The Big Book of Hap and Leonard Read online

  “What did he go to prison for?” Marvin asked.

  “Burglary,” Frankie said.

  “All right,” Marvin said. “I guess that does me for now. I might have some questions later.”

  “That’s fine,” Mrs. Craver said. “Shall we settle on a fee?”

  They talked money. It was good money they were talking, and Marvin felt it was one hell of a good deal they settled on. A good fee to look and report, a better fee if he found out where Tom was, or what had happened to him.

  When the deal was struck, Marvin picked up the files from the coffee table. “I’ll return these when I finish.”

  “That’s fine,” Mrs. Craver said. “Do you think you can find out what happened to Tom?”

  “It’s been quite a while.”

  “But it’s possible?” Mrs. Craver said.

  “Yes,” Marvin said. “But there are no guarantees.”

  “I understand,” Mrs. Craver said.

  “However,” Marvin said, “if it’s any consolation, if anyone can figure out what happened to him, or where he is, it’s me.”

  “That’s not a very modest view,” Mrs. Craver said, showing her false teeth.

  “No, it isn’t. But it’s not a brag either. Just fact.” Frankie walked Marvin out to his car. When he opened the door to get in, he paused and leaned on it.

  “I was trying to give her some hope in there,” Marvin said, “and I meant what I said about being good at what I do. But, it really is a long shot.”

  “I realize that,” Frankie said. “And frankly, as far as Tom goes, I don’t really give a damn. He can be dead. He can be alive, living in Argentina with Hitler, and I don’t care. But, for her there’s always going to be a bone-dead sadness about her until she knows what happened to him, good or bad. Therefore, it matters to me. For her sake.”

  “Is there anyone else that worked at the bank at that time that may remember Tom’s visit?”

  “You doubt me?”

  “Someone may have noticed something you didn’t.”

  “And they’d remember twenty-five years later?” Frankie said. “I think the other detectives went over that.”

  “A lot of detective work is looking at old information in a new way.”

  “Well, I think James Raymond saw him, but he’s no longer around. He was the bank manager at the time. It was a small bank then, they were about to build the new one. He knew Tom in passing. But, as I said, he’s dead, so that doesn’t matter. There was Tiffany Millar. She was a teller. In fact, there was the manager, me, Tiffany, and old Mrs. Thompson. She did the books. She’s long dead as well. That was the whole bank staff back then.”

  “All right,” Marvin said. “Thanks. And, good-bye.”

  That evening at the dinner table, Marvin said to his wife, Rachel, “It’s a pretty odd case. Guy’s been missing twenty-five years.”

  “You think he’s dead?”

  “I think it’s highly possible. Likely even. But it’s also possible he’s living somewhere under another name.”

  “He could be back in prison.”

  “I checked that. That would have been easy for the law or the previous investigators to figure out. Even if Tom had been using an assumed name, he got caught doing something he shouldn’t, the fingerprints would have ratted him out. No. He’s either dead or out there in hiding.”

  When they were through eating, Rachel said, “I’m going to go to bed.”

  “Pretty early,” Marvin said. “We could watch some TV.”

  “No. That’s all right.”

  “Rachel?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “Trying what?” she said.

  “You know. To make up for things.”

  “Sure. I know.”

  “Can’t you forgive me?”

  “I forgive you, Marvin. I just can’t forget.”

  “Will you ever be able to forget?”

  “No,” she said. “Of course not. You don’t forget getting burned, or hit by a car, or cheated on.”

  “Stupid question.”

  “Yes, it was. But maybe I can forgive more in time. I’m trying to. I want to. I’m just not there yet.”

  “It’s been a long time,” Marvin said.

  “Trust. Hard thing to get back, Marvin.”

  “I know. I don’t know what I was thinking. I love you. I have always loved you. I just don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “I do.”

  “All right. Yeah. I was thinking that. No excuse. I was a dog.”

  “Yes, you were.”

  “It’s never happened again.”

  “She’s dead.”

  “I mean with anyone. It never will.”

  “I believe you.”

  “Then?”

  “It still hurts. In time, maybe it won’t. I’m going up to bed.”

  “I’ll be right up, soon as I finish my milk.”

  “Don’t hurry.”

  “No problem.”

  “No,” Rachel said. “You watch some TV. That would be good. You come up after awhile.”

  Marvin knew what that meant. After she was asleep.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll take care of the dishes.”

  Rachel got up from the table and leaned over and kissed him on top of the head and went upstairs. Marvin watched her go. When she was gone he finished his milk and picked up the dishes, then went into the living room and got the TV Guide. He looked it over. There was nothing he wanted to see. He stretched out on the couch. He thought about Tom and what happened to him. He got up and got the files and looked at those. He read them for awhile. He decided to go up and go to bed, but he knew he would just have his cold space on the far side of the mattress.

  He put the files away, stretched out on the couch, and thought about Florida, the woman he had cheated with, the one who was dead now. But that was a different deal, and he didn’t want to think about that. He thought about the Craver case a little more, and then he fell asleep.

