“Does the bank’s president live here?” Grimshaw asked.
Ilya shook his head. “He relocated to Putney. My kin who are interested in banking informed me last evening that the recently removed bank manager had lived in Putney before coming to Sproing. That had not been significant until now, when too many humans from Putney are showing too much interest in The Jumble.”
Putney was the human town on Prong Lake—and the Putney Police Station was home base for Detective Marmaduke Swinn and his team. Like Ilya said, the connection to Putney was a little too strong to be coincidence.
“I wonder if your figurehead president has a particular tie clip,” Julian said.
Ilya smiled, showing a hint of fang. “An interesting thing to wonder. I can tell you that, one way or another, we are acquiring his remaining shares in the bank.”
“One way or another?” Grimshaw asked.
“The house he purchased in Putney was far beyond his means, and has continued to be more than he could afford.”
Vicki pointed at Ilya. “The Sanguinati hold the mortgage on his house?”
Ilya’s smiled widened. “The first and the second mortgages. The documents he signed when we provided the second mortgage—for terms that were far more forgiving than the human moneylenders he had considered when he ran into financial trouble again—gave us an option of demanding immediate payment in full of all that he owed us. The papers were served the morning after Detective Swinn brought Miss Vicki to the station for a chat. The difference between what he owed us and the current worth of his shares in the bank was petty cash.”
“So he had to choose between giving up what was left of the bank or losing his home in a way that would tell the rest of his creditors that he’s bankrupt,” Julian said. “One is a silent transaction up here, and the other would be public humiliation—worse if you make it obvious who is evicting him and his family.”
“The bank will close at its usual time today. It will reopen sometime next week as Lake Silence Bank.” Ilya looked at Ineke and Vicki. “We will, of course, retain any of the human employees who want to continue working for the bank. The honest ones, anyway.”
And the people in Sproing could do business with the Sanguinati knowingly or drive to Bristol or Crystalton, which were the closest human communities. That meant they would have to choose between holding their receipts until morning and then driving along those two-lane roads in the wild country to reach another human town to make their deposits, or keeping money in the store’s safe and hoping they wouldn’t be robbed.
Grimshaw almost felt sorry for his own people, but the Sanguinati would have learned cutthroat business practices by observing humans—or having been burned themselves because they had believed the humans would deal with them honestly.
“What’s that got to do with Vicki’s dream and my boardinghouse?” Ineke demanded.
“Someone who thinks he can force Ms. DeVine out of The Jumble might also think he can buy the liens from the bank and call them in, forcing you to sell or forfeit this place when you can’t pay the debt,” Grimshaw said.
“I don’t think Yorick has the business savvy to plan this kind of hostile takeover,” Vicki said.
Julian looked at Grimshaw. “Which brings us to the phone call and the answer to a question.” He looked at each of them. “I contacted Steve Ferryman. He’s the mayor of Ferryman’s Landing, which is an Intuit village on Great Island. He knows some . . . people . . . in Lakeside.”
“The Sanguinati at Silence Lodge know about the sweet blood who lives in the Lakeside Courtyard,” Ilya said quietly.
“Do they?” Grimshaw asked just as quietly. What did “sweet blood” mean to a vampire?
“She has friends among the Sanguinati who live in that Courtyard—and we are all entertained by stories about Broomstick Girl.” The vampire’s smiled sharpened. “What did she say?”
“I e-mailed a picture of the tie clip to Steve and briefly explained what was happening in Sproing,” Julian said. “The question that was sent to Lakeside was this: besides this tie clip, what do detectives working in Putney, a bank manager in Sproing, and a businessman living in Hubb NE have in common?”
“And the answer?” Grimshaw asked.
“Schools and . . .” Julian retrieved the box and set it on the table in front of the sofa. “Somehow this is part of the answer. Big wheels and little wheels.”
Judging by the picture on the cover, the box held sticks and wheels that children could put together to form different shapes.
“Is this the literal answer or a symbolic one?” Vicki asked.
“Difficult to say,” Julian replied. “I don’t know exactly how blood prophets see the future.”
“But you didn’t ask about the future.”
“No, but the girl who answered the question is working with a prototype deck of prophecy cards, which is making it possible to ask questions that aren’t specifically about the future. However, I was warned that this is a new skill that is still being learned, and the answer depends as much on the person interpreting the information as on the person who is guided to selecting particular images.”
“May I . . . ?” Vicki waved a hand at the box.
Julian shrugged. “Go ahead.”
Vicki opened the box and smiled. “I had a set of these when I was a child. I loved playing with them, putting the sticks and wheels into all kinds of odd shapes or structures. My mother disapproved because I built shelters for my little stuffed animals instead of building a proper home for the dollies I didn’t want to play with.”
“Why didn’t you want to play with them?” Ilya asked.
“Dollies are creepy,” Vicki and Ineke said. They shuddered. Then they began taking pieces out of the box.
Grimshaw looked at Ilya Sanguinati, who was looking at the women as if he’d just discovered a hitherto-unknown predator and wasn’t sure what to think about that. Well, Grimshaw knew what to think about it. He was certain he could subdue Vicki DeVine if he had to. After all, she was short and plump and didn’t have the kind of muscle mass that indicated that she routinely worked out. Ineke, on the other hand, advertised that she buried trouble—and he still wasn’t sure if that was figurative or literal.
It made him glad he was the only person in the room carrying a real gun.
Vicki cocked her head. She set three small wheels on the table, equally spaced, then waited for Ineke to connect the wheels with short colored sticks before she pointed to each one in turn. “The first dead man. Detective Swinn and his team. The bank manager.” She placed a larger wheel below those three. “The bank president now living in Putney.” She placed another large wheel up and away from the others. “Yorick up in Hubb NE.”