slammed the door closed, started the engine, and drove quickly out of the parking lot without looking at Matt again.
Matt watched until the car disappeared from sight, exhaled audibly, and went looking for the unmarked Plymouth.
Mrs. Reynolds came into Susan’s room as she was undressing.
“Did you have a good time?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, we did. He taught me to put Roquefort on a cracker and then take a swallow of wine.”
“Daddy used to do that,” Mommy said.
“Did he really?”
“He seems to be a very nice young man,” Mommy said.
“For a cop,” Susan said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
“At least he’s working, and according to Mr. Emmons, very highly regarded in his chosen profession.”
“And what else did Mr. Emmons have to report?”
“He’s very comfortable. I mean, personally, now. And the Paynes are more than comfortable.”
“Where do you think we should be married, Mommy?” Susan said.
“Don’t be like that, Susie, you asked!”
“Sorry.”
“Are you going to see more of him?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“I think you like him.”
“Good night, Mommy.”
Mrs. Reynolds turned as she passed through Susan’s door.
“Mary-Ellen Porter called,” she said.
“Who?”
“Mary-Ellen Porter. She said you were together at Bennington.”
Since I never heard the name Mary-Ellen Porter until this moment, then it has to be either Jennie or Eloise.
“Oh, of course. Mary-Ellen. What did she want?”
“She said she would call you at work tomorrow. I told her they didn’t like that, but she said she had to talk to you in the morning.”
“I wonder what she wants?” Susan asked, more or less rhetorically.
FIFTEEN
“Good morning, Lieutenant,” James C. Chase said. “It’s always a pleasure to see you. How can we be of assistance this morning?”
The brass sign on Chase’s large, highly polished desk in his glass-walled office off the main room of the First Harrisburg Bank & Trust Company identified him as “Vice President.”
Matt had instantly decided that Chase was the exception to the general rule that most banks had as many vice presidents as they did tellers, and that the title had come in lieu of a pay raise and carried with it very little authority.
This man—fifty-something, gray-haired, very well-tailored—had the look and bearing of someone in authority, used to making decisions.
“This is Detective Payne, of the Philadelphia Police Department,” Lieutenant Deitrich said.
The announcement visibly surprised Chase, but he quickly recovered and offered Matt his hand.
“How do you do?” he asked.
“How do you do, sir?” Matt replied.
“Payne, you said?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I was in school with a chap from Philadelphia named Payne,” Chase said. “Brewster C. Payne. I don’t suppose there’s any chance—”
“He’s my father, Mr. Chase,” Matt said.
“Then I really am delighted to meet you. How is your father? I haven’t seen him in several years, I’m afraid.”
“Very well, thank you, sir.”
Well, I just got handed the keys to the bank didn’t I?
“You make sure to give him my very best regards.”
“Yes, sir, I will.”
Wait a minute!
If this guy is really an old pal, why didn’t Dad at least mention him when I told him I was coming to Harrisburg?
If Chase really is a good friend—and I think he thinks he is, which doesn’t mean Dad reciprocates, of course—not mentioning him wasn’t an inadvertent oversight. Because Dad doesn’t think of him the same way? No. He would have warned me about something like that.
Maybe because Dad didn’t want to lean on his old school chum on behalf of the cops? Or because he knew that it would quickly come to Chase’s attention that a Philadelphia detective named Payne wanted to nose around his bank? And that Chase would either ask—as indeed, he just did—or call Dad and ask.
In the latter instance, that got Chase off the hook. If he wants to be nice to the son of his old buddy, fine and dandy. If he doesn’t, he doesn’t have to, and since Dad didn’t ask Chase didn’t have to say “no.” No hard feelings.
You are a smart one, Dad! Clever. Subtle. A real class act.
It’s amazing, as the saying goes, that the older I get, how much smarter you get.
And what was it you told me about banks? “Most bank presidents are figureheads, who spend their time talking to the Kiwanis and the Rotary and drumming up business on the golf course. Banks are run by their boards of directors, through the secretary or treasurer of the corporation, or sometimes a vice president.”
Why do I suspect that I have just met that “sometimes vice president”? And that Lieutenant Deitrich damned well knows where Mr. Chase fits into the power structure around here?