Bannon Brothers (17 page)
Authors: Janet Dailey
“Excellent.” There was a pause. “Did I understand you right? You actually received the fee?”
“Yes. The envelope, please.” She set the cell phone inside her purse and found an already torn envelope to rip so he would hear it. Then she put the phone to her ear and spoke to him again. “Holy cow! I'm looking at a cashier's check for fifteen thousand dollars!”
“Really?” His voice was incredulous.
Erin burst out laughing. “No. That was just a sound effect. Actually, I already deposited the check. Why wait, right?”
He joined in the laughter. “Spoken like a starving artist. Good for you, Erin. I'm glad it all went well.”
“Me too.”
She heard a doorbell ring on his side of the call.
“That's Doris,” Bannon told her. “A colleague from the station. Nice lady, you'll like her. And now for the sound effects of me walking to the door. . . .” She heard the knocking this time and then his footsteps, very faint, and the sound of a door opening. “Don't break it down, Doris. I'm talking to someone.”
Erin frowned a little.
The other woman wanted to know who.
“The artist who did that little painting of a horse I bought for you,” Bannon said. “Erin Randall.”
“Oh! The pretty one? She must be the reason you've been so damn busy all of a sudden,” Doris said cheerfully.
Erin smiled.
“Uh, yeahâ”
“Hi, Erin!” Doris yelled into the phone, over the rest of Bannon's answer. “I love the painting!”
Bannon laughed and then moved away from his visitor, by Erin's guess.
“You see what I have to put up with,” he told her.
“She does sound nice,” Erin said.
“We're going to go over some new stuff relating to the case. So that's what I'm doing today.”
“Okay. I'll be drawing horses.”
“Looking forward to seeing the sketches,” he said.
Erin groaned. “The first ones are always terrible. It's like the first pancakes. You throw them away.”
“Don't,” Bannon chided her. “You never know. You could sell those to Montgomery too.”
“You're funny.”
“Glad you think so.” He hesitated but not for long. “When can I see you again?”
“Let's talk tonight.”
“Okay, butâ”
She heard Doris scoff at him for sounding like a lovesick teenager and said a laughing good-bye.
CHAPTER 9
B
annon snapped his cell phone shut and turned to his visitor. “So what's all this?”
annon snapped his cell phone shut and turned to his visitor. “So what's all this?”
Doris had opened the flap of an over-the-shoulder bag to show him a jumble of files. “Tons of stuff.”
“From the storage warehouse? That could get back to Hoebel.”
She shook her head. “I'm not making that long drive again. I got all this from the evidence locker. His son-in-law has a habit of leaving the key around and taking long lunches.”
“Lucky for us that Petey Hayes is totally incompetent.”
“The chief doesn't think so.”
Bannon shrugged. “What else is new at the station?”
“Too many cases, not enough officers. Hoebel works off the tension by hitting on Jolene.”
“Really?” Bannon said. “He's married, right?”
“Not happily. I can't blame Mrs. Hoebel. Anyway, Jolene won't have anything to do with him. She was asking me what to do if he got too close to her. I said to tar and feather him and ride him out of town on a rail.”
“You could put together a whole damn posse to do that if you wanted to. The man rubs a lot of people the wrong way.”
She laughed but without much humor. “Let's not talk about him. I have to deal with him most every day, you don't.” She walked over a few steps to look at Erin's painting of wild horses. “Wow. You didn't show me this one.”
“It was all wrapped up in brown paper. And it was raining that day, remember?”
“Vaguely.”
He went over to where she was. “She got the inspiration for this at Chincoteague, but she painted it from memory. Sometimes she does preliminary sketches, sometimes not.”
“My, my. You have been getting to know her.” Doris gave him a friendly little punch on the shoulder.
“Why not?” he retorted. “She took me out to the Montgomery house, the old one, after she saw me on TV. And I got to see her studio setup at her home. She has a great little place out in the country.”
“I bet.”
Bannon suddenly wanted to change the subject. “Okay. What do you have? I want to see it all.”
Doris gave him an irritated look as she set the bag down on the coffee table. “Don't be a brat. Coffee first. Treats after that. Here, take my coat.” She wriggled out of it and tossed it at him.
“Yes, ma'am.” He took care of hanging it up for her and got busy in the kitchen as she settled herself on the long sofa.
