The Lollipop

On my 14th birthday, my dad took me to the Bisbee State Bank to set me up with my very first savings account. I had unexpectedly inherited $20,000 from my Great Aunt Elspeth. I had begged to take the family on a trip to Australia with it or to throw a huge luau for my entire high school. But, of course, my parents would hear nothing of it. To them it was a truth universally acknowledged that a teenage girl in possession of a good fortune - and $20,000 was absolutely a good fortune -- must be in want of a savings account. So while most girls my age were celebrating their birthdays with slumber parties or trips to the beach, here we were in line at our small town’s two-teller bank.

‘Name, please?” the teller said, closing the little black notebook he’d been scrawling in and wiping sweat from his brow. His crooked name badge read “DANNY” in bold letters. He looked too old to be a Danny to me.

“Chloe Gilbertson” I said.

“Spell that please,” he said, not looking up from the computer.

“C-H-L-O-E G-I-L-B-E-R-T-S-O-N.” I spelled loudly.

“You’re not in my system. You sure you got an account here?”

“Um, well not yet.”

“You shoulda said that,” he groaned. “What do you want today?”

“Chloe would like a savings account,” my dad said helpfully.

“Why? You gotta job?” he asked, glancing up, looking irritated.

“Um, no, not yet.”

“Then why you want a savings account? I tell ya,” he breathed heavily.

I glanced over at my dad nervously.

“Chloe inherited a pretty nice chunk of change from her deceased aunt.”

I handed him over the check for $20,000. He raised his eyebrows a bit. It was clear checks of this size didn’t usually pass under his nose at the Bisbee State Bank.

“Look,” he said, shoving the check back at me, “The other gal gets back from lunch in 25 minutes. Maybe you should come back then. Setting up a new account takes time and with a big transaction like that... I got other customers to serve.” I looked around the bank, eager to see these customers Danny was going to “serve” but all I saw were a couple of faded lifesize cardboard cutouts of McGruff the Crime Dog and Smoky the Bear. I started to speak up, but my dad did first.

“That’s fine. Chloe and I will just take a seat over here and wait.”

“Actually, we have a policy against loitering. You’d be better off leaving and coming back.”

My dad looked at me briefly in disbelief, but then he nodded at Danny.

“Come on, Chloe. Thank you for your help, sir.”

“Hey girlie,” Danny called after us. “Here’s a lollipop! Thanks for coming to the Bisbee State Bank. You two have a good day.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled as he sank back into his chair and pulled out his little black notebook again.

We were buckled up with the doors closed before my father and I burst into laughter.

My dad shook his head in disgust before heading toward the gas station to grab us a scoop of hand-dipped ice cream. Bisbee was a town of 1200. We didn’t have a Dairy Queen. Just Go-N-Quik Petro Mart. But they did boast 14 different flavors from the creamery 20 minutes outside of town.

“So do you think ‘the other gal’ will be more helpful than old Danny boy?” my dad asked me.

I shrugged. “What was his problem?” I asked.

“Eh, that’s Daniel Kinnister. He’s always been kind of a pain. Though he seemed particularly off today.”

When we returned to the bank we were surprised to see that the empty parking lot we had left behind not even 30 minutes before was now filled with every emergency vehicle the village of Bisbee owned. Of course, this meant there was one fire truck, one ambulance, and one police car. But still, this was alarming.

“We should go home.” my dad said. My dad was never one for adventure.

“No, we should go see what’s going on! Please? Come on! It’s my birthday!”

My dad looked uncomfortable but agreed.

We pulled in and were immediately approached by Officer Bennet.

“Jim,” Officer Robert Bennet nodded at my dad. Officer Bennet was the only member of the Bisbee police force. He was also our nextdoor neighbor.

“I’m sorry, Robert. Chloe and I were just coming to set up a savings account, but looks like this isn’t a good time.We’ll let you do your job and come back later.”

“Actually, Jim, I’m glad you’re here. Daniel Kinnister was found dead about 15 minutes ago. The medical folks are saying a heart attack but we can’t rule out foul play.” He then turned his attention toward me.

“Did you know Mr. Kinnister?”

“Um, well, not really.”

“Well, we are going to need to bring you in for some questioning.”

