Chill Factor (11 page)

“My dear, I’m afraid someone has a supply of your deposit slips. Do you have any accounts other than the ones here at Texas Citizens?”

“No.”

“Excellent.” He opened a manila file folder. “Then perhaps we’ll fare better than poor Mr. James Cook.”

“The guy who stole my money?”

“The name that appeared on the fraudulent checks deposited to your account,” Len corrected patiently. “The criminal
apparently got hold of Mr. Cook’s canceled checks and washed them—that is, removed the written information except the signature—then used them to extract all the funds from Mr. Cook’s account. Additional checks were deposited to your checking account, and a withdrawal made, using one of your personalized deposit slips.”

He showed her a page from the file, a photocopy of five deposits, each with a withdrawal amount on the appropriate line.

“Wouldn’t a person have to show identification to make a withdrawal?”

“Apparently, the woman did have identification. False, obviously, but quite convincing. Perhaps the teller only gave it, ah”—he cleared his throat—“a cursory examination, considering a deposit was also being made.”

Dixie felt a pang of sympathy for James Cook, who’d lost more than a few thousand dollars.

“So what do we do?” she asked.

“First, we’ll close out all your accounts and open new ones. We’ll issue a code word unavailable to anyone besides you and me. This criminal, whoever she is, will not be taking any more funds from you directly.”

Len’s soothing drawl worked like music, calming her. But that word “directly” didn’t sit well.

“Ms. Sticky Fingers is still out there with my ID, Len, committing who knows what crimes—hell, she could
kill
somebody in my name.”

“Now, don’t borrow trouble, my dear. Your investment accounts are safe. And the funds you lost are federally insured. But in the future, you’ll want to be careful about tossing out old records of any kind—credit card receipts and solicitations for credit cards, expired licenses, old health records—even photographs.”

They spent the next half hour filling out paperwork and filing the police report, which she dropped at the Richmond Police Department. Dixie tried to feel the relief Len projected, but knowing a crook carried ID in her name unsettled her. She itched to
do
something about it—hunt the thief down, confiscate the ID, then deposit the crook at the nearest jail. To get a description of the woman, Dixie could question the five
cashiers who took the fraudulent deposits—that seemed a more positive action than searching for a box of old records. Finding that one box would probably mean cleaning the whole garage.

Scanning the list of Texas Citizens branches Len had given her, she saw that all five were located in the west Houston area. Might take a couple hours. But she had nothing else on her calendar until she met with Marty at six. And the garage would stay right where she’d left it, just as much in need of cleaning. When she exited the bank’s parking lot, Dixie turned the Mustang toward Houston.

By lunchtime, she’d questioned all five cashiers, and none could give a description of the woman passing herself off as Dixie. The bank’s security department had already removed the videotapes from the overhead cameras. Frustrated, yet admitting she could do nothing more about the theft, she decided to trust Len Bacon’s assessment that her accounts were now out of danger. The money she’d lost would be reimbursed, and all the branches were alerted in case the woman attempted another bogus deposit.

None of this practicality appeased Dixie’s emotional need to ferret out the thief. Driving toward downtown, and mentally grumbling about how easily a usurper could assume control of a person’s life, her thoughts turned to something she
could
investigate.

She recalled Marty’s comment about no one caring
why
Aunt Edna died. Edna had died because she shot at police after robbing a bank. But the real question was
why
she committed armed robbery. With a wounded officer in the hospital, the shooter dead, and a quarter-million dollars in stolen bank loot to find, just how much effort would anyone focus on answering Marty’s “why” question?

Dixie had a theory about obtaining information: Start at the very bottom or at the very top. From where she sat now, in the shadow of skyscrapers, the office of Houston’s top guy was only a few blocks away. That garage-cleaning chore would have to wait a while longer.

Houston’s City Hall overlooks a reflecting pond and corners on Tranquility Park. Since the building’s completion in 1939, its lightly veined marble walls and floors have aged gracefully, and the bronze and silver inlays usually command a second look. Dixie’d seen the artistry often enough not to be impressed. Since relocating to Richmond, she could no longer vote in Houston elections, but that didn’t prevent her from speaking her piece at council meetings or campaigning for favorite candidates.

