Out Of The Deep I Cry

Chapter 29

Wednesday, March 29

When the handicapped elevator dinged and Russ swung into the station hallway, he could hear some weird sounds coming from the squad room. He stumped down the hall and poked his head inside. Lyle MacAuley was on the phone, frowning and holding up one hand for quiet, while Kevin Flynn seemed to be doing an end-zone victory boogie.

“Uh-huh,” he chanted. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-whoops! Good morning, Chief.” While he didn’t exactly come to attention, the kid stood up straight and tugged his uniform blouse into position.

“What’s up?” Russ asked. “Where is everybody?”

Kevin blinked. “It’s after nine o’clock, Chief. Ed’s on patrol and Noble took an accident call.” Russ glanced up at the clock on the wall. The whole Linda-as-his-chauffeur-to-work thing was going to take some tweaking. It wasn’t that she was unwilling. She just couldn’t function without a morning cup of tea and a chance to put on her makeup. “We just got a call from the Farmers and Merchants Bank,” Kevin continued. “Lyle’s on with them now.”

“Lyle’s off with them,” the man himself said, replacing the receiver in its cradle.

Russ pivoted to face his deputy chief. “What’s the news?”

Lyle grinned. “Rouse’s ATM card was used last night. At the ATM outside the Super Kmart in Fort Henry.”

Yes. Russ clenched his fist, trapping the moment. “Was the video running?”

Lyle’s grin grew even broader. “It was. They’re sending a technician over to pull it even as we speak.”

Kevin started his jive moves again, a skinny redheaded white boy channeling James Brown. “Uh-huh,” he said. “Uh-huh.”

“Thank you, Kevin.” Russ stumped closer to Lyle’s desk. “Where can we take a look?”

“At the downtown branch. That’s where they run their security. They’ve got a computer set up that can enlarge the videos and make single-frame pictures. Just what we need.”

“What are you waiting for? Let’s go.”

Kevin stopped in the middle of a joint-defying arm movement. “Hey. What about me? I’m supposed to be driving you.”

“Tell you what, Kevin.” Russ swung across the squad-room floor to Noble Entwhistle’s desk. “I’ll give you a chance to do some detective work.” He balanced on his crutches and withdrew a sheaf of handwritten papers that had been shoved inside a phone book. “Noble started on the pharmacy project yesterday. He called every drugstore within a forty-five-minute drive, and he’s drawn up a list here of places that have filled prescriptions written by Dr. Rouse.” He handed the papers to Kevin. “I want you to get a photo of the doc from the file and hit the road. Flash it to everyone behind the counter: pharmacists, assistants, cashiers. See if Rouse was ever in there picking up stuff.”

Kevin’s eyes turned cartwheels at the prospect of running down information. “You want me to do the whole list?”

“Better split it up to leave something for Noble to do when he gets back. If he’s still tied up after you’ve covered the first half, come on back and you can tackle the second.”

As he and Lyle moved up the hall toward the elevator, Russ thought he heard the sounds again, coming from the squad room. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

The First Allegheny Farmers and Merchants bank had rechristened itself “All-Banc” a couple years ago, but only people from the city called it that. The grand old building on Main Street had suffered through an updating at the same time, with a glassed-in ATM replacing one of a pair of gracefully arched windows on either side of the front steps, and a brushed-steel nameplate not quite covering up the former name, chiseled out of New Hampshire granite 140 years before. The old front doors had been replaced, too, with automatically sliding bulletproof glass that made the entrance look like the outside of the Albany airport baggage claim. The whole effect was that of a dowager forced into hip-hop gear and Ray-Bans, suffering hideous embarrassment.

Russ ignored the wheelchair ramp at the side of the stairs and laboriously crutched his way up one step at a time.

“You’re not impressing me, you know,” Lyle said. “My definition of a fool is a man who works harder than he has too.”

Russ loosened his grip on one crutch just enough to spare Lyle a finger. Lyle was still laughing when they passed through the smoked-glass doors into the bank.

A young woman in a tight skirt rose from a nearby desk when she caught sight of them. She trotted across the floor. “Deputy Chief MacAuley?” she said.

“That’s me.” Lyle smiled, showing many white teeth.

“Mr. Smith’s expecting you.” She glanced toward Russ and made a pouty face that Russ suspected had been well practiced in order for it to appear natural. “I guess we’d better take the elevator. Security’s on the third floor.”

“We could always send my friend here up while you and I walk,” Lyle suggested. The young woman twinkled at him.

