officer in the bank and had actually spoken with Dillinger during the robbery. Certainly he had been a prime witness and one of the first the FBI would have interviewed.
“Hey, there it is!” Dryman said, pointing down as if surprised that he had found the town. “Drew City, Indiana. Boy, there’s not much to it. I hope we’re not going to be here long.”
“As long as it takes, H.P.”
Dryman buzzed the town once, “to find a place to set down.” Then he did a slow chandelle to the right, circled the main intersection and put the low-winged monoplane down on a road just beyond a cluster of houses.
“Beautiful,” he congratulated himself.
“How come we never land at airports?” Keegan said as they climbed out of the AT-6 but Dryman ignored the remark. “Got a reception committee,” he answered instead.
A string of kids stretched out from the middle of town, running toward them followed by several adults who approached with more reserve. A police car wheeled around them and screeched to a stop a few feet away.
“Everybody okay?” the young policeman asked as he jumped out of the car. Keegan leaned closer to him. He was wearing a chief’s badge.
“Just fine, uh ... Chief... ?“
“Yes sir, Chief Luther Conklin, at your service, sir. Not often a plane lands on Main Street Extension.”
Keegan flashed his ID. “I’m Francis Keegan, White House Security,” he said. The response was always the same: a flurry of excitement, then curiosity (“Why is he here?”), and eventually, “The White House
“We’re here to run a check on a man who was killed a few years back. You’ll probably remember, it was the day Dillinger robbed your bank.”
“I certainly do, sir. My boss, Tyler Oglesby, was killed that day. Shot him down in cold blood. But you’re talking about Fred Dempsey.”
“Right. Fred Dempsey. You knew him, did you?”
“Real well. Once made me a loan just on my name.”
“Nice guy, huh?”
“Yes sir. On the quiet side. It was a real tragedy. Both him and Louise Scoby was killed. Car skidded off the road back at the bridge and went into the river. Her father was Fred’s boss, Ben Scoby, president of the bank. Damn near killed him.”
“I’ll bet it did, Luther. I hear they never found the bodies.”
“Oh, they found Louise the next day. But it was during the spring thaw and we had a hellacious rain that day. The river could’ve taken him . . . fifty miles downstream. Probably stuck up under some log somewheres.”
“Probably. Tell me about old Fred. How tall was he? What’d he look like?”
“Tall? Oh, six feet, I guess. Had a good build on him for a bookworm type. Dark hair, a little gray around the edges. Gray eyes, I remember those piercing gray eyes of his. I think he and Louise were pretty hot and heavy, everybody expected them to get married. Roger, her brother, took it real hard. He loved Fred. Fred was good to him. More like a father than old Ben.”
“How old is he, the kid?”
“Let’s see, he’d be about thirteen now. Works afternoons down at the filling station.”
“And her father’s president of the bank?”
“Yes sir. Fine man. How come you’re interested in Fred?”
“We’re putting the Dillinger files in the archives,” Keegan said casually. “Just filling in some blanks.”
“Oh.”
“Would Ben Scoby be at the bank now?”
Luther took out a pocket watch and checked it.
“Probably home eatin’ lunch about now.”
“Mind running’ me by there, Chief? Then maybe Captain Dryman can check around town, talk to some of the folks who knew Dempsey.”
Ben Scoby was a man aged early by time and tragedy, his straw-thin hair streaked with gray, his eyes faded and lusterless, his voice shallow and distant. He ushered Keegan into a parlor that was neat but dusty, a room choked with furniture, doilies and doodads, the small treasures of life in a room that looked frozen in time. He had taken off his suit jacket and his suspenders dangled around his hips. A forgotten napkin was tucked under his chin and as he sat down he noticed it and took it away with an embarrassed grin.
“Well,” his faint voice said, “never have met anybody from the White House before. Can I get you something? Lemonade, coffee maybe?”
“No thanks,” Keegan said. “Actually we’re closing out some old files, Mr. Scoby. There still is a question about Fred Dempsey. You know, his body never turned up and, uh .
He let the sentence hang in the air, hoping Scoby would respond. But Scoby only nodded and said, “Uh huh.”
“I understand that your family was close to him?”
“Yes, sir. M’boy Roger loved him. And I guess I hoped that maybe he and Weezie—my daughter Louise—might marry. It was. . . it was a. . . devastating experience. Senseless waste. .
