Knitting Bones (3 page)

T
ONY
Milan had read the story in the
Star Tribune
—the first time in a long time that Tony had read a newspaper for more than the sports and comics—and watched two follow-up stories on the morning and evening news. He learned that Robert Germaine, Account Executive of the National Heart Coalition, had run off with a check for over twenty-four thousand dollars. The check had been presented to him by the Treasurer of the National Committee of the Embroiderers Guild of America. It had been collected by EGA for women’s heart research. Germaine had last been seen getting into his car in the parking ramp at the Hotel Internationale in downtown Minneapolis, to which he’d been escorted by five members of the local chapter. The police were looking for him. There was a photo on page six of the newspaper that Tony recognized as a copy of the one that was on the wall of the third floor of the Heart Coalition’s headquarters in a long row of executive portraits.

So maybe Tony had been put off by the presence of all those women walking Bob Germaine to his car—because Tony was supposed to have that check, not Bob. His plan had been to go to the hotel, waylay Germaine as he was leaving, and take the check. Then around three on Saturday afternoon he was to drive to the airport. Tony had had a plane ticket to Madagascar, best of the few countries left that had no extradition treaty with the USA, and an almost-authentic passport. Instead, here he was, four days later, in a hospital bed.

But now Germaine and the check were both missing. How had that come about?

He had no idea.

Tony had spent at least an hour last night trying various methods to recall what happened four days ago. He had some experience in recall, having been through a dozen or more drug-and alcohol-induced blackouts. He could usually get a glimpse of events, but not this time. This made him wonder at first if maybe he’d had the car accident on his way to the hotel, but the nurse said he arrived at the hospital around eleven that night. Where had he been? His plan called for him to be at the hotel around half past five, and he remembered leaving work in time to do that.

Last night he’d fallen asleep while trying to shake loose the memory and so triggered a dream about it, a dream in which he’d ridden a horse out to the airport and hit Germaine on the head with a black Nike sports bag after which some woman had presented him with the embroiderers’ check as a reward.

Which he was sure was not what had actually happened.

Maybe in some kind of weird coincidence, Bob Germaine really had stolen the check himself. Funny how Tony hadn’t spotted Bob as a fellow crook; he was generally pretty good at that. Still, Tony’s acquaintance with him was slight; about all he did was glimpse him in his office as he handed his secretary a fistful of mail twice a day. Though now he remembered that he had sat through a speech Germaine gave to the staff a few months ago, about increasing efficiency. Tony had thought to ask about getting a motorized mail cart, but something about the look of the man changed his mind.

Wait a minute. Tony thought hard. Somewhere, sometime, Tony had heard Germaine practicing a speech. In a big empty hall, maybe. Someplace where his voice echoed. Tony could actually remember some phrases from it; it was a speech about gratitude. There wasn’t a big hall at the Heart Coalition headquarters, so where had that been? Tony had been standing near enough to touch Germaine—maybe. The more he tried to tease the memory from his head, the more it turned to smoke. It was probably another dream, because what would a mail-room clerk be doing listening to an account executive practice a speech?

Tony had had ambitions to rise through the ranks when he came to work for the Heart Coalition. He got the entry-level job through the assistance of Post-Prison Friends, an organization that helped people on parole get honest work. He actually meant to go straight this time, after his second trip to the joint.

However, and understandably, most companies weren’t interested in hiring a two-time loser, particularly someone with a record of theft on top of drug use and drug sales. But one—a charity that was feeling charitable—consented to give him a chance. He had to start at the bottom, of course, so he was given a place in the mail room. He’d thought janitorial was the bottom, but Janitorial Services was unionized, with good pay and full benefits. Such a high-tone department was not willing to consider hiring an excon on parole. Mail-room clerking was the real entry level, at least at the Heart Coalition. The work was easy enough, sorting mail by name and department, taking a cart twice a day to pick up and deliver letters and packages on three floors. Then weighing outgoing mail and putting postage on it from a meter. A woman who worked in the mail room showed him the ropes—it turned out he was her replacement, and after four days of letting her carry most of the weight, she was gone. After that it was just him and Mitch. Mitch was grim, a pissant about everything. The woman had bored him enormously, of course, being a know-it-all female, but she had nothing on Mitch for bossiness.

