Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 54, No. 3, March 2009

200 Big Ones by John C. Boland

Bartels slowed his car as he approached the village. Though it was barely four o’clock in the afternoon, a glowing mini-mart sign cut fuzzy red circles in the mountain dusk. Ahead lay a single pumping island, and farther on several clapboard houses hugged the road beside a ravine that wrinkled down from the hills. A sign at the outskirts of the village, where the highway petered down to two lanes, had said WHIST POP 708. Bartels liked these upstate crossroads. Nine months ago and eighty miles south, he had found the Hepplewite. Mary Anne never understood, you had to dig hard to find the good stuff. This trip he was running three days behind. He had poked around in every attic and barn in Buckham County. Not quite desperate but getting that way.

Mary Anne didn’t know antiques. The only one she’d ever latched onto wasn’t really antique, just middle aged and fat.

He waited as a pickup truck fishtailed onto the road ahead of him, then he took its place in front of the mini-mart, got out, went inside, and stood on the wet cardboard that had snow melt on it. Then he saw that on one corner, near the beer fridge packs, blood had soaked the cardboard black.

Henry’s blood. That was the name on the pocket, HENRY, of the man who lay on the floor in a blue-striped shirt and green work pants, arms splayed the way kids do to make snow angels, at least two holes in the shirt, a pistol half under his left leg, so maybe he had come around the counter to argue. He had a grim face with sparse gray whiskers and smoker’s wrinkles. An argumentative-looking face, Bartels thought.

It was a small market. No security camera that he could see. Back past the pet food would be a door to a stockroom. Maybe an alley for filling the drinks cooler from behind. He could see through a connecting glass door into the repair shop, where the single lift bay was empty. Corners in the repair shop were out of his line of vision. But the shooter probably wouldn’t be hiding there. The way Bartels read it, the shooter had left in that scabrous pickup truck that burned out of the lot ahead of him.

His glance stopped at the cash register. The money drawer was closed. What kind of robber closed the drawer?

There were two sheriff’s deputies, middle-sized men with heavy belts. One held a shotgun while the other patted Bartels down and handcuffed him. “Where’s the gun you used?”

It was never easy telling cops they had made a mistake. “If I robbed the place,” Bartels said, “would I have called you and waited?”

What kind of robber closed the cash drawer?

“Jeanie Hanigan called us,” the older guy said. But he lowered the shotgun. He had a big flat-brimmed hat that came down almost to his blond eyebrows. Pug nose, little inverted-U for a mouth, a regular Officer Sunshine. He moved aside to talk on the radio, then both cops turned their heads as the rust-spackled pickup slid to a stop on the road and a small woman popped out.

“You get him?” she cried, then slowed, did a double take at Bartels’s car and said, “Ah, you bumpkins! That’s the guy came in as I was leaving!”

“Maybe he come back to cover his tracks,” said one deputy.

“Give it a rest, Lou,” the older one said. “Office says we got a call from a Bartels too. Sorry mister. We’re jumpy around here since the bank got hit. Jeanie, you got the news on the air?”

“For all the good it’ll do.” She had a ferret face and large teeth. Not bad even so. Nice hair in a ponytail, pert shape in blue jeans, snow boots, and some kind of blanket-plaid jacket that hung open at the front. She looked at Bartels, giving him some kind of appraisal. “Thursday the bank got robbed big time. Joey, that’s the manager, went missing. That’s his brother Henry on the floor.”

“You mind showing some ID?” said Lou.

Bartels produced a driver’s license followed by a business card.

The older deputy looked them over. “Bartels Antiques, New York City, huh? You’re a long way from home, buddy.”

“Buying trip. Some of the best opportunities are in small towns.”

“You pay good money?” Jeanie asked.

“I don’t give it away.” But since she had got him cut loose, he smiled at her. “Do you have something?”

“Got a few things I’d like to get rid of, starting with my hubbie. Since you won’t want him, we got a desk at the radio station that might be worth something.”

Lou was watching him.

“I’ll take a look,” Bartels said.

They were clearing things up with the deputies — sorry, they hadn’t seen anyone, except each other sort of — when a black SUV jerk-stopped on the road and a big woman came boiling out. She had popped eyes, wild gray-blonde hair. She hurled herself across the pavement, aiming at Bartels, screaming at the deputies, “Is that the man?”

