Two Bits Four Bits (6 page)

“Kandy mentioned Bennie
Shanks, and thought maybe Russell had been involved in some
investments with him.”

Bradley smiled and shook
his head.

“I don’ think so. Getting
involved with Bennie Shanks doesn’t sound like Russell at all.
Confidentially, the bank has had some negative lending experiences
with Mr. Shanks in the past and I doubt the two were even on
speaking terms.”

“What about women? I’ve
heard talk that Russell may have been having an affair.” I really
didn’t put much stock in the rumors Ray had repeated on our run on
Sunday, but the old smoke and fire thing often held
true.

“I’m sorry Mr. Griffin,
but I’m really uncomfortable discussing aspects of Russell’s
personal life, especially when I don’t have any proof that he was
doing anything wrong.”

“Please, call me Buddy.
And, understand that what you tell me here will remain completely
confidential. I need to find out as much about Russell as possible
in order to know what could have led to his murder. Now, weren’t
there some women here at the bank Russell became involved
with?”

“Maybe one. There may have
been others, but one is all I know about. There’ve always been lots
of rumors, but I try to ignore them. But, with Eva Trout, it was
pretty hard not to think there was something going on.”

“Eva Trout? Does she still
work for the bank?”

“Yes. She works as a
teller at our South Commerce Branch.”

“And what makes you
believe that Russell was having a relationship with her, as opposed
to the others you heard rumors about?”

“Well, for one thing,
Russell always seemed to favor her more than he did the average
employee. In Personnel Committee meetings he was always quick to
agree to raises or promotions for her, or to suggest them. Before
she transferred to the South Commerce Branch he would stop and
visit with the tellers on the main line, almost always at or near
Eva’s window. Since she transferred, he rarely stops to
visit.”

“Did he try to stop her
from transferring to the other branch?”

“Oh no, just the opposite.
When the opening came up, the branch manager came to the Personnel
Committee and specifically requested another woman, but Russell
suggested we consider Eva Trout instead. He lobbied so hard for her
that the rest of us on the committee could see that he didn’t plan
on taking no for an answer.”

“You don’t think he was
just rewarding her for doing a good job?”

“Not at all. There are at
least three or four tellers down there who were smarter, friendlier
and worked just as hard as Eva Trout. It was a definite example of
favoritism.”

“And you think that
indicates there was a romantic relationship?”

Bradley waited a couple of
beats before responding.

“Well, there is one more
thing. About a month ago one of our big loan customers called late
in the day asking for Russell. He wasn’t in the building so I tried
to help him, but it was one of those questions only Russell could
answer. I was planning on waiting until the next day to talk to
him, but on my way home I drove past the South Commerce Branch and
saw Russell’s car parked there. I decided to stop and talk to
Russell so I could call the customer back the same night. It was
well past closing time, and Eva Trout’s car was the only other one
in the parking lot. I used my master key to let myself into the
branch but didn’t see anyone around at first. Then Russell and Eva
come out of the safe deposit vault with red faces and looking very
embarrassed, like they’d been caught making out or something. It
was an uncomfortable moment for everyone involved, myself
included.”

“Was it unusual for Eva to
be the last person to leave the branch?”

“No, it’s a pretty small
branch and we only staff for peak periods. The lobby closes at
three in the afternoon Monday through Thursday and one teller stays
to work the drive-up window and lock up. On the day I stopped by,
it was Eva’s day to work late.”

“Did Russell ever say
anything about the incident?”

“Nothing directly, but a
few days later we were talking about a customer who was going
through a divorce and Russell confided that he and Kandy had a
mutual understanding when it came to extramarital sex, what he
called an open marriage. I was a little shocked, to tell you the
truth. But then later I got to wondering if maybe he told me that
so I wouldn’t think negatively about his interest in
Eva.”

“Would it be possible for
me to speak to Eva?”

“I don’t see why not,” he
said, after a pause. “But I’d prefer you not ask her about that day
at the branch. If you’re planning on asking her about the
relationship, there was plenty of talk about it around the bank. It
isn’t any big secret.”

I agreed and then waited
while Bradley telephoned the South Commerce Branch to let Eva know
I would be coming by. He was frowning when he hung up.

“Eva didn’t show up for
work today, and hasn’t called in yet. The supervisor tried her home
phone and her cell phone and hasn’t been able to reach
her.”

“Is it unusual for her not
to call in?”

“Well, she rarely misses
work. She’s extremely dependable, so yes it is unusual.”

“I’d sure like to know if
she’s at home. Do you have a home address for her?”

“Why? Are you going by
there?”

“Yes, I need to speak to
her. If she’s there I can ask her my questions about Russell in
private, and I can tell her you’re worried and she needs to call
in.”

“I guess that would be
okay. Like I said, the board wants me to cooperate
fully.”

I waited while Bradley
summoned someone from the Personnel Department to bring him the
file on Eva Trout and he jotted down the address.

* * * *

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

Eva Trout lived on a
tree-lined street in one of the older neighborhoods in Elmore and
it seemed to have shrunk since I had driven through it last. Her
tiny house was the same color as the one next to it, but sat
further back from the street at the end of a long, crumbling
concrete driveway. Its size and location told me it had once been
the detached garage of its neighboring structure.

I parked in the driveway,
behind a three-year-old Ford Mustang bearing a bumper sticker for
the local country music radio station. As I knocked on the door, I
listened for sounds from inside and noticed the mailbox hung next
to the door held several letters.