“Let’s not keep Mr. Smith waiting, Deputy Chief.” Russ swung over toward the elevator, a brass-doored relic that had mercifully missed out on modernization. He punched the call button.

“Aw, Dad. You never let me have any fun.” Lyle winked at the girl. The elevator opened with a ping and they piled in, the door almost closing on Lyle and the girl because it took Russ too long to get himself and the crutches out of the way.

“I hate these things,” he said under his breath as they rose to the third floor. Lyle shrugged.

“This way!” The young woman was first out of the elevator, which gave them a chance to admire exactly how tight her skirt was. She led them up the hall toward security, an unremarkable door with only a number to identify it. Lyle darted forward and opened it for her. She beamed at him. “Aren’t you sweet? You remind me of my dad. He has these great old-fashioned manners, too.”

Russ swung past Lyle into the office. “Thanks, old-timer.”

He could make out only part of Lyle’s rejoinder, and decided it was better to pretend he couldn’t hear any of it.

The man who emerged from an inner room to greet then was tall, bald, and grim-faced. He had the rangy build of someone who had spent his whole life keeping in shape. “Hi,” he said, thrusting out his hand. “John Smith, director of security.”

Politeness kept Russ from checking out what Lyle made of the guy’s name. John Smith? Instead, he shook Smith’s hand. “Russ Van Alstyne, chief of police. I’m surprised we haven’t met before.”

“I’m pretty new here. I retired from my old job and we moved to these parts so my wife could be closer to her family. I signed on with AllBanc about eight months ago.”

“Lyle MacAuley. We spoke on the phone.” Lyle stepped forward and took Smith’s hand. “You look too young to be retired. What was your former line of work?”

Smith looked at him. “I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

Russ waited for the punch-line grin. None came. “Okay,” he said. “Can we take a look at this tape?”

“Right this way, gentlemen. Nicole, thank you. You’re dismissed.”

Lyle raised his bushy gray eyebrows at Russ, who shrugged. They followed Smith into a shadowy room of faceless metal file cabinets and a wide countertop workstation with three computers. One of them had what looked like a VCR player slaved to the CPU.

“I’m hoping to get the funding to convert the security cams to digital, but until then, we have to translate the actual tape into computer images.” Smith rolled a chair in front of the augmented machine. “This enables us to lighten the images, get better resolution, blow things up-everything we need to better identify someone.” He pointed to another wheeled work chair. “Chief, why don’t you have a seat.” He flicked on the monitor. “The ATM report indicated that the flagged card was used at nineteen-forty-seven hours.”

Lyle caught Russ’s eye and made a face.

“I’ve advanced the tape to nineteen-thirty. I’m putting it on fast forward until we get to the incident time.” He opened a menu and clicked on a selection, and the monitor filled with a grainy black-and-white image of the floor, door, and part of the outer wall of the ATM kiosk. Numbers indicating the hour, minute, and second flickered by in the lower left-hand corner. As they watched, a woman with a toddler, an umbrella, and several large carrier bags entered, dropped the bags, folded the umbrella, took out cash, scolded the toddler, and left, all in the triple time of a Keystone Kop.

“You ever see any funny stuff on these?” Lyle asked.

Smith looked at him. “All the time.”

The tape showed floor, partial wall, glass, edge of door. Russ watched the numbers hurtling toward 19:40. Then 19:42. Then 19:45.

“Slow it down!” He rolled closer to the screen.

Smith hit a key and the action slowed to normal speed. Someone entered the kiosk in a slicker and rain hat.

“That looks like a woman,” Lyle said. “Look, she’s got a purse.”

“Yeah,” Russ agreed. She was hefting two large Kmart bags. They watched as she put them down, dug through her purse, and after a search of two minutes, eighteen seconds, pulled out the ATM card. “Can’t you get a better angle than this?” he asked Smith. “I can’t see anything but her hat.”

Smith hit another key and the action slowed further. “She’ll have to reach up to punch in her PIN number. When she does, we’ll get a better view.”

He was right. As soon as she slid the card in, she tilted her head back to read the screen and they could see the face of-

“Shit!” Russ slammed his hand on the countertop. “That’s his wife.”

On the screen, Renee Rouse went on punching in the PIN number, selecting the amount of cash, and pulling sixty dollars from the machine.

“What is it you were looking for?” Smith asked.

Lyle opened his mouth, and Russ held up a hand to stop him before he said they could tell Smith, but then they’d have to kill him. “We’ve got a missing sixty-five-year-old doctor, disappeared twelve days ago. Search and rescue hasn’t turned up any sign of him. I was hoping anyone found with his ATM card might be able to shed some light on where he is.”

