Standing as if nailed to the floor, he waited for the driver’s-side door to open. He hadn’t realized that he was holding his breath until the door swung open and Lolly Mandeville stepped out. His breath burst out in a curse. He stared, telling himself nothing about this was good news. What was she doing here?
First Arnie, now Lolly? What was Malcolm up to? Unless he had no idea Donovan was here—let alone his daughter. Lolly stopped on the sidewalk to stare at the entry into the hotel as if not wanting to come in any more than he wanted her to.
His first impulse was to run. He could jump in his car and take off. But even as he thought it, he knew there was no getting away. Whatever she was doing here, he was going to have to face the music. It sure had taken her long enough to come looking for him, he thought distractedly. But there was no doubt that whatever her reason for showing up here, it meant trouble.
Like out of a nightmare, Lolly opened the hotel door and stepped inside. Donovan hadn’t moved; he’d barely taken a breath. He’d simply waited, knowing this could get real ugly fast.
FINALLY,MANDEVILLE’S INTERESTin Goldie’s café was beginning to make sense, Max told himself as he went next door to the bank.
“I’ve never seen the basement in this building,” he told bank manager Bill Winters, who was sitting behind his desk in his office.
Bill, a distinguished gray-haired man who’d worked at the bank for as long as Max could remember, looked up in surprise. “There’s nothing down there to see.”
“Humor me,” the sheriff said. Most of the old bank buildings in small Montana towns were no longer banks. The only reason the Dry Gulch branch of National West was still operating was the large number of ranchers and farmers in the area who did business there. Not to mention the new resort Cordell was set to build after he had bought the old hotel and reopened it.
With obvious reluctance, Bill pulled out a set of keys and rose from his desk. Max followed him to a back part of the building where he’d never been before. “I hate coming down here,” Bill said as he unlocked the door to the basement under the bank and turned on the light. “While the bank has been refurbished over the years, the basement has remained as it was ever sincethe structure had been built—unfinished. I can’t imagine what you’d want to see down there.”
“How often do you come down here?” the sheriff asked as they descended the stairs.
“As little as possible.”
“What’s kept down here?” Max asked.
“There’s an old vault, but there is nothing of value in it. Just some old stuff, nothing anyone would want. Same with what is stored down there.” Bill turned on a light at the bottom of the stairs, illuminating a low ceiling and concrete walls with several walls lined with old file cabinets and wooden boxes. He imagined this space was a little like being in an underground mine shaft, the walls and ceiling close and oppressive.
Max followed him to a low concrete wall that was disintegrating in some spots. He thought of what Arnie had told him about needing to shore up the foundation of the café next door. He stood for moment listening. He couldn’t hear any construction sounds on the other side of the concrete wall. They must have quit for the day. Or seen him go into the bank.
Bill flicked on more lights as they moved deeper into the back. “The whole place is…spooky.”
The sheriff looked into the dim darkness, the overhead bulbs doing little to chase away the black shadows beyond. A cold dampness seemed to seep into his bones, bringing with it an old, musty smell. Max felt turned around down here, the ceiling so low and claustrophobic. He could see why Bill didn’t like coming down here.
“There’s really nothing to see down here,” Bill said, not for the first time.
“I’m a little turned around,” Max admitted as they wandered through the dim, musty space. “Which direction is the café?”
The bank manager looked at him then, as if realizing what this might be about. “The café?” Bill asked, frowning, and glancedaround for a moment. “That would be this way.” He led Max through the rows of storage to reach the far wall.
The first thing he noticed was the way the concrete walls were disintegrating, leaving a pile of small rocks and concrete on the floor at its base.
“The walls are pretty bad down there,” Bill said, seeing his expression. “I don’t know if you ever heard but there used to be a short-line railroad that ran behind the bank, linking some of the smaller towns in the old days. When the train passed, it used to rattle the building, knocking photos off the walls. It played hell with the concrete foundation. It’s been patched over the years, but the building is over a hundred years old and showing its age.”
That was exactly what Max was thinking. It appeared it wouldn’t take much to punch a hole from the café basement to the bank’s basement. Especially if someone was using a jackhammer on the opposite side of this wall.
He listened but couldn’t hear anything. Maybe they’d stopped using the tool he had heard earlier at the café. Or maybe these walls were much thicker than they appeared. “Do you have any type of security alarm system down here in case someone breached the wall into the bank?”
Bill seemed to pale in the dim light. “We’ve never needed it. I hope you’re not suggesting a bank robbery. Not that banks don’t get robbed about once every hundred years, and we are over that right now. That is what you’re suggesting, isn’t it?”
“Just covering all my bases,” the sheriff said, but he could see that he’d upset the bank manager.
People like a bank they can trust, one that did business with their parents and grandparents, one that understands some years between the drought, the grasshoppers, a bad winter, ranchers and farmers will be able to get a loan to keep themgoing, Bill was fond of saying after years as bank manager. Thanks to them, the bank is still here.
“If that’s all,” Bill said now, “I should get back to work.” Clearly the man felt uncomfortable down here—not to mention discussing even the possibility of a bank robbery. Max didn’t blame him. Anyway, he’d seen enough, but still he stopped Bill before they headed upstairs. “I need to know something,” he said. “Do you have a large amount of money being delivered soon?”
Bill looked stricken. “You can’t think that the new owner of the café—”
“I have reason to be suspicious, that’s all at this point,” Max quickly assured him. “Until then, it’s business as usual. My brother mentioned he had a large shipment of cash coming in soon.”
The bank manager appeared sick to his stomach as he confirmed Max’s fears. A shipment of cash would be coming to the bank for yearly ranch and farm loans, but for one project in particular—the resort his brother was building, making it the largest shipment the bank had ever received. Just last night, Cordell had been telling him about the completion of phase one of the construction on the hillside behind the hotel, and an even more expensive phase two that would begin soon. He’d taken out a sizable loan to cover the wages.