Lou stepped to block her, which took some doing because she was both taller and wider than the deputy and she bounced him back a step. He said, “No, no, Katie! He’s just a witness.”

“Is my Henry really dead?”

“Yeah, Katie, I’m sorry.”

She moved restlessly, ready for a go at Bartels just because he was there. “Sheriff Sully called, and I just couldn’t believe it. Can’t now. Henry never hurt nobody.”

“Yeah, Katie, we know.”

“Course, Henry never did nothing for nobody either,” Jeanie Hanigan said. Bartels had followed her pickup down the two-lane to the radio station, where she was co-owner, assistant manager, news director and — as of this afternoon — crime reporter. The building was low, white painted, with display windows in the front so it could have sold snowmobiles like the building across the road. But the signs in the window said Mountain Fire Radio Network, the network consisting of a single low-power transmitter out back that sent a signal over about three hilltops. Jeanie’s husband Roy was the manager. On Sundays and Thursdays, they opened the front of the little building for church services over which Jeanie presided, followed by a potluck supper that Roy organized.

“We’d prefer more traditional guy-and-gal roles,” she said, “but I got ordained and Roy didn’t. He was in the army. You must got a lot of money, living in New York City.”

“I spend a lot of money living in New York,” Bartels said. “That’s not the same thing.”

“We warn folks on the radio against that city, against any city, just in case some of them is tempted. Our town can’t afford to lose more people. We’re underpopulated.”

“You got a robber in town,” Bartels pointed out, “you could afford to lose one.”

Roy Hanigan was one of the biggest men he’d seen off a football field, with a slightly rearranged face that suggested his time in the army — or somewhere else — hadn’t always been on a winning side. He wore a patchy brown beard that hid some of the scars. His eyes were deepset and serious. He had a moth-eaten sweater over a wool shirt, faded jeans, heavy-soled boots.

Jeanie introduced Bartels as the “almost” criminal. “Lou and Howard figured they had their man.”

“Lucky Howard didn’t shoot you,” Roy said. “He and Henry married the Everly sisters.”

“Dead Henry?”

Roy nodded.

Thinking of the large woman struggling with the deputy, Bartels said, “Which boy got the big sister?”

“Katie and Imogene both have meat on their bones. But Imogene’s an inch taller. She’s the one married to Howard. You know who’s boss in that family. It ain’t Howard. Can’t say Henry was in charge at his house, either.”

“Can’t say much about Henry at all,” his wife said. “Losing him seemed to shake Katie. Guess something like that would shake me, if I didn’t have burial insurance on my sweetie. You want to see the desk, Mr. Bartels?”

It was an oak rolltop of the sort he could pick up at any auction for a few hundred dollars. He offered the couple three fifty, which was full value but not so extravagant they would wonder. When they looked at each other, it was clear they had been hoping for more.

“Guess we won’t do much better,” Roy said. “And this little business sure needs the money.”

Bartels wrote a check and said he would arrange shipping. While Jeanie took over the tiny control room and gave a folksy news update, Roy Hanigan chatted with Bartels about the radio station. The couple kept on the air from ten in the morning until six in the evening, playing recorded music most of the time. On Mondays there was a phone-in garden show, and sometimes on Saturdays Howard and Imogene Cross would come in, Imogene singing hymns while Howard played the guitar.

“Didn’t happen this Saturday,” Roy said. “Since the bank got robbed, the sheriff’s people have been on the road twenty hours a day. Figure they’re gonna find Joey Robbins dead if they find him at all. It’s been five days, and there’s been a freeze every night.” Roy poured coffee from a thermos, handed a mug to Bartels. “They’ve searched through every barn and root cellar in the county.”

“They think it was someone local?”

“It’s a pretty good bet. If I was gonna come off the highway to rob a bank, I’d pick somewhere that looked bigger than this place. So the robber had to know there was money here. You had dinner? Suppose you want to get back on the road.”

“I don’t like driving at night,” Bartels said.

“Lot of deer on the roads,” Roy Hanigan agreed. “There’s a place in the village that’s open to seven if you want to eat. Not great food, except for the canned gravy.”

“What about a motel?” Bartels said.

“Big chain up on the interstate, about five miles.”

“Sounds good,” Bartels said. “Can you and your wife join me for dinner?”

