“Yes, the promise that this is a failure of my personality is just super inspiring.”
“We all have our methods. I assume that you will be so devastated in failing me that you will redouble your efforts to find the person who attacked Buster.”
Resisting the urge to roll my eyes, I turned back to Sophie. “Betty says she hasn’t seen Francis Romano in about a dozen years. She says he was a bit of a troublemaker back when they were in school, but she thinks he would’ve been a good teacher.”
“That sucks,” Sophie said. “I seriously wish we knew why the killer thought Gloria, and presumably Michael, had any money. I think that’s the link we’re missing right now. Why would two retired public servants, a group of people known for being underpaid and overworked, have so much money?”
Suddenly, my eyes widened. Everything clicked. It all made sense.
“Hand me my iPad,” I said to Sophie, holding my hand out. She passed it over to me.
“What is it?”
I ignored her as I opened the screen and tapped away. “You know how Jason said the building underneath the school district workers’ building was a bank?”
“Yeah, Oregon People’s Credit Union,” Sophie nodded. “What about it?”
“Remember twelve years ago? What happened there?”
Sophie frowned. “Not really. But twelve years ago, we were in high school.”
“Right. And while you were busy partying every weekend and hooking up with the worst guys, I actually kept up with the news.”
“This story isn’t exactly making you out to be the coolest person ever.”
“Maybe not, but one of us remembers exactly what happened twelve years ago,” I said triumphantly as I opened up a news article from back then and handed the iPad over to Sophie.
“Arrest Made in Biggest Bank Robbery in Oregon History,” she read from the headline before scrolling down and continuing. “The Portland County District Attorney’s Office has released a statement confirming the arrest of Charles Green in the robbery of the Oregon People’s Credit Union two weeks ago. The brazen middle-of-the-night robbery allegedly committed by Mr. Green, a longtime resident of Portland, ended with the Oregon People’s Credit Union vault being robbed of over $5 million worth of cash.”
Sophie looked up at me and raised her eyebrows. “That’s not a small figure.”
“That’s for sure,” I nodded.
“What does that have to do with Michael Carlton, though? I mean, yeah, he worked above where that robbery took place, but presumably so did hundreds of other people. And how would Gloria’s husband have been involved?”
“If you keep reading, it says the police suspect Charles Green wasn’t working alone, but that he won’t tell police who his accomplices were.”
“Did Michael Carlton know Charles Green?”
“I think he did. And I think we do, too.”
Sophie’s eyes widened as she realized what I was talking about. “Chuck, the guy from the coffee shop who said he had moved away from Portland for a while.”
“Exactly. Who came back to town right when Charles Green was released from prison.”
“So he didn’t meet Michael Carlton while playing golf.”
“No, he didn’t. Thinking about it, there wasn’t anything in Michael Carlton’s house that indicated he played any sports at all. There certainly wasn’t any golf gear there.”
“Agreed,” Sophie said. “So Michael Carlton was Charles Green’s partner in crime.”
“And Francis Romano,” I added. “The three of them must have gotten together and committed the crime somehow.”
“We need to tell Chief Gary,” Sophie said, and I nodded in agreement.
“Absolutely.”
“I thought I told you girls to stay out of this,” Chief Gary said grumpily, obviously not happy to have been called into the station at eight p.m. on a Wednesday.
“I know, and we sort of did. We haven’t gone to see the guy himself,” Sophie said. “Besides, Gloria asked us to look into it. We couldn’t say no to her, not after everything she had gone through.”
“That’s no reason to get involved in yet another police investigation,” Chief Gary said, raising an eyebrow.
“Fine, well, we can always keep this information to ourselves and confront the suspect on our own,” Sophie said, crossing her arms. I hid a smile; I would have definitely not been nearly so aggressive with the Chief of Police in town. Sophie was acting like she’d forgotten this guy could throw her in jail for a while if he wanted to.
However, he obviously didn’t want to. Chief Gary sighed. “Fine. What do you know?”
Sophie and I explained everything we had figured out, and when we finished, he leaned back into his chair and sighed.
“You know, this isn’t nearly enough to go on.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Your reasoning might be sound, but there’s absolutely no proof. I need probable cause before I can get a warrant to search Charles Green’s home.”
My heart sunk in my chest. “So this is all for nothing?”
“Not at all,” Chief Gary replied. “You’ve certainly given those of us investigating these two incidents a lot to think about. And if you are right about all of this, well, it gives us an edge, because we know what to look for.”
“But you can’t do anything now,” Sophie finished.
“No,” Chief Gary said, shaking his head. “There’s just not enough hard evidence that Charles Green had anything to do with these murders yet. But thank you for bringing him to my attention.”
Sophie and I left a few minutes after, and I couldn’t help but feel a bit dejected at that reception.
“You know this means we have to go back and see Chuck tomorrow,” Sophie said as I drove her back home.
“I was worried you were going to say that,” I said with a small smile.
Chapter 17
The following day I told Karen to move all of my morning appointments to the afternoon if possible, and luckily all of my clients were more than accommodating. That gave Sophie and me the opportunity to drive back to Two Sweets Bakery in Portland in the hopes of coming across Chuck.
“Invisibility spell again?” Sophie asked when we were in the car. I nodded. It was definitely going to be the most handy of all the spells I knew when it came to following someone.
This time, we parked in front of the bakery and waited for Chuck to come by.
“Can’t we go in and get a slice of bourbon pecan pie?” Sophie complained. “I mean, it’s not like he suspects us or anything.”
“We told him we don’t live here, we were looking into a friend of his that we think he committed a bank robbery with, and now we show up out of the blue with no real reason to be here? No, if he sees us again he’s going to think it’s suspicious, and he might run off before we have a chance to see him. Is a slice of pie really worth the risk?”
Sophie muttered something under her breath that I was pretty sure was along the lines of well, I hadn’t tasted that particular pie, so I didn’t know what I was missing out on. I ignored her and looked at the inviting interior, even as the inside of the car got colder and colder.
“Fine,” I said eventually, with a dramatic sigh. “Let’s go in and get some pie. But we have to sit as far away from the door as possible, and we have to be subtle about it.”
“I thought you’d never come to your senses,” Sophie said, practically diving out of the car and making her way towards the shop’s entrance.
I, on the other hand, looked around carefully before I crossed the street to make sure I couldn’t see Chuck coming from anywhere. It was still a little bit earlier than the girl told us he usually arrived, so I figured the odds were pretty good he wasn’t going to be here straightaway, but still. I didn’t want to scare him off and lose our one chance of finding the person who might have been responsible for the attack on Gloria and for killing Michael Carlton.