“If she let somebody into her house, who would that have been? Somebody here at the bank? A boyfriend?”
“Not at the bank—she was very strict about inner-bank relationships, though we’ve had a few. Her motto was ‘Don’t get your honey where you get your money,’ and I believe she followed that herself. Besides, we only have seventeen employees—if she was seeing one of them, I’d know about it. She wasn’t.”
Hiners was a smart guy, so Virgil asked the obvious question: “Who do you think the killer is, Marv?”
Hiners pulled at his lower lip for a moment, then said, “Don’t know, Virgil. But Gina had a number of sexual relationships over the years, and there was no reason to think that her... impulses... had cooled off. When you find the person who did this, I believe you’ll find out that it was a boyfriend that none of us know about.”
“None of you? Nobody in town? Is that even possible?”
“Difficult but possible. They could keep it in motels up in the Cities, or even in La Crosse or Rochester,” Hiners said. “Wouldn’t be much fun that way, but maybe the only thing they could do if the guy was married. So, possible. If it were somebody prominent who was already married and they quarreled, and Gina threatened to go public...”
“I like that, Marv, thank you,” Virgil said. “Another possibility: what if one of your employees is stealing, and something Hemming said, or did, hinted that she suspected, and he went over there to talk to her about it?”
Hiners pulled at his lip some more, flashed his blue eyes up at Virgil. “I don’t believe it. For one thing, Gina wasn’t that much into the numbers. That’s my job, and they would have killedme. But, I guess it’s a possibility. I’ll get an outside audit going. Like right now. I’ll be on the phone before you get out the door.”
“How long will that take?”
“A few days. To know for ninety percent sure. The other ten percent will take a while. But if that were the case, we’d be looking at a complicated form of theft—manipulating investment accounts and so on. I don’t think we’ve got people who could pull that off. Even if they could, Gina wouldn’t be the one who’d discover it, know about it.”
“Did she have any close female friends she might have confided in?”
“Didn’t like other women so much, but she did have one old friend. Maybe Margot will know about others. You should talk to Margot Moore. She was the Most Athletic Girl, Class of ’92, and she and Gina had been tight since high school. She was at the Thursday meeting. Margot’s father owned Moore’s Funeral Home, sold it out to a chain a few years ago. Margot runs Moore Financial—she’s one of those certified financial planners. Does quite well at it.”
“Where’s Moore Financial?”
“Go out the door, take a left, walk two blocks. You’ll see a barber pole, and it’s the next door down the street.”
—
People on the street were hustling along, shoulders hunched, puffing steam into the frigid air, but, all in all, looking reasonably happy with themselves. One or two of them nodded toVirgil, and one, a dog owner, said, “Hey, Virgie. Investigating Gina Hemming?”
Virgil said yes, and after the man expressed bewilderment about the murder, Virgil asked after the man’s Labrador retrievers and got a two-minute lecture on the care of dogs’ paws in sub-zero weather. Moving on down the street, trying not to limp, Virgil spotted the barbershop, waved at the man behind its single chair, and turned into Moore Financial.
A receptionist sitting behind a high counter, typing, smiled at Virgil and said, “You’re Virgil, I heard about the black eyes and the blue thing. You’re here to talk to Margot. She thought you might be coming around.”
“Is she in?”
“Yup. I’ll tell her you’re here.”
—
Margot Moore was a forty-two-year-old gym rat, short, thin but not delicate, with carefully cut hair wrapped tightly around her oval face. She was wearing narrow black computer glasses. She had three computer screens on a side desk, and an expansive center desk stacked with paper files in different colors. She took off the glasses and stood up when Virgil walked in and shook his hand.
“Sit down, Virgil. Isn’t this unbelievable?”
“You know who did it?” Virgil asked.
“Of course not or I would have called you up. I suspect somebody told you I was Gina’s best friend, which is true enough. But this...”
“Was she seeing a man? Somebody who would not be happy to have that get out?”
Moore swiveled in her chair, looked out the window behind her desk, swiveled back and said, “I really don’t know for sure...”
“You think she was,” Virgil said.
“No, no, I really don’t know. I really don’t know if she was seeing a man, or, if she was, who it would be.”
“Let’s not focus on what you know for sure. Give me your opinion. Was she seeing a man?”