So, naturally, Tony quickly came to hate the job. He stuck at it, having been serious about going straight, but after four months he was thoroughly fed up. The work was boring and the mail room full of petty rules, like starting the morning mail run at nine-thirty, not nine-twenty or nine-forty, and keeping the mail room picked up—what was the unionized janitorial staff for, anyhow? And Mitch was an everlasting pain in the ass, always finding something to ride Tony about. So Tony decided to fall off the honesty wagon. He began by lifting an item here and there, but it wasn’t enough to make staying with the job worthwhile. Then he remembered a con a fellow inmate had told him about, and here he was in the perfect place to try it.

To his delight, it worked, and soon he had an extra, if irregular, income that enabled him to have a life outside of work. It might have gone on for years—so long as he didn’t get greedy enough to make anyone notice—but Tony couldn’t resist continuing picking up items here and there that the owners left right out in the open. Cell phones, wallets, watches, and rings (people took them off when washing their hands), gold pens, iPods, once even a take-out mu shu pork lunch that smelled too good to resist.

Mitch eventually began remarking about things going missing—and Mitch didn’t know the half of it—so Tony decided this was a clue he’d better quit. If Mitch found proof Tony was a thief, it might lead to an investigation that would reveal the great scheme Tony was running. Tony began to look for a good reason to quit—then found out about this big check coming in. Twenty grand, maybe more. What a swell good-bye to the place if he could intercept it.

Usually talk about a big check didn’t reach as far down as the mail room—no need to tempt the peons, after all—but this time it did, because it was unexpected. It wasn’t the result of a fund drive, this was something extra, run by a bunch of females who did embroidery-type sewing. Tony once had a shirt covered all over with hand-done embroidery, an expensive gift from a friend. Tony had seen a photograph of a pink heart they’d embroidered—the boss made a poster of it and put it up in the lobby of the Heart Coalition. These females were embroidering these hearts and selling them, and instead of a couple hundred bucks, they had raised twenty grand.

Tony had taken a good look at the poster, because it had the embroidery club’s logo on it:
EGA
in fancy lettering. He’d recognize it when the check came into the mail room. Getting his hands on this check—and not having to take the deep discount he’d get if he merely sold it to a fence—was going to make a sweet good-bye to this stupid nothing job and pissant Mitch, and the suit-and-tie jerks up on the third floor. He was going to sting these people good.

Then came the bad news: The check wasn’t going to be mailed in, the Heart Coalition was going to send someone to pick it up and thank the embroidery ladies in person.

What a gyp! That check was
his,
good as in his hand, until some big shot took it from him. What was wrong with sending it through the mail? Bigger checks had come into the mail room, Tony had seen them. And wasn’t a written letter better than a verbal thanks? Jerks, all of them, from the embroidery ladies to the big shots upstairs. They were the thieves, taking the check away from Tony, after it was almost right there, in his hand!

So all right, all right, a little thought brought a new idea, a different way to get hold of the money. They were going to send some hotshot executive to pick it up? Fine, Tony knew where the event was being held, he’d go over there himself. It was a downtown hotel and it had an attached parking garage. Someplace, in some lonesome corridor or down in the dimly lit garage, he’d mug the executive and take his watch and wallet. By the time they figured out the check was gone, too, Tony would have run it through his system, pulled the cash, and be long gone. He made a point of refreshing his memory of what this Germaine fellow looked like so he’d know him outside the hotel.

Then…something. Tony was pretty sure he hadn’t done the mugging, or it would be Bob in the hospital, not him. But instead, there was a police hunt for Bob Germaine.

So what the hell had happened?

Damned if he knew.

“Tony?” asked a voice from the door. He looked over and there was the pissant himself, in person.

“Hey, Mitch!” said Tony, pretending to be glad to see a familiar face.

“How’re ya doin’?”

“Aw, I’ll be all right once they let me up,” growled Tony, posturing just a little. In fact, they’d had him out of bed this morning, and he’d been surprised at how far away from his eyes the floor was.

“When do you think they’ll cut you loose?”

Tony grinned. “What’s the matter, you miss me?”

“Would you believe I do? We got a temp in there now, and I’m not sure he knows how to read. So have they said anything about letting you go?”

“As a matter of fact, they have. The doc came in this morning and said maybe tomorrow. Problem is, he said I should stay home for a week, to finish healing. And then there’s going to be a problem walking—I’ll need crutches for three weeks, and a cane for a while after that. I messed my knee and my ankle up good.”

