I looked sideways at him and said, “You know something you’re not saying?”

“Not a thing.”

“Any ideas about who might show up?”

“If your brother wasn’t in the can, I’d say him. So it’s gotta be some other lowlife dealer. I’ll probably recognize him.”

We sat in the car for a minute. I checked out the surroundings. Poughkeepsie is a bigger city than either Marlboro or Newburgh and showed signs of growth. There was a completely different vibe here, with new businesses opening and only a few vacancies in the strip malls. A Poughkeepsie police cruiser passed with two officers in the front seat. It made me remember that technically, I was acting illegally, and I wasn’t sure how many people would believe my story about Mike Tharpe being a murderer.

I looked at Tharpe and said, “We’re going to wait in the lobby.” I patted my pocket where I told him the gun was. “Don’t give me a reason to use this. We have an agreement. You make the video statement and I let you take everything in the box. You know I don’t want to have anything to do with it anyway.”

Tharpe looked at me and said, “And you wait before you tell anyone, so I have a chance to get out of town.”

I nodded. “Agreed.”

He turned so I could use the key on the handcuffs and free his hands. Then we both eased out of the car, feeling each other out. Tharpe looked tired. It didn’t seem like he had any tricks up his sleeve. I let him walk just in front of me as we entered the bank, and I explained to a receptionist, sitting behind a cramped desk, that we wanted to go to the safety-deposit room after our business partner arrived. The pretty, young receptionist motioned us to a small waiting area, where we sat on hard plastic chairs. A velvet rope separated the waiting area from the rest of the lobby, which also served as the entrance to the other sections of the bank.

I looked into the main lobby and evaluated the everyday business the private bank did. There were young mothers with their children and an old couple waiting to speak to a loan officer. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Now I wondered who would show up to meet us. There were too many possibilities to anticipate anything. Tharpe didn’t say a word and looked like he was waiting to visit his stockbroker. Every car that pulled into the lot drew my attention.

Then the one car I didn’t want to see pulled up. A dark-blue BMW. As I watched out the wide window, I saw Katie Stahl emerge from the car and stroll to the front door of the bank, like she was on a normal errand.