A Hopeless Sheriff (A Hope Walker Mystery Book 9), page 11
“Witnesses saw a figure fleeing the scene wearing a black jacket and a ski mask and driving away on a motorcycle.”
“Just like the bank robber,” Tessie said with a bit of wonderment.
“So, yes, I think the sheriff is assuming he might be the killer.”
Tessie shook her head as if she couldn’t believe it. “But even if that’s the case, why go after poor Pam?”
I sent Alex a look as if maybe he might want to deliver the bad news.
“One theory is that Pam was in on the bank robbery. That she helped the robber in some way.”
Tessie covered her mouth in shock.
“And that something terrible happened, and the bank robber double-crossed her.”
“No,” she said.
“Again, one theory. The theory Sheriff Stangle seems to find believable.”
“Pam Barber stealing from this bank? I didn’t see that coming.”
“Well then, maybe you can help us with an alternative theory,” I said.
“Which is?”
“That Pam was murdered for a different reason.”
Tessie’s face filled with confusion. “I don’t understand. I thought you just said a witness observed the bank robber leaving the scene.”
“He was. We think,” Alex said.
“You think?”
“Well, what if it wasn’t the robber, but someone pretending to be?” I said.
That caught her off guard. “B-but why would someone do that?”
“To blame the crime on the bank robber, of course.”
Tessie’s eyes opened wide. “Now I see what you’re saying.”
“Again, we don’t know,” I said. “We just want to consider all the possibilities. Right now, the sheriff thinks Pam was the inside man on the bank job, and that’s what got her killed. Do you think it’s possible that Pam would steal from this place?”
Tessie shrugged. “I don’t think she would. It’s not like I knew the state of the woman’s finances, but this was Pam we’re talking about. She had no family, and she lived a simple life. I can’t see why she would need a bunch of extra money. But maybe there was something I didn’t know. I suppose anything is possible, but no, I don’t think Pam would help rob a bank.”
“And if that’s true, we have to consider the possibility that Pam was killed for some other reason.”
“And you need my help considering who might have an issue with Pam.”
“Yes, Tessie, we do. Can you think of anyone?”
“Hopeless might be a small town, but it’s not that small. And like I said, I have no idea who Pam hung out with when she wasn’t at work.”
“We’re not talking about the whole town,” Alex said. “We’re talking about the bank. Can you think of anyone here?”
Tessie leaned in and whispered, “A big-enough problem to kill over? Are you crazy?”
“Ben Burnam, John Sheehan, Cressida Pike, and Mr. Dinsdale, Tessie. Don’t worry about whether the reason is big enough to kill over . . . make it simpler than that. Did any of those people have any kind of problem with Pam?” I asked.
Tessie’s eyes darted back and forth nervously, and she leaned forward even more. “Only one, really. Cressida.”
“And why did Cressida have a problem with her?” I asked.
“For the same reason Cressida has a problem with most women. Pam didn’t like her. Most women don’t, including me.”
“And why is that?” I asked.
“You’ve obviously not met the woman.”
“We hope to change that in the next few minutes. Why don’t you give us a preview?”
“She’s beautiful, but highly manipulative, and will do just about anything it takes to get what she wants. Men don’t or can’t see it. They’re probably blinded by her . . .” Tessie moved her hands in the air theatrically. “ . . . Cressida-ness. Us women aren’t blinded, and we can see it a mile away. But that doesn’t seem like a motive for murder to me.”
“Maybe not,” I said. “But it’s a start. Where do we find Ms. Cressida Pike?”
Tessie pointed down the hall. “Second door on your right.”
“Thanks, Tessie. Oh, and I didn’t see Ben Burnam when I walked in today.”
She shook her head. “Poor Ben. He called in sick. Told Mr. Dinsdale he’s still suffering from his head injury.”
“Any idea when he’ll be back to work?”
A construction worker wearing an orange vest walked in and waved at Tessie. She waved back and smiled.
“Be right there, Ralph.” Then she turned back to us. “No, but I hope it’s soon. As terrible as all this business is, life must go on. Life always must go on.”
We were almost to Cressida’s office when the door opened and she came out, along with an abundance of perfume. She was dressed to the nines, wore heels that seemed a lot too high for the office, and carried a thick binder in her arms. She took one look at me, then moved over to Alex and smiled.
“I know you,” she said flirtatiously as she held out her hand. “You’re that handsome sheriff.”
“Ex-sheriff,” Alex said as he took her hand and shook it.
She giggled. “Well, you’ll always be the sheriff to me. Is there something I can do for you?”
“There’s something you can do for both of us,” I said, more than a little annoyed at the laser-like attention she was paying to Alex.
She moved her eyes over to me, and her smile immediately faded. “And what can I help you with . . . exactly?”
“We were hoping we could ask you a few questions about Pam Barber.”
She sighed. Not a sad sigh, mind you. This was the impatient sigh of someone who just couldn’t be bothered. “I guess.” She walked over to Stephen, handed him the binder, then came back past us, opened the door to her office, and we followed her inside.