He followed the big-finned convertible that Roy Hanigan said he was restoring a mile and a half into the village, past the mini-mart and gas pump, where the lights were still on and more cars half-blocked the road. The Wig-Wam was a six-table, linoleum-floored room with pumpkin pie under a fogged plastic lid and a chewing gum rack at the cash register. Only one table was occupied. The glum-faced deputy, Howard Cross, sat with a tiny, florid man in a shearling jacket.

“Howard, you look beat,” Roy said. “How’s Katie taking it?”

“Pretty good. She screamed I was a lazy, no-good moron and her sister should’ve done better.” He pushed mashed potatoes into a deep gravy well. “That was after she calmed down.”

The man beside him laughed.

“This is our alderman, Kenny Fogel,” Roy said. “We’re too small to have a mayor, so we got an alderman. Mr. Bartels bought our desk and decided to stay over. Running into Howard and Lou shook him up.”

Howard nodded but didn’t apologize a second time. The Hanigans and Bartels took seats at the neighboring table.

“Howard thinks we should’ve caught the guy that shot Henry,” said the alderman.

“How so?” Jeanie asked.

“Katie talked to Henry about five minutes before you found him,” said Howard. “Five minutes later, you’d called in and the dispatcher had the word out. That means the shooter didn’t have much time to get away. So unless the bad guy drove straight up to the interstate, someone should have seen him.”

“I came down from that direction,” Bartels said, “and didn’t see a car.”

“That’s helpful, Mr. Bartels. The deputies should have asked you.” Fogel gave a squinty look at Howard that the deputy didn’t meet. “So the shooter was on the county road at least until the Waubeeka turnoff. Unless he ducked in somewhere nearby.”

“Could he have been on foot?” Bartels asked the deputy, just to get him talking.

“If he was on foot, he’d have been seen. Lou and the other guys searched behind the station. There’s no footprints by the creek except all the ones they left.”

“You’re assuming it’s a man,” Jeanie Hanigan pointed out. “Women shoot people. For all you know, I coulda blowed Henry away before Mr. Bartels arrived.”

“Can you shoot a gun?” Alderman Fogel asked.

“Good enough for that distance.”

Howard made a face. “You and Roy are a little hard up for money, aren’t you?”

“Who isn’t around here?”

“So why’d you leave sixty-three dollars in the register?”

“Panicked.”

The deputy looked at Fogel. “She’s almost convinced me.”

The alderman shook his head. “If she did it, Howard, you gotta cover it up. Can’t have the county’s only ordained preacher charged with murder. People over in Buckham County would talk.”

The deputy nodded. “Guess you’ve lucked out, Jeanie.”

They had dinner, and after Howard Cross picked up his hat and went back on duty, Alderman Fogel moved over to their table. He had bright eyes and an obvious curiosity about Bartels that he expressed by asking questions about the antiques business. Bartels answered the questions without overdoing the display of knowledge.

“My father had the store before me,” he said over coffee, “but the business has changed.”

“In what way?”

“Competition from imports is a lot stronger. What looks like a two-hundred-year-old desk may have been made in Indonesia last summer from reclaimed mahogany. No knowledgeable customer will be fooled, but it puts price pressure on the real thing.”

“Because the knowledgeable customer will buy a look-alike?”

“Some of them will, yes.”

Roy Hanigan leaned into the table. “Kenny, tell Mr. Bartels how much Joey Robbins had at the bank.”

The alderman’s face brightened with pride. “About two hundred thousand dollars. You didn’t think a little place like this was worth that much, did you?”

“It’s a lot of cash,” Bartels admitted.

“What happened, two local banks got bought out. The new owner closed the Buckham County branches, so we’re now a big financial center. It just doesn’t show.”

“Kenny means the money hasn’t rubbed off on the rest of us,” Roy said.

“It’s rubbed off on somebody,” said his wife.

“Hate to think one of our own kidnapped poor Joey Robbins and shot Henry,” said Fogel.

“You assume the two events are connected?” Bartels said.

“Guess we all do. Something hinky’s going on in town. Henry and Joey were brothers. Big coincidence if the two crimes aren’t related.” Fogel gulped his coffee. “I ought to be helping Lou and Howard make a list of suspects. You planning to start spending big, Roy?”

“I might buy me a new pair of jeans come spring.”

“What about a Caribbean cruise?”

“We come back tan, Lou can arrest me.”

After Bartels paid for dinner, they stood in the parking lot, Bartels and the Hanigans, snow landing on them with a little wind behind it.

“Where’s the bank?” Bartels asked.