“Maybe his wife did him.” Smith leaned back in his seat and folded his arms across his chest.

“I’ll ask her when I see her,” Russ said, pulling his crutches into position.

“When’s that going to be?”

“As soon as we can get down to the car and get over to her place.”

Renee Rouse looked anguished. “I’m so, so sorry,” she said, holding out the ATM card she had dug out of her handbag. “I didn’t realize I had his. It was in the dish on my dresser, where I keep my change and things. I just grabbed it and stuck it in my bag.”

Russ took the card. It had Allan Rouse’s name along the bottom. “What about the PIN number?”

“We have the same one. Allan’s birth month and year. It makes it easier.”

Russ glanced at Lyle, then back to Mrs. Rouse. “Let me just go over this again,” he said. “You and your husband have a joint account that you can access through his ATM card.”

“That’s right, that’s where all the bills are paid from.”

“And you have your own account, with your own ATM card, where you keep a smaller amount of money.”

“Yes. Usually if I need cash I just write a little over at the supermarket. I was going to get cash back at the Kmart last night, but I forgot. That’s why I used the card. I don’t normally.”

“Have you checked the balance in your account since your husband’s been gone?”

“No. Usually Allan manages all that for me.” She started to cry. “Oh, God, he’s never coming home, is he? What am I going to do without him? What am I going to do?”

Russ left a quick message with Clare’s secretary, Lois, explaining he was going to be working and would have to take a rain check on their usual Wednesday lunch. It took a bit longer to extricate himself from Renee Rouse’s living room. The doctor’s wife whipsawed between begging for help, demanding police action, and crying. Russ guaranteed that he would check and see if anyone had withdrawn anything from her account, promised her that the Millers Kill Police Department was still treating this as a missing-persons case, and extracted her promise to call one of her friends to sit with her so she wouldn’t be alone.

When he and Lyle were finally back in the car, Lyle had that vacant, dreamy look that meant he was thinking hard.

“How do you like Mrs. Rouse as a suspect?”

“Not much.” Russ buckled his seat belt.

“Usually, the spouse is first call for the bad guy in these cases. We haven’t even looked at her.”

“We’ve confirmed that Renee Rouse placed numerous calls to friends from four o’clock onward, looking for her husband. Debba Clow was with Rouse between six and seven or seven-thirty the night he disappeared. We’ve got evidence that places him in her car. At eight-thirty, the wife is speaking with Harlene. At nine-thirty, Mark Durkee’s already spotted Rouse’s car, crashed into some trees off the road. How would you suggest we put Mrs. Rouse into this picture?”

“Maybe she was waiting in his car. Debba Clow never said she got a look inside.”

“Okay, let’s say she’s sitting in the car, freezing her tail off while her husband chats about vaccinations with Clow. Clow drives off, leaving Mrs. Rouse with her husband.”

“Who has a bashed-in head.”

“What’s she going to do with him? Even if she dumped him in the lake and crashed the car to cover her tracks, how does she get home in time to call Harlene looking for help?”

“She called on her cell phone.”

Russ snorted. “Not out there.”

“Maybe she and Clow are in on it together.”

“Would you trust your neck to Debba Clow?”

“Maybe she hitchhiked out with someone.”

Russ threw up his hands. “You’re not going to give up, are you? Okay, look into it. See if she stands to inherit a bundle from insurance, if there’s another man on the scene, the usual.”

Lyle started the car. “I know it’s a long shot. But there was something about the way she said she didn’t know anything about the accounts. Creeped me out. My ex, if I took my checkbook out of my coat pocket, she knew about it.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. Linda handles most of our money.” He stared out the window at the passing yards with their rapidly shrinking patches of ice and snow. A few more days up in the forties and it’d be gone. Unless they had an April storm, which wasn’t out of the question.

“Do you know what the average date is for ice out on Stewart’s Pond?” he asked Lyle.

“Third, fourth week in April, usually.”

“You think there’s patches of open water up there yet?”

“Sure. That’s why everybody goes to Florida in March, you know. Because there’s not enough ice for ice fishing, and there’s not enough water for a boat.”

“Let’s get in touch with the staties’ dive team, see if they’re open for business yet.”

Lyle glanced over at him. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that we’re clutching at straws, with all this running around to pharmacies and trying to shoehorn his wife into the facts. I’m thinking it may be time to send someone down there, into Stewart’s Pond. Because we need to find Rouse’s body before all the evidence washes away.”