Frenzy (22 page)

47

U
nemployed oil rig worker Bailey Conners, driving on Lagoon Road later that day, braked reflexively when he saw something glowing dully in the sunlight among the weeds. It was about a hundred feet off the side of the road, near some cypress trees, and he had no idea what the damned thing was.

Well, he didn't have anything else to do other than to satisfy his curiosity.

Bailey steered his Dodge pickup onto the soggy shoulder, wondering if the truck's oversized but worn tires would have the traction to get it going again in the mud. It was a risk he had to take. He understood that he had to find out for sure what he'd seen, and that his mind on some level had rejected.

He climbed down from the truck's cab and rolled up the sleeves of his blue work shirt, knowing he was stalling to keep from approaching whatever was ahead of him in the tall grass. Nothing was visible now, without the advantage of seeing it from the truck's raised cab.

The sun beat down on him, and he picked up the scent of his underarm odor from a shirt worn a day too long. There were crescents of perspiration beneath both arms of the shirt. He'd begun to sweat heavily.

He was considering returning to the truck when the grass stirred. His heartbeat picked up. He was aware of the copper taste of fear.

He didn't have any more sleeves to roll up, so he took a deep breath and moved forward.

Bailey didn't see it at first, because it was almost the color of the swamp. Then there it was in recognizable form, like a trick of the light. Once he realized what it was, its configuration was obvious. How had he missed it at first? The coiled body of the snake was immense, thicker than a fire hose, colored a mottled tan and green that made it nearly invisible.

There had been a state-sponsored python hunting season recently, to try to keep the python population in check. Obviously, the hunt in this area hadn't been successful.

As solid ground gave way to mud, Bailey's boots began making slurping noises with each step.

He was within twenty feet of the snake, but the tall saw grass was blocking some of his view.

The snake moved slightly.

Not that he'd thought otherwise—merely hoped.

Bailey slowed his approach, altering direction slightly to stay on relatively solid ground.

Then he saw something that turned his fear to horror.

A patch of blue cloth had emerged from between the python's coils. Surely part of an article of clothing. He saw that one side of it was edged with lace.

My God, he was looking at a dress!

A rage he didn't understand helped to overcome his fear, and he moved forward to slightly higher ground. He saw what he dreaded. Pink flesh. An ankle and foot. Unmoving.

He inched closer and saw the horror in its entirety.

The python paid no attention to him. Perhaps because it was feeding. As snakes do, it had unhinged its jaws to consume larger prey headfirst. The girl's blond head had almost disappeared inside the snake. Little of her slender body was visible among the tightly wrapped coils that had slowly and by degrees crushed the life from her.

A trembling Bailey found himself wondering if she'd been dead before the snake—

He refused to finish his thought.

The snake paused in its feeding and was perfectly still, staring at Bailey with calculating eyes.

On unsteady legs, Bailey took three cautious backward steps. Then he turned and hurried back to the truck to get his shotgun.

 

 

Everyone who knew Honey Carter was shocked by her death. Dwayne was inconsolable. And like everyone else, he had no idea what Honey had been doing that night in the swamp.

Mrs. Collingsworth, Honey's former biology teacher, said that Honey had possessed a growing interest in nature and all its inhabitants. Creatures of the swamp, in particular, had fascinated her.

Dwayne knew that Honey had snowed Mrs. Collingsworth to raise her grade point average. He made no mention of it.

Four days after Bailey found Honey in the coils of the giant python, a man with a twelve-gauge shotgun entered a biker bar in nearby Plainville and blasted three of the regular customers off their stools. When the police arrived, the killer burst from the diner barefoot and shot one of them, then leaned over his shotgun and used a toe to trip the trigger and blow himself almost in half.

Dead at home from shotgun blasts were the man's wife and two children. The media quickly discovered that one of the casualties in the biker bar had been involved in a secret affair with the killer's wife.

That was pretty much the end of Honey in the news.

There were a few suspicions and aspersions cast Dwayne's way, but he ignored them and they gained no substance or credibility. As far as the sheriff's office was concerned, Honey had met with a terrible accident, and that was that.

Like the rest of her friends, Dwayne professed to be crushed by her death.

48

 

Q
uinn parked the rental car in front of Ida Tucker's frame house, in the shade of a big mimosa tree. When they opened the car's doors and climbed out, the sweet scent of the tree's pink blossoms was like perfume.

All in all it was a nice morning, still not overheated by the summer sun. Ida suggested that they walk.

A plain black Ford SUV pulled into the Tucker driveway, and Joel Price climbed down from it, moving with the stiffness of old age. They invited Price to walk with them, but he declined, got back in the truck, and drove the few blocks to the Tradesman First National Bank.