Mitch grimaced. “That’s too bad.” Then he smiled. “And it didn’t do your handsome face any good, either.”

Tony smiled back. He was a good-looking man, much better looking than Mitch. “Well, my face will heal.” He didn’t add “But yours won’t,” but Mitch got the jab anyhow, and his smile went away.

Mitch said gruffly, “Well, we’ll hold your job for you. You’ve got some sick leave coming and there’s even some vacation time—four days, I think. So you’ll get a paycheck for a while. I want you to call in every couple of days to let me know how you’re doing. What the hell happened, anyway?”

Tony shook his head. Funny how the truth was all right this time. “I haven’t got the slightest idea. I have a skull fracture and the doc says it gave me a severe concussion. I remember leaving work, and I think I remember driving out of the parking lot—and then it’s just blank. I left work around five, and the accident happened around ten or ten-thirty. I was in the hospital when I woke up. My car is wrecked, the ambulance people had to use the Jaws of Life to get me out, but I don’t know how it happened.”

“I’ll be damned,” said Mitch. “You’re sure you don’t remember a thing?”

“Not a thing. It’s been bugging me, I can tell you. The doc says parts of my memory may come back, or I may never remember any of it.”

“Well, I’m glad you remember clocking out of work. We coulda been hit with a workers’ comp suit.”

“That’s my boss,” cracked Tony. “Always looking on the bright side.”

A
LLIE
Germaine was about thirty-five, maybe a little older, of medium height, very slim, with bright brown eyes and short-cropped, dark, curly hair. She wore a copper pantsuit ornamented with a red scarf, and low-heeled copper shoes. Normally so vital she virtually thrummed, today her energy seemed barely adequate to get her up the stairs and into the room.

“Hello, Mrs. Germaine,” said Betsy, speaking gently because she was so shocked by Allie’s obvious fatigue.

“Hello, Betsy,” replied Allie in a low voice. “I want to say how sorry I am about your accident,” she added, a tiny bit more forcibly. Allie’s good manners would prevail on her deathbed, even were she to be crushed by a steamroller. “Sorry to be taking so long about this, and please excuse the mess,” she’d murmur before expiring.

Betsy replied, “Thank you—oh, and thank you for the cookies, they were delicious.”

“You’re welcome, of course. We all love you and miss you in your darling little shop. But I’m not up here just to exchange pleasantries, of course. Betsy, the most dreadful thing has happened.”

“Yes, Godwin was just telling me. I’m afraid I haven’t been watching the news lately, or I would have known. Here, sit down and tell me more.”

“Thank you.” Allie sank into the upholstered chair set at ninety degrees to the foot of the couch. She relaxed for just a moment, then looked up at a high-pitched sound. “What’s that?”

“Oh, it’s just the cat. I had Godwin put her in the bedroom so she wouldn’t bother us. She loves visitors; she hopes they’ll feed her.”

Allie smiled a tight little smile, then sobered. “It’s all been like a nightmare; I simply cannot believe the things the police think Bob did.”

“What do they say he did?”

“Well, that he’s a thief! That he took the EGA check and made off with it.”

“Was it presented to him personally?”

“Yes, of course. He made a thank-you speech on behalf of the Heart Coalition when it was handed over. That was at the banquet Friday night. Then he was walked to his car by five EGA officials, who watched him drive away.” Allie swallowed a sob. “The EGA officers say he drove off in the car alone, no one was in it with him. And—and he hasn’t been seen since. The police are out to arrest him.”

“But you think—” prompted Betsy.

“I don’t know what to think! He wasn’t there when I got home from the event, but that didn’t bother me, he often goes for a drive after making a speech—he gets so wired that he needs time alone to get his heart rate back to normal. Driving relaxes him. I was so exhausted myself, I took a sleeping pill and went straight to bed. I slept right through till nine the next morning—good thing it was Saturday. When I realized he hadn’t come to bed, I thought he might have slept on the couch—sleeping pills sometimes make me, er, breathe a bit heavily—and then gotten up early Saturday morning and gone to the office to turn in the check. It wasn’t until around noon that I got worried. I called his office and got no answer. And I couldn’t think what to do.”

“You didn’t call the police?”

