Unveiling the Past by Kim Vogel Sawyer

Author:Kim Vogel Sawyer [Vogel Sawyer, Kim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2020-05-12T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty-One

Fort Smith, Arkansas

Meghan

The evening was so mild that Meghan and Greg decided to walk to a little family-style restaurant near their hotel for supper. Sheila stayed behind, claiming she wasn’t hungry and needed to call home and talk to her brothers.

Meghan didn’t doubt Sheila’s claim about wanting to check on her brothers, but she also feared that the young woman had very little money and couldn’t afford to keep buying meals. At least the hotel offered a continental breakfast. Simple fare—store-bought rolls, boxed cereal, and apples and bananas—but at no extra cost, so Sheila could carry an apple or roll to the room for a later-in-the-day snack.

A sign inside the restaurant’s foyer invited guests to seat themselves. Greg led Meghan to a corner booth. Menus stood on end between a sugar shaker and a bottle of ketchup. They opened them and made their selections even before a waitress brought silverware and glasses of water.

Greg gestured for Meghan to order first, and she asked for her favorite, a reuben sandwich and fries. Greg ordered the chicken-fried steak with mashed potatoes and a side salad.

“Dressing?” the waitress asked.

“Yes,” Greg said.

The waitress, an older woman with rust-colored curls and too much mascara, gave him a mock scowl.

He laughed. “Ranch, please. Smother it. The way you smother a chicken-fried steak with gravy.”

She rolled her eyes but laughed, too. “I’ll see what I can do.” She smacked the menus back into their resting spot and strode off.

Greg took a drink of his water, swiped his lips with the back of his hand, and huffed out a breath. “I’d sure hoped Sheila would remember some of her dad’s friends’ names, but I guess we can’t blame her for drawing a blank. She was only a little girl, and a lot of time has passed.”

Meghan pulled the wrapper off her straw and slid the length of plastic into her glass. “She did remember Uncle Wally, though, who wasn’t really an uncle. Is there someone named Wally working at the bank?”

“No one I recall from the list of employees during Menke’s time.” Greg frowned, tapping his chin. “Maybe it was a nickname, though. What are names that could be shortened to Wally? Besides the obvious Wallace.”

“Hmm, Walter. Waldo.” Meghan used her finger and made a series of circles in the condensation on her glass. “Walker. Walton.” She jolted.

Greg gave a start, too, and they chorused, “Wallingford.” One of the men who’d been sent to answer their questions about Anson Menke.

Meghan check-marked the last circle, then set the glass aside. “That could be it. Do you remember what title he holds at the bank?”

Greg tapped his chin again, the taps fast. “I think he’s the commercial-lending director, but when Menke worked there, they were both loan officers. I don’t remember what kind—commercial or consumer.”

“But they’d have worked closely enough together to know what the other was doing.”

“In all likelihood.”

The waitress put Greg’s salad in front of him. At least, Meghan assumed there was lettuce somewhere under the sea of white dressing.

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