  At the office the next morning, Marvin went to the bank website. It was a lot of what he already knew and had been told by Frankie and Mrs. Craver.

  The old bank had once been scheduled to be torn down. It had been sealed off as soon as it was closed, and for about two years the new bank was in a larger rented building on the other side of town. The plan was to destroy the old bank and build a new, larger, more modern one on the site. Instead, property next door to the old bank opened up and was purchased for the new bank. It was decided the old bank would be used for storage for awhile, and when the new bank was built, it would be torn down and that area would become a parking lot.

  The storage plan never materialized. The new bank was built next to the old one, and the old one was saved by the city’s historical society. Later, the new bank expanded even more and the old one was connected to it and was turned into a tourist attraction, which garnered money for the town with its simple tour and gift shop. Hanson thought about all that, decided there was nothing there that helped him much.

  The notes from the private detectives offered a little more. An armored car that delivered money to the bank came up missing for a couple of days, was later found down in the Sabine River bottoms. The two drivers were there too, but they had bullet holes in their heads. No money was in the truck at the time, and therefore nothing was stolen.

  Odd.

  And odder yet, the bank manager Frankie said was dead was indeed that. But not of natural causes. He had been murdered a month after Tom disappeared. Marvin thought it odd that Frankie hadn’t mentioned that. One of the private investigators had thought this might be important, said so in his notes, but apparently, whatever that importance was, he had never been able to link it up.

  From the notes, no one at the police department had ever spoken to Tiffany Millar, the teller. Only the private detectives, and they didn’t really have anything of value from her in the notes.

  He looked her up in the phone book. He called an
d she answered on the first ring.

  “Excuse me. Is this Tiffany Millar?”

  “It is.”

  “Who used to work at the bank?”

  “I did. Who is this?”

  “My name is Marvin Hanson. I’ve been hired by Mrs. Craver to look into the disappearance of her son.”

  “Again? I talked to private detectives about this before.”

  “I know. It’s probably just old hat, but I wanted to speak with you. We can do it over the phone, or in person if you prefer.”

  “I’m bored. How about I meet you somewhere?”

  “My office okay?”

  “Do you have good coffee?”

  “No.”

  “Starbucks?”

  “When?”

  “Now. Like I said, I’m bored.”

  They met at Starbucks. Hanson, who had already had morning coffee, ordered decaffeinated with soy milk and two artificial sweeteners. He bought Tiffany’s drink, which looked to be something chocolate with whipped cream and colored sprinkles on top.

  Tiffany, one hot fifty-year-old blonde who looked to have had only minimal surgery on her face, sat at the table and crossed her legs, which were long and smooth and clothed in high-heel shoes. Marvin thought: Who wears high heels in the middle of the day to go to Starbucks? But, he didn’t mind all that much, and since he assumed she sat the way she did so she could show him her legs, he let her.

  She smiled at Marvin. He was sure it was a smile that had melted many a male heart and made many a female mad. It was doing something to him as well, though the area it was affecting was somewhat lower than the heart.

  “I don’t know I can add much to help,” she said. “All I know is Tom came up missing and no one has found him, and that he came into the bank that day and spoke with Frankie. She was cute then,” she said. “Though I think time has been somewhat rough on her.”

  “Not financially,” Marvin said.

  “No. Not so bad in that department.” Tiffany said all of this between sips of her drink. “She endures.”

  “Is there anything you can tell me about that day?”

  “Tom came in and spoke to Frankie at her desk, and they argued a little, and then he left.”

  “Did you hear anything they said?”

  “No. Not really. I think it was over money. He wanted some, and she didn’t want to give it to him. I think they were not really together by then. He just hoped they were. And I don’t think it was for love. I think it was money, because his mother wouldn’t give him any more, and he thought his wife might. I think Frankie and her mother-in-law were close.”

  “Still are,” Marvin said.

  “Okay. But it wasn’t love. It was her money, and the money he thought he might get from his mother by way of his wife.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t love he was after?” Marvin said.

  “Because he had hit on me before, right after he got out of prison.”

  “He came in before that?”

  “He came in three or four times,” Tiffany said. “He’d walk around and look the bank over, and act like he was interested in the place. You know, it was still the old bank in that day, and it had a kind of pioneer feel about it. It was old and small. It’s a museum now. You should have a look at it.”

  “I will.”

  “He liked to look around and see the bullet holes in the wall. The bank had been robbed in the early nineteen-hundreds, old cowboy-style, except the robbers came with a car instead of a horse and got shot to death before they left town. They were shot with some kind of big gun. Shot so much it knocked one of them out of his boots. The car had a flat, you see, and the law caught up.”

  “But you didn’t hear anything odd between Frankie and Tom?”

  “If I did, I’ve forgotten it. I just remember it was an argument and money came up, and that was it. I really didn’t mean to hear that much, but it was hard to help, you know. Small bank.”

  “Did Tom talk to anyone there besides her that time, or for that matter, the time before?”

  “Just hit on me. Oh, I guess he chummed it up with everyone. He was a real glad-hander. A bullshitter, you might say. Excuse my language. TV has ruined the way I talk.”

