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He finished breakfast, got his overnight bag, and went out the door, followed by most of the household. He paused on the steps because he’d just remembered that he had no way to get home. Abby had driven him over here.
Behind him, car keys rattled. Abby grinned at him. “Ready to go? I don’t have to take Lucy to school for almost an hour.”
“Okay. And thanks. For everything.”
“Neighbors take care of each other,” she said, smiling. “Let’s go.”
SHELETHIMout at his front porch. He didn’t linger. He just smiled, thanked her again, and went into his house.
She drove away with a sense of unfinished business. He was still grieving for Anyu, the loss was so near. He was probably grieving for Debby, too. Losing his dog, and its connection to her, would make the grief worse. She was sorry for him. She wanted to stay and comfort him, but he’d made it clear without a single word being spoken that he was fine and just needed to be left alone.
Well, he’d go to work, that was for sure, and that would keep his mind busy. Besides, he’d said that he’d come to breakfast, so that made her feel lighter and happier. She wondered why? He was a nice man, and she liked him. But she felt empty when he wasn’t around. Odd feeling, and she didn’t have time to think about it, because she’d be late getting Lucy to school and she’d be late to work, which was unthinkable!
SHEMENTIONEDPOSSIBLEcharges against Mr. Whatley to Mr. Owens, adding the part about the escaped criminal who hadn’t been found and who was desperate for money. It could very well be him who’d robbed the bank, but Mr. Whatley was being blamed in local gossip. No arrest so far, which was good, but couldn’t Mr. Owens assign a lawyer to defend him?
Yes, he could, he said at once, but he’d need to see Mr. Whatley and make sure it was all right with him. Strange, how relieved he’d looked when she mentioned the criminal who was loose, but she went to work and forgot all about it.
HORACEWHATLEY,MEANWHILE, was almost in a panic mode. He’d overheard swatches of conversation in town about the bank robber being almost exactly his height. They knew him from his attempt to impersonate a cattle foreman and a detective who swore he’d found a body, which was proof, they said, that he didn’t see a problem breaking the law. If he did those things, couldn’t he escalate to bank robbing? He seemed to have a cash flow problem lately as well. One of his checks to the local hardware store bounced. He used his credit card at the grocery store and it was refused. A man desperate for money was a viable suspect when the bank was robbed.
Abby heard those snippets of gossip and was appalled by them. Mr. Whatley, while eccentric, was not a mean person. And she did wonder why his money wasn’t available. Her cattle foreman, Don, who’d checked him out, said that he was worth a fortune. His older sister lived on the estate in Florida, where she doled out money to her brother in Wyoming. Don had added that she didn’t sound like a mean person, either, because he’d called and spoken to her about her brother. She seemed to truly care about Mr. Whatley and only wanted what was best for him. He did have mental health issues, but the drugs he took worked on those, if he’d just take them; he’d had a patient advocate who helped him refuse the treatment, including the drugs.
Abby wondered if his sister knew about the cattle ranch he’d purchased, which was actually making money for him. Someone should call and question him, she decided.
So at breakfast the next morning, she brought the subject up with Cody.
He just grinned. “Sorry, honey, I’m one step ahead of you.” He paused and cleared his throat. That endearment had just slipped out. He ignored it and plowed ahead. “His sister has a boyfriend with very expensive tastes. She’s indulging him at Mr. Whatley’s expense. Her suitor says she has no real need to keep up her little brother and he should be making his own living without touching estate money.”
Cody had reminded her that Mr. Whatley, while eccentric, was not dangerous, and that if she kept holding back funds he was entitled to, he was perfectly capable of filing a lawsuit which might deprive her of all the estate money.
It had shocked her to hear that. She’d stammered that she didn’t want to stop the checks but that her new boyfriend had advised her to. She promised to start sending them again very soon, probably through her lawyer so her boyfriend wouldn’t know.
Cody, who could sense injustice from his experience with the law, asked for her boyfriend’s name, almost casually. She gave it to him without thinking, Bobby Grant, and when he asked what sort of work the man did for a living, she stammered and said that he just had some sort of investments he oversaw, and he was urging her to put most of her money into them. Cody said that she should talk that over, in private, with her attorneys before she did any such thing.
She agreed that it sounded like a very good idea and that she would do that. Cody said he’d check back with her if it was all right. He was working a case in town that might involve her brother. She asked what sort, and he told her. There was a very shocked pause.
“He would never rob a bank! Never! He’s never done anything to harm a single living soul. He even stops in the middle of the road to move turtles out of it. He’s innocent! I’ve known him all my life, and I know what he will and won’t do. He’s no thief!”
That was when Cody mentioned that a check her brother had written had bounced and that his credit card didn’t work.
There was a sudden deep mumble from behind her. “I’ll, uh, I’ll see about that at once. I have to go. If you need any more information, you can call me.”
“Thanks, I’ll do that. If anything...unusual happens, will you call me anyway?”
There was a pause and another, more impatient mumble. “Yes. Goodbye.”
She hung up leaving Cody with a worried look and growing suspicion. He put her boyfriend’s name and location into the VICAP program and waited for it to sort through multiple suspects.
At last, he found two possible matches, both in Dade County. One was a well-known Grand Prix racer, whose character was apparently beyond question. The other match was for a man who had a record of taking money from lonely single women under a variety of guises. He’d been arrested and charged twice, and convicted just once on a misdemeanor charge that was just shy of theft. In at least five arrests, the victims refused to prosecute. He had charm, it seemed, and knew how to use it. There was one assault with deadly weapon charge, involving one of his victims. Her brother had charged him with theft, and he’d attacked the man. Later, the brother’s tires were slashed, his home broken into and damaged, but there had been no proof that could convict him of the damages. It didn’t matter, because the assault charge stuck and he served two years in jail. That raised Cody’s eyebrows. He phoned the police chief where the assault took place and learned that there was some gossip that the gigolo might have been looking for a way to get rid of the brother. If he could, he could marry the woman and have her fortune to himself. If her brother vanished, and she did as well, the man would have lived on easy street for life.
Cody said that required a jump in logic. The police chief said it didn’t. This opportunist was suspected in the death of a sister to a woman he’d previously courted in Denver, and intended to marry. The suspicion surrounding the death caused the woman to withdraw from any contact with the man, saying that she’d come to her senses too late to save her poor sister. If he was willing to kill the other heir to get to the money, he had no problem with it. The police chief was still furious that he hadn’t been able to make the murder charge stick. He just didn’t have enough evidence to take to a grand jury.
Then he did an odd thing. He warned Cody about little Horace Whatley. He didn’t really have serious mental issues, he said, he just had some behavioral problems that went away when he stayed on drugs. He also warned him about the man who was now courting Mr. Whatley’s sister, who was in her forties and hugely infatuated by the attentions of the much-younger, charming man she was dating.
“I know about Nita Whatley’s new boyfriend. I spoke to her on the phone before I called you. She sounds very nice. Sort of naïve, if you know what I mean.”
“She is naïve. Very sweet, too,” the chief added quietly. “She lives on my street, here in Miami. Well, she lives on an estate and I live in a small apartment in a complex nearby,” he chuckled. “I can’t afford a mansion on my salary.”
“Join the club,” Cody laughed. “But, then, we don’t do the job for the money.”
