“Doesn’t he?”
“Are you still convinced that it’s supernatural, a matter of ghosts and ghouls and whatnot?”
“I’m not ruling out anything.”
“We’ll find a logical explanation in the end.”
“Whether we do or not, I’ve got this feeling … this premonition.”
“A premonition of what?”
“Of worse things to come,” she said.
***
After a hurried but excellent lunch in the First Pacific United Bank’s private executive dining room, Joshua Rhinehart and Ronald Preston met with federal and state banking officials in Preston’s office. The bureaucrats were boring and poorly prepared and obviously ineffectual: but Joshua tolerated them, answered their questions, filled out their forms, for it was his duty to use the federal insurance system to recover the stolen funds for the Frye estate.
As the bureaucrats were leaving, Warren Sackett, an FBI agent, arrived. Because the money had been stolen from a federally-chartered financial institution, the crime was within the Bureau’s jurisdiction. Sackett–a tall, intense man with chiseled features–sat at the conference table with Joshua and Preston, and he elicited twice as much information as the covey of bureaucrats had done, in only half the time that those paper-pushers had required. He informed Joshua that a very detailed background check on him would be part of the investigation, but Joshua already knew that and had no reason to fear it. Sackett agreed that Hilary Thomas might be in danger, and he took the responsibility for informing the Los Angeles police of the extraordinary situation that had arisen, so that both the LAPD and the Los Angeles office of the FBI would be prepared to look after her.
Although Sackett was polite, efficient, and thorough, Joshua realized that the FBI was not going to solve the case in a few days–not unless the Bruno Frye imposter walked into their office and confessed. This was not an urgent matter to them. In a country plagued by various crackpot terrorist groups, organized crime families, and corrupt politicians, the resources of the FBI could not be brought fully to bear on an eighteen-thousand-dollar case of this sort. More likely than not, Sackett would be the only agent on it full-time. He would begin slowly, with background checks on everyone involved; and then he would conduct an exhaustive survey of banks in northern California, to see if Bruno Frye had any other secret accounts. Sackett wouldn’t get to St. Helena for a day or two. And if he didn’t come up with any leads in the first week or ten days, he might thereafter handle the case only on a part-time basis.
When the agent finished asking questions, Joshua turned to Ronald Preston and said, “Sir, I trust that the missing eighteen thousand will be replaced in short order.”
“Well….” Preston nervously fingered his prim little mustache. “We’ll have to wait until the FDIC approves the claim.” Joshua looked at Sackett. “Am I correct in assuming the FDIC will wait until you can assure them that neither I nor any beneficiary of the estate conspired to withdraw that eighteen thousand dollars?”
“They might,” Sackett said. “After all, this is a highly unusual case.”
“But quite a lot of time could pass before you’re able to give them such assurances,” Joshua said.
“We wouldn’t make you wait beyond a reasonable length of time,” Sackett said. “At most, three months.”
Joshua sighed. “I had hoped to settle the estate quickly.”
Sackett shrugged. “Maybe I won’t need three months. It could all break fast. You never know. In a day or two, I might even turn up this guy who’s a dead ringer for Frye. Then I’d be able to give the FDIC an all-clear signal.”
“But you don’t expect to solve it that fast.”
“The situation is so bizarre that I can’t commit myself to deadlines,” Sackett said.
“Damnation,” Joshua said wearily.
A few minutes later, as Joshua crossed the cool marble-floored lobby on his way out of the bank, Mrs. Willis called to him. She was on duty at a teller’s cage. He went to her, and she said, “You know what I’d do if I were you?”
“What’s that?” Joshua asked.
“Dig him up. That man you buried. Dig him up.”
“Bruno Frye?”