He was standing in the shade of a large oak tree, in the center of a paved roundabout in front of the bank, when they arrived. Those on foot were feeling too warm and wished they'd heeded the advice of the attorney, looking dry and comfortable despite his dark suit. His tie had a small checked design on it today. Not a black tie like yesterday, but certainly not festive. Price had been around long enough to hit the right notes.

He smiled in greeting, then led them solemnly into the bank.

The air-conditioning was keeping up in there, and it was quiet in the way of banks with lots of carpeting and wood paneling.

There were two tellers' windows open, and half a dozen employees at desks or wandering about with papers in their hands. Quinn counted only three other customers. One at each window, and one at a long oak table near the bank's lettered window. Behind the tellers' cages was a large, polished steel safe with its door open.

“Hi, Maggie,” Price said, to the youngest of the two tellers. Not that either of them was a spring chicken. Maggie looked about forty, the other teller fifty. Maggie had chopped-off looking dark hair. The other teller was a woman with gray hair worn in a long braid down her back. She was looking up something for a stout Hispanic woman holding a handful of what looked like deposit slips.

Maggie gave her customer some sort of form to fill out regarding a new mortgage. When the refinancing customer was gone, Maggie smiled at the small group near her teller's cage. Said, “Hi, Mr. Price.”

Price said, “We need to get into a box, Maggie.”

She bent down and got some keys and what looked like a black leather ledger, then came out from behind the marble counter.

When they'd reached a small table near the gaping entrance to the vault, Maggie placed the leather book on the table and opened it.

“Not my usual box, Maggie,” the lawyer said. “Number one-fifty.”

Maggie turned some pages and seemed to study the book for several seconds. “Long time between visits, Mr. Price.”

“Part of my job,” Price said. He signed and dated the book.

Carrying a jingling ring of keys, Maggie led him into the vault.

A few minutes later, they emerged. Price was carrying a long, gray metal box with a locked door on one end. Maggie moved ahead of him and held open a door to a carpeted ten-by-ten room with a single oak table and two oak chairs. There was a tablet of paper on the table, along with a lamp.

Maggie laid the long metal box on the table, unfastened one of the locks with her master key, then nodded to them, and left the room. Joel Price had the second key needed to open the box.

Quinn went to the door Maggie had left by and worked the lock on the knob.

He nodded to Price, who withdrew the box's key from a small, sturdy envelope with the box number written on it.

Ida Tucker moved closer, which seemed to cause Pearl to edge toward her. Quinn moved directly toward the box as Price worked his key and then lifted the hinged lid that was about half the length of the box itself. Everyone in the room leaned toward the box, staring.

It was empty.

Price seemed flabbergasted. “I don't understand this any more than you do,” he said.

“Were you and Edward Tucker the only ones with keys?” Quinn asked.

Price nodded. “Yes. I had mine, always, in my desk drawer or in my pocket. I don't know where Edward Tucker kept his key. I do know it would take the person with the activating key and the person with the other legitimate key to open the safe before nine a.m., when the bank opened and the timer would kick in within the safe.”

Price explained that at precisely 9:00
A.M.
the safe's brass handle could be moved to the left 180 degrees and the heavy steel door, balanced on its bearings, could be swung open with very little effort. It was usually left that way until the bank closed. Then the safe door would be shut and would automatically lock tight on its timer. It couldn't be opened except with explosives until nine the next morning.

No one, even if they'd wanted to, could have entered the vault and removed and unlocked Joel Price and Edward Tucker's safe deposit box. Joel Price had a key. Edward Tucker had an identical key. The bank had the second key, necessary to get into any of the boxes.

Joel Price asked everyone to remain, then left the room for a few minutes and returned with Maggie the teller and Mr. Earl Tanenger, the bank manager. Tanenger was a corpulent, bald man in his sixties and took up a lot of space. They were all crowded into the little room where the boxes could be opened in private by customers. Maggie had the leather record book. She was wearing too much of her new perfume, Heaven's Gate, that made a few people—Pearl among them—sniff and sneeze.

In front of everyone, Earl Tanenger opened the leather-bound book, stared at it, and proclaimed that no one had entered the vault and removed box 150 since October 12, 1998, when the box was rented and the register was signed by both Joel Price and Edward Tucker. Mr. Tanenger had been bank manager for almost twenty years and remembered that day well.

Said he did, anyway.

Quinn had his doubts. He said, “I want to talk to all the employees.” He was aware that he had no jurisdiction here. Also aware that Earl Tanenger didn't want the county sheriff involved and for this thing to get out of hand.

“Certainly,” Tanenger said.

