A Roux of Revenge by Connie Archer Page A

Lucky said. “I see you found Nate.”
    “Joe’s been retired for a while, but he was telling me about his last case. Very interesting,” Nate said.
    Joe smiled sheepishly. “It’s my ego, or maybe pride, I guess. It just galled me that I had to retire—companypolicy—before I could close this one out. The young guy that took over my caseload couldn’t do anything with it either.”
    “What company are we talking about, Joe?” Jack asked.
    “I was with Union Fidelity my whole career. And not to brag too much, but I had a great record as an investigator. All except for this one last case. I guess that’s why I can’t let it go.”
    “You think your companymight be willing to share their records?” Nate asked.
    “I don’t know. I can ask, if you like, but they might want a subpoena to do that.”
    “Well, if it turns out this might be related, I’ll give them a call.”
    “You have no connection with the company anymore?” Jack asked.
    “Nope. But I sure would like to bring this one to them on a silver platter. Not for any reward or anything, butwho knows, maybe they’d rethink their strict retirement policy.”
    “What’s it about?” Jack asked.
    “About seven years ago, there was an armored truck robbery. You may remember it—over at Bennington.”
    “I do remember,” Jack said. “It was all over the news.”
    “It was pretty terrible. There were two guards on duty in the company’s office early that morning. Another man, dressed in a guard’suniform with a ski mask, busted in. One of the two guards resisted and was killed. He was a young guy with little kids. Very sad.”
    “And they never caught the man who did it?” Lucky asked.
    “Nope. Never did. The company had to pay out on the loss after all. What happened was this . . .” Joe said, taking a last sip of his coffee. “It’s pretty definite it wasn’t just the one man involved.It was a pretty secure bunker, so one of the two guards in the facility had to be in on it. Although it took the police a little while to get suspicious of him. He may have even masterminded the heist. What I think, and the police at the time came around to thinking, was that the inside man, one of the guards, turned off the alarm and left the outer door unlocked. The other guard, the young guy whogot killed, must have been completely unaware that it was a setup. The police went over his life with a fine-tooth comb, but they never turned up anything suspicious. Nothing to indicate he had been involved.”
    Joe looked around the table, sure he had piqued the interest of his listeners. “The intruder had a weapon and ordered the two guards to transfer a shipment of cash to the armored truckout in the lot. They didn’t have much choice, so they followed his orders. Once the cash was loaded, the guy with the gun grabs the keys to the truck and orders the two guards back into the building. It’s early in the day, and there’s no one else around, no other guards on duty. At first, we thought the young guard foolishly decided to be a hero and got shot for his trouble.” Joe shook his head.“After that happened, the man with the weapon took off in the armored truck.”
    “Was it the other guard who was the inside guy? Who turned off the alarm?” Lucky asked.
    “I believe so. He claimed complete innocence. Said he didn’t know what was happening, but he didn’t turn off the alarm. He said the other guard must have been in on it and was shot by his cohort . . . The more the police sniffedaround, the more his story didn’t hold water. He was questioned a few more times, and eventually his version of events didn’t make sense. Sadly, no one thought to do a test for gunpowder on his hands.
    “The detectives finally came to the conclusion that the guard who was still alive had to be the inside man. He had turned off the alarm, left the door unlocked and shot his coworker. Possiblythe man who broke in with the weapon didn’t shoot at all, maybe