"My thinking face?"
"You kind of… narrow your eyes and stare into the middle distance like something really tiny has seriously pissed you off," he explains. “You haven’t noticed you do that?”
“No.”
“It’s such an obvious tell. You were doing it last night at Janet’s when you got stumped at Trivial Pursuit.”
"Oh," I say. "Well, that's good to know. I was thinking about everything that just happened at the bank. It was all really weird. Starting with Millie. She looked as if she was going to pick us up and pitch us into the parking lot if we didn't get out soon."
"Well, I have been there several times before. She's really protective of the bank and doesn't like anyone coming even close to implying that there's something wrong with it, or that something happened there. She was more pleasant the first couple of times I came in, but after that, it just went downhill."
I shake my head, swirling my straw around in my sweet tea.
“It's more than that,” I say. “I can understand her not loving the idea that a private investigator has been lurking around. That's not exactly the most comfortable thing in the world. And, as she said, her customers might not feel entirely comfortable banking at a place that's linked to disappearances. But here's the thing. If she was so concerned about people hearing about the disappearances, why did she talk to the detective right there in the lobby?”
“What do you mean?” Dean asks.
“When the detective and the officers came in, she saw them immediately. She rushed right over to them to start talking to them, but she wouldn't go in her office. I actually heard her refuse to take them back into her office with her. If it's so much of a concern to her that people don't know there are investigations going on that involve the bank, why did she do that? I would think she would get them out of sight as quickly as possible. And while she wasn't talking at the top of her lungs or anything, the conversation was loud enough for me to hear it,” I say.
“To be fair, you were listening to it,” Dean says.
“I was,” I offer. “I'll admit that. But it's still interesting that she wouldn't make any effort to keep the conversation a bit more private.”
“That is strange,” he acknowledges. “You can see where she would be frustrated, though, right? I mean, from what I understand, they questioned her a couple of times already. And if Lakyn Monroe never even went into the bank, why would they look at Millie?”
“They specifically said they weren't looking at Millie. Not her personally, anyway. They pointed out that they were coming to the bank to speak with her because the whole thing centered on the bank, not her. It's just that as manager, she might have more insight. She was just really defensive about it. And that's another thing. What do you make of the picture and video of Lakin?”
“I don't know,” he says. “It's definitely odd. I haven't come up with any logical reason that she would be all the way out here at a bank and not even go inside.”
“That's not what's bothering me the most,” I say.
“What is?” he asks.
“Whoever sent that anonymous tip to the investigators sent a picture of her car driving away to show the license plate,” I say.
“Yeah,” he says.
“Why?” I ask.
“Because the person wanted to be able to prove it was her,” he says. “It was a sighting of a missing person. The informer would want to make sure the tip was taken seriously.”
“But she wasn't missing when the tipster took the picture,” I counter. “It specifically said she was seen a few times before she disappeared. So, somebody is enough of a fan of hers to be able to recognize and identify her from a distance. A fairly considerable distance, if you think about it. In order to take that picture, the person had to have been at one of the other buildings on the road. It's not as if he or she was driving down the street, noticed her, stopped, and took a picture of her car. That picture was taken from a stationary position. Which means the person was at one of the little shops.”
“Right,” Dean nods. “So the tipster was shopping, looked up, and saw an internet celebrity.”
“And only took a picture of her license plate? If the person was enough of a fan to be able to readily identify her from that distance, don't you think he or she would want to take pictures of her? And the same tip said she’d been seen there before. So why no pictures of those times? The first time the person saw her, the expected thing to do would be to take out his or her phone and snap a picture. Even if it was just her standing around or walking across the parking lot, the person would take a picture of her.”
“But that didn't happen,” Dean says. “There are no pictures of the first times this person saw her.”
“Exactly. Doesn't it strike you as odd that this anonymous person had to have been at the same location several times, and it just coincidentally happens to be the same time as a celebrity who had absolutely no reason whatsoever to be all the way out there? Yet the informant doesn’t think to take a picture until the third or fourth time he or she sees her? Then, it's only her license plate as she drives away? Which brings me back to…why a picture only of her license plate? That's stalker behavior, not excited fan behavior.”
"Who do you think took it?” he asks.
“I don't know. But I have to wonder if the investigators have spoken to the people in those other little shops,” I note. Grabbing