They all left the room and moved toward the lobby, where Tanenger motioned them toward the conference room while he went to temporarily close the bank and summon the employees.

No one spoke. A few sniffled, still under the spell of Heaven's Gate.

Pearl said, “I hope we can get this cleared up fast.”

Quinn thought her swollen nasal passages made her sound like Porky Pig, but he said not a word.

Earl Tanenger returned only a few minutes later, with the teller who'd been working with Maggie behind the counter. She was a whippet-thin gray-haired woman in her fifties, who would have been perfectly cast as a severe librarian or teacher who would abide no breaking of the rules.

“This is Miss Luella Morst,” Tanenger said. “And she can explain.” He took a step to the side and motioned with his right arm. “Luella, the floor is yours.”

“Four days ago, Monday it was, Maggie was home sick with the swine flu.”

God!
Pearl thought.

Luella pressed on. “Mr. Edward Tucker and another man came into the bank, and Mr. Tucker asked for his safety deposit box. I gave it to him, and he and the other man went into one of the privacy rooms. They were only in there a few minutes, then came out. I went back with Mr. Tucker, and we returned his box to the proper place, locked it, and I escorted him out, then watched both men leave. They were both very polite and businesslike.” Miss Morst flushed and for the first time seemed defensive. “I'm not used to working the deposit boxes. I did everything right, except I forgot to have Mr. Tucker sign and date the register.”

“Mistakes happen,” Earl Tanenger said, and rested a hand lightly on Luella Morst's shoulder.

“Do you know Edward Tucker by sight?” Quinn asked Luella Morst.

“Yes. I've seen him around town for years.”

“The other man?”

“Never saw him before.”

“Do you recall what he looked like?”

“Didn't pay much attention, tell you the truth. Average size, maybe too fat.”

“Hair?”

“Yes. Dark, I think.”

“Scars? Facial hair? Tattoos? Glasses?”

“Not glasses, I don't think. The rest of it I don't know. I do recall that he had a Band-Aid on his face, like he'd cut himself or got cut.”

Quinn almost moaned. It was an old technique for a crook to wear a Band-Aid on his or her face. It would probably be all any witnesses would remember about how they looked.

“Did Mr. Tucker seem as if he was at ease?” Quinn asked. “Did the other man seem to be controlling him in any way?”

“Not at all. They acted perfectly normal.”

Quinn thanked her. Earl Tanenger instructed her and everyone else to return to work. Then he looked at Quinn and shrugged.

“Human error,” he said.

“He probably wouldn't have signed his name anyway,” Quinn said. “Just be glad you've got an employee with the guts to come forward.”

“I should give her a bonus for her forgetfulness?” Tanenger said.

“Yes,” Pearl said.

“What could Edward have been doing?” Ida Tucker asked the world in general.

“Whatever it was, he might have been doing it under duress, despite what Luella Morst said.”

“He'd never do anything illegal.”

“Whatever was in that box, it belonged to him.”

“It belonged to the family,” Ida Tucker said, with more than a touch of bitterness.

They went back out on the sidewalk and crossed to the paved roundabout in front of the bank. It had gotten hotter outside. Uncomfortable.

They all said their good-byes. Quinn and Pearl repeated their condolences. Joel Price assured them he would call if there were any developments.

There were just the two of them now on the hot and dusty street, Quinn and Pearl.

“This is what a dead end looks like,” Pearl said.

“Maybe,” Quinn said.

“What happens now?” Pearl asked.

“Whatever it is, it'll happen in New York.”

Only it didn't.

Before they could get in the car, Ida Tucker came huffing up to them, forcing a grin.

“I don't know what I was thinking,” she said, “not inviting you to come to the house afterward and have some lemonade.”

“Really,” Pearl said, “that's very kind of you but it isn't necessary.”

The grin widened. She'd been pushing herself, Quinn thought, especially considering her age. He wondered about her. Was she simply what she seemed—a gentle and artful mother? What role, if any, had she played in making Henry Tucker's letters disappear? People who were experts in conning others often thought themselves more clever than they were. If Ida Tucker had been in on whatever had happened that made their trip from New York futile, was it possible that she
couldn't
simply allow the con to end? Were she and some of the others secretly enjoying themselves too much, and had to extend the advantage they'd already exercised? Was that what he was seeing here? Did Ida Tucker, on a subliminal level, want to rub it in?

“I'm thirsty,” Quinn said. He smiled at Ida Tucker. “Lemonade sounds perfect, dear. But let's drive back to your house in our car.”

“There's an offer I'll accept,” Ida said, “since you so graciously accepted mine.”

Gracious.
Yes, that was the game they were playing.