Takeover - Lisa Black [81]
“You worked together?”
“In the same department. I’m a secretary, not a teller, but Cherise and me would eat lunch together every day. I didn’t know anyone else here, and I’d talk her ear off. I talk a lot.”
“Did your husband join you?”
Jessica stroked her child’s hair, the skin on her fingers roughened and peeling slightly—she probably needed to go easier on the bleach while scrubbing her floors. “He usually worked through lunch. Or he had to go out with other bank examiners or executives in order to get acquainted with them. He was so busy, trying to learn everyone’s names and titles and, you know, sort of get on their good side right away.”
“I see.” Perhaps Mark Ludlow had been conscientiously trying to get a handle on his new job. Perhaps he had been a snob. “Had Cherise worked here long?”
“Yeah, about ten years.”
“Eleven,” Brad added. He sat with his back against the cool marble. All three conversed without moving their gaze from the two robbers, watching for any sign of agitation. But Lucas and Bobby did not seem to care if they spoke among themselves. Perhaps they had larger concerns.
Bobby’s voice rose enough for them to hear: “Brian said—” Theresa wondered who that might be.
“Had Cherise always worked in Savings Bonds?” She intended the question for Brad, but Jessica answered.
“No, before that she was an administrative assistant to the vice president for public relations. She worked up in the fancy offices on the ninth floor.”
“How’d she get to be a teller?” Brad asked, his voice tinged with curiosity despite the circumstances. “Quite a switch from an admin assistant.”
“She was too outspoken, I guess. She wouldn’t call a mule a horse even for a sack of gold.”
“She sounds like a handful.” Theresa felt angry all over again that such a vital woman had been snuffed out so carelessly.
“Top dogs don’t care for that,” Brad groused. “You should see how they live up there—Karastan rugs, bone china coffee sets.”
“Our tax dollars at work, huh?”
“It belongs to the building,” Jessica clarified. “This is a historic landmark.”
“Of course.” Theresa had no interest in debating the ethics of executive perks. She cared only that the sound of their soft voices had made Ethan’s eyes close, and he dozed against his mother. She also wanted to know why Cherise had died, but no detail so far could explain that.
“Landmark, my ass,” Brad went on. “The first vice president’s Picasso and his original Monet sketch and the Egyptian cartouche are all in storage on eight because he had to have new carpeting. The stuff being replaced was only a year and a half old.”
“There’s a firm line between the townies and the po’ folk here,” Jessica agreed.
“The vice pres for research isn’t as showy,” Brad admitted.
Jessica sniffed. “But his taste runs more to Thomas Kinkade.”
Theresa interrupted the watercooler talk. “Did Cherise resent that? Moving to Savings Bonds?”
“No, she liked it. She said it was real work, where she could see a result instead of a pile of useless memos designed to stroke her boss’s ego. Cherise was sort of a Communist.”
“Did she have any worries on her mind lately? Here at work, or in her personal life?”
“No. Her last boyfriend broke up with her just before I came, but she figured that was just as well…. Why?” Jessica turned from the robbers long enough to stare at Theresa. “You think she knew about this?”
“No, I don’t…. I’m just trying to figure out why she’s dead, her in particular.”
“Knowing Cherise,” Jessica said, sighing, “she probably refused to give him the money.”
“And it wasn’t even hers.” Brad shifted his legs, rubbing one knee.
“That’s what Lucas said,” Theresa told them. “But I don’t believe him, not the way he told it to me.”
Jessica brushed some dark flakes off her pants onto the marble tile. Ethan woke up enough to play with them, pushing the specks around to create a pattern. “What do you mean?”
“When he described robbing the teller cages, he spoke in the past