“Quarter mile that way,” Roy said. “You wanna see it?”

It was a fairly modern cinderblock building, lit inside by a nightlight, front door covered with a big sign advertising rates.

“What happened,” Jeanie said, “this fellow in a mask comes in right at four o’clock, shoots a hole in the ceiling and scares Missy, the teller, poopless. He orders Joey to collect the cash from the vault, smacks his face with the gun to speed him up. Two minutes, the robber’s out the door with the money and Joey. Missy’s on the floor counting to a thousand so she doesn’t see the car they go in.”

“And she didn’t recognize the robber?”

Jeanie shook her head.

“Here’s the part I don’t get,” Roy said. “Someone robs the bank, gets two hundred thousand, kidnaps Joey. Okay, first, why’d they do that? Whatta they need him for? Hostage? Okay. But then they get rid of Joey, that’s what we’re all thinking. So why’s Joey’s brother get himself shot? That’s the part don’t compute.”

Bartels made a show of disinterest, stifling a yawn. “I think I’ll go find that motel,” he said.

As soon as he checked into the Starlight Motel, getting a room that looked down on the spotty nighttime traffic along the interstate, Bartels phoned Mary Anne and told her he wasn’t going to make it for a couple more days. She called him a name, then he told her how much money might be loose in Whist. After that he was her honey again.

He went down to the bar. The only drinkers were from the interstate, and the basketball game on the TV would have put a bookie to sleep. Bartels wasn’t too surprised when Roy Hanigan came in and sat next to him.

“I bet you’ve got some ideas,” Roy said. Looking sideways, he said, “I got a few.”

“About souls that need saving?”

“I’d say someone’s soul is too far gone. Darlin’, could you bring me a draft and put it on this guy’s tab? My idea is that two hundred big ones are up for grabs.”

Bartels didn’t answer.

“You noticed I said ‘big ones.’”

“I haven’t heard that kind of talk from a churchman.”

“Jeanie’s the one that got ordained, not me. But I been in the sin business a long time. Sometimes one side, sometimes the other. Thing that interests me here is if the money’s still in Whist, it ain’t got a lot of legal protection. Figure you been thinking the same. We could be competitors, or we could help each other.”

Bartels pretended to consider. He noticed that the scars under Roy’s beard might have been made by a knife carving X’s. So Roy might have gotten on the wrong side of a prison gang — not a sign he was smart.

“I think you’ve got me wrong, Mr. Hanigan.”

“I seen how you stayed polite to Deputy Howard. The deputies jacked you up, but you never got angry. Where’d you do your time?”

Bartels shook his head. “I’m an antiques dealer. Tomorrow morning I’m driving on. Bank robbery is none of my concern.”

Roy’s mouth dropped its friendly curl. “Bull. I’ve been around enough to know what I’m lookin’ at. You’re gonna go for the money. Your problem is, you don’t know where to begin. I do.”

Bartels smiled and lifted the glass that contained his cordial. “Then I wish you luck, Mr. Hanigan.”

The big man swung off the chair and left the bar, and Bartels laid a twenty beside his glass and followed. He got to the parking lot in time to see the big-finned convertible slide onto the highway and, not ten seconds later, a beige van detach itself from the darkness and follow.

Bartels took his time pulling a jacket from the trunk of his car. The trunk was cluttered with the kind of magazines and packaging material an antiques dealer would carry, and he had to grope under the stuff to pull the Beretta .380 from its holster. He checked the magazine, slipped the gun into his jacket. Well, like he tried to tell Mary Anne, you had to keep looking to find stuff.

He drove into Whist, wipers snicking, and looked for tail fins.

The mini-mart was deserted except for crime scene tape, but someone had decided to keep the Wig-Wam restaurant open long past seven. Two sheriff’s cars were pulled off the road beside the restaurant. He drove past, turned around a mile down the road, and came back. His biggest problem was not knowing where Jeanie and Roy Hanigan lived. That and not knowing who was in the beige van following Hanigan — though he had a guess on that one. He stopped at the Wig-Wam and went inside.

Deputy Howard Cross had returned to a table. Alderman Fogel was there, along with a man and a woman Bartels didn’t recognize. The woman was big and gray blonde and mean eyed, not hard to figure who she was unless there were two Imogenes in town. The man, who looked to be in his seventies with a shrunken lower jaw, wore a cook’s apron.

