Free The Silver Anniversary Murder by Lee Harris Page A

these people might be customers of the bank,” I said, laying the sketches on the desk.
    “He doesn’t look familiar. May I ask what this is about?”
    “These people were Oakwood residents who have apparently been murdered.”
    “Are they the ones whose bodies—?” She seemed incapable of articulating the facts.
    “That’s right. No one knows who exactly they are and where they come from. I knew them slightly and I have some time, so I thought I’d do some digging. I don’t suppose the police have been here?”
    “Not that I’m aware of. Let me see the woman.” She picked the sketch up and inspected it. “She came in here and opened an account but it was a long time ago. I didn’t see her in the bank again so I assume she used the drive-up or the ATM. And I can’t remember her name.”
    “Would you recognize it?”
    “I can look it up.”
    “Holly Mitchell.”
    She turned to her computer and keyed in the name. I couldn’t see the screen but I watched her face. She shook her head. “I don’t get a hit on that name.”
    “Rosette Parker.”
    She typed again. “She’s a customer, yes. But I can’t swear she’s that woman in the picture.”
    “That’s good enough. Can you tell me if you sent her statements to this address?” I wrote down the apartment address.
    She checked her screen. “No, they went to a box number. It’s kind of coming back to me now. She said she’d had a lot of trouble with mail delivery and she didn’t want important things going to where she lived. I can’t disclose the box number, but I can tell you where the box is.”
    “Thank you.”
    She wrote it down and handed me the paper. It was one of those Mail Boxes places.
    “Is the account in her name alone?” I asked.
    “Yes, Rosette Parker. There’s no one else.”
    “I assume it’s a checking account.”
    “That’s right. It’s the only account she has with us.”
    I gave her the two names I had for the husband and she checked both of them with no luck. It appeared that Rosette wrote the checks for the family or her husband banked elsewhere.
    “When did she open the account?” I asked.
    “About two years ago. This is amazing. What a terrible thing to happen.”
    “Do you have a Social Security number for this woman?”
    “Yes, indeed. We can’t open an account without one. But I can’t disclose it.”
    “I understand. Thank you very much for your time, Mrs. Hanover,” I said, reading her name off her desk sign.
    I went home and had lunch. Eddie was with a friend today and I didn’t have to pick him up till late afternoon. When I had finished the last of my tomato juice and sandwich, I called Joe Fox.
    “That sounds like a good day’s work,” he said. “How did you find the bank?”
    “I drove out of Oakwood toward White Plains, just on the chance that they might use a bank on the way to work. This is quite a small one, just a storefront. I’m surprised it hasn’t been grabbed by one of those invaders that are scooping up banks all over the place.”
    “That’s probably why we missed it,” Joe said, but I thought I heard a sigh. “We’ve been looking into the conglomerates without any luck at all.”
    “You can talk to Mrs. Hanover. She’s the manager. She seemed to recognize the sketches and Rosette Parker came up on her computer. She has a Social Security number for Rosette but she wouldn’t give it to me, of course.”
    “Of course. And it may be a made-up one. But thanks for the hard work, Mrs. Brooks. Looks like you’re not resigning the case after all.”
    “It’s in my blood, Joe. What can I do?”
    What can I do? was the operative phrase I hear them say all the time on TV. I had the bank and I had the location of their mailbox, both of which Joe’s men would check out. And now I couldn’t think for the life of me what to do next. With Social Security numbers the police might be able to trace the Mitchells’ previous residence, but I suspected they changed numbers as