I’m not sure what I expected exactly, but her office seemed like just about any mid-level executive office that you might see. Papers and folders were stacked neatly on her desk. There was a tall fern in one corner. Two diplomas hung on the wall—a bachelor’s degree from Gonzaga and an MBA from Portland State. There was a bookshelf with a variety of popular business titles on it. Behind her chair was a set of wooden filing cabinets that went about waist high, and displayed on top of them was a variety of framed pictures. I leaned forward, expecting to see photos of family like those you might typically see in an office. But they weren’t pictures of family. They were pictures of Cressida and men. There were ten framed photos in all, and in each photo, Cressida was posing with a different guy. It was strange.
“Impressive collection, wouldn’t you say?” Cressida said as she turned and pointed to the pictures.
“Collection?” I asked, completely confused as to what she meant.
She indicated the picture on the far left. “I like to think I go through life as a collector. I collect memories. I collect experiences. I collect jobs. And I definitely collect men.”
“You collect men?” Alex asked, clearly just as confused as I was.
She winked at him playfully. “I’m not really a ‘one man for the rest of my life’ sort of girl, if you know what I mean. I look at things differently than most, and I appreciate each man for what he’s given me along my journey. That’s Stanley on the far left, then Richard, Dayton, Rosco, Michael, Emmett, Miles, Richard Number Two, Eric, and Greg. Greg’s the current guy.”
I looked at the men in each picture. Each one different. Each one handsome. And suddenly I felt bad about myself. I couldn’t even get the guy I liked, the one sitting right next to me, to kiss me. And here she had an entire collection of men.
Cressida sat down in her comfortable office chair and motioned for us to take the two seats on our side of the desk.
“So?” she said impatiently.
“My name is Hope Walker, and of course, you know Alex Kramer. We want to start by saying how sorry we are.”
“About what, exactly?”
“About Pam’s death. I’m guessing you knew her pretty well.”
“Not particularly.”
Alex and I exchanged a glance.
“We heard she’s worked here ten years or so. How long have you worked here?”
“I’m going on three years now.”
“And this is a pretty small bank. You didn’t know Pam very well?”
“As I said, not particularly.”
“Forgive me for saying this, but you don’t seem very sad about Pam’s death.”
She shrugged. “I’m not trying to be. . .” She hesitated as if searching for the right word. “. . . cold, but I’m a dust-yourself-off-and-move-forward kind of woman. Yes, we worked together. And yes, this is a small bank. I know that she was competent at her job. I know that she wore off-the-rack clothes from TJ Maxx and I know she had a little tattoo on her neck, but only because I could see it every time I passed by her. Not because we talked, because we didn’t.”
Alex and I exchanged another glance. No matter who you were, this was a strange way to act after the death of a colleague. I wondered if the direct approach was better suited for a woman like Cressida Pike.
“Can I be frank with you?” I asked.
She folded her hands, leaned forward a bit, and locked eyes with me. “I’d appreciate that, actually.”
“We were told you and Pam didn’t like each other very much.”
“Now, who told you that?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“Then you’re not being that frank, are you?”
“Fair enough. But is it true that you didn’t like her?”
“It’s untrue that I didn’t like her. The truth is, I didn’t think about her. Didn’t consider her much. I suppose it’s why I’m not that sad right now. As to Pam’s feelings about me? I’m guessing she didn’t like me.”
“Why would you guess that?” Alex asked.
“Because most women don’t like me.”
“Why not?”
She shrugged. “Because I am me, and they are . . . them.” She moved her head and let her eyes fall on me.
I could tell Alex wanted to follow up on this line of questioning, but every fiber of my being that already loathed her knew exactly what she meant.
I pointed to the collection of photos behind her. “But it’s clear that you get along well with men.”
She instantly perked up. “Oh, yes. Now, men and me . . .” She licked her lips. “We get along just fine.”
When John Sheehan described Cressida as having a Gemima quality, he wasn’t kidding. But not even Gemima was like this. Cressida Pike was like an exaggerated, almost cartoonish version of Gemima, and I didn’t want to continue this any longer than I had to.
“For the newspaper article I’m writing, we’re exploring the question of who might have wanted to kill Pam.”
“Stephen told me that terrible bank robber might have done it.”
“That’s what Sheriff Stangle is saying.”
“But you don’t believe him?” she questioned.
“I’m trying to keep an open mind. I want to know if anybody else might have reason to kill Pam.”
“Then let me save you some time. Not it. As I said, I didn’t even give Pam the time of day. She neither made me mad nor happy. Just a woman I worked with at the bank. Nothing less. But certainly nothing more.”
“Okay, but would you notice if someone else might have a reason to be angry with her?”
“Angry enough to kill her?”
“How about angry with her at all?” Alex asked.
Cressida rolled her eyes as if this was taking entirely too long. “I don’t remember any of the guys ever being angry with her. That leaves Tessie. And yes, sometimes Tessie would be annoyed with her.”
“Annoyed how?”
“I don’t know. Impatient. Although I didn’t personally find Pam annoying because I didn’t—”
“Even consider her.”
