Scheduling Conflict

  Scheduling Conflict

  Kristine Dexter

  Published by WMG Publishing

  Copyright © 2011 by Kristine Dexter

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  Scheduling Conflict

  Kristine Dexter

  “Detective Riley Scott?” The female voice on the other end of the line was rich and throaty, the kind that usually sent shivers through him.

  But this morning, nothing sent shivers through Riley Scott. He stared blearily at his full coffee mug. The coffee had some kind of oil slick floating on top. He wasn’t sure if that was from the coffee or the mug itself. When was the last time he’d rinsed the thing out?

  “Hmmm?” he said into the phone pressed between his shoulder and his ear. If he moved wrong, the cord would catch his hand and he’d knock that full mug over, like he’d done last week. How come this rich and throaty female voice hadn’t called on his cell?

  “I’m the person who robbed the National Bank and Trust. I’d like to turn myself in, but I have a rather full schedule. How does your week look?”

  “Huh?” He sat up, snapped his finger at his partner Dave across the desk, and sideways nodded at the phone.

  Dave picked up his own phone, pressed a few buttons, and made sure the techs were figuring out where this call was coming from.

  The woman on the other end of the line chuckled. “I’m not going to repeat myself, Detective. Except to ask you about your schedule.”

  “Looks like I got a bank robbery to investigate,” he said, wiping the sleep out of his eyes.

  Half the people in the squad room — that would be two detectives and a crime scene tech — looked at him. He must have spoken louder than he thought.

  “And nothing else? My, my, my. You’re living the life of Riley.”

  He hated that joke. He’d heard it since he was a little boy, mostly from his family, most of whom were old enough to remember what the phrase “The Life of Riley” actually meant.

  “Check your calendar. I’ll call back. Ta.”

  “Wait!” he said, but she had already hung up.

  Dave folded his meaty hands and leaned across the partner’s desk, nearly knocking down fifteen files someone had thoughtfully stacked on the only empty space. “Disposable cell. We can trace what tower actually took the call, but that’s about it.”

  “Get someone on it.” Riley sipped the coffee, then wished he hadn’t. The oil slick was some kind of soap. Maybe he had tried to wash the stupid mug out and forgot about it. “You and I have to head to the National Bank and Trust.”

  “Why?”

  “I hear they were robbed this morning.”

  ***

  The National Bank and Trust stood in the center of downtown. One square city block of granite, built around the turn of the last century, with ornate cornices, recessed windows with gold bars, and several oak doors that didn’t meet current bank security standards.

  Riley let himself the main doors, still stamped First Bank And Trust in gold leaf — no one tried to change that after all the various mergers and conglomerations — and sniffed the familiar scent of century-old dust that every granite building in the once-prosperous downtown still had.

  Customers stood in line on the marble floor, held in place by a red velvet rope attached to waist-high gold stands. The bars in front of the tellers’ windows were open, and conversation hummed. Security guards stood at all the entrances, looking calm.

  “What the…?” Dave asked.

  Riley shrugged. “Maybe that’s why nothing was reported to dispatch.”

  “You think they don’t know about it?”

  “Anything’s possible,” Riley said, including the fact that the call might’ve been a hoax.

  “May I help you?” One of the guards came over and spoke in a low voice. Apparently the two detectives looked suspicious.

  Dave flashed a badge. “Any problems this morning?”

  The guard frowned. “What kind of problems?”

  “Where’s the manager?” Riley asked, not wanting to have this conversation in front of a roomful of bank patrons.

  “Over there.” The guard nodded at a row of offices, neatly hidden down a corridor. Old-fashioned banking at its best.

  Riley thanked him and headed down the hall. As he approached, the door at the end opened. Just like Riley expected, the guard had called ahead.

  The manager was a slender, wispy man who looked like the scrawny version of the schmuck in James Thurber’s cartoons. Riley sighed. Elderly parents, maiden aunts — all of his personal references were forty years out of date.

  “May I help you?” the manager asked.

  By this time, Dave had caught up. Rather than let him blurt out his stupid questions, Riley nodded toward the office. “Let’s go in there.”

  The manager nodded, told his secretary not to disturb him, and led them into a square room with red carpet. The walls were covered with flocked wall paper, but the furniture was solid mahogany. Every bank manager from the beginning had apparently used this office, and none of them had bothered to remodel it.

  The manager sat down. Riley and Dave did not.

  “We got a report this morning of a bank robbery,” Riley said.

  “Where?” the manager asked.

  “Here,” Dave said. “Some woman confessed.”

  “Who?”

  “We didn’t get her name,” Dave said, and Riley wanted to smack him. Dave’s attention to detail of late had been worse than awful.

  But Riley couldn’t say much. Dave had covered for him during his divorce; Riley could cover for Dave through the same kind of trauma.

  If he didn’t kill him first.