“Couldn’t stay away, Mr. Bartels?” Fogel said. “Whist has that effect on people.”

“One of your neighbors paid me a visit,” Bartels said. “He suggested we team up to find the bank’s money.”

“That would be real civic minded if you meant to give it back,” Fogel said. “But I guess if Roy Hanigan paid the visit, he hasn’t got that in mind. Have you met Imogene Cross and her daddy?”

The woman was a bigger version of the gal who had tried to get her claws into him at the mini-mart. Bartels wasn’t a small man, but he thought if someone like that came at you, all you could do was run or shoot her. Both of her big hands had skinned knuckles. Bartels glanced at Howard Cross but didn’t see any bruises. Maybe she worked her father over.

“Imogene owns this establishment, and her daddy cooks,” Fogel explained.

The old man had been waiting tables earlier. He held out a bony hand toward Bartels. “Bob Everly. So you buy antiques. See any besides me?”

“The Shaker hutch looks well cared for.”

“It was my grandma’s,” Everly said.

The younger deputy, Lou, came out of the back while they were talking. He carried his hat on one finger. His black crewcut was cut so close it looked like sprinkled coal dust.

“Look who came back,” he said.

“Roy Hanigan tried to enlist Mr. Bartels in a treasure hunt,” Alderman Fogel said. He glanced at Bartels. “It was Roy, wasn’t it? You don’t need to say. We know our neighbors around here. Lou, are you goin’ back on duty?”

“Thought I would, in case someone wants to jump out and surrender. You wanna come, Howard?”

The older deputy got up reluctantly, set his hat on his head, told Imogene, “See ya later, honey.”

Bartels watched through the front window. The deputies took separate cruisers. Snow was drifting down gently, as though it had all night. After a couple of minutes, Bartels used the snow as an excuse to head back to the motel. The tracks the deputies’ cars had left remained clear as he drove through the village, down the twisting road past the Hanigans’ radio station. He swung off the pavement and checked the back of the station, but neither Hanigan vehicle was there. He fell in behind the deputies again.

Five miles out of town, the cruisers cut into a side road and Bartels switched off his headlights. There were stationary taillights not far down the side road. He left his car. Trees grew to the edge of the lane. He followed them. The deputies’ cars were just ahead, headlights slanting down a hillside to an old house trailer perched on blocks. The beige van that had followed Roy Hanigan had gone down a rutted path to the trailer.

The deputies sidestepped down and hammered on the trailer door, and Katie Robbins opened it. She let them inside.

Bartels stayed on the slope, looked through a window. The naked man tied to a chrome and vinyl chair looked a lot like Henry Robbins, wrinkled face, mean mouth. With Henry dead, he had to be the brother. Joey the bank manager. There was a table next to him with a lighted cigar on a plate. The big blond woman held a belt strap so the buckle dangled. The man had wounds and burns on his arms and chest.

The deputies stood with fists on hips, talking to Katie. Lou reached out and slapped the banker’s face.

Bartels didn’t need to hear the conversation. Three people in the trailer wanted to know where two hundred thousand dollars had gone. One person knew and wasn’t saying. Bartels snuck back to the road, saw the big-finned convertible parked fifty feet beyond his own car. Leaning against a fender, Roy Hanigan waved to him.

“Katie thought she was tailing me,” Hanigan said. “The sisters own the trailer. Imogene owns the van. I didn’t figure Howard and Lou was in on it.”

“You been down there?”

“Yeah.”

“Is that the banker?”

“That’s Joey. Got me a theory. Henry was the robber. He and Joey put the money somewhere safe. Those Everly sisters figure it’s rightly theirs. I figure Katie got impatient today and did Henry. Or maybe it was Imogene. One of ‘em.”

Bartels didn’t argue.

“We better get outta here. If you changed your mind about going partners, you can follow me home. Jeanie makes good coffee.”

Bartels followed him home.

The couple had a drafty house on the north side of the village. Jeanie put on coffee and sat at a painted oak table as her husband talked. She said she was disappointed in Lou, who had always been a good churchgoer. “Howard and Imogene only come to play the guitar and sing, like they think a Hollywood agent’s listening to our station. But that’s bad, if Lou’s thrown in with them.”

“It’s not bad if you and Roy stay out of it,” Bartels pointed out.

She squinted. “Why should those sinners end up rich?”