“Am I going to be covered in cat hair by the time I leave?” she called to him.
“Do you want to be?”
“Yes. Now where is that big kitty? Here, kitty. Kitty kitty kitty . . .”
Bannon heard a soft thump. Babaloo had made a four-footed landing from some high hiding place in the living room.
“There you are,” Doris said happily. “Come give me some love. Oh yes. Yes yes yes.”
He laughed and went in to see, noticing first that she'd removed the file folders and papers from the bag and fanned them out on the coffee table. The cat was rubbing his cheek against Doris's and gently stamping his paws on her lap.
“If I ever have to go out of town, you can babysit the Whisker Dude,” he offered.
“You know I would. But not here,” she said. “My place or no place.”
“Deal.” He went back into the kitchen. The coffee was close to done. He took down two cups and threw some sugar packets onto a tray, adding a couple of spoons and paper napkins. Then he checked the fridge for milkânone.
He cursed under his breath, not that Doris would hear him, what with all her cooing at the cat.
Then he remembered a foil-box container of milk shoved back in the cabinet above the coffeemaker. Bannon stretched to retrieve it, checking the expiration date when it was in his hand. Whew. Under the limit.
He put it on the tray, filled the cups, and carried the whole business out.
“Aren't you domestic,” Doris teased him.
“I try.” Bannon pushed the pile of papers to one side with one hand and set down the tray in front of her with the other.
“And dexterous too.”
“I was a waiter in college. Worst job I ever had.” He peeled open the serving slot on the box, flicking the tiny curl of foil onto the tray.
She wrinkled her nose. “What is that?”
“You know what it is. Milk in a box. The bachelor's friend.”
“Okay. I can't complain. I'll do anything for free coffee.”
Babaloo turned his head in the direction of the opened milk box, sniffed, and shot Bannon a disgusted look. Then he jumped off Doris's lap, disappearing again.
Without an inquisitive cat to get in the way, she dosed her coffee to her satisfaction, using all the sugar packets and just a splash of the milk, then stirring briskly.
“Mmm,” she said after the first sip. “Tastes boxy.”
“Give me a break, Doris.” Bannon was letting his coffee cool. He wanted to get into the files, bad. The messy writing on the folder tabs was hard to read. “Anything new here?”
“I think so. Looks like Petey put it all into random folders and threw them into a box. He didn't bother with the old A to Z. The alphabet is not his strong suit.”
“How did you find it again?”
“Kind of by chance. I happened to see the box through the wire. Near the door, like it was going to get shipped out. The lid was half off.” She pointed to a file marked
Montg'ry
. “And that one was on top. So I scored the cage key when Petey was out hunting chili dogs and took a look at what was in it.”
Montg'ry
. “And that one was on top. So I scored the cage key when Petey was out hunting chili dogs and took a look at what was in it.”
“Good going. And you didn't leave the box empty.”
“No, of course not. I was getting to that.” Doris finished her coffee. “Do you have any cookies?”
“I will find some.” Bannon got up and rummaged in the kitchen cabinets again. “You will talk.” He returned with a small plate.
Doris selected a gingersnap and nibbled on it. “Thanks.”
“You're welcome.”
She leaned back into the cushions. “Anyway, I took out what was in the files and stuck the papers I copied for you back in.”
“How's that again?”
“I made a second set that day,” she explained. “After you left. Call me compulsive.”
“Never.”
“When I was done, the box looked pretty much the same. Except for that folder”âshe nodded at the
Montg'ry
fileâ“which I swiped.”
Montg'ry
fileâ“which I swiped.”
“You took a risk.”
Doris sniffed. “You don't know Petey like I know Petey. He won't notice.”
“Someone else might.”
She glared at him. “I did the best I can. Do you want the stuff or not?”
“Hell yes. But I want you to stay out of the line of fire.”
Doris sat up and began to organize the fanned-out folders. “Don't worry about me.”
“Someone has to.”
“I can take care of myself, Bannon.”
“You sound like someone else I know.”
“And who would that be?” she asked. “Your mom? Give her my regards.”
He promised to do that, then watched her make stacks and piles out of the jumble of paper. Doris had her methods.
When she was done, he started in on the pile nearest to him. There were duplicates of material he'd seen, and a lot of other stuff, none of it compelling. After about twenty minutes, he yawned hugely, not able to stop.
