“Who have you already spoken with?” I ask, trying to steal looks at each of the tellers without their noticing. But the chances of that are fairly slim. All of them went on alert the second we walked inside. We slipped in just shortly after the bank opened, so there aren’t many customers inside. Those tellers occupied with transactions keep glancing our way, and those still waiting for something to occupy their time watch our every move.
“All of them,” Dean says.
“Well, then that means none of them will feel left out no matter which one I choose to speak to first,” I say.
I start at one end of the crescent, walking up to a tall, painfully thin man in a suit that immediately makes me think of what Jack Skellington would look like if he came to life and started working at a bank.
“Good morning,” I tell him. “I'm Agent Emma Griffin. I just wanted to know if I could talk with you for a moment.”
“Hello,” he says. “I'm Ethan. How can I help you?”
“You probably recognize my associate, Dean Steele,” I say.
“Yes,” Ethan nods. “How are you this morning, Mr. Steele?”
“I'm good, thanks,” Dean replies, hanging back behind me slightly.
“I know he has come by a couple of times already to discuss a certain situation with you,” I say, wanting to lead Ethan into telling me as much as he's willing to without the direct questions having to start yet.
“Yes,” he says again. “We've discussed Mr. and Mrs. Goldman.”
“Exactly,” I say. “I'm actually curious to know more about them as well. You think you could tell me about them?”
“I'll help as much as I can. I didn't interact very much with Mr. Goldman. He was very quiet and very direct when he came in here. Some customers like to chat or get to know us a little bit when they come into the bank, but not him. He was only in a few times, and I can only remember helping him once. But the time that I did, he just wanted to get his business done and leave,” he says.
“So, he wasn't very pleasant?” I asked.
Ethan shakes his head. “Oh, no. That's not what I'm saying at all. He was nice, just brief. He smiled and referred to me by name. He told me to have a good day. It was as if he had a lot of things he wanted to get accomplished and was just going down the line kicking things off his to-do list. Not really rushed, but just focused on getting things done.”
“What about his wife?” I ask. “Did you interact with her?”
“No,” he says. “She's only come in here one time. And it was only a few minutes.”
“Do you remember who helped her?”
“Jennifer,” he says, gesturing across the crescent to a woman who does not immediately strike me as fitting her name.
“Thank you,” I say.
Part of me wants to cross right over to Jennifer and ask her about Mason's wife, but I stop myself. Instead, I move over one window and talk to the next teller. By the time I've gotten all the way around, I've collected almost no information about Mason. It seems everybody had the same experience with him. He was perfectly pleasant, just focused on getting in and out of the bank. He referred to people by name and didn't carry on a conversation. It makes something stick in the back of my mind, but I'm still trying to figure out exactly what it is.
I finally get to Jennifer, and she looks at me with an expression I can't quite decipher. It's as if she both wants to talk to me and is offended I didn't come to her as soon as she heard Ethan say her name. She keeps her hands busy, straightening up brochures and stacking a row of pens as if she can't just stand still. I ask her the same questions I asked the others.
“There was something strange about him,” she says, surprising me.
“Oh? There was? What do you mean, strange?” I ask.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Dean's head tilt slightly to the side. His eyes narrow so slightly it wouldn't be perceptible to anyone who isn't used to watching him talk.
“I really don’t know. Strange. Too precise… too specific. The interactions were only for a few seconds, but the way he looked at me was almost too much. Not in a creepy way. Not as if he was being inappropriate. Just as if he was looking at me too hard, staring. He wanted me to look at him.”
“Interesting,” I note. “What about his wife? Ethan says you are the only one who interacted with her when she came in.”
“Yes,” Jennifer nods. “Her name is Eleanor. I remember that because it's my sister's name. You don't meet a whole lot of people named Eleanor these days. My sister went strictly by Ellie until one day she decided it sounded too much like an elephant. And then it became Nora. But never “Eleanor”. I was very surprised when Mrs. Goldman told me who she was."
"Because her name is Eleanor?" I ask, feeling a little dazed by the sharp detour in the conversation.
"No, because she was Mr. Goldman's wife," Jennifer says. "None of us ever saw her. Even when she opened the account."
"You didn't?" I ask.
"No. She set it up online. She didn't even have to come into the branch. It was a surprise, to say the least, when she came in person just to check the account balance. She could easily have done that from her computer or phone."
"What about her security deposit box?" I ask.
Jennifer nods. "She did go check that. But she was only back there for a few moments. Barely enough time
