“So you were at the bank yesterday morning?” I asked, and Andrei nodded.
“Yes.”
“Can anyone confirm that?”
“I saw the manager; you could speak with him.”
“Ok, I will,” I said. “What about the rest of the day? Were you here the whole time?”
“Of course,” Andrei said with a smile that showed his fangs. He was obviously trying to intimidate me.
“So if I ask around, no one is going to mention another suspicious absence? You’ve already lied to me once today,” I replied, my eyes narrowing. A wannabe tough-guy vampire wasn’t going to scare me. Grandma Rosie was about ten times as terrifying as Andrei, and that was on a good day.
“Oh no, absolutely not. Please, feel free to speak to my workers.”
“I already have. Thanks,” I said, turning and leaving. I’d barely left the property before I had my phone out and was texting Jack. Andrei had to be the killer.
Andrei left the build site at eight-thirty. He claims he went to the bank.
Jack’s reply came a moment later. That’s really funny, seeing as the bank here opens at nine.
Exactly what I thought. An hour is plenty of time to murder Raoul Lupo. I’m going to go speak to the manager anyway.
Good call. I’ll let you know if we find anything, but it sounds like we’ve got our killer. Now we just need to rein him in. That should be enough evidence to get a pDNA sample from him.
I walked down the street to the Mt. Rheanier Bank, an institution that had stood here since the beginning of time. Or at least, since the founding of the town.
Trying to forget about the fact that I had been arrested just next door, I stepped through the threshold and into the fancy interior. The floors were marble, with matching columns here and there. Plush red carpeting gave a slightly cozier feel to the place while staying classy, and a handful of elves and fairies worked at the mahogany counters helping local paranormals with their day-to-day banking needs.
I joined the line and a minute later was helped by a friendly-looking elf with short blond hair and blue eyes. “Hello, welcome to Mr. Rheanier Bank. What can I do for you?”
“Hi, I was hoping I might be able to speak with your manager,” I replied. “It’s about the investigation into Rudoldir’s death. I’m working alongside the Enforcers in trying to solve it.”
“Oh, yes,” the elf sighed. “Such a tragedy. Rudoldir had an excellent reputation in our town. I can’t believe anyone would want to hurt him. What did you have to speak with Mondrodir about?”
“Do you know the vampire Andrei?” I asked, and the elf pursed his lips before answering. “Yes, I’ve had the pleasure,” he replied in a tone that implied he found nothing pleasurable about the experience.
“He’s claiming that yesterday morning he was here, although he’s saying he was here at eight-thirty, despite the bank not opening until nine. I was hoping to speak with Mondrodir about his visit.”
“Oh, he was here at eight-thirty, alright,” the elf replied. “He was banging on the door while I was getting ready to open. I pointed out the sign to him, telling him he had to wait a half hour, and he screamed at me that he couldn’t wait and that he needed his money now.”
“Wait, so he actually was here at eight-thirty?” I asked, and the elf nodded.
“Oh yes. We get the occasional paranormal who doesn’t understand that a bank has special regulations to go through and that it’s not so simple as opening the door before or after we’ve closed – if we have the vault at the back open, for instance, we’re not allowed to remove the wards from the door. So we’ll get the odd paranormal coming by, knocking on the door and trying to make a deposit ten minutes after we’ve closed, and we have to explain to them that they’ve got no choice but to come back tomorrow as we can’t open the front door even if we wanted to.”
“And do most of them get the hint?”
“Eventually,” the elf replied with a wry smile. “Some of them are at an age where they tend to be rather stuck in their ways.”
“So Andrei was one of those. He showed up at eight-thirty… are you sure of the time?”
“Completely certain. I looked at the clock at my desk before going to the door to speak with him so I could tell him how long there was before we opened. It was eight-thirty-one when he arrived.”
“Did he stay here the whole time?” I asked, and the elf nodded.
“Oh yes. I explained to him that we opened at nine and that no matter how much he wanted to be served earlier than that, it wasn’t possible. He yelled at me for about ten minutes, explained how everything was always possible, and I insisted it wasn’t. Eventually I had to tell him that if he couldn’t calm down and wait until nine, I was going to have to call the Enforcers, and that got him to cool his jets just a little bit. He paced around near the door, snarling about how banks were supposed to open at eight and how he was too busy a vampire to have to wait another half hour.”
“What did he want when he came in?”
The elf paused. “I’m not really supposed to say… but you say this is linked to a murder investigation?”
“Yes,” I said, nodding and doing my best to look as authoritative as possible.
“Well, I suppose if it’s Enforcer business,” the elf said, looking around furtively then leaning in. “He needed some documents to add his new business partner to the company bank accounts. She has to bring them back, signed, to be added onto the account.”
“Ok,” I said. “Was there anything in his demeanor that made you think… I don’t know, made you think that things weren’t completely alright with him?”
“As in, did he just come
