Heart of Ice

Chapter Fifty-seven

Cherrystone

Chris Collier had always been partial to the task of following the money in a criminal case. It was the surest way to catch a killer when insurance, payoffs, and, of course, murder for hire were the suspected motives, even though this time, neither he nor Emily suspected any of those scenarios. He’d done it more than a time or two as detective for the Seattle PD.

His most famous “follow the money” collar was made when he proved that the wife of a Seattle city councilman had hired a hit man to kill her husband. The scheme was as simple as it was dumb. She asked her brother to do the job (“nothing like keeping stupid in the family,” Chris told Emily over coffee the morning the case broke), promising a small down payment and a fat insurance check later. Chris worked the finance angle sorting out the multiple accounts and discovered ten checks of $500 all made out to her brother. She was convicted and given a life sentence for murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Now she was an inmate at Washington Corrections Center for Women in Purdy, where she taught accounting classes to other inmates.

Tricia Wilson’s recent influx of cash as related by Fatima was likely related to the lie she told about her ex-husband.

The question was just how? And, more important, who had given her the dough?

Chris drove his rental PT Cruiser on the highway to Spokane. As he looked out across the orchards and ranch-land and drank his coffee from Java the Hut, he grinned. It wasn’t the wet side of the state; it was green only where irrigation ditches and enormous sprinklers deigned it to be.

He was ready for a change. He hoped Emily was, too.

When he arrived in the parking lot at the bank in Spokane, Chris knew that without a warrant, getting any information at all would rest on who he selected to ask. He was tired from the night of wine and files, so charm would have to be forced. Not always a good mode in which to win over a potential witness.

As he entered the bank, he noticed a circular counter with a young woman named Britannia Scott smiling from the center of her Lucite and brushed-steel domain. She was the bank’s personal greeter. Her wide eyes and warm smile as much as her name-tagged role made her the best shot for the first approach.

The first approach without a badge to back him up.

“Good morning! Welcome to your personal banking center!”

Chris immediately returned her smile. This girl is over-drive-friendly. Good. That’s what I need.

“Hi, Britannia,” he said. “I see you have coffee there. Could sure use a cup. What have you got today?”

“Viennese roast. Let me pour it for you,” she said, walking to the other side of her circle and pumping the cinnamon-scented coffee from a black carafe.

“A real cup,” he said, as she handed over a blue ceramic mug with the bank’s name in silver. “This is better than Starbucks.”

“We try a ton harder than anyone. What can we do for you today? We have new rates on equity loans and free checking specials.”

“I’m actually here for some other kind of help.”

“What’s that?” Her tone was suddenly wary.

Chris slid a photo of Mitch Crawford toward Britannia. She looked at it, and it was clear she recognized the man.

“Are you a police officer? My manager can help you. I’m not authorized to do anything like that.”

“Well, I am a cop. But I’m not here as a cop. I’m here helping another jurisdiction with an investigation.”

“I can’t help you,” she said.

“All I need to know is whether or not this man is a customer of your bank.”

Britannia pushed a button on the console under the counter. For a second, it flashed in Chris Collier’s mind that she was activating a silent alarm and in three minutes he’d be on his stomach with a Spokane police officer’s gun bearing down on him.

Instead, a small woman with dark birdlike eyes, a sharp, pointy nose, and close-cropped hair that made her look like a boy—a bird boy—clacked over from her desk across the room. She looked completely irritated.

“What is it now, Britannia?” The woman was impatient before she even knew the problem. “I told you the helium tank is empty, a replacement is on its way from the Valley branch, and you’ll have to make do.”

Britannia shrank with embarrassment and Collier felt sorry for her. “It isn’t that, Ms. Davis. This man is seeking some information. He’s working on that case from Cherrystone.”

Chris hadn’t said where he was from and he knew that meant Britannia had ID’d the photo.

“Where’s your subpoena?” she asked, virtually spitting out her words.

“I don’t have one. Look, I just want to know if this fellow is a customer of the bank. What would that really hurt?”

“Either open an account or leave,” Ms. Davis said. “We might be the friendliest bank in town, but we follow every rule. And really, would you want to bank with an institution that didn’t?”

She calls this friendly? I’d like to see her when she’s not so congenial.

Ms. Davis spun around, and called over her bony shoulder, “Britannia, review the employee handbook. See the section on information requests. It starts on page thirty-two.”

Chris Collier returned to his car. He’d come so close. He knew that the young woman in the circle knew something. She’d mentioned Cherrystone. She had the unmistakable look of recognition on her face when she saw the photo. It was something. Not as much as he hoped. But better than a complete zero. As he started to back out, Britannia Scott’s lacquered nails rapped on the passenger’s window. He struggled to find the window release.

Damn rental car!

“I’m quitting this job Friday, so I don’t care if Ms. Davis fires me today. I’ve been here six months and that’s half a year too long.”

“No kidding. About the photo? You recognized the man, didn’t you?”

“Yes. I think so. I’ve followed the case from the beginning. I’ve seen Mitch Crawford on TV. That’s him in the photo, right?”

Chris pointed at the photo. “Is he a customer here?”

Britannia looked back at the bank’s front doors. “Like I said, I don’t really care if I get fired. But, no, he’s not a customer here. I see everyone who comes in. I’m in the ‘Customer Circle.’ I’d know.”

“Maybe under another name? Banking under a company name?”

She let out a sigh and shook her head in an exaggerated manner that was meant to drive the point of her exasperation to the moon. “That’s all I can tell you. I have fifty balloons to blow up. God, I hate this job.”

He thanked the young woman and she disappeared inside the bank. He could see Ms. Davis descending on the younger woman and giving her the “what for” for going outside to speak to him. Britannia’s eyes met Chris’s as she stood in the circle, being read the riot act by her boss. For a second, Chris caught a slight smile on her face.