  “Then how do you know the complaint is accurate?” the manager asked.

  “We don’t,” Riley said, taking over the interview. “We figured it wasn’t legit when no one set off the silent alarms. But we sent some uniforms over immediately to circle the place, and make sure nothing looked wrong. Then we came over as soon as we could to see if anything subtle is happening. It’s not, is it?”

  “What?” the manager asked.

  “Something subtle,” Riley said. “Some kind of embezzlement, the loss of one major item. You know, something that doesn’t require guns and masks.”

  The manager’s eyes widened. He pressed a buzzer on the side of his desk. The secretary opened the door and leaned in.

  “Have the department heads check the morning’s accounts,” he said, “and make sure we haven’t had any threats.”

  “Threats, sir?” she asked.

  “Of any kind,” he said. “And send Baxter in here.”

  “Yes, sir.” She closed the door.

  “Baxter?” Riley asked.

  “He’s been here since he graduated from college in 1950 or something like that. He’s our unofficial historian.”

  “Historian?” Dave asked.

  “And gossip,” the manager said. “We keep him on even though he should have retired ten years ago because if anything’s going wrong, Baxter seems to find out about it first.”

  The door opened a second time, and a portly elderly man stepped in. He wore a three-piece suit, decorated with a pocket watch, and his shoes shined. Now he, Riley thought, was the picture of
a bank manager.

  The real manager explained the situation. Baxter pursed his lips, and then nodded slightly.

  “We haven’t had a robbery here since 1995,” he said.

  “1995?” Riley didn’t remember that, but then he had been working Vice those years. He used the envy the regular detectives who got normal crimes, like bank robberies and murders. Vice, he used to think, was ruining his marriage.

  Turned out that Vice had nothing to do with it. Most of that ruin happened because of his surly attitude and the fact that he suspected hadn’t really loved Karen in the first place.

  “Oh, yes,” Baxter said. “It was a minor thing and our fault, really. We kept too much cash in the tellers’ tills. The robber followed the Hollywood model — note on a deposit slip, cash where he could see it, etc — and somehow managed to avoid the dye pack. We lost, I believe, ten thousand dollars, but it cost a great deal more because our insurers required that we update our security. Even though we are an old-fashioned institution, we do have excellent security.”

  It didn’t look excellent to Riley, but he was no expert.

  “No one’s tried anything in the last few days?” he asked.

  “We would have reported an attempted robbery,” the manager said.

  “What about talked about it?” Dave asked.

  “Again, we have to report,” the manager said. “You don’t joke about robbing banks while inside a bank.”

  “No employees with sticky fingers?” Riley asked.

  The manager’s face turned red, but Baxter shook his head. “Our last one of those occurred in 1988. That young lady was quite good at taking five from one account, twenty from another, and she always chose accounts that were in disarray. It took us nearly a year to catch her. I never understood why she stuck around to get caught, but c’est le vie, no?”

  “I suppose.” Riley hated it when people switched languages on him. Even when they used phrases he understood.

  “No recent troubles, though?” Dave asked.

  “None,” Baxter said.

  “No,” the manger said.

  “Well, then.” Riley sighed. “I guess you’d better be on the lookout for something. We’ll assume it was a warning.”

  “We will check the day’s accounts,” the manger said, “and let you know.”

  “Better still,” said Baxter, “we’ll double-check everything from the security tapes to the safe deposit boxes. If anything is amiss, we’ll contact you.”

  “Thanks,” Riley said, and led Dave out of that stuffy office.

  As they left the bank and headed to the car, Dave said, “That manager couldn’t survive without that Baxter guy.”

  “Sometimes it happens that way in a partnership,” Riley said and wondered if he’d said too much.

  ***

  No bank robbery, no missing funds, nothing out of the ordinary in National Bank, and none of the other area banks with similar names had any problems either. That sexy voice on the phone had sent Riley on a wild goose chase that had left him more than a little annoyed.

  So, to say that he was surly when she called again, was probably an understatement.

  Three days later, same kind of coffee — only without the oil slick — same bleary-eyed morning, after he’d closed two murders and given up on a suicide which would always remain a mystery, the desk phone rang again.

  Same sexy voice. Same throaty laugh. Same request—

  “Detective Riley Scott?”

  “Don’t start,” he said. “I should get you for lying to a police officer.”

  That chuckle. He had forgotten the chuckle. It sent little shivers down his back, which was certainly something he didn’t want to acknowledge to anyone.

  “I didn’t lie,” she said. “I would like to turn myself in.”

  “What for this time?” he asked.

  “Bank robbery,” she said as if he were slightly thick-headed. “Eastern United Bank. The one on Third Street.”

  “I thought you said you robbed National Bank and Trust.”

  Dave looked up from his new stack of files. His eyes were blood-shot, and his nose too red. He was also wearing yesterday’s shirt. If that kept up, Riley wouldn’t be able to cover for him much longer.

