whispered.
'Did you find something? ' Ryan shouted.
'Maybe, ' Cole answered. 'Then again, maybe not.' He stood up and
turned to Ryan. 'Do you happen to know how often this place gets
cleaned? ' 'That's the first question I asked Sloan, since we also
have to go through the trash. According to him, MacCorkle was obsessed
about keeping the place spotless. He had it cleaned every night and
inspected every nook and cranny in the morning. All the trash in the
bins is from yesterday's business.'
'You're positive it was cleaned Tuesday night? ' Ryan stopped what he
was doing and walked back to the lobby. He spotted the wad of blue
fabric in Cole's hand.
'Yeah, I'm sure. Why? What have you got? ' 'A possibility.'
'A possibility of what? ' Cole smiled. 'A witness.' hree women had
been inside the bank between the hours of one and three o'clock in the
afternoon on the day of the robbery. Cole and Ryan knew that was fact,
not speculation, because of Sherman MacCorkle's taskmaster rules. Just
as the sheriff had told Ryan, the president of the bank had demanded
that every transactionteven change for a dollar billtbe recorded by
name on a piece of paper and filed in the cash drawer. If the figures
on the papers didn't balance with the money in the drawer, the teller
had to make up the difference. MacCorkle had also insisted that each
day's tallies be separated into the morning and afternoon hours. The
receipts for Wednesday morning's transactions were still on MacCorkle's
desk in three neat piles. There was also an open filing cabinet behind
MacCorkle's desk filled with documents, loan applications, mortgages,
and records of foreclosures. Every piece had a date on top.
God love Sherman MacCorkle for being such a stickler for details.
With all the interruptions, it took until evening to sort out all the
names. In all, twenty-nine men and women had come into the bank that
day. Eighteen had taken care of their business during the morning
hours, and none of them were women. The bank had been closed for lunch
from noon until one o'clock, and that afternoon, eleven people had come
inside, and of those eleven, three were women.
One of them had left her bag behind.
Ryan and Cole were cautious about the discovery and decided in hushed,
urgent voices to keep the possibility of a witness to themselves for
the time being.
'We could be jumping the gun on this, ' Cole warned. 'In fact, we
probably are.'
