'No.'
He gave me a friendly banker smile. 'Well, good luck.'
'She don't need luck,' Lula said. 'She's excellent. She always gets her man, you see what I'm saying? She's so good she drives a Porsche. How many bounty hunters you know got a Porsche?'
'It's actually a company car,' I told Shempsky.
'It's a great car,' he said. 'I saw you drive off in it yesterday.'
Finally I felt like I was on to something. I had an idea how a lot of stuff might tie together. It was still pretty half-baked, but it was something to think about. I took Klockner to Hamilton and crossed South Broad. I pulled into the industrial area and was relieved at the absence of flashing lights and police cruisers. No human disasters today. The RGC lot was empty of trucks and didn't smell bad. Clearly midday is the preferred time to visit a garbage company.
'They might be a little sensitive in here,' I said to Lula.
'I can sensitive your ass off,' Lula said. 'I just hope they got their wall painted.'
The office didn't look freshly painted, but it didn't look bloody either. A man was behind the counter, working at one of the desks. He was somewhere in his forties, brown hair, slim build. He looked up when we approached.
'I'd like to settle an account,' I said. 'I spoke to Larry about it, but it was never resolved. Are you new here?'
He extended his hand. 'Mark Stemper. I'm from the Camden office. I'm filling in temporarily.'
'Is that the wall where the brains were splattered?' Lula asked. 'It don't look fresh painted. How'd you get it so clean? I never have any luck getting blood off walls like that.'
'We had a cleaning crew come in,' Stemper said. 'I don't know exactly what they used.'
'Boy, too bad, because I could use some of that.'
He looked at her warily. 'You get blood on your walls a lot?'
'Well, not usually on my walls.'
'About this account,' I said.
'Name?'
'Fred Shutz.'
He tapped into the computer and shook his head. 'Nobody here by that name.'
'Exactly.' I explained the problem and showed him the canceled check.
'We don't use this bank,' he said.
'Maybe you have a second account there.'
'Yeah,' Lula said, 'a local liquid account.'
'No. All the offices are the same. Everything goes through Citibank.'
'Then how do you explain this check?'
'I don't know how to explain it.'
'Were Martha Deeter and Larry Lapinski the only office workers here?'
'In this office, yes.'
'When someone mails in their quarterly payment, what happens to it?'
'It goes through here. It's logged into the system and deposited in the Citibank account.'
'You've been very helpful,' I said. 'Thanks.'
Lula followed me out. 'Personally, I didn't think he was all that helpful. He didn't know nothing.'
'He knew it was the wrong bank,' I told her.
'I could tell that turns you on.'
'I sort of had a brainstorm while I was talking to Allen Shempsky.'
'You want to share that brainstorm?'
'Suppose Larry Lipinski didn't enter all the accounts. Suppose he held out ten percent for himself and deposited them someplace else?'
'Skimming,' Lula said. 'You think he was skimming RGC money. And then Uncle Fred come along and started making a stink. And so Lipinsky had to get rid of Uncle Fred.'
'Maybe.'
'You're the shit,' Lula said. 'Girlfriend, you are
Lula and I did a high five and then a down low and then she tried to do some elaborate hand thing with me, but I got lost halfway through.
Actually, I thought it was more complicated than Fred getting disposed of because he made some noise over his account. It seemed more likely Fred's disappearance was related to the dismembered woman. And I still thought that woman might be Laura Lipinski. So it did sort of tie in together. I could construct a possible scenario up to the point of Fred seeing Lipinski dump the garbage bag at the real estate office. After that, I was lost.
