Thirty-Two and a Half Complications
Page 6

Taylor shifted his chair and clicked his pen, narrowing his gaze on me. “And what was your purpose of bein’ at the bank this morning?”
I looked at Mason for reassurance. He stood against the wall with his arms crossed. His face was expressionless, but he nodded his head. The last time I’d been questioned was after Jonah’s mother had tried to kill me. While I’d been completely innocent in that case, Detective Taylor had made his extreme dislike for me crystal clear. “I was making a deposit for our business.”
“The Gardner Sisters Nursery?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“So tell me what happened at the bank.”
“I was standing in line waiting to make my deposit when two men wearing ski masks—one decorated with SpongeBob, the other with Batman—burst in. They had guns and they pointed them at us. SpongeBob seemed to be in charge. He told all the customers in the lobby to get on the floor. But Miss Honeybelle had trouble getting down because of her knee replacement surgery last month.”
He looked up. “So what happened?”
“I walked over to help her, but the guy didn’t like that we were taking so long and he got grumpy.”
Taylor started writing again, but Mason’s jaw twitched.
“You need to tell him everything, Rose.” Mason’s voice was tight. “What did he do?”
I felt my cheeks redden. “He shoved me when I tried to help her, but I convinced him that she couldn’t get down on her own, so he let me help her.”
“Then what happened?” Taylor asked.
“The man with the Batman mask handed Samantha Jo Wheaton a plastic Piggly Wiggly bag and told her to fill it with cash.”
Taylor scribbled his notes. “And how do you know Samantha Jo Wheaton?”
“She’s a new bank teller here. But that’s not how I originally know her. We went to school together. Plus everyone in Henryetta knows she burned her husband’s fishing boat in their front yard last year. The married men were afraid to cheat on their wives for a spell, and the single men were afraid to date her after her divorce was finalized. She used to work at Wal-Mart.”
“So are you friends or not?”
“No, more like acquaintances.”
“Uh-huh,” he grunted, writing his thoughts. “What else can you tell me?”
“I took note of what they were wearing while the Batman guy was getting the money. He had on jeans, a Jack Daniel’s T-shirt, a gray fleece jacket, and worn Nikes.” I looked over at Mason, who gave me an encouraging smile and a nod.
“And a Batman ski mask?”
“Yeah. Now that I think about it, I saw some of those Batman hats at the Piggly Wiggly last week when I was there. The SpongeBob one too.”
Taylor looked up, suddenly more engaged in the conversation. “Now that’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?”
I shrugged, uncomfortable with being on the receiving end of his cold, calculating attention. “I was there shopping. I thought about getting one for my nephew, but I didn’t realize they were adult sizes until I picked one up and noticed the seams were off. The seam on the Batman hat the robber wore was catawampus. I’d bet my right arm it came from there.”
“You don’t say.” He turned back to his notebook. “And the other guy?”
I rattled off my description, unnerved now, which probably made me seem guilty, although of what, I didn’t know. I’d been at the wrong place at the wrong time. The only thing I could be accurately accused of was having extremely bad luck.
“What happened next?”
I squirmed. “I was purposely trying to take note of any identifying details about the robbers, and the guy in the SpongeBob mask didn’t like it. He pulled me up off the floor and started to take me to the safety deposit box room. But we heard sirens and the other guy told him they had to go. He called him Mick.”
“Mick? Anything else? Did he say a last name?” the detective asked.
“No.”
“Anything else you remember about him?”
“When his sleeve got close to my face, I smelled rust.”
“Was it a faint odor or a strong one?”
I thought about it for a moment, then cringed when I remembered him grabbing my face. “Pretty strong. He told me not to tell anyone else about what they looked like. Then he picked up my deposit bag off the floor and left. I watched them get into their getaway car right before the police showed up. It was an older Dodge Charger. Gold. Officers Ernie and Sprout ran right past them on their way into the bank. But when I tried to tell Ernie, he wouldn’t listen. He pointed his gun at me and told me to get on the floor.”
Mason’s eyes widened. “So the police let them get away.” It wasn’t posed as a question.
I sighed. “By the time Mr. Murphy and I got a chance to tell them, the car was already gone.”
“Did you get a license plate number?” Detective Taylor asked, his mouth puckered in irritation.
I shook my head. “No. I only saw the front of the car, and it didn’t have a license plate.”
Taylor looked up and quirked an eyebrow. “You have to admit that it looks suspicious that you’ve been dead center in a lot of illegal occurrences in Henryetta over the last few months.”
Mason’s crossed arms dropped to his sides. “Are you calling her a suspect?” he asked in his no-nonsense voice, the one that made people quake in their shoes.