Dead Broke in Jarrett Creek: A Samuel Craddock Mystery (Samuel Craddock Mysteries) by Terry Shames Page A

She’s wearing a shapely pink suit that would look good on a younger woman, and she uses makeup with too heavy a hand, her eyes surrounded with dark eyeliner. I don’t remember whether Cookie was ever married, but I know there isn’t a Mr. Travers currently.
    “Cookie, Alan Dellmore told me he and Gary had an argument over an incident between Gary and Jessica Reinhardt. Can you tell me more about that and introduce me to Jessica?”
    Cookie shifts in her chair. “She didn’t come in today. She was pretty upset yesterday when she heard what happened. Tell you truth, I wouldn’t be surprised if she quit.”
    “Really? Why is that?”
    “I might have been a little hard on her.” She sniffs. “But it’s my job to keep things running smoothly here. I’ve got standards that I demand the employees hold to, and I expect the women to behave well. It might have been Gary’s fault, but it takes two to have a flirtation.”
    “Surely with Gary being the boss and being older, most of the blame fell to him?”
    “Maybe so. Alan thought so. Gary is a good-looking man, and the girl was probably flattered, but I still say that’s no excuse. I spoke pretty sharply to her and told her to see to it that it didn’t happen again.”
    “Who told you they were flirting with each other?”
    Cookie’s penciled eyebrows shoot up. “Saw it with my own eyes! It had been going on for a while, but last week it got out of hand. One night—I guess it was Wednesday—Jessica stayed behind because she found an error when she was tallying up and had to go back over everything. I went out on an errand and came back to lock up after her, and when I walked in, I saw the two of them in one of those cubicles.” She gestures across the bank lobby to where a teller is counting out money to someone.
    “Looks crowded for two people.”
    “Yes, it is. That’s the way these types of situations get out of hand. Close quarters. But I was surprised anyway. When I walked in, Gary had his arm around her and then…” Cookie draws a sharp breath. “Well… his hand dropped down… toward her rear end, and she giggled. What kind of behavior is that! Even if he did like her, and even if he wasn’t married, that’s no way to behave in a professional setting.”
    “Did you say anything to them?”
    “I asked what was going on. Gary laughed, and Jessica said it was nothing. She can be a snippy little thing, and I didn’t like her tone, which I pointed out to her when I talked to her Monday.”
    “You felt you needed to tell Alan about it?”
    “Yes, I did. It upset me. Gary is his son!”
    “Is this the first time something like this had happened?”
    Cookie grimaces. “I know of one other girl Gary flirted with. I was thinking of asking if any of the other women had problems with Gary—if he got fresh with them. I’m not a prude, but laws being the way they are these days, if Gary made a move with the wrong person, somebody might bring a lawsuit.”
    “I’d like you to do that. Find out if anybody else had a problem.”
    She puts a hand to her chest. “You don’t really think somebody killed Gary because he was fooling around, do you?”
    “I’m trying to get the situation here at the bank clear in my head. Did the employees like Gary? Did they respect him?”
    Cookie pauses, her hands tightly clasped. “It’s hard to measure how much people respected Gary for himself, and how much because he was Alan’s son. I don’t know of anyone who had any particular problem with him. I do know that no one looked up to him the way they do to Alan.”
    I glance over at the two women within my line of vision. “You said Gary flirted with one other woman. Who was it?”
    She grimaces. “It wasn’t exactly the same thing. It was that little Darla Rodriguez. She flirts with everything in pants who comes through the door, and I guess she finally nabbed Gabe LoPresto, though he’s no prize. That poor fool! She’s going to run rings around him and