“I don’t think she’s home.
I tried knocking this morning.”

I turned to see an older
man wearing bib overalls and a cap bearing the colors of the Dallas
Cowboys. He walked with a slight limp as he approached.

“I don’t think she’s in
there, but I may be wrong. Her car’s usually gone all day during
the week, so I don’t know if she had car trouble and had to leave
it here, or what.”

“She didn’t show up for
work at the bank today, so they asked me to come out and check on
her,” I lied.

“Is that right? Well, I
sure hope she’s not in there too sick to answer the door. You want
me to get my key to make sure?”

“Would you
mind?”

I waited while the
landlord made his way to the house next door and disappeared
inside. When his door closed, I slid the stack of letters out of
the mailbox. One credit card solicitation, a furniture store
advertisement and what looked like a bill from WesTouch, a local
wireless company. I slipped the WesTouch bill in my pocket and held
the others up as the landlord returned.

“Might as well bring in
her mail for her,” I said, putting on my best neighborly
grin.

After fumbling for a few
seconds, the landlord finally found the right key and swung the
door open onto a tiny kitchen nook with a bedroom beyond it. A
microscopic bathroom sat at the back of the house just off the
bedroom. It only took a few seconds to realize there was nobody
inside the house.

As I looked around, the
landlord chattered about how difficult it was to find good renters
and how he hoped Eva hadn’t decided to skip town on him without
paying the rent. While the house wasn’t neat and orderly, there
certainly wasn’t anything apparent to indicate any kind of foul
play, or that Eva had skipped out on the rent. The clothes hangers
in the closet were spaced evenly with no big gaps indicating any
were missing. Her dresser drawers were full and her makeup table
littered with cosmetic containers as if she had just gotten up and
walked away from it a few minutes earlier.

“I wonder where she is,”
the landlord said. “She never goes out of town that I know of. Just
to work in the morning and then home afterwards. I almost always
notice her coming and going from my chair in front of the TV when I
have the front door open. Oh, I guess she goes out on the town
sometimes at night, like most young women her age do. But she
doesn’t have any family around here. She moved down here from
Lubbock after her momma and daddy died.”

While the landlord locked
Eva Trout’s front door, I dug through my wallet for one of my
business cards from Capitol Security in Austin. I drew a line
through the company name and numbers on the front and wrote my cell
phone number on the back.

“If you happen to see Eva,
I’d appreciate a call. And there’s no reason to mention to her that
I came by, the bank was just concerned for her welfare and wanted
to make sure she’s okay.”

The landlord turned the
card over and read my name and smiled.

“Well, I thought that was
you, I really did. You probably don’t remember me, do you? I knew
your daddy and momma for years, down at the Legion. I’m Ham
Burnett.”

I shook his hand and tried
to place him in my hazy memories of visits to the Elmore American
Legion hall. My parents had been regulars at the tiny lounge next
to the hall where the members congregated on weekends.

“Do they still have
‘Hamburger Night’ once a month?” I asked. The homemade burgers at
the Legion were some of the best you could find in town. During our
high school days, Ray Garcia and I started many of our Saturday
night drinking adventures with a big greasy burger at the Legion.
Ray always swore they lessened the effects of the next morning’s
inevitable hang-over.

“I think they still have
it,” He answered. “To tell you the truth, I don’t get down there
myself as much as I used to. So many of the older members are dying
off and it’s just not the same as it used to be. But I sure
remember listening to your daddy talk about you and how proud he
was that you made a policeman. I can even remember watching you
play football for the Drillers.”

“Uh oh. Now you’re gonna
make me have to apologize.”

He laughed. “Well, you
might not have gone to the state championship, but I seem to recall
y’all had a pretty good record back then. Didn’t you end up playing
at UT?”

“Well, I almost did,” I
answered. “I got hurt during practice the summer before my freshman
year. What’s Kendall doing these days?” Kendall Burnett had been a
year ahead of me in school and we had played on the same varsity
team when I was a junior, but baseball was where Kendall had
excelled.

He looked off toward the
street quickly and his smile became strained.

“We lost Kendall almost
ten years ago.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I
didn’t know”

“He got messed up with
that crystal meth and it was just too much for him. It was real
hard on his momma. She didn’t last two years after Kendall
went.”

He surveyed the adjoining
properties surrounding us.

“But I stay busy trying to
keep things here up and running, and that makes it a little
easier.”

When his eyes returned to
mine they were wet.

“You just never know how
long you’re gonna have somebody, so you’re sure got to make the
best of it while they’re here.”

“You sure do, Mr. Burnett.
You sure do.”

“Please. Call me Ham. All
my friends do.”

* * * *

CHAPTER
TWELVE

After leaving Ham Burnett,
I telephoned Jay Bradley and asked him to contact me if he heard
from Eva Trout or if she showed up for work. Then, I stopped in at
the Elmore Public Library and used their coin-operated copy machine
to make a copy of Eva Trout’s cell phone bill, which contained
three pages of calls she had made and received the previous month.
In the reference section of the library, I found the most recent
city directory, which contained a phone number
cross-reference.

I knew that all landlines
in Elmore had the same three-digit prefix, and I noticed that those
were the only phone numbers listed in the cross-reference.
Unfortunately, only a few of Eva Trout’s calls were to Elmore
landlines. There were at least a dozen calls to a phone number in
the same area code as Elmore that were long-distance calls
according to the bill.