The account had been opened on the sixth of July, the day after Tracy left the house on Heron Lagoon. The opening deposit had been $10,000. By the thirteenth of August, when the bank mailed its first statement to her, Tracy had written checks totaling $8,202.48, leaving a balance of $1,797.52 before another deposit was made — this time for $25,000, on August 6. Another statement was mailed on September 10. It showed that Tracy had written checks totaling $23,407.12, reducing the balance to $3,390.40 before another deposit of $15,000 was made on September 4. The last bank statement showing any activity in the account was mailed on October 15. It revealed that by that date, Tracy had reduced the balance to a mere $800.14. There were no further deposits after the one on September 4, which was the Tuesday following the Labor Day weekend holiday. In short, a total of $50,000 had been deposited in the account between July 6 and September 4 — and $49,199.86 of that had been spent by the twenty-fifth of September, when Tracy wrote her last check.
It seemed impossible that anyone living in Calusa — where mass transit was almost nonexistent — could have survived without an automobile. Motor Vehicles had reported that Tracy Kilbourne was a licensed driver in the state, but that they had no record of an automobile registered to her name. On the off chance that Motor Vehicles had been wrong, they searched through the checks to see if any large sum of money had been paid to an automobile dealer. They found nothing. Tracy’s biggest expenditures seemed to have been for clothing and jewelry, but in August she had written a check to American Express for $3,721.42. The memo line in the lower left-hand corner of the check was filled in with the words “L.A. trip” in the same handwriting as her signature in the lower right-hand corner. Had she gone out there looking for movie work? Wearing the new clothes she’d bought at Calusa’s fanciest boutiques? Sporting the jewelry she’d purchased in Calusa’s most expensive shops? They would have to call American Express for a detailed breakdown of her charges. In the meantime, they were extremely curious about those three deposits totaling $50,000. Nothing in the bank material indicated the nature of those deposits.
Bloom called the bank again, avoiding Mrs. O’Hare this time around. The manager he spoke to was a soft-spoken southern woman named Mary Jean Kenworthy. That was how she announced herself when she came onto the line.
“Mary Jean Kenworthy.”
“Morris Nathan Bloom,” Bloom said. “Calusa Police Department. we’re investigating a homicide here—”
“Oh my,” Mary Jean said.
“Yes, Ma’am, and we’ve been looking over the victim’s bank records — Tracy Kilbourne — and I was wondering if you could give me some further information. What I need to know, Ma’am—”
“It’s ‘miss,’ ” Mary Jean said.
“Sorry, Ma’am... miss,” Bloom said. “We have listings here for three substantial deposits on July sixth, August sixth, and September fourth. I was wondering if you can tell me how those deposits were made?”
“How?”
“Check, cash, money order, whatever. If they were made by check, I’d like to know the name of the person or firm writing the checks.”
“The depositor’s name again, please?”
“Tracy Kilbourne. That’s K-I–L-B-O-U-R-N-E.”
“Can you hold just a moment, sir?”
“Yes, surely.”
Mary Jean Kenworthy came back on the line some five minutes later.
“Mr. Bloom?” she said.
“Yes, Miss Kenworthy, I’m here.”
“We have a July sixth deposit for ten thousand dollars—”
“That’s right.”
“An August sixth deposit for twenty-five thousand dollars—”
“Yes.”
“And a September fourth deposit for fifteen thousand dollars.”
“That jibes with what I have. How—”
“All those deposits were made in cash, Mr. Bloom.”
“Cash?” Bloom said.
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s a lot of cash,” Bloom said.
“Oh my, yes,” Mary Jean Kenworthy said. “You know, do you, that there hasn’t been any activity in the account since the twenty-fifth of September last year?”
“Yes, we do,” Bloom said.
“It’s just that... the account requires a minimum balance of a thousand dollars. If it falls below that, we begin deducting maintenance charges of three dollars a month. we’ve been doing that, and... well... there was something a bit over eight hundred dollars in the account last September, and it’s now down to seven hundred seventy-nine dollars and fourteen cents. If Miss Kilbourne left any survivors, it might be wise for the estate to close out the account.”
“We haven’t been able to locate her mother yet,” Bloom said.
“Well, if you should...”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Bloom said, and hesitated. “Cash, you said, huh?”
“Cash, yes,” she said.
10
I felt like a teenager that Saturday afternoon.
When I was growing up in Chicago, the car of my dreams was a red Pontiac convertible. I imagined myself driving all over Illinois and Indiana with the top down on my red Pontiac convertible. I imagined willowy blondes turning their heads to look at me as I breezed by in my red Pontiac convertible, my hair streaming in the wind, a wide grin on my acne-ridden face. Instead, I drove my father’s Oldsmobile whenever he let me, and my pubescent conquests — few and far between — were limited to the back seat of that steamy green monster.
Today I wanted to be driving a red Pontiac convertible.
I wanted to zip out over the roads to Knott’s Retreat and leap out of the car without opening any of the doors, and run across the sparkling green lawn to where Sarah Whittaker, willowy and blonde, waited for her windblown White Knight. My Karmann Ghia was not a convertible, but I drove with all the windows opened wide to a day as fresh and as bright as Sarah’s green eyes and golden hair and radiant smile.
I was going to tell her that everything would be all right again. The bad guys would be thwarted, my fair Snow White would be released from the tyranny of the Seven Dwarfs who kept her captive against her will. Dr. Cyclops, Dr. Schlockmeister, the Prime Minister of Justification, the Black Knight, the Harlot Witch, Brunhilde, Ilse — all of them — would be forced to release their grip upon her and watch helplessly as she marched out into the free, sane world again.
She was wearing white.
She came running across the lawn with her arms widespread, skirts billowing, white peasant blouse slipping off one delicately rounded shoulder, long legs flashing in the sunlight, white sandals seeming to fly airborne over the dewy grass. It seemed for a moment that we would fall into each other’s arms like lovers too long parted, embrace fiercely, rain kisses upon cheeks and eyes and lips — but Jake was not far off, watching.
She took my hand.
“Oh, Matthew,” she said, “you’ll never know what joy you bring!”
“You look lovely,” I said.
“I’ve been sitting in the sun,” she said.
She was still holding my hand.