No one, even if they’d wanted to, could have entered the vault and removed and unlocked Joel Price and Edward Tucker’s safe deposit box. Joel Price had a key. Edward Tucker had an identical key. The bank had the second key, necessary to get into any of the boxes.

Joel Price asked everyone to remain, then left the room for a few minutes and returned with Maggie the teller and Mr. Earl Tanenger, the bank manager. Tanenger was a corpulent, bald man in his sixties and took up a lot of space. They were all crowded into the little room where the boxes could be opened in private by customers. Maggie had the leather record book. She was wearing too much of her new perfume, Heaven’s Gate, that made a few people—Pearl among them—sniff and sneeze.

In front of everyone, Earl Tanenger opened the leather-bound book, stared at it, and proclaimed that no one had entered the vault and removed box 150 since October 12, 1998, when the box was rented and the register was signed by both Joel Price and Edward Tucker. Mr. Tanenger had been bank manager for almost twenty years and remembered that day well.

Said he did, anyway.

Quinn had his doubts. He said, “I want to talk to all the employees.” He was aware that he had no jurisdiction here. Also aware that Earl Tanenger didn’t want the county sheriff involved and for this thing to get out of hand.

“Certainly,” Tanenger said.

They all left the room and moved toward the lobby, where Tanenger motioned them toward the conference room while he went to temporarily close the bank and summon the employees.

No one spoke. A few sniffled, still under the spell of Heaven’s Gate.

Pearl said, “I hope we can get this cleared up fast.”

Quinn thought her swollen nasal passages made her sound like Porky Pig, but he said not a word.

Earl Tanenger returned only a few minutes later, with the teller who’d been working with Maggie behind the counter. She was a whippet-thin gray-haired woman in her fifties, who would have been perfectly cast as a severe librarian or teacher who would abide no breaking of the rules.

“This is Miss Luella Morst,” Tanenger said. “And she can explain.” He took a step to the side and motioned with his right arm. “Luella, the floor is yours.”

“Four days ago, Monday it was, Maggie was home sick with the swine flu.”

God! Pearl thought.

Luella pressed on. “Mr. Edward Tucker and another man came into the bank, and Mr. Tucker asked for his safety deposit box. I gave it to him, and he and the other man went into one of the privacy rooms. They were only in there a few minutes, then came out. I went back with Mr. Tucker, and we returned his box to the proper place, locked it, and I escorted him out, then watched both men leave. They were both very polite and businesslike.” Miss Morst flushed and for the first time seemed defensive. “I’m not used to working the deposit boxes. I did everything right, except I forgot to have Mr. Tucker sign and date the register.”

“Mistakes happen,” Earl Tanenger said, and rested a hand lightly on Luella Morst’s shoulder.

“Do you know Edward Tucker by sight?” Quinn asked Luella Morst.

“Yes. I’ve seen him around town for years.”

“The other man?”

“Never saw him before.”

“Do you recall what he looked like?”

“Didn’t pay much attention, tell you the truth. Average size, maybe too fat.”

“Hair?”

“Yes. Dark, I think.”

“Scars? Facial hair? Tattoos? Glasses?”

“Not glasses, I don’t think. The rest of it I don’t know. I do recall that he had a Band-Aid on his face, like he’d cut himself or got cut.”

Quinn almost moaned. It was an old technique for a crook to wear a Band-Aid on his or her face. It would probably be all any witnesses would remember about how they looked.

“Did Mr. Tucker seem as if he was at ease?” Quinn asked. “Did the other man seem to be controlling him in any way?”

“Not at all. They acted perfectly normal.”

Quinn thanked her. Earl Tanenger instructed her and everyone else to return to work. Then he looked at Quinn and shrugged.

“Human error,” he said.

“He probably wouldn’t have signed his name anyway,” Quinn said. “Just be glad you’ve got an employee with the guts to come forward.”

“I should give her a bonus for her forgetfulness?” Tanenger said.

“Yes,” Pearl said.

“What could Edward have been doing?” Ida Tucker asked the world in general.

“Whatever it was, he might have been doing it under duress, despite what Luella Morst said.”

“He’d never do anything illegal.”

“Whatever was in that box, it belonged to him.”

“It belonged to the family,” Ida Tucker said, with more than a touch of bitterness.

They went back out on the sidewalk and crossed to the paved roundabout in front of the bank. It had gotten hotter outside. Uncomfortable.

They all said their good-byes. Quinn and Pearl repeated their condolences. Joel Price assured them he would call if there were any developments.

There were just the two of them now on the hot and dusty street, Quinn and Pearl.

“This is what a dead end looks like,” Pearl said.

“Maybe,” Quinn said.

“What happens now?” Pearl asked.

“Whatever it is, it’ll happen in New York.”

Only it didn’t.

Before they could get in the car, Ida Tucker came huffing up to them, forcing a grin.

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” she said, “not inviting you to come to the house afterward and have some lemonade.”

“Really,” Pearl said, “that’s very kind of you but it isn’t necessary.”

The grin widened. She’d been pushing herself, Quinn thought, especially considering her age. He wondered about her. Was she simply what she seemed—a gentle and artful mother? What role, if any, had she played in making Henry Tucker’s letters disappear? People who were experts in conning others often thought themselves more clever than they were. If Ida Tucker had been in on whatever had happened that made their trip from New York futile, was it possible that she couldn’t simply allow the con to end? Were she and some of the others secretly enjoying themselves too much, and had to extend the advantage they’d already exercised? Was that what he was seeing here? Did Ida Tucker, on a subliminal level, want to rub it in?

“I’m thirsty,” Quinn said. He smiled at Ida Tucker. “Lemonade sounds perfect, dear. But let’s drive back to your house in our car.”

“There’s an offer I’ll accept,” Ida said, “since you so graciously accepted mine.”

Gracious. Yes, that was the game they were playing.

49

Everything in the Tucker house hit the correct note—the flowers, the cards and letters of condolences. Everything but a black wreathe on the front door. Or had he missed it?

Quinn was more interested in the permanent objects in the house, rather than those that would be discarded after a period of grieving. The books in the matching white bookcases, for instance. Many of them were on travel. Some were fiction. Eric Ambler, John le Carré, Ruth Rendell, Jonathon Kellerman, Len Deighton . . . clever writers, all of them. No romance, or supernatural, or street-level cop novels here. Psychological mysteries. Suspense. Kellerman was even himself a psychologist. Quinn figured the readers of such books got their enjoyment out of trying to outwit the writers.

Would Ida or her late husband be the sort to write critical Amazon reviews or send taunting e-mails to the writers?

They didn’t seem the type, but mightn’t that be camouflage?

Pearl must have had some idea of what he was thinking, and disagreed. She gave him a look and a shake of her head. Her meaning was unmistakable: Let’s get out of here.

But Quinn had gone from examining books to looking over the family photos on top of the bookcase. Lots of outdoor shots of happy people, their images frozen by the click of a camera. There was Andria, standing close beside Jeanine. Their arms were draped over each other’s shoulders. Neither seemed to have an inkling of what lay in store for them.