  “Did I?” She laughed. “I must be confessing to all the wrong things.”

  “It’s beginning to seem that way,” he said.

  Dave picked up his phone, punched a few numbers, and spoke softly into it. At least he remembered to trace her call, even without Riley making the reminder move.

  “So….” Her voice got even huskier. “How’s your schedule?”

  “Full,” he snapped. “But you could come down here, wait a while, talk to somebody — so long as you don’t lie again.”

  “I didn’t lie,” she said. “And I do want to turn myself in.”

  He heard the sound of paper turning. She gave a thoughtful little moan, as if she were considering making a date, and then said,

  “You know, this week really isn’t good for me. How’s next week?”

  “How’s right now?” he said. “I just got in, have a few things to work on but nothing new. Come on over.”

  “You want to work on me?” And the innuendo was unmistakable.

  “Right now,” he said, tired of the game. She’d played with him enough. He’d lost half a day, asked embarrassing questions, and made work for a bunch of people who didn’t need more aggravation.

  “Oh, honey,” she said softly. “Most things are better if you wait.”

  And then she hung up.

  Riley clung to the receiver for a moment, listening to the silence, knowing she wasn’t going to come back on. That voice had his number — not the words, but that throaty just-back-from-bed sound, the slight accent (what was it? A little Grace Kelly, a lotta Katharine Hepburn), and that sly tone, the kind a woman would use when she was making a private promise in a public place.

  Shiver was probably the wrong word for what was going on under his skin. He thanked whatever god would still listen to him that he wasn’t in his twenties any more.

  “Same thing,” Dave said. “Disposable cell phone.”

  “Same tower?” Riley asked.

  Dave shook his head.

  “Did we ever get someone to track the phone the last time?” Riley asked.

  “Yeah,” Dave said. “It hasn’t been turned back on since she called. This’s a different one or so the guys in tech assure me.”

  “Lovely,” Riley said.

  “She tell you what imaginary robbery she committed today?” Dave asked.

  “Eastern United Bank,” Riley said, “on Third.”

  Dave picked up the phone and shook the receiver at Riley. “Can we just call or do we have to go through the whole thing again?”

  He almost gave in, almost said, “Call, go ahead,” and then changed his mind.

  “Have the uniforms drive by,” he said. “We’re going back to chasing geese.”

  ***

  The thing was, back when he was a kid, he used to play Dictionary with a group of friends. Not the stupid board game, which didn’t even exist back then, but a made-up game using an actual dictionary. One guy would pick a word, everyone else would write down the definitions, and the person who got it right or came close would get a point. If no one got it, the person who chose the word got all the points.

  Nerdy yes, but valuable, and probably the only reason he got “A”s in English Comp in college. Couldn’t beat a vocabulary like his.

  One particular game stuck in his brain. His best friend Cal was the third to pick a word. On the first word, he listed the definition as “a form of currency in medieval Poland.” He was wrong. When he used that same definition for the second word, the gang laughed.

  When he chose his word, nobody got the right definition. Because he’d set them up: the word — some crapoid thing that sounded made-up — actually was a form of currency used in medieval Poland.

  Riley didn’t have that kind of
brain, not then, not now. But he’d learned his lesson. If the first one and the second one were false, then the third one — or the one after that — might actually be true.

  But by then, the average detective wouldn’t be vigilant any more. The average detective wouldn’t take her up on her offer of turning herself in.

  Brilliant, in its own way, but wouldn’t it be just as easy to rob and not confess?

  He had no idea, and because he had no idea, he wasn’t going to tell Dave his suspicions.

  At Eastern United Bank, the two detectives went through the same old rigmarole — oblivious customers, hard-working tellers, calm security guards. The manager was on the floor of this bank — it was a 1950s building with low ceilings and mustard-colored carpet — and he knew his own bank history, reciting it proudly:

  Not a single theft since he started his watch in 1997. He upgraded the security system the moment he came in because before that, Eastern United had had the highest incidents of theft in the state.

  Not embezzlement — the bank had systems for that — but actual gun-in-the-hand, note-on-the-counter theft. You wanted money for free in this town, word used to be go to Eastern United.

  The manager told them all that as he expected them personally to award him some kind of medal of honor. Dave actually seemed a little impressed, but Riley wasn’t fond of smug bastards with middle-management jobs. So he insisted some heightened security, a review of the accounts that went back a few months instead of a few days, and every single tape the bank had stored.

  But there was nothing, just like Riley expected.

  He had the chief send notice to every bank in the area, warning them that there’d been threats of theft, and to heighten security. The notices also included warnings of embezzlement, theft of a single (non-currency) item, and other non-traditional ways to take something out of a financial institution.

  For his part, Riley warned the chief that this could all be a hoax, and the chief didn’t care.