he’s standing, we can’t tell anything about his face. We can’t even tell whether his hair is light or dark.”

“Do you think that’s deliberate?” Jamie asked.

“Maybe,” Travis said. “If he is the killer, he wouldn’t want to be seen on video. The hat and coat do a good job of obscuring his face. He’s wearing jeans and hiking boots.”

“Maybe the brand of the boots will tell us something,” Jamie said.

“We’ll try,” Travis said. He nodded to Susan. “Advance the tape again. Let’s see what he does.”

They had a clear view of Michaela, smiling and at one point even laughing, as the man stood in front of her. Then he left. But instead of turning to face the camera, he took a few steps back, still talking to Michaela. When he was almost out of reach of the camera, he whirled, head down, and hurried out of the frame.

“I’m willing to bet he knew about the security camera and didn’t want to be seen,” Travis said. “Let’s see the footage for Friday.”

But the footage from Friday yielded no sign of the man. They spent almost an hour running through everything and saw no images of him. “Maybe she met him outside the bank,” Jamie said. “On her lunch break or something.”

“Maybe,” Travis said. “It would be easy enough for him to wait for her in the parking lot or on the sidewalk and stop her before she went into the bank.” He turned to Tom. “Did anything about him look familiar to you—like someone who had come into the bank before?”

Tom shook his head. “I’m sorry, no.”

“What about the name Al? Does that make you think of anyone in particular?”

“I know an Allen and an Alvin, but both of them are in their fifties or sixties. And that wasn’t them we saw on the video just now.”

“I’m going to need all your security footage from the past week, including what we looked at today. It’s possible this guy came in earlier, checking things out.”

“Of course. Susan will get it for you.”

“Can you tell us what kind of transaction he was making here Thursday?” Travis asked. “The time stamp on the security footage showed he walked up to the teller window at two sixteen.”

Tom walked to a computer farther down the counter and began typing. A few moments later, he groaned. “Looks like it was a cash transaction.”

“Such as?” Jamie asked.

“Breaking a large bill or cashing in rolled coins,” Tom said.

“Here are the security discs for the time period you wanted.” Susan handed Travis an envelope. Travis wrote out a receipt for her, then he and Jamie left.

“I got chills when Tom said it was a cash transaction,” Jamie said when they were in Travis’s cruiser. “Al had to know we couldn’t trace that.”

“Or maybe he was using the transaction as an excuse to hit on the cute teller,” Travis said. He rubbed his hands along the steering wheel. “Not that I really believe that. I think we’re on to something.”

“This might be the killer.” A shiver ran through Jamie as she said the words.

“Maybe.” He shifted the cruiser into gear and began backing out of the parking spot. “In any case, this feels like the closest we’ve gotten.”

NATE AND GAGE returned to the sheriff’s department and waylaid Travis and Jamie as soon as they returned. “We got something from Abel Crutchfield that might be useful,” Gage said as they followed Travis into his office. Jamie hung back, then followed, too, squeezing in to stand next to Nate. The soft, herbal scent of her hair made his heart race with a sudden memory of the two of them making out in the old Ford pickup he had driven at the time. Hastily, he shoved the memory away and focused on the conversation between the sheriff and his brother.

“Abel says he saw a woman—tall, thin, blonde—walking along Forest Service Road 1410 this morning,” Gage said. “She was alone, no car around. He said he didn’t get a real good look at her, because she had her head bent, talking on her phone.”

“Except there isn’t a phone signal out there,” Nate said. “For any carrier.”

“That does seem suspicious,” Travis said.

Beside Nate, Jamie shifted. “Maybe it isn’t really suspicious,” she said.

She flushed when all three men turned to look at her but continued, her voice even. “Maybe she was nervous, being out there alone. She heard the guy’s truck and pulled out her phone and pretended to be talking to someone so whoever was driving past would get the idea she could summon help if she needed to.”

“Do women really do things like that?” Nate asked and wished he could take the words back as soon as he said them.

“Yeah, they do,” she said, the expression in her eyes making him feel about three feet tall. “Because you know—men.”

None of them had a good response to this. The silence stretched. Finally, Travis said, “Let’s see if we can find anyone else who saw this woman. I also have a list of bank employees. Let’s talk to them and see if any of them remember ‘Al.’ Jamie, I want you to help with that. Most of the employees are young women—they might be more willing to open up to you.” He clicked a few keys on his laptop. “I just forwarded the list to you.”

“I’ll get right on it,” she said, then slipped out the door.

“I’ll see if I can find any campers or snowshoers or skiers or fishermen who might have seen a woman who fits the description Abel gave us,” Nate said.

“Let’s not drop the ball on his,” Travis said.