Chapter 6 - The Pink Message Slip and the Millhouse Lock
I snatched the pink message slip from Mrs. Price’s hand while Hannah ran over and grabbed my waist.
"Mom, Mrs. Gable told Toby his mom hurt her ankle at work and sent her to pick him up," Hannah said, her eyes wide with fear. "I told him to wait for you, but she had his mom’s blue scarf in her hand!"
I looked down at the pink slip. Patty Gable hadn't written a note to us. It was a carbon copy torn from her desk message book that had stuck to the bottom of her coat when she dropped it in the courtyard.
The imprint from the previous page was still faintly visible across the pink paper:
11:30 AM — Riverview Credit Union (Drive-Thru Lane 3). Wire confirmation #884-B. Wait at the Old Mill footbridge until the check clears.
"Riverview Credit Union is half a mile past the Old Mill warehouse," Brenda said, already pulling her keys out. "Why would Patty Gable take Toby Miller to a credit union?"
Kevin Foster laughed harshly from where the deputies were holding him by the loading dock. "Because Patty’s the one who set up the restitution account in Maria Miller’s name! Maria doesn't speak enough English to read the bank disclosures. Patty opened a dual-signature commercial account using Maria’s green card number to launder the vendor kickbacks. You can't wire the balance out without the account holder signing the withdrawal slip at the window!"
"So she didn't take Toby to hurt him," I realized, my breath catching. "She took Toby so Maria Miller would meet her at the credit union and sign the transfer slip without calling the police."
"Hold on," Sergeant Miller said into his shoulder mic, dispatching three units toward Riverview Credit Union and the Old Mill footbridge. "Ma'am, you stay right here with your daughter."
"Toby’s mother doesn't know the police are on her side," I told the sergeant urgently. "Elaine and Patty have spent six months terrifying that woman into believing the sheriff will deport her or put her in jail for welfare fraud. If three cruisers pull into that bank lot with sirens blazing, Maria will panic and run, or Patty will drive off with that little boy in the back seat. Let me go in Brenda’s car right behind you."
Hannah pulled on my sleeve. In her small hand, she held the red knitted mitten we had found on the warehouse floor.
"Toby needs his other mitten, Mom," she said fiercely. "And he was scared when Mrs. Price made me put the sandwich down. He thinks grown-ups are always mad at him."
Six minutes later, Brenda’s SUV turned off the main highway onto the tree-lined access road behind Riverview Credit Union. The sheriff's cruisers had cut their sirens two blocks back, blocking the main exit lanes out of sight behind the shopping plaza.
Through the windshield, I saw Patty Gable’s silver Buick idling in Drive-Thru Lane 3.
Standing outside the driver's window in the cold wind was a petite woman in a faded blue work smock, her dark hair pulled back in a hairnet, her coat open because she had left work in a rush.
Maria Miller.
Through the rear passenger window of the Buick, I could see nine-year-old Toby sitting in the back seat, his small hands pressed flat against the glass.
Patty Gable was holding a clipboard out the driver's window, jabbing her finger at the signature line while the pneumatic tube inside the drive-thru lane hissed open.
And parked twenty yards away under the shadow of the old wooden covered footbridge was a black luxury sedan with its engine running.
Elaine Foster was sitting behind the wheel of the black sedan, watching the drive-thru lane through binoculars, waiting for Patty to hand off the cashier's check.
"Look at the back door of the Buick," Brenda whispered as she eased her SUV behind a row of hedges ten feet from the drive-thru lane. "Patty’s got the child safety locks on, or she’s holding the master switch."
I didn't wait for the deputies to flank the black sedan.
I stepped out of Brenda’s car and walked straight into Drive-Thru Lane 3, stepping right between Patty’s open driver's window and Maria Miller.
"Don't sign that paper, Maria," I said clearly, holding up the green warehouse timecard and Toby’s red mitten so she could see them.
Maria gasped, taking a step back, her hands flying to her mouth when she saw her son’s missing mitten.
Inside the Buick, Patty Gable’s mild, grandmotherly face twisted into something sharp and ugly.
"Get out of the lane, Clara!" Patty hissed, shifting the Buick into reverse. "Maria, sign the release or I’m driving straight to the federal building with your boy!"
"You aren't going anywhere, Patty," I said, slapping my palm flat onto the hood of her car as two sheriff's cruisers pulled simultaneously behind her bumper and across the front of the drive-thru lane, boxing the Buick in against the concrete island.
Patty hit the brakes so hard the tires chirped.
In the back seat, Toby started crying, pulling at the locked inside handle.
Instead of unlocking the doors, Patty lunged across the passenger seat, grabbed the pneumatic canister holding the $140,000 cashier's check from the bank chute, and shoved open the passenger door on the side facing the wooden footbridge.
She didn't leave the keys in the ignition. She yanked the key fob out—leaving the rear doors electronically deadlocked with Toby inside—and bolted across the grass toward Elaine Foster’s idling black sedan.
Wait.
As Patty ran toward the black sedan, Elaine Foster looked at the two sheriff's cruisers boxing in the drive-thru lane. Then she looked at Patty running toward her with the bank canister.
Elaine didn't open the passenger door for her partner.
She threw the black sedan into drive, floored the accelerator, and sped across the wooden footbridge toward the river road, leaving Patty Gable standing in the mud at the edge of the embankment.
"Wait! Elaine!" Patty screamed, stumbling to her knees in the wet grass as the black sedan disappeared around the bend.
While Deputy Jennings tackled Patty beside the bridge and took the key fob from her hand, I pressed the unlock button. The Buick’s lights flashed twice.
I yanked the back door open just as Maria Miller reached the car, sobbing uncontrollably in Spanish and English as she pulled Toby out of the back seat and crushed him against her chest.
Toby buried his face in his mother's neck, his small shoulders shaking.
"I didn't take the sandwich, Mama," Toby cried into her coat. "I promised I wouldn't get you in trouble!"
Maria sank to her knees on the pavement, kissing the top of his head over and over. "You didn't do anything wrong, mi amor. Nothing wrong."
I knelt beside them and slipped the red mitten onto Toby’s cold hand.
Then Deputy Jennings walked back up the embankment holding Patty Gable’s open leather handbag and the plastic bank canister. His face was grim.
"Mrs. Vance," the deputy said, looking inside the open canister. "There’s no cashier's check in here."
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He pulled out a single strip of thermal receipt paper from Riverview Credit Union, stamped six minutes earlier.
"The account was already emptied at nine o'clock this morning," Jennings said, reading the slip. "Elaine Foster didn't need Maria's signature here today. She sent Patty and Maria here as a decoy so the sheriff's department would chase the Buick to the credit union—while Elaine went back to the school district vault."