  “Did you and Frankie socialize outside of the bank?”

  “Usually just bank functions.”

  “What about the bank manager?”

  Tiffany was suddenly a little less light. “Jim was found dead, you know.”

  “What did he die of?”

  “Two bullet holes.”

  “Oh,” Marvin said, as if he didn’t know. “How long after Tom disappeared did that happen?”

  “About two weeks, I think. Yes. That seems about right.”

  Marvin studied Tiffany. She looked not only less light, but he thought she looked teary.

  “You were close to him?”

  “Not really,” Tiffany said. “He was my boss, of course.”

  “Did he get along with everyone at the bank?”

  “Quite well,” Tiffany said. “Frankie, well . . . I think he may have gotten along with her too well.”

  “They had something going?”

  “I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that. She and Tom were separated. But she did work for him. It wasn’t seemly, the way she carried on. It wasn’t that she was at anytime a great looker, so I don’t understand his attraction.”

  “You said she was cute,” Marvin said.

  “Like a Chinese pug, but not pretty.”

  “So, the boss liked her?”

  “I doubt it was anything serious.”

  Marvin sipped his coffee. None of this had been in the notes. And another thing not in the notes, and left unsaid, but seemingly said beneath the conversation, was the fact that Tiffany had had designs on the boss herself.

  Marvin decided to come right out with it.

  “Did you have interest in Jim?”

  “Of course not.”

  “A beautiful woman like you, and he didn’t notice?”

  The beautiful woman line perked Tiffany up, but the glow faded quickly. “Oh, he noticed. He noticed plenty. It made Frankie mad, the way he noticed. It made her mad plenty.” Tiffany leaned back with satisfaction and drank her coffee. She licked at the whipped cream at the top of the straw like a cat licking milk.

  “He just noticed?” Marvin said. “That’s all? Just noticed?”

  “Yes. He just noticed. Are you looking into all of this again?”

  This seemed like a stupid question, since that was why he had invited her to coffee, but he said, “Yes. I think the previous detectives might have missed something.”

  “What would that be?”

  “Don’t know yet, but I’m going to find out. They skimmed the surface. That’s what I get from reading their notes anyway. Me, I’m tenacious.”

  “Are you?” she said.

  “Very much so. It’s a cold day in hell when I quit.”

  “I see. Well, that’s certainly a good quality in your line of work.”

  “I like to think so.”

  “Nothing else I can help you with, I suppose I should run along. I have a few errands to take care of.”

  “If I think of something I’ve forgotten, would it be alright to call you up again?”

  “I just can’t imagine having anything else to say on the matter. I’ve told you all I know. To tell the truth, I think Tom’s gone forever and no one will ever find him.”

  “I’ve found people missing for years before,” Marvin said. “Sometimes they were even alive. So, you never know.”

  She stood up with her drink in her hand. “Good luck to you, then.”

  She stuck out her free hand. Marvin stood and shook it.

  The next moment she was out the door.

  Marvin drove by the bank. It was a pretty large building, and there were a number of drive-through outlets associated with it scattered throughout town.

  It seemed to Marvin it hadn’t been that long ago when the old bank,
which was a fifth the size of the new one, was the only one in use. But when he counted up the years in his head, he winced. Time flew quickly and was as merciless as a hawk.

  The new bank was attached to the old one, but the old one was now a museum and could be entered only by the original front door. Marvin did just that. The old bank had a lot of exposed fine wood, and there was a huge red brick fireplace to one side, and there were tellers’ desks, and at the back was a glassed-in section that had been the manager’s office. He remembered that from when he was a kid. He had lived in Houston at that time but visited LaBorde often, as his aunt had lived here. Dead and gone now, he had tagged along with her a number of times as she did her banking. It made him feel good to do it.

  There was a woman at the desk and she smiled at Marvin and he smiled back. She was a plump woman in a loud flower pattern dress, but she had a gorgeous brown face and short black hair.

  “It’s a dollar to look through,” she said.

  Marvin paid his dollar. He walked around. There really wasn’t much to see. The bullet holes had a frame around them and there was a placard there that said they had been shot into the wall by one of the robbers, Dog-Face Fulton, just to show he and his two pals meant business. This may have let the people in the bank at that time know he was serious, but it also alerted the law, who took note of the getaway driver outside, and promptly chased them down and shot them to pieces. Fulton may have been dangerous, but he wasn’t smart.

  Marvin was surprised to discover that the bank really was small. Even smaller than he remembered. As a child, it had seemed so imposing. He walked to the back and looked in at the glassed-in manager’s office. It was claimed by another placard on the wall that all the furniture in the manager’s office, and throughout the bank, was the original furniture in the same position, dating all the way back to the bank robbery. Probably was. It seemed like the same furniture he remembered.

  Marvin stopped at the fireplace. There was a placard there. It said the fireplace ceased to be in use after the bank closed, but at one time it was the only heat for the bank. He walked past the desk where the lady sat. He said, “So, the front door was the only way in when the bank was in use.”