CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“Why didn’t you tell us, Frank?” asked Emelia.

He carefully placed his personal items in a box, rifling through his desk to see if he’d missed anything. When Emelia demanded a meeting with him and the director, he knew what it was about.

“Frank, we just need to get to the bottom of all of this,” said Chief. “Why didn’t you tell us that you were in the bridge club with them?”

“Because I knew that I would become a suspect,” he said resolutely.

“Frank, you are a suspect! You withheld information from me intentionally. Those people killed two of your agents!”

“They didn’t mean to,” he said, staring at the room full of people. “I know them all. They didn’t mean to. They never meant to hurt anyone.”

“Frank, you need to start talking,” said the director.

“Everyone in that club has worked for the government at some point in time. Local, county, city, state, or federal. It was how we all met at a national conference for civil servants. Ed and Willie were the oldest, but they acted like kids half the time. Jeffrey was the baby of the group.

“Estelle was already sick when we met her and Mac. She’d already lost her hair and about half her body weight. Poor thing was just withering away. They kept talking about this experimental treatment they were going to try, but Medicare and the VA wouldn’t pay for it. Nothing was working for her.”

“Frank, she didn’t go for a mammogram for ten years,” said Torro. “We have no way of knowing if that would have made a difference, but the doctors thought that it might. The treatment she sought out wasn’t even for her type of breast cancer. By the time she got there, it was the brain cancer killing her.”

“God,” he muttered, shaking his head. He folded his hands in front of him and just sat quietly for a moment.

“Frank,” whispered Emelia.

“We just wanted to make a difference for other retirees. People who gave their lives in service to their country in one way or another. If we could buy their medications, we did. If we could provide for the surgery, we did. Maybe they needed help with utilities that month, rent, or groceries. We helped out. You have no idea what a few hundred bucks will do to help older people.

“They’re all frugal. They were born in the era of the great depression or WWII. They’re used to the rations of WWII, the modesty of the 1950s. They are called the Greatest Generation for a reason, and yet no one seems to want to help them. We took food and medicine to an Army vet in Sandybottom not too long ago. His roof had cardboard covering holes, the wind and rain coming through any time there was a storm. He’d asked for help, as much as it pained him, but no one wanted to do a damn thing.

“So we did. We gave him the medicine, gave him the food, and hired a contractor to fix his place up. It took only a week to fix the major issues. A week of a man’s time. The sick part of it all? His daughter lived only five miles from him and had no clue how bad it was.”

“Frank, I understand,” said Hex. “We all understand, but robbing banks and killing people isn’t the answer.”

“What is, Hex? What is the answer? We’re all smart people, and we tried like hell to get someone to listen to us. They just kept saying, ‘there’s an agency for that,’ ‘there are groups that can help.’ Fools. All of them were fools.

“Willie got the notice that he was behind in his taxes on his house and went to speak to the bank about a loan. The house was worth fifty times what the taxes were, and yet they wouldn’t give him just a year to figure it out. He was too old, they said. He didn’t have enough income. That man died because of what they told him!”

“Frank, we need your help in stopping them,” said Sebastian. “We are sympathetic to this. We really are, but if they keep going, someone is going to get killed, and it won’t be us. They can’t keep up this pace, keep running forever. How is the bridge club involved?”

Again, Frank sat quietly for a long moment, not saying anything. He reached inside the drawer of his desk and pulled out his service pistol, laying it on the desktop. His hand never left the weapon.

“Frank, don’t do this,” whispered Em.

“They’re good players, all of them. They’ve won multiple tournaments. When they rob the banks, they give the cash to the club, who then deposits it into the Silver Fund, and they disperse it in the form of payments for winning tournaments. That’s how the people get what they need. It’s never placed in an account in our names.”

Milo and Jalen took a slow step to the side of the room, and Frank cocked the hammer of the pistol.

“Don’t, son. I don’t want to hurt any of you, but I won’t go to jail.”

“Don’t do this, Frank. We can help you,” said Chief.

“No one can help me.” He spun the pistol flat on the desk, pointing it at his chest, and fired. Barely alive, Emelia gripped his hand as the others took the weapon and called for an ambulance.

“Frank! Frank, please don’t die,” she said, kneeling beside him.

“You’re a good agent, Emelia. A good kid. Let this one go.”

“I can’t do that, Frank. I can’t. They killed Cord and Tara. I can’t let that go,” she said, shaking her head.

“See,” he wheezed, “you’re a good agent.”

Dead before he ever arrived at the hospital, word spread through the agency of what had happened. Emelia notified the director that she would resign when this case was solved, and he was happy to give her the case for her last one.

“We need to put a hold on the funds of the bridge club,” said Emelia. “I don’t want to. Lord knows I don’t want to. But we have to. If they know that they can no longer use them for distribution of funds, they’ll have to do something else.”

“Hex and I will go out there right now, honey,” said Chief. “You guys try to figure out where they went after leaving Willie’s.”

“Thanks, Dad,” said Emelia, hugging her father.

“Take care of her,” said Chief, gripping Sebastian’s hand.

“You know I will, sir.”