“The problem,” her husband said, “if we find the money, Lou and Howard are gonna take it off us. Or maybe Katie and Imogene will. Either way, there’s four of them. So we gotta work something out.”

Bartels lowered his coffee mug. “You’re not going to have any listeners left.”

“With two hundred big ones, I’m gonna be sitting on a beach. Me and Jeanie.”

“Nice you’re including me.” His wife watched him.

“What about the girls’ father?” Bartels asked.

“Bob Everly won’t be a problem. Imogene and Katie got their mean from their mother. They gotta go for sure, plus Lou and Howard. That’s fifty thousand each for doin’ four people I don’t like much. Assumin’ we come out on top.”

Jeanie rested her elbows on the table. “Your math’s off, sweetie. We’ll get twenty-five each. Mr. Bartels will want his cut.”

The big man turned on Bartels. “That’s if we’re partners.”

Staying a step ahead of this pair wouldn’t be too hard. Bartels said, “You got any ideas?”

“We let them do the heavy lifting. When they got the money, we take it off them.”

“Why not take Joey?”

“We’d have to get him to talk. Tell you the truth, I’m squeamish about that stuff. Katie don’t seem to be.”

Bartels slept on their couch and was awakened before midnight when the phone rang. Roy Hanigan listened, then pulled on his jeans and heavy boots. “There’s a fire, and I’m a volunteer. What a night for it! You keep your hands off my lady, Bartels.”

“I’ll make some coffee and come after you,” Jeanie said.

“It’s County Road 9. Betcha I know where.”

Alderman Ken Fogel peeked out from under his cap and said, “I’m surprised to see you tonight, Mr. Bartels.”

“Saw the flames from the motel. Thought I’d come have a look.”

“Better’n porn TV?”

“Different.”

The rural fire protection unit had only a single pumper truck, which was sitting on the side road above the burned-out trailer. One ice-coated hose snaked down to the scene, which was mostly smoke and knee-high ruins. Deputy Howard Cross had already run up the hill with the bad news that it looked like the trailer contained a body. He was in his cruiser, radioing the state medical examiner’s office. Deputy Lou was midway down the hill.

“You think it’s one of the girls?” Fogel asked.

Lou shook his head. “We checked. Katie’s home. Imogene’s at the restaurant. Maybe some hobo snuck in, lit the heater.”

Bartels watched a fireman below, chopping the trailer floor for a hot spot. “Why not your missing banker?”

Lou pretended to consider. “Makes sense. More likely Joey than a hobo. Whoever grabbed him maybe knew the trailer was empty.”

“Think the money burned up with him?”

“Could be, if that’s Joey. We’ll go through the ruins.”

Bartels nodded. “You ever consider the possibility that Joey Robbins arranged the holdup?”

The deputy looked up at Fogel, who grinned at Bartels. “You got a sneaky way with you. He could’ve. It’s occurred to some of us. Since we know Joey like he’s family, we don’t put it in words too often.”

“Pretend you don’t know him.”

“You could give a lot of weight to one thing. Say Joey heard rumors that after the bank consolidation, he wouldn’t stay manager. Might make a fellow bitter.”

“Understandable.”

“Here’s what’s wrong with it. If Joey took the money himself, why’s he been hiding out here five days? Assuming that’s Joey down there. He coulda been long gone.”

“Maybe somebody hijacked him?”

“Oh, man,” said Lou.

Jeanie Hanigan was over by the cruisers pouring coffee. Her husband was down near the trailer, aiming a water stream at a tree that had partly burned. Fighting down a grin, Bartels stomped through the snow back to his car. He got in and drove back to their house. When the Hanigans arrived, Roy shucked his coat into the same closet from which he pulled a pump-action shotgun.

“You heard the new official version?” he asked. “Joey and the two hundred K both went up in smoke.”

“Heard it? I invented it, and Lou jumped on it.”

“So it’s finders keepers. Unless someone takes what you find away from you. You think Lou’s got it?”

“At least one of them has,” Bartels said. “I can’t figure which one.”

“Howard and Lou couldn’t have stayed there all night,” Jeanie pointed out. “They were supposed to be patrolling. Katie had time. If she believed what Joey told her, I could see her torching her own trailer with him in it.”

Roy thumbed shells into the gun. “So we pay Katie a visit.” He told his wife, “Stay here. Anyone comes looking for us, shoot ‘em.”

