“Hello, Candace.” Reese put the lunchbox down on the counter in front of the redheaded teller. “I’d like to open a safe-deposit box.”
“Reese. Congratulations on your windfall!” Candace’s green eyes danced with enthusiasm. Not much over five feet tall, her elbows rested easily on the counter.
Reese laughed a little. “Thanks. I won’t even ask how you found out.”
“The whole town is talking about it.” The teller gave her a form to fill out and then eyed the tin lunchbox as though it was a relic. “One of your carpenters told me. He made a deposit of his own yesterday. That was awfully nice of you to give them money.”
“It’s what I would have wanted.” Reese handed the form to Candace. “And I’ll never get used to the rapid lines of communications in this town.”
“That tin is pretty old. Too interesting not to talk, I suppose.” Candace handed her a key to a safe-deposit box and tucked some of her bobbed red hair behind her feather-jeweled ear. “You found it hidden in the floor?”
Reese took the key. “Yes. Quite the mystery, huh?”
“I’d say. Did Jeffrey’s wife hide it?”
Reese went still. “His wife?” Why did she think his wife could have hidden money? And where was she now?
“She was murdered some forty years ago. That would explain why Jeffrey never knew about the money. I wonder why she hid it? Everyone is wondering that in town. We haven’t had this much excitement in years.” She laughed lightly.
Murdered...
Reese was still trying to catch up to the significance of that as Candace rambled on.
“Been so long, not many remember her. She was strangled to death and dumped on the side of Highway 149 on the way to Durango.”
Reese reeled with the revelation. Then she looked down at the tin lunchbox. This money could mean more than a forgotten fund. Reese lifted the lunchbox from the counter and lowered it to her side.
“Not even Sheriff Robison told me.” She supposed he hadn’t thought to, and she had no reason to dig through old evidence.
Candace leaned over the counter on her elbows. “Crime was never solved. I forgot all about it till you bought that old Neville place and my dad mentioned it the other day.”
“Why isn’t anyone still trying to solve the case?” Reese asked.
“Almost every sheriff in office has tried. A few deputies, too,” Candace said.
“Well, maybe it’s time for someone new to try.” So much time had gone by since the woman’s death that everyone had stopped talking about it and that led to no one caring enough anymore. Well, Reese bet if the woman could talk, she’d still care.
“What happened?” she asked. “How was she murdered? She was strangled, but what was she doing the last anyone knew?”
“Ella worked at the library,” Candace said. “Just moved here the year before. Met Jeffrey and six months later they got married. She worked the night she was killed. The last person to leave the library was the last to see her alive. She was questioned and cleared. Ella closed the library and vanished. No one saw anything. Someone must have pushed her body out of a vehicle because it fell down a steep slope. To this day, no one knows what happened to her or why she was killed. The sheriff at the time questioned Jeffrey, but he had an alibi. He had a company dinner that night. His wife was supposed to meet him there but she never showed up.”
Candace sure knew a lot about the case. Everyone in town likely did. “Where was her car found?”
“She walked to work every day.” Candace took lipstick out of her purse and put on a fresh coat.
Ella had been taken somewhere between the time she locked the library and home. “That’s terrible.”
“Yeah. Wish her killer would be caught, even if it has been so long.”
Reese wanted to be the one to grant that wish. “Thanks, Candace.” She went to the safe-deposit boxes and found hers, Ella Neville’s murder heavy on her mind.
Wish her killer would be caught, even if it has been so long...
Kadin Tandy solved cold cases. What if she went to him with Ella’s case? She didn’t have to tell him he had another daughter. Not right away. She could get to know him first. Somehow that made her impending trip easier to bear. Call it procrastination. Call it breaking the news gently. She just felt better with that approach.
Locking the tin in the safe-deposit box, she left the bank with a livelier spring in her step than when she’d entered. She’d stop at the sheriff’s office and pick up the Neville case file. She would also ask Margaret, their office manager, to send Ella’s clothes in for more modern testing. Then she’d head for the airport.
* * *
Kadin had moved his office to a bigger building. Jamie read about his first office, an unassuming downtown building with barely one office and a place to hold meetings—he and his wife had lived on the floor above. The new building was a restored mercantile building, the old sandstone exterior walls covered with white glazed brick. Three rows of six casement windows ran the length of the front. He could see a chandelier hanging in the middle of the upper two rows, revealing the open architecture of what must be a nice home with lots of light. A stone railing on each upper corner indicated the location of rooftop balconies. The building sat on high ground, with open space in the back.
The covered front walk on the first level shaded tinted windows and a double-door entrance with an inconspicuous and prettily written Dark Alley Investigations on the right door. Jamie stepped inside, ready for his first day of work.
An artsy lobby housed a young and beautiful, dark-haired woman behind a white marble-topped counter that matched the floor. A few plants warmed up a seating area and several paintings hung on high walls.
“Jamie Knox,” he said to the woman.
She smiled, baring a mouth of pearly white teeth. “Go on back, Mr. Knox. Mr. Tandy is waiting for you. He’s in the far right corner office.”
The inner door buzzed, unlocking for him. He stepped from the lobby into the office-lined interior. Four conference rooms took up both sides of the front. A square area in the middle was filled with cubicles. People walked the halls and stood at printers or worked away at their desks.
Jamie went down the middle aisle, the smell of new carpet and leather accompanying him on the way. Everyone dressed business-casual, some of the men in ties with no jackets.
The far wall had a row of windows like the front, and as he turned to the right, he enjoyed a view of White Mountain and Pilot Butte. Before moving here he’d read that wild horses still ran in those hills. Nothing he’d see in a city, and the notion intrigued him.
Kadin emerged from his spacious office and greeted him. “Let me show you to your office.”
Jamie followed him to the opposite side of the building and into the opposite corner office with the same view as the boss. He went to the window. “This gives me an adequate idea of your expectations.”
Kadin smiled wryly. “You’re taking on an important role in this organization. The safety and protection of my detectives and the victims’ families are of utmost importance. The more notoriety I get, the more of a threat we are, and the more high risk the case, the more danger we attract.”
“Risk is my résumé.” This new role would present