Free The Silver Anniversary Murder by Lee Harris

children?”
    “They could’ve, but I never saw any around here, not young ones, anyway. If anyone was living with them in that apartment, I don’t know about it.”
    “Mr. Stone, I’m going to leave you my name and phone number. If you remember anything or if someone should happen to come in asking for the Mitchells, I’d appreciate a call.”
    “Sure thing. You’re a lot easier to talk to than that cop. He really makes me nervous.”
    “Well, I’m glad I didn’t.” I wrote down my usual information and gave it to him. He studied it for a moment, then stuck it in the edge of the blotter on his desk. We shook hands and I left. I hadn’t learned much, but I thought I’d made a better impression than the person who’d been hounding him.
    In the evening, Jack came home with the sketches. They were a good match with the driver’s license photo so we assumed that the body was that of Peter Mitchell and Charles Proctor. The next morning, Friday, I called Gladys French and asked if I could come over. She was thrilled to hear from me, delighted I wanted to visit. Although she invited me for lunch, I declined.
    She nearly kissed me as I entered her house an hour later. “How nice to see you again,” she said with a big smile. “Come in and make yourself at home.”
    I did just that, sitting on a worn but comfortable chair in her living room. I handed her the sketch and the license photo.
    She nodded. “That’s him.”
    “Who?” I asked, wanting a positive identification.
    “Rosette’s husband. That’s the man who sat in the back of their car and read the
Times
every day.”
    “I think I told you they may have used more than one name. You’re sure you never heard her call him by name?”
    “The first time she picked me up, she said something like, ‘That’s my husband in the backseat with his nose in the paper.’ I just thought of him as Mr. Parker.”
    “OK.”
    “That’s it? That’s all you wanted to ask? I thought you were going to tell me you found the person who killed Rosette.”
    “We haven’t. And the reason I’m asking you about the man in this picture is that his body was found the day after I talked to you.”
    “What?”
    “I’m afraid so.”
    “Oh my God. Who would do such a thing, Christine? Who could be so cruel as to kill such a nice couple?”
    “I have no idea. But we’re sure now that this is Rosette’s husband, and we know someone killed both of them.”
    “Terrible,” Gladys said, shaking her head and looking gloomy. “What’s happening in this world?”
    It wasn’t a question I could answer and I didn’t try to. I stayed a few minutes longer, asked if I could drive her anywhere, and left when she said she had no errands that day, that she intended to do a little weeding in the back. It was good exercise and the garden needed it.
    I knew I didn’t have to ask Larry Stone to ID the sketch. The detestable cop would have been at his doorstep the minute the sketch was completed. What I did was drive out of Oakwood and go to a few banks with my pictures to see if the couple, by any name, had had an account.
    I tried a number of banks with no success. I began to think they might maintain an account far from New York State, perhaps where they had once lived or even a place where they had never lived. The police might be able to locate such an account if they had the correct Social Security number, but as far as I knew, no such number was known at the moment. And I didn’t have the access that the police did.
    It was disheartening, but not unexpected. I was starting to get hungry when I saw a small bank down the street from where I had parked my car. There was just enough time to drop in and give it a try.
    The bank was almost empty, only one young mother with two preschool children standing at a window. I found a single desk occupied and sat down in the chair beside it. The woman identified as manager smiled and asked what she could do for me.
    “I wonder if either of