Chapters (29)
She looked surprised but she picked up her phone. He checked the time on it against his own phone. Same thing on both. So he was pretty confident that his data points were good.
“Was there anybody else in the bathroom with you and Ms. Wiese?”
Shana shook her head. “I should probably get back to my window.”
“I understand.” She probably expected that he was going to ask about the color of her poop next. “Thank you for your time.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll walk you back to the lobby.”
When they got there, Shana extended her hand. “Good luck, Detective McKittridge.”
“Thank you.” Over her shoulder, at one of the desks in the far right corner of the bank, he saw Steven Hanzel. The man was sitting at a desk, turned so that his right side was to A.L. He was talking to a young couple who sat in chairs in front of his desk. A.L. was confident the man was unaware of his scrutiny. “You work with Steven Hanzel?” he asked.
She glanced over her shoulder. “I guess. I mean, yes. He’s a loan officer so we don’t interact very much.”
Exuberant Steven Hanzel, who had set A.L.’s teeth on edge. Maybe A.L. had sensed that the man ran around on his wife. He should call the psychic up and tell her he might be some competition. “Is he...well-liked at the bank?” A.L. asked.
She shrugged. “I think so. We both went to Baywood High. Actually dated for a month or two when I was a junior and he was a senior.”
“Small world,” A.L. said.
“I think he did a good thing setting up the fund-raising site.”
He heard something in her tone. “But...?”
She shrugged. “My sister-in-law is his manager. She’s shared some things.”
“Like what things?” A.L. asked.
Shana chewed on the corner of her upper lip, looking as if she realized that she might have said too much. No doubt what her sister had told her had been done in confidence. “I don’t want to get my sister-in-law in trouble. I think she only told me because she knew that we’d dated at one time and that he’d dumped me for another girl.”
Bingo. He was going to let Shana off the hook. It would be better to get the info firsthand versus second. “What’s your sister-in-law’s name?”
She said nothing.
“I’m pretty sure I can work this so that she doesn’t know that it was you who sent me her direction,” A.L. said.
“Tamara Federer. I married her younger brother. She’s divorced and went back to her maiden name.”
“Does she work out of this location?”
“Yes. The VPs have offices on the third floor.”
A vice president probably wasn’t working on a Saturday morning. He said as much to Shana.