Bartels climbed into the big-finned convertible’s passenger side. Roy propped the shotgun between them. They drove down into the village, cruised the main road looking for Imogene’s beige van. The family house was dark, and the parking pad at the Wig-Wam was empty except for an inch and a half of snow.

“Let’s check out the mini-mart,” Roy said.

They drove back to the mini-mart and gas station, which was locked and dark. Theirs were the only tire tracks crossing the lot. Bartels got out and looked into the repair bay. Snow was starting to pile up against the door, but he looked anyway. The interior was empty.

He got back in the car. “Where next?”

“We’ll try Howard’s place.”

Roy drove back the way they had come, past the tilting frame houses, up along a ridge that had a few big trucks parked on one side, then past a low institutional building that looked like a regional school, and a mile or so later — where Bartels could guess at the snowy road only because there were mailboxes and utility poles — Roy Hanigan started steering with one hand and pointing past Bartels. “It used to be their parents’ place, but then Imogene threw Bob Everly out, made him live behind the restaurant, so Imogene and Howard live there now. See the lights? And there’s the van.”

Roy doused the headlights, cut the engine, and drifted to a stop. “Let’s pay our respects to the widow. Maybe you should go up to the door first, Mr. Bartels.”

“Why me?”

“I want to know if they’re jumpy enough to shoot.”

“Let’s assume they are. You got the shotgun, you lead.”

Roy stepped past him and Bartels slammed his pistol into the back of the man’s head. Roy went to his knees, and Bartels hit him again. Roy sprawled in the snow. Bartels picked up the shotgun, patted the man’s bulky jacket and pants, and found a revolver that he stuffed into his pocket.

He took a roundabout route to the house, but his first guess was right: There was no easy way inside unless someone opened a door, which he didn’t think was likely. So he hunkered down beside the front porch and waited.

A sheriff’s cruiser arrived twenty minutes later. Lou hit the brakes hard when he saw the big fins parked in the road and jumped out. Roy Hanigan was lightly dusted with snow but still visible as a human lump. Lou ran to the porch, shouting, and the door opened before he got there. A big woman in a heavy wool jacket stared in alarm in the direction the deputy was pointing.

“It’s Roy’s car,” Lou gobbled. “And it’s Roy in the snow. Did you shoot him?”

“I ain’t shot no one. Neither’s Katie, not tonight. We better look around for Jeanie.”

“Or that out-a-towner,” Lou said. He was catching his breath, starting to think. “Did Joey say where the money was?”

“Yeah. Dummy had it in the ceiling at the bank. Katie and I got it. We been counting ever since.”

“How much you count?”

“Two hundred five, plus a little. Wouldn’t of guessed Joey had it in him. Lotta money.”

“Not enough,” Lou said and shot her. Imogene Cross pitched through the doorway and Lou followed, catching Katie at the table with her hand six inches from the big revolver she had used on her husband. “Howard and I agreed we couldn’t trust you gals,” he said and fired again.

Bartels, who had come onto the porch right behind him, pressed the shotgun against the center of the deputy’s back.

When Howard Cross arrived a few minutes later, he walked into the house and found Lou sitting in a straight-backed chair with a stack of money in front of him. He noticed the women on the floor. “Any trouble?” he asked.

From behind the door, Bartels answered. “Not much.”

He got them both handcuffed, took the loose guns out to the car, then pulled Roy Hanigan out of the snow. The big man had trouble walking but no trouble cursing Bartels. “Knew I couldn’t trust you.” When he saw the pile of money, he said, “You gonna shoot everyone and keep it all?”

“I wish,” Bartels said. The antiques shop was slipping, so he had to moonlight. Insurance companies paid fifteen percent of what he recovered. He did the math for the big guy. Thirty thousand.

“We helped. You oughta cut me and Jeanie in,” Hanigan protested.

“How much do you want?”

“Half.”

“When I found the money, you were asleep in the snow.”

“A quarter. I drove.” His eyes shifted to the two deputies. “It’s getting so it ain’t much money for any of us. If we could figure what to do with Howard and Lou, we’d do better. Just a thought.”

“How much would you want?”

“A quarter?”

“But we’d have to kill them.”

Roy reminded him, “I never liked ‘em much.”

Bartels spent the rest of the night at the motel, gun on the pillow. When Roy and Jeanie Hanigan started thinking about it, they might decide the other three-quarters was worth paying him a visit.

Copyright © 2008 John C. Boland