“Cover your mouth,” she chided him. “Do you need another cup of coffee?”
“No, I don't think so. There just doesn't seem to be anything much here.”
She selected a folder he hadn't looked at. “Try this one. It has a few more letters from Ann Montgomery's so-called new mother. Remember that one I found out at the storage warehouse?”
“Yeah. You said you copied it by hand. Did you bring that?”
“No. But I will.”
Bannon sat up straight. “Now you're talking.” He opened the folder and glanced at the first few letters, which were photocopies. “No originals?”
“Dunno. I didn't get a chance to get through everything in the box.”
He nodded. “I understand. But we all know that photocopies don't cut it for a handwriting comparison.”
“What are you getting at? Are we preparing evidence for court?”
“Not yet. I'm just trying to think like a detective, I guess.”
“Go for it, Sherlock,” she said jokingly. “This case needs one.” Doris set aside another folder as he read through the photocopied letters in the one he held. “I forgot to ask what's happening with the news show. Did they send you any more leads?”
“I have to call Kelly.” He gestured vaguely to the mountain of printouts from the TV station he'd left in the corner. “They sent over all that the day after the broadcast. I waded through it. Mostlyâ”
“You don't have to tell me. Lunatics and busybodies. Half the reports in the Wainsville PD files are interviews with nut jobs.” She sighed. “Big waste of everybody's time.”
Bannon gave a curt nod of agreement as he read through the new-mother letters. They were short, no more than two or three paragraphs each. No salutation. Undated. It struck him that the tone varied wildly, from guilty to gloating. “Hmm. Whoever wrote these was all over the map, emotionally speaking.” He laid out several on the table. “I wish we had a way to put them into a time frame.”
Doris flipped one over. “There's a PD date stamp on the back that says when each came in.”
Bannon countered that with a dismissive wave. “That indicates when they were received and entered into evidence at the police department. But they were sent to Montgomery, right? Or his wife? No telling when they got them.”
Doris went through the other piles. “I don't really know. Maybe there are envelopes in here.” He read on as she combed through the stacks for several minutes. “Nope. Either they got tossed or they're clipped to the originals. And God knows where those are.”
Bannon snorted. “That's a grand old Wainsville PD tradition. Rubber-stamp everything and lose it fast. No wonder some of our cases never get to trial.”
He moved to another folder and a greeting card slipped out. The illustration showed a bird singing on a branch. Little musical notes floated around it. “This isn't a photocopy.”
Doris looked at it curiously. “I didn't see that.”
He opened it and looked inside at a poem, four lines of flowing script that leaned to the right. His mind searched for the right word for the style and suddenly it came to himâcalligraphic. But the card was printed. He read it silently.
Of all the joys there are on earth
The gift of love has greatest worth
A little angel is ours to hold
And cherish forever, a girl of gold.
The gift of love has greatest worth
A little angel is ours to hold
And cherish forever, a girl of gold.
The last three words rang a bell. Then he rememberedâthe same words had appeared on that scrapbook card at Erin's. But that had been handmade by her mother. This card looked standard, the kind of thing that sold in the millions. He handed the card to Doris, who read it aloud, then examined it front and back.
“Looks almost new,” she said. “No signature or anything. Do you think the kidnapper sent it to the Montgomerys? That is sick.”
“I guess so, if it's in the box. It was probably bought from a drugstore card rack twenty-some years ago. There's no way to trace it now.”
She closed the card and looked at the floating musical notes. “Wasn't there a song like that, way back when? âGirl of Gold'?”
“Could be. I'll ask my mom. She knows all the old tunes.”
And that was because she and his father used to go dancing every Saturday night until the week before he died. The thought made his heart constrict. He would definitely call her when Doris went home.
He set the card aside. “Mind if I keep it?”
“No. Eventually I'll switch everything back the way it was. But I think I'll copy these copies on my home printer-copier thingy.” She paused and gave him a worried look. “Am I getting paranoid?”
“You're smart. I was going to suggest that myself.”
Doris leaned back into the cushions when Babaloo made a stealthy foray along the top of the couch toward her, his paws pressing silently into the black leather. “Here, kitty kitty,” she cooed. The cat took over her lap and another purr-o-rama began.
Bannon concentrated on the folders and let Doris have her feline fix. He read silently through most of the material for half an hour, then set a few other papers aside with the odd letters. “Copy these for me, okay?”
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