“Amy?”
“Yes, Amy,” he waited until she sat and he sat close to her, not because he wanted to but because playing her game would get him what he needed.
“You want coffee?” he asked, his glance moving to the staff coffeepot in the corner.
“Nah, that coffee’s terrible. I always wait,” she eyed his cup, “I usually go to Mimi’s on break.”
Shared tastes, she was telling him, they had something in common.
He took a sip from his coffee before stating, “Amy’s no call-no show today.”
“Yeah, weird,” Julie said.
“Dave says you two are close.”
“Wouldn’t say anyone was close to Amy but, yeah, we have a laugh every once in awhile, me more than any of the other girls.” She was reconsidering her casual friendship with Amy, pleased that it finally bought her something she liked.
Colt caught his lip curl and kept going. “You speak to her recently?”
“Not since we left work Friday night.”
“She seem to be acting different lately?”
“How ‘different’?”
“Anything.”
She shook her head. “Nope, except she took that Maroni woman dying pretty hard.”
“Yeah?” Colt prompted.
Julie’s head tipped to the side, trying to read him, get a lock on what this was about. “Yeah. She was always nice to her. The rest of us…” she paused, her face showing her disgust as if a visit from Angie at her station tainted her in some way, “we did her business and got her to move on,” she leaned in and whispered, “Skank City.”
Colt tried to ignore the feel of his blood heating and went on. “They friends? You know, outside the bank.”
“Not that I know of. Amy went to high school with her. Told us all she was nice, always was, she just had a tough life. But Amy’s nice to everyone, much as she could be, seein’ as she’s screamin’ shy.”
“She say anything about Angie?” Colt asked.
“She wound up in this murder business?”
Fuck. He didn’t want his investigating Amy to get around. He wasn’t worried about the town; he was worried about Feb finding out.
“Nope, it’s just she came into J&J’s and she and I had a chat. She seemed distraught, I’m checkin’ up on her.” He forced a smile. “Occupational extra, got a worry about one of my citizens, I can do something about it.”
He was talking out his ass. He just hoped she wouldn’t know that.
She didn’t know it. She probably spent her evenings watching Survivor or Amazing Race and rooting for the biggest ass**le in both, not watching cop shows.
“Only thing I know is, she was cut up about Angie Maroni,” Julie said. “Then again, anyone would be, knowin’ that person for awhile and them endin’ up murdered.”
Dead f**king end.
New direction.
It was a risk. Word about Marie was undoubtedly making the rounds. Word about Denny would be close on its heels. Soon, Julie McCall would link their chat to the murders and she’d talk, he had no doubt and he didn’t have the inclination to make any deal she would open to him to stop her mouth from running.
People were dying so he had no f**king choice.
“Do you know Denny Lowe?” he asked.
Another eyebrow raise then, “Um… yeah, sure. He’s a customer.”
“He come in a lot?”
“Sometimes Saturdays. He works.”
“He seem partial to Amy’s station?”
She shook her head, now confused. “Not really,” she was thinking, trying to recall, “actually, thinkin’ about it, can’t remember him ever goin’ to her station at all,” she focused on him again, “though I can’t be sure.”
“They ever talk? She ever mention him?”
She kept shaking her head.
Christ, she was all he had and she was giving him nothing.
“‘Cept…” she started.
“Yeah?” Colt prompted.
“Amy had a bit of a flip out not long ago. It was on a Saturday and it was when he came in.”
Colt felt a spiral of exhilaration in his gut.
“What kind of a flip out?”
She waved her hand. “Well, Amy wasn’t prone to flip outs and it wasn’t a big one. She just said she needed a break early and took it but that’s not her style. When she came back, she looked like she’d been crying. Didn’t have to do with Mr. Lowe, though. I just remember that he was in when it happened. And I only remember because he took a big withdrawal and that doesn’t happen often. Most folks can get their money from the cash machine, have to come to a station to withdraw that kind of dough and it’s still unusual. Usually folks come to us to deposit, move money around, check balances, ask about or pay on their line of credit or mortgage. Stuff like that. You always remember a big withdrawal.”
Colt reckoned you did, especially when you didn’t have thousands of dollars in your own account which he guessed she didn’t considering she wasn’t wearing wedding rings but she was wearing clothes that were too expensive on a teller’s salary. Envy and curiosity about how the other half lived likely baked those memories into your brain.
“You did his withdrawal?” Colt asked.
“That day, yeah.”
“He talk about what it was for? Takin’ a vacation? Buyin’ somethin’ special?”
She shook her head.
“He seem to have a preference in tellers?”
“Nope, there’s just one line, folks come up to whichever one of us is open. Only Angie Maroni waited for Amy.”
“That day you know why Amy was cryin’?”
Julie shrugged. “Sure, I asked after work if she was okay. She said she was it was just that she was thinkin’ about her boy.”
It took everything Colt had not to jerk back at this news and that cold circled his chest, tight and vicious.
“Her boy?”
“Yeah, she had a kid, years ago. Put him up for adoption. She thinks about him a lot, she told me, but she doesn’t get upset. She just got upset that day, somethin’ struck her and she got sad wonderin’ where he was.”
Colt didn’t reply.
Amy Harris had a child. He had no idea.
And she’d got upset about it when Denny walked in, probably not a coincidence.
She was petite but nicely rounded. Very pretty but dark-haired. She had dark brown eyes. That and her curves were the only thing she shared with Feb. Feb was tall, blonde and her curves were more attractive considering the length of her frame and the way she held herself.