“Unexpected my ass,” Art shot back. “I should chase his butt up to Boston and nail him on his home turf.”
“That wouldn’t do any good, partner. Neither is this.”
It wasn’t what Art wanted to hear, which, considering that it came from a person he trusted his life with, probably meant he needed to hear it. That bit of self-realization allowed him to switch from a boil to a simmer. “I hate this political bullshit. You know that.”
“I do, too.”
Art looked around, oblivious to the glances he and his partner were rating from pedestrians as they passed. The Capitol was directly across Independence, and a turn of his head to the left set his eyes upon the alabaster obelisk a mile away. The Washington Monument. A tribute to the man who could not tell a lie. Well, that virtue had obviously gotten lost in the D.C. shuffle, especially where the Honorable Richard Vorhees was concerned.
“Do you think he’s trying to hide something?” Frankie asked, the afternoon traffic sweeping by to her rear.
“Hide?” Art looked slightly away. “Avoid, partner. He’s putting us off, leaving that statement for us. Generous, isn’t he? Yet he couldn’t have one of his flunkies give us a call. It’s a game of importance. He’s important in this town, we’re not, therefore the rules of courtesy and forthrightness don’t apply to him like they would to anyone else. Like they would to us.”
“At least Crippen was cooperative,” Frankie said.
“Royce should have used him instead of Limp Dick,” Art commented.
“It would have made more sense,” Frankie said. “Crippen’s the one on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. That’s closer to what Royce needed done than House Armed Services.”
“Senator Crippen is a lifer, partner,” Art observed. “He knows when not to get involved in something.”
“The funny thing about Vorhees is,” Frankie began, “his statement answers just about all the questions we had for him.”
“Of course it does. It’s probably the God’s honest truth, too. Vorhees is smart, partner. He’s not going to let us say he was being evasive. Plus, what was he doing here? Doing a favor — questionable, maybe — for a contributor?”
“Don’t forget keeping the country safe,” Frankie added.
“Right,” Art agreed sarcastically. He blew out a long breath. “Back to work, partner.” That simple statement had a five-hour commute attached to it, he knew. The good thing was that they’d be out of this town.
“Amazing,” Frankie said, looking across Independence to the Capitol. “I’ve been here before, seen that before, but it looks bigger every time.”
“Remember the egos it has to hold,” Art commented, recognizing the mean streak rearing its head once again. Something had to be done about that.
“You’re getting as cynical as me,” Frankie observed with a devious grin. “I’d better get you back to Anne for some attitude adjustment.”
Art lowered his head, smiling broadly. “My plans exactly.”
“How’m I doing?” Darren Griggs asked, no tears at all having come this session.
“Darren, I’m not the one to judge that,” Anne answered. It was never the response a patient wanted. Things would have been easier, they invariably believed, if the doctor could just listen to them, bless them as well, and send them on their way. But it didn’t work like that.
“Yeah. I know.” Darren smiled meekly, mildly ashamed of himself for the attempt at praise seeking. “I am feeling better.”
“Good. That’s what counts.”
“Felicia is doing better, too,” Darren said proudly.
“Have you convinced her to come with you?”
“Well, actually, we were talking about that last night. I don’t think she’s ready to, you know, come out yet.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“But, Felicia thought it would be good to have you over for dinner.”
“I’m supposed to be making dinner for you,” Anne reminded him with a chuckle.
“I know, but it would be good for her. And…”
Anne knew what Darren wanted to say. “Moises.”
“I’m hoping he’ll come home soon. It would be good for him to see you, too.”
“Maybe,” Anne said. “But if he’s being as rebellious as you say, he may be doing more you don’t know about.”
“I’ve thought the same thing. I’m worried. He’s a good boy, Dr. Preston, but he’s hurt by this.”
“I understand that. But he may need a dose of authority other than yours to prevent him from getting involved in behavior that’s self-destructive. I’m not an authority figure, Darren. But I know someone who is.”
The man in her life, Darren recalled. An FBI agent. “He’s welcome to come.”
“Good. When?”
“Is Monday all right?”
“For me, sure. I’ll have to check with Art,” she added. “But, I have a way with him.”
Darren knew what she meant, having been on the receiving end of a woman’s persuasive abilities for twenty years. “We’ll see you both Monday.”
TEN
Comings and Goings
“You remember him, then?” Hal Lightman said hopefully as the bank teller nodded at the picture of Nikolai Kostin.
“Yes, vaguely.” The young lady, her manager standing next to her for support, looked away from the enlarged driver’s license photo. “I can’t remember much else about him.”
“The register shows that you handled the last cashier’s check that this gentleman came in for,” Omar Espinosa said, trying to jog her memory. “A little more than three weeks ago. Try and think.”
“It was in the morning, Sherry,” the manager said, putting a reassuring hand on her teller’s shoulder.
The teller’s head began to shake slowly as she looked apologetically to the agents. “I’m sorry. All I can remember is the face.”
“Anything about the money?” Lightman asked. “He brought in twelve hundred in cash. Did he say anything about where he got it? A job, maybe? Anything?”
“I’m sorry,” she responded.
Lightman let out a breath. “That’s all right. You did your best.”
“We may need to talk to some of your people at a later time,” Espinosa told the bank manager.
“Anytime.”
The two agents left the Palmdale branch of Suncoast Security Bank, stopping just outside the glass front of the financial institution.
“It was a long shot anyway,” Espinosa said. “What’s she going to remember after three weeks? She sees hundreds of people a day.”
“I know,” Lightman agreed, leaning on the side of the Chevy and scanning the area around the bank. It was a typical strip mall, probably built in the early eighties by the looks of it. Earlier than the big building boom. That was apparent from the absence of any southwestern styling and earth tone stucco on the facade. Just a grouping of stores stretching from both sides of the bank, all the way to the side streets.
Espinosa, too, was surveying the area, which was suffering a mild case of blight. Things weren’t very new compared to other areas of the high desert city. “Why did Kostin come all the way over here to get his checks? There are closer banks to his place.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Lightman answered, the why hitting him with more force as he considered it again. “Maybe he came to this bank as an afterthought.”
Espinosa saw his fellow agent looking to the row of stores more closely now. “He may have been coming here for something else.”
“Right,” Lightman said. “This bank may have just been in a convenient place.”
“Let’s check it out. You start at that end,” Espinosa suggested, pointing to the east end of the strip mall. “I’ll take this side.”