“Exactly. I know that she and Tessie didn’t always get along.”
“Did Tessie ever tell you why?”
“God, no. For the record, I don’t chat with her, either.”
“Why?” I asked.
Cressida rolled her eyes. “Why would I? You don’t seriously think I’m working at a bank like this because I want to stay here, do you? I’m learning what I can, and soon I’ll leave, and then one day I’ll start up my own series of banks.”
Say this about Cressida Pike, she was different. And ambitious. But was she a killer? Or a bank robber? I really couldn’t tell.
“But if you and Tessie didn’t chat, how did you know she didn’t like Pam?”
She waved her finger back and forth. “I didn’t say that. I said that sometimes she and Tessie didn’t get along, which I only know because of Tessie’s body language. That kind of thing. If you want to know more, you’d have to ask Tessie. Or John.”
“John Sheehan? Why would he know?” I asked.
“John liked speaking with them both. Especially Tessie.” Cressida’s phone buzzed with a text and she looked down, read it, then looked at us and stood. “If there’s not anything else, I really do need to get back to work. But talk to John. If there was something going on between Tessie and Pam, John would probably know.”
Chapter 19
Stephen Dinsdale and John Sheehan were still talking in the corner of the bank’s lobby when we exited Cressida’s office.
I went up to Stephen and gave him a quick hug. “Sorry, buddy. For everything you and the bank are going through right now.”
“Thanks, Hope. I appreciate it.”
I released him and nodded to John. “Sorry to you as well, John.”
John shook his head somberly just as Stephen’s phone buzzed. Stephen looked at the number. “And that would be Mr. Royal.”
“Does he know yet?” John asked.
Stephen made a face. “I’m sure he does now. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go into my office and get yelled at for the next half hour.”
“Yelled at?” I asked John once Stephen was out of reach. “What’s that about?”
“Do you know Mr. Royal at all?”
“I know his daughter Sally a little, but not Mr. Royal.”
“He’s a hard man. Probably typical of someone who’s self-made. Did you know he started this bank in his twenties?”
“That sounds really young to start a bank,” Alex observed.
“Apparently, the original bank in town went under. Embezzlement or something. Arthur Royal saw an opportunity and stepped into the void. A great story. But to pull it off, he took big risks and worked his tail off and figured it out. And I think he’s like a lot of self-made men. They can’t understand why other people won’t work as hard as they do or aren’t as smart as they are.”
“You saying Arthur Royal doesn’t think Stephen works hard enough or is smart enough?”
John shot me a look, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. “I’ve probably already said too much. Was there something I could help you two with?”
“As you can imagine, we’re trying to understand what happened to Pam.”
“Sheriff Stangle told Stephen the bank robber probably killed her. Called it a classic double-cross.”
“We heard that too,” Alex said.
“But you guys don’t believe him?”
“What can I say, John? I’m an investigative reporter. I like to look at a story from every angle.”
“And what angle are you curious about at the moment? I saw you two go into Cressida’s office.”
“Just asking questions, really. Talking to the people who knew Pam best.”
“I don’t really think Cressida knew Pam at all.”
“Which is exactly what she told us,” Alex said. “But she thought maybe you knew Pam pretty well.”
John shrugged. “I don’t know if anyone knew Pam well. She was a private person.”
“But Cressida said you liked to talk with both Tessie and Pam,” Alex said.
“I guess that’s true. But just office chitchat, really.”
“Cressida also said that Tessie might have reason to dislike Pam.”
“What?” John said, his voice suddenly rising. “What exactly are you suggesting?”
Alex put a hand out, palm up. “Calm down, John. We’re not suggesting anything. Like Hope said, we’re trying to look at all the angles. That’s it. And one of the angles we’re considering? What if Pam’s murder wasn’t the result of a bank heist partnership gone wrong? What if somebody else killed her?”
“And we’re just starting with a list of anybody, anybody at all, who might have had any reason to dislike Pam,” I added.
“And Cressida pointed the finger at Tessie? That’s ridiculous.”
John’s face and body language intrigued me. He was angry and defensive. Almost the way I would expect him to be if we were excusing him of the crime. But we weren’t. We were talking about Tessie.
“That’s why we’re talking to you, John. Fine, it’s ridiculous. But why? Why is it ridiculous?”
“Because . . .” he said angrily, and once again, Alex put his hand out in that calm-down gesture. John got the picture. He took a deep breath, then came closer to us and lowered his voice.
“Because Tessie would never hurt someone. Not like that.”
“So, you know Tessie.”
“Yeah, quite well.”
“But before, you said that all you and Pam and Tessie did was chitchat.”
His face instantly reddened.
“I . . . I just meant that it’s not like we’re best friends. But yes, I do know the women. We’ve worked together a long time, and as you can see, it’s a small bank.”
“But then why doesn’t Cressida know them better?”
“Because she’s Cressida. And if you just spoke with her, then you know what I’m talking about.”
“Yeah, I think we do. Nevertheless, she did tell us that Tessie would get annoyed and irritated at Pam. Do you know what about?”