“No, not right then. I should have; I mean, it was ridiculous to think he’d go off somewhere with no warning. I knew he wasn’t in an accident, he always has plenty of identification in his wallet, so someone would have called. And if he was kidnapped, I’d have gotten a call about ransom. It was when I started that conversation with myself, about a ransom, that I realized how worried I was. I just couldn’t think why he wasn’t at home.” She offered a painful smile. “There isn’t a family history of amnesia, either.”

“Had you quarreled about something?” asked Betsy.

“No. We haven’t had a serious quarrel about anything in quite a long time. We were on the best of terms that day; after all, it was at least partly my doing that the Heart Coalition was getting that rather nice check. And his getting the Heart Coalition to lend its name made the fund-raiser important, so more people joined in. Denise Williams designed the heart—she did a great job—and we had some really lovely entries; I’m sorry you couldn’t be there to see them. I kept telling myself he was all right, that any minute he’d call with some silly reason for not coming home. I was thinking about calling the police when they came knocking at my door.”

Betsy, remembering what Godwin had said, asked, “Did Bob sometimes do that? Stay out late or all night with some silly excuse for it?”

Allie raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Never all night. Once in a while he gets into an intense planning session or caught up reading a complicated survey and will come home late. Or he’ll get to playing a new computer game and just forget about the time. I’ve been married to him for sixteen years, and his excuses for staying out late have never gotten less lame or sounded more like him.”

Betsy nodded. “So either he’s been leading a double life since before you married him—”

“Or he’s the creative, driven, exasperating, charming darling I’ve always known him to be,” said Allie, nodding back.

“If he’s that absentminded, he must keep some kind of calendar,” said Betsy.

“Oh, yes. He says his iPAQ is the greatest invention since the calendar, that he’d be lost without it—once he learned to put all his appointments on it.”

“Does he let you see it?”

“Of course. He downloads a copy of it onto my pocket PC at least once a week, and I send mine to his—I’ve got a busy life, too—so we don’t book one another for engagements that conflict.” She smiled. “And sometimes one of us will sneak in a luncheon booking on the other’s schedule, just for fun, and we meet at a downtown restaurant.”

“Was he supposed to be somewhere on Monday?”

“Yes. In fact he’s missed two appointments and a meeting already this week. But he has a big one this afternoon, one he wouldn’t miss for anything. He has to make a very important presentation to some members of the national board about an idea he has for a campaign.”

“Was he nervous or upset about it?”

“He’s always anxious about presentations. He’s wonderful at it, but he gets almost sick with stage fright ahead of time. He walks up and down in the living room at home, practicing—it drives me out of the house when he’s preparing for a big one like this. He gets so tense, he sometimes doesn’t eat dinner the night before. But he never, ever tries to get out of them. That’s why I’m certain now something…something dreadful has happened to him. Because he just wouldn’t miss a presentation as important as this.”

“Did you tell the police that?”

“Yes, of course. I showed a detective my little pocket computer with his calendar on it, and he wrote some of it down.”

“Bob didn’t say anything to anyone at work about someone taking his place this time, just for this presentation?”

“No. When they called me today, I told them I still hadn’t heard from him. I pointed out that his speech is on his computer at work, PowerPoint slides and all. I think they’re covered; after all, it isn’t as if no one else knows what it’s about or how he planned to do it. It was like a Broadway production; there were a lot of people involved in planning and writing it. But they’re very disturbed that he won’t be there to make it.”

“Do they think he ran off with the money?”

“I…I can’t believe they do, not really. The police do, but the people at the Heart Coalition know him, they know how pleased he was that so much money was raised—it was his idea to ask EGA to do the project.”

“Not yours?”

Allie smiled. “All right, we thought of it together. EGA loves to raise money for charity and we were looking for something for the national convention, and this just seemed a natural. But Bob did all the work on his end and some of it on mine, so of course I let him take all the credit. But you see, that just strengthens my argument that he would not possibly have stolen that money. The credit he got for the project was far, far more important than twenty-four thousand four hundred and seventy dollars.”

“Suppose, just for a minute, he did take it,” said Betsy. “What would he do with it? How would he cash it?”

“It was never cashed.”

“What?”

“As soon as we were notified on Tuesday morning that the check hadn’t been turned in at the Heart Coalition, we called our bank. The balance indicated it hasn’t been cashed, and we put a stop payment on it.”

