"One of the ones under the sink," Holly said. "Go find the master bathroom and check that."
Tommy left the room, and Holly and Hurd walked into the living room. The place was broom clean and, except for some abandoned things-an ashtray, some bad art on the walls-was empty.
Tommy returned. "No luck; been wiped down."
"Try the front doorknob," Hurd suggested. "That would have been the last thing they touched."
Tommy checked and came back, shaking his head. "Clean."
"Dust some surfaces," Holly said. "Try the doorknobs and the mantel."
"This looks like our inside guy," Hurd said.
"It does," Holly agreed. "I wonder if he's in cahoots with the Harston woman, or if we were just barking up the wrong tree."
"I don't suppose there was some legitimate reason for them to move in a hurry?" Hurd said.
"Let me fill you in," Holly replied. "Morris, if that's his name, was hired on the strength of a recommendation from the president of a nonexistent bank in Miami. He moved up here, bringing a wife and a small child with him, and he stayed until the bank was robbed, then he disappeared without a word to anybody sometime between Friday afternoon, when he left work, and this morning. Probably on Saturday night, since he didn't show up for church. I wonder how much furniture they had."
"That's a thought," Hurd said. "I'll check the truck rental places in town." His cell phone rang. "Hurd Wallace," he said, then he listened. "Thanks." He hung up.
"What?"
"The fingerprints on the card in Morris's personnel file belonged to a security guard at the bank."
Holly laughed ruefully. "Morris is smart. He must have gotten the guard to give him a demonstration of fingerprinting, then filched the card. Anything on the desk prints?"
"The secretary and Morris's boss. Apparently both left this morning."
"So Morris cleaned up after himself there, too."
"Looks that way."
Tommy came back again, looking frustrated. "Zip," he said. "Absolutely zero."
"Try the lawn furniture in the backyard," Holly said. "Oops, my prints will be on the one I sat in, but only on the armrests."
Tommy disappeared again.
Hurd called the station and ordered the detectives to start phoning truck rental places. "He had to move his stuff somehow," he said.
"Let's go talk to the neighbors," Holly said. They walked out the front door. "You go left, I'll go right."
Holly rang the first bell and got a young mother with a baby on her hip. "Good morning," she said. "I wonder if you saw the folks next door over the weekend?"
"No, we were at my parents' house in Orlando this weekend. Is everything all right over there?"
"Apparently, they've left town," Holly said.
"Really? I played bridge with her on Thursday afternoon, and she didn't say a word."
"Do you know what kind of car they drove?"
"He had one of those convertibles-Chrysler, I think-and she had a van. I'm afraid all vans look alike to me. I hate them."
"Colors?"
"The convertible was white, and the van was a kind of wine color."
"Have you been inside the Morrises' house?" Holly asked.
"A couple of times. They didn't have a lot of furniture yet, so she didn't really have people over."
"How much furniture did she have?"
"They had a sofa and a recliner in the living room, and a pretty big TV, and I guess they had a bed. She said they were saving up to buy more; that the bank frowned on its people carrying too much credit card debt."
"Thanks," Holly said, handing her a card. "If you should hear from them, would you give us a call?"
"Sure."
Holly walked on, talking to the neighbors. Finally, at the house directly across the street, she got lucky. The owner, a man in his late seventies or early eighties, remembered something.
"I fell asleep in front of the TV on Saturday night," he said, "and I woke up in the middle of the night. I do that a lot, since my wife died. I got up to turn off the lights, and I happened to look out the window, and I saw two cars and a trailer pull away from the Morris house."
"What kind of cars?"
"Their cars, a convertible and a van."
"And the trailer?"
"It didn't have any markings, like those U-Haul things. Looked like a horse trailer to me. Wooden sides."
She thanked the man, then returned and reported to Hurd.
"You got more than I did," he said.
"When you get back, put out a report on the two cars and the trailer. I guess the van would have been pulling the trailer."
"If they left Saturday night, they could be well out of the state by now."
"Yes, they could. Alert the state patrol in Georgia, Alabama and the Carolinas."
"You know," Hurd said, "I don't think I've ever run into one like this."
"That's what Harry Crisp said," Holly replied.
20
Holly went back to the station and found another message from Joy Williams at Southern Trust. She returned the call.
"It's Holly Barker, Joy."
"Oh, thank you for calling me back. Something else came up that I thought you ought to know about."
"What's that?"
"Late Friday afternoon, just before closing, Franklin Morris cashed a check for $3,000 at a teller's cage. His whole balance was $4,248.22. Management here has started an investigation of all of Franklin's transactions at the bank, too, but we don't really expect to find anything much. Franklin's approval limit for a loan was only $25,000, without an approval from a senior bank officer."
Holly thought for a moment. "Did he have to have somebody's signature to cash a $3,000 check?"
"Not really, since he was a bank employee. The teller would have checked the computer for his balance, of course, but if he had the money in the account, she would have given it to him without question."
"I see. Which teller did he go to?"
"He went to Mrs. Harston's window."
"I see."
"But hers was the only window open at that hour. All the others would have been checking out for the day, and her window was kept open for last-minute customers. The tellers take turns being the last to close, because it means the last teller will have to stay another fifteen minutes or so."
"Thank you, Joy. Is there anything else?"
"Did you go out to the house?"
"Yes, and you were right. They've left the place."
"Are you going to arrest Franklin?"
"We've put out a bulletin to various state police organizations, because we'd like to question Franklin. Even if he didn't have anything to do with the robbery, we'd want him for fraudulently obtaining employment with your bank."
"You're going to arrest him, then?"
"I haven't requested a warrant yet, but I will."
"Thank you, Chief."
Holly hung up and called Harry Crisp.
"Hey, there, I was just about to call you."
"What's up?" she asked.
"I checked out the three names from Lake Winachobee, and came up with nothing-no arrest records, no outstanding warrants."
"That's what you'd get if they were assumed names, isn't it?"
"Exactly. What I'd like is some fingerprints."
"I'm not sure how we'd get those," Holly said.
"I wouldn't try right now. Just keep it in mind. Now, why were you calling me?"
"Remember Franklin Morris?"
"The loan officer? Sure."
"He bailed over the weekend."
"Quit his job?"
"Quit the town. He and his wife are gone, their house is empty, and he took most of the money out of his bank account on Friday afternoon. A neighbor says he and the wife pulled out in a van, a convertible and a horse trailer in the wee hours of Sunday morning."
"Uh-oh."
"Also, we've learned that he got his job with a fraudulent recommendation from a nonexistent Miami bank."
"I'll get a warrant. This is a federal matter."
"Okay. I've already put out an APB in five states for the cars, but we have no plate numbers."
"I'll check the car registrations and get the numbers."