Max sighed. Arguing with Ryan was as bad as arguing with Charlie. Except that Ryan didn’t give him the hug-and-kiss routine that his redheaded wife would, to soften him up. He got up, frowning. “No more arguments, we’ll talk about it later.”
“Wilma’s coming to dinner,” she said, waiting for the next round, letting him think about it. “And the Greenlaws. Potluck. Charlie said she’d drop by from the gallery if they finish early enough. What about you?”
“Not tonight. I think I’ll head back to the hospital. At least she speaks English, Dallas found out that much—as garbled as it was with her wired jaw and her bruised throat.”
This grisly attempted burial would hold Max and the detectives twenty-four/seven until they nailed the near-murderer; the chief had no notion that the case pulled at Joe Grey in the same intense manner. Max thanked Ryan for the sandwich, gave her an unexpected kiss on the forehead, and left them, swinging out the front door and into his squad car. Joe watched him from the living room window as he cruised slowly by the Luther house, giving the place another look-over.
What so interested him about their bickering neighbors? Well, domestic cases could turn into big trouble, could explode in a flash. A good cop was always watchful; such conflict, even from a distance, always put an officer on alert.
Joe Grey dug his claws into the back of the couch, wondering if Max knew something that he didn’t. Was there a connection between the Luthers and some other crime? The library prowler? The beaten woman?
Maybe he’d hit the station later, stretch out on Harper’s bookcase, try to put the pieces together.
4
It was over three weeks after Nevin and Thelma and Mindy moved out and left him that Zeb found the letter. He found it on a Friday, the day Mindy had always started begging about going to the library for Saturday. He wondered if Thelma was taking her to story hour since they’d moved away from the ranch and into the village, with the library and shops right there close. Thelma always grumbled about story hour, she didn’t like sitting around listening to what she called “kiddies’ books.” The librarian, Ms. Getz, said you had to grow up, grow truly mature in the way you looked at life, before you began to enjoy reading again the best children’s stories.
Well, this Friday he’d gone out to the road to get the mail and the paper, all junk mail usually that he’d throw in the trash. Except his bank statement was in there and he tossed it on the table. Varney had had his mail forwarded to a post office box when he left six months ago. Nevin and Thelma did the same just a few days before they moved out.
Before they left, Zeb had hardly ever brought in the mail. Mindy did it, or Nevin. Zeb didn’t get much mail himself, only an occasional postcard from a cousin or some old friend or one of Nell’s friends; and their statement. Just to be sure he hadn’t missed anything, he shuffled methodically through the junk ads, tossed them in the trash, and turned to pick up the bank statement.
But this wasn’t his statement. It was Nevin’s. And not Nevin and Thelma’s regular account. Just Nevin Luther, alone. And it wasn’t from their bank, either, the one in the village. This was from the Bank of Walnut Creek, way up the coast.
Nevin had never had an account in that bank. Why would he? Why drive way up there? Zeb had never seen a statement marked like this. He sat down at the kitchen table with the envelope before him, deciding if he should open it or direct it on, mark it “wrong address”? It wasn’t his business.
He made himself a cup of coffee. Waiting while it brewed, he sat staring at the bank logo and at Nevin’s neatly typed name, with this address. Maybe the bank had made a mistake when they were sorting out changes of address on the computer.
Pouring his coffee, sitting down again, he ripped open the envelope before he had time to think about it, wasn’t even careful how he tore it. Pulled out the statement and stared at the front page where it gave the monthly total, which made him gag on his coffee.
Total assets: $1,271,899.10. One million? He read it again.
Total liabilities: $0.00.
Qualifying balance: $1,271,899.10. One million, two hundred and seventy-one thousand, eight hundred and ninety-nine dollars, and ten cents.
Zeb sat for a long time. He checked the amounts and dates of the individual deposits. None were too large, but many were just a few days apart. Took a lot of gas to drive up there that often. Would Nevin have done the banking by mail? That wasn’t like him, he didn’t trust the mail. He refilled his coffee cup and made a ham sandwich. Went out to the shed, picked up the two dozen newspapers stacked neatly on top of an empty crate, papers he kept for blocking the doors during a flooding rain and for sopping up water when he defrosted the freezer. The discarded papers were pretty much in order.
It took him the rest of the afternoon to find and tear out the pages with articles about the recent increase in bank-withdrawal thefts. And all the time thinking about where Nevin would have put the rest of the statements.
If Varney or Thelma knew nothing about this, Nevin might have figured it was safer to leave them here. He began to search the house, Nevin and Thelma’s room first, closet, between the mattress and the springs, the dresser. He found them wrapped in a woolen sweater that Thelma had told Nevin to keep in a zippered plastic bag because of moths. A thin stack of statements with a rubber band around them, folded inside the gray sweater. The same bank, the top one dated the month before the current one, which he slipped in with the others.
Zeb woke real early Saturday morning. He fed and watered the horses, made one phone call, one of the few real friends he had left in the world. He and Robert Blake had ridden broncs together when they were young. Young and strong—and rode the bulls, too, crazy kids. He left the ranch in the old truck, the only transportation he had.
He swung through the village; he was there at eight when the UPS store opened. He made copies of all the statements, at a machine where he was somewhat shielded from the view of prying eyes. He didn’t copy the clippings. He put the copies in a brown envelope and shoved that under the floor mat on the driver’s side. He returned to the house, put the original statements back the way he’d found them, with the new one, folded into the sweater. He was in Santa Cruz by mid-morning, turning in at his friend’s used-car lot.
Robert had pulled one of his cars up to the front of the lot, ones he hadn’t done much cosmetics on yet though he’d maybe fixed up the engines, replaced a few tires. This one was just what he wanted, eighteen-year-old Ford coupe, blue paint so faded it was almost gray. It had nearly new tires, though, and Rob had washed it and polished it as best he could. They hitched the car behind the truck with a car dolly, so Zeb could haul it safely home. They had a beer, shot the bull for a few minutes. Zeb paid for the car with his credit card, which he had used for Nell’s medical bills. He was home again around one, he had plenty of time. Passing the Harpers’ ranch he noted Charlie’s SUV parked by the house, the light in her studio reflecting against the hay barn.