“Have you told this to the police?”

Allie nodded. “Yes, but it doesn’t seem to have changed their minds that he meant to steal it, and that now he’s staying away because he knows he’ll be arrested if he comes home. That’s why I’m here to talk to you. Betsy, you’ve got to help me!”

“Allie, I’d love to. But look at me, I can’t even get down to the shop. What do you think I can do for you?”

“I don’t
know!”
Her voice was a wail. “But there has to be something, someone you can talk to, to make them stop treating Bob like a, a
felon!
He’s a missing person!”

Betsy thought about that. It occurred to her that if the police thought Bob had arranged this whole fund-raiser in order to steal the money, they might also think his wife was a co-conspirator. So of course they wouldn’t share all their conclusions with her. She said, “The police aren’t fools, I’m sure they’re looking at all the possibilities. They just don’t talk about everything they’re doing with the public.”

“I suppose that’s true. But you know some police officials. Can’t you call one of them and find out what they’re doing, what they’re thinking?”

“Well, I suppose I could ask. Meanwhile, have you called around, asked some of Bob’s friends if he’s gotten in touch with them?”

“Yes, of course. Nothing.” Allie gave an exaggerated, exasperated shrug.

Betsy wished she knew Allie better. It was not enough to know she was an ardent needlepointer and skilled knitter. She needed to know more about Allie and Bob’s marriage, for example. And have a deeper understanding of Allie’s character.

She asked, “If he’s in hiding, what’s he living on?”

“Betsy, we have ten thousand dollars in a bank account he can access with a cash card, fifteen thousand in a money market account, and two credit cards, one with no limit on it. That’s why it’s stupid to think he would run away with a check for twenty-four thousand dollars!”

“Has he accessed any of these accounts?”

“Not the cash accounts, no.” Allie looked close to tears again. “I checked the balances this morning, and when I saw they hadn’t gone down, that’s when I decided I needed to talk to you. I didn’t know where else to turn. You’ve done investigations before; you’re so very clever.”

“Yes, well, before I could always get around to talk to people.”

“Maybe I could talk to them, if I knew who to talk to. Maybe he’s using his credit cards—that can be checked, can’t it?”

“Yes, they can trace credit card use, including location, so if he had, they’d have gone there looking for him.”

“Do you think he’s…dead?” Allie asked in a very small voice.

“What do you think?”

“I think something’s happened to him, that he’s stuck somewhere and can’t get home or call for help. Perhaps someone hijacked his car to get the check. Or just to get the car, and left him injured somewhere. Or maybe he was on that drive and went off the road and he’s in a ravine somewhere, hurt. The banquet was last Friday, five days ago. I have nightmares about him lying injured in his wrecked car, too hurt to use his cell phone, unconscious, maybe…” The pain in her eyes and voice was enormous, but she took a breath and continued bravely, “Yes, maybe dead by now. I’ve driven the route he would have taken coming home, but didn’t see a car in a ditch. But if he went for a drive, there’s no telling what route he took. Who knows where he is right now?” Tears overflowed and rolled down Allie’s cheeks.

Wishing she could reach her, to put an arm around her, all Betsy could do was gesture at the box of tissues on the coffee table. Allie pulled two out and covered her eyes. Betsy waited, and in a few minutes Allie pulled herself together and blew her nose. “I’m sorry.”

“Allie, I’m so sorry, too. Let me make some calls, maybe the police are taking everything into consideration.” She took a breath and dared to ask, “What if we found him in a hotel somewhere with…someone else?”

Allie laughed softly. “That won’t happen. But if it did, that would be worlds better than what I’m terrified has happened.”

A
LLIE
wasn’t gone ten minutes before Godwin was at the door again. “Well? Well?” he demanded.

“I said I’d make some calls to find out what the police are thinking,” said Betsy.

“You’re not going to try to find him?”

“How on earth can I do that?” she retorted, gesturing at her leg.

“By asking
me
to
help,”
said Godwin, with an air of stating the obvious.

“Oh, I don’t think—”

“Then you should, my dear, you should. For who has sat admiringly at your tender toes, absorbing your methods?
Moi!
All you have to do is tell me where you would have gone, if you could go, and
I
will go there, ask any questions you would want asked, and bring the answers back to you.” He assumed a “thanks for your applause” pose, arms wide.