She swept through the lobby, bound for the third-floor Mayor’s office, knowing she’d have no problem gaining an audience. She’d met Avery Barton Banning while prosecuting a fraud case. As an expert witness on business real estate, he’d impressed her as both judicious and innovative. More recently, during his election campaign, Dixie’d stuffed envelopes, arranged speaking engagements, co-hosted a fund-raising event with Amy, and then had danced briefly—not particularly well, but nobody noticed—with Mayor Banning at his inaugural ball.

In many ways Banning fulfilled her image of a career politician. His savvy attitude attracted voters of all ages. He came from new money, while his wife Kaylynn boasted membership in the Daughters of the Republic. Youthful good looks placed
him right up there with JFK or George W. Bush. His podium presence would rival the actor-president Ronald Reagan’s. And Banning had a knack for remembering useful details about everybody he met. If Houston’s new Mayor didn’t have an eye on the big chair in Washington, Dixie figured he needed glasses.

Despite all the political muscle-flexing, Banning came across as sincerely interested in doing a good job. That put him a stroke above average in Dixie’s book. She chose to ignore the recent rumors of problems in his marriage and finances—every politician had to deflect a share of mud.

Today she found him swinging a putter at a golf ball on his office carpet and listening to the soundtrack from
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
This didn’t strike her as showing proper concern for the city’s turmoil of the past two days.

“Tell me some good news, Dixie.” He tapped the ball with a gold-headed putter. “Everybody else today has brought gloom and doom.” The ball rolled smoothly across the five-foot expanse but missed its destination, marked by a paper cup lying on its side.

Dixie shrugged. “I saw Gib leaving.” Councilman Jason “Gib” Gibson had been Banning’s most outspoken opponent—after abruptly deciding not to run for the office himself. Now, he shot political arrows at every issue Banning supported and, by extension, at the Mayor’s appointed Police Chief. “Looks like the HPD shootings have given Gib his big chance to see the voters repent.”

Banning scooped up the golf ball and replanted it five feet from the paper cup.

“Gib’s a thorn that keeps me hopping, all right, but in the Councilman’s shoes I’d be just as prickly. These robberies, and the unfortunate deaths that followed them, make our police look untrained and unprofessional.”

Unprofessional. Untrained. Unfortunate.
Hollow words. A politician’s words.

Dixie struggled to rein in her irritation. Maybe Gib’s visit had rattled Banning more than usual. Despite the Councilman’s unrelenting attack, the Mayor’s response—at least in public—was always dispassionate and amiable. That had to be
difficult. And now she’d come to question him, probably about the same topic he’d addressed with Gib.

Banning offered Dixie his putter. She’d never played golf, but she did play pool, which involved a ball and stick. How much different could it be?

Hefting the club, she lined up on the ball, then tapped it—whack—harder than she expected. It missed the cup by a foot and bashed into the wall—certainly not the first ding in the sixty-year-old paneling. Nevertheless, she apologized and retrieved the ball. Then she looked Banning in the eye.

“Downstairs, inlaid in the marble floor of the lobby, is a bronze medallion, Avery, that you walk across at least once a day. It says,
Government Protects The People.
After the shootings this week, have you noticed that medallion tarnishing a bit?”

Avery returned her gaze, his cobalt eyes filled with shadows. “I know that Edna Pine was a friend of yours, Dixie. I’m sorry about what happened.”

“What’re you doing to stop it from happening again?”

His appraising gaze shifted from her eyes to her unsmiling mouth. Dixie recalled that one of Avery’s college degrees was in psychology.

“First,” he said, “Chief Wanamaker has issued a general order to avoid fatalities if we have another occurrence—”

“How? Tasers? Tranquilizer darts?”

The slight dip of his head couldn’t quite be called a nod.

“And second, the FBI is taking additional measures within the banks—”

“What measures?”

“You know I can’t discuss that.”

True. In fact, the feds probably hadn’t shared that information. Dixie placed the golf club and ball on Banning’s desk. The ball rolled and stopped against a gilt-edged journal that lay open, neat blue script filling the pages.

“Does the Chief or the FBI have any idea what would prompt women who are old enough to know the consequences to commit armed robbery?” she asked. “Have similar robberies happened in other cities?”

