Murder On The Mind

  * * *

  The temperature had dropped ten degrees and dusk had fallen by the time I finished canvassing Sumner’s upper middle-class neighborhood on Forest Drive, right in the Village of Orchard Park. No one answered my knock at quite a few of the houses. I didn’t bother with Sumner’s own house, which looked forlorn, although there were lights on inside the gray clapboard colonial.

  Flashing my old ID had done the trick. None of the neighbors questioned my being there, but I learned virtually nothing. Sumner may have been gregarious in his public life, but the family didn’t mix with the neighbors. They’d lived in the house for six years and kept to themselves. Sumner’s children were grown, and no one paid much attention to the middle-aged couple’s comings and goings. And besides, I was informed on more than one occasion, my potential witnesses had already spoken with the police and had told them everything they did—or didn’t—know.

  Though I’d given my card—with Richard’s phone number scribbled on the back—to a few of the neighbors, I didn’t expect to get any calls.

  I opened the car door, climbed in, fumbled with the seat belt.

  Richard squinted at me. “Any luck?”

  “Looks like I froze my balls off for nothing.” I glanced at the fuel gauge. “And you wasted a tank of gas.”

  Richard stared at me. “You look like shit. How do you feel?”

  “Like shit.”

  Richard shook his head and put the car in gear as I sank back into the leather seat. The pounding in my head left me feeling vaguely nauseated.

  “When did you start swearing? I don’t remember you swearing so much,” I said.

  “You drove me to it. Now what?”

  “I’ll have to rethink my approach.” Sumner was a businessman . . . a banker. “I’ll have to talk to the people he worked with. But I can’t use my insurance ID there, in case someone decides to check up on me.” I glanced at my brother. “Where do you bank?”

  He turned the corner. “All over. Grandmother didn’t believe in keeping all her money in one bank—in case it failed. She got burned during the Depression. I never bothered to consolidate her holdings.”

  “Then you must have accounts at Bison Bank, right?”

  “Yes,” he answered warily, giving me a sidelong glance.

  “How much—if you don’t mind my asking.”

  Richard shrugged, his eyes on the road. “A couple million.”

  “Million? You inherited millions?”

  Richard nodded, his eyes still intent on the road. “Of course.”

  I should’ve remembered that little fact. That I didn’t was another example of my faulty memory. “How many?”

  “Last year I paid taxes on the income from fifty-five million.” He tore his gaze from the road. “Anything else you want to know?”

  “If you’ve got that kind of money, what the hell are you doing living in Buffalo?”

  “Because L.A. wasn’t working out any more.”

  I sank back into the leather seat, ignoring the edge that had crept into his voice. “I guess someone with a few million on deposit wouldn’t have any trouble getting me inside the bank. I mean behind the scenes, where Sumner worked. Right?”

  “I can try,” he said, resigned. He glanced at the dashboard clock. “I’ll make some calls in the morning.”

  “Thanks. Could we hit the Amherst library on the way home? I kind of reserved some books in your name. Which reminds me, I need to go to the DMV and get an official ID. Then maybe the library will let me take out my own books.”

  He sighed. “No problem.”

  Meanwhile, dollar signs danced through my mind. I considered the hospital bill, the plane fare, the movers. Richard could well afford to help me. So far there’d been no strings attached to the money he’d spent bailing me out, but how the hell would I ever repay him?