“That’s being investigated, of course.” Banning closed the
journal, slid it into a desk drawer, and picked up the ball. “No similar cases have turned up so far, certainly no recent cases.”

“Avery, when Edna Pine made up her mind, she was as strong as horseradish. With the right provocation—and Jesus, I can’t imagine what that would be—she might’ve pulled off that robbery yesterday. But she didn’t do it alone.”

“I’m sure you believe you knew her, Dixie.” He dropped the ball into the same drawer. “Yet, think about it—even people we live with can surprise us. Secret drinkers … runaways … suicides. We live in desperate times—”

His phone rang, saving Dixie from the rest of the soliloquy. Avery could compose and deliver on demand a speech about any topic you tossed him. Dixie enjoyed his verbal dexterity on occasion, but not today.

“That’s another reporter,” he said, pushing the
HOLD
button. “I’ll have to talk to him. Avoidance only adds fuel to their suppositions. But, Dixie—” He took her arm lightly. “Chief Wanamaker, his men, the FBI task force—we’re all taking this very seriously.”

Maybe.
But why did she suddenly see his words like dialogue bubbles in a political cartoon?

“I hope you
are
taking it seriously, because in the voters’ eyes, Wanamaker’s men slaughtered Lucy Ames and Edna Pine.”

“They had no choice—”

“
I
know that. But what voters will remember is that
you
appointed Wanamaker,
you
reduced the budget line item for increasing the number of HPD officers, and
only
after you took office did previously law-abiding senior citizens begin robbing banks and being shot down in the streets.” Seeing the spark in his eyes that revealed she now had the Mayor’s full attention, she said, “Avery, I believe there’s more behind all this than three greedy women without a reasonable brain among them.”

The spark turned appreciative. “Point made,” he told her. “I’ll have a talk with the Chief.”

Finding herself at the door, Dixie realized he’d been easing her in that direction, a trick every good hostess and politician discovered about the time they learned to walk. He moved his grip from her arm to offer a handshake.

Dixie accepted it, and his manner seemed as sincere as ever, even when she caught his appraising glance sliding over her figure. After advocating Avery Banning to Houston voters, Dixie prayed now that her judgment hadn’t been skewed by a winning smile and a glib line of bullshit.

“Good luck with the media,” she told him.

As she walked out, Banning’s junior assistant, a serious young man with a buzz of red-blond hair, looked up from his Dictaphone. Dixie had seen him before, a fellow volunteer on the Mayor’s election campaign. A whiz at the keyboard. Working his way through college, no doubt. Casual but neat in a blue shirt and khaki pants, the kid reminded her of a stone in a brook, scarcely noticed in the ripple of activity, while steadily and efficiently directing the flow.

Flashing a gentle, cheerful grin, he whisked a yellow flyer off a sizable stack.

“Take this coupon and you’ll get a free soft drink at the Mayor’s Memorial Day celebration on Monday.”

She glanced at the flyer and tried to hand it back. “Thanks, but I’m not big on crowds.”

“Neither am I. Except, some occasions are worth it.”

Ignoring the proffered flyer, he scooped up a pack of sugar-free gum. Alongside his keyboard sat a silver-framed photograph of a woman far too old to be a wife or sweetheart.

“Okay,” Dixie relented, sifting through her mental file cabinet for the kid’s name. He was probably required to hand out the entire stack of promotional material before Monday. “I’ll take it. Maybe I’ll even show up.”

“Great! Here, give one to a friend.”

Who could resist that grin? She folded the yellow pages into her back pocket, planning to toss them later.
Philip
, she recalled. Philip turned studiously back to his typing.

Dixie raised the brass horseshoe knocker on Edna’s door and let it fall with a
clank.
Unless the cops had left every light on inside the house, Marty must’ve already arrived.

After her frustrating morning, throwing out the accumulation of junk in her garage proved almost as therapeutic as a rousing game of racquetball, and the shelves now held orderly, labeled boxes. She’d found the records in question, with one checkbook missing. Apparently, it was missing when she’d turned the box over to her CPA, because that group of checks had not been entered on the spreadsheet she found. At least she’d accounted for where the thief obtained her deposit slips—each checkbook contained five, and Dixie rarely used them. She usually grabbed a generic slip from the bank’s supply counter and filled it out on the spot.