I didn’t process what he was saying right away and sat there dumbfounded, my mouth hanging open.

“Why on earth would you need Chloe to come in for questioning?” my dad asked.

“Jim, I’m sure it’s nothing,” Office Bennet said, trying to reassure my dad. “But, Daniel Kinnister had a little black notebook with some odd things in it and Chloe’s name is listed in it.”

“Chloe’s name in his notebook? What else was in this notebook?” I pictured Danny scrawling in that notebook, sweat running down from his forehead and dripping off the tip of his nose.

“Look, Jim, I’ve been on the Bisbee Police force 20 years. I do traffic stops. Investigate vandalism. I don’t know about this kind of stuff. I don’t know what I can and can’t say.”

“I understand, Robert, but Chloe is just 14. I don’t even know if she had meet Mr. Kinnister before today.”

“Well then this should be quick. Come down to the station, Chloe.” He thought for a moment and said. “She’s not 18 yet. You better come along, Jim. And if you want you can call your family lawyer.”

My dad nodded. Of course, we didn’t have a family lawyer. We didn’t even have anyone who lived in Bisbee who was a lawyer. I’m sure Officer Bennett knew this. Probably something he had heard on a Law and Order episode.

Once at the station, I settled into a black chair covered in fake leather. It was warm and the leather stuck to my thighs. I regretted wearing shorts.

“So, tell me, Chloe, how long have you known Mr. Kinnister?”

“Um, maybe an hour and a half at this point?”

“An hour and a half?” he asked me skeptically.

“I mean I didn’t time it exactly, but something like that.” He let out an irritated sigh.

“What is the nature of your relationship?”

“Business.” I answered.

“What kind of business?” he asked suspiciously.

“Banking.”

“What exactly do you mean by banking?”

“Well, I tried to open a savings account but Danny basically wouldn’t do it and told me to come back.”

“And then?”

“And then what?”

“Well what happened next?”

I could tell he was disappointed with my answers. This wasn’t going to be a big break in his career. My answers weren’t worthy of being published in the Bisbee Village Newsletter, muchless a murder documentary.

“Nothing. Literally nothing. He told us to leave. My dad and I went and got ice cream cones from Go-N-Quik. We came back and saw you in the parking lot.”

“What kind of cone?” he asked, seeming desperate for answers I couldn’t give.

“Cherry Cheesecake for me, Monster Cookie for my dad.”

“Who served you?”

“I don’t know. But I have my receipt.” I slid the crumpled piece of paper over to him. He looked at the time on the receipt and sighed.

Clearly I was disappointing him.

“Tell me three words you’d use to describe to Daniel Kinnister.”

I thought for a minute.

“Lazy, sweaty, and….” I thought for a moment. “Dead.” I then looked up toward the sky and said as solemnly as I could, “RIP Danny.”

Officer Bennet slammed his book shut.

“Stop being a smart aleck!”

“I’m not. I’m being truthful.”

“Dead? Sweaty?”

“Don’t forget lazy.” I added.

“You think this is a joke? A man is dead!”

“Look, what do you want me to say? If anything I should be asking YOU questions. Why was I in his notebook? I never met the man before today!”

“Well, again, I don’t know what I can and can’t say. I’m not used to these cases.”

I was getting annoyed with this line.

“I’m your neighbor! You dragged me in here on my birthday and are questioning me on what flavor ice cream I had today. Look, I’m sorry he died, but what does it have to do with me?”

“His notebook. It had all sorts of stuff written in it. Nothing exciting. Seems he sat in that bank all day chronicling basically nothing. You were the last thing chronicled in there: 12:54pm. Girl came in looking for a savings account. Doesn’t have a job. Spelled her name loudly C-H-L-O-E G-I-L-B-E-R-T-S-O-N. Seemed polite enough. Sent her on her way with her $20,000 and a lollipop. Told her to come back later."

“Umm.”

“Well, what you got to say for yourself? Best you tell the truth.”

“Well, yeah. That happened. Kind of weird I made his notebook but I’m sure that was the excitement of his day.”

“So you admit it, then?”

My dad interjected, “Admit what?”

“I took a class with some state troopers. We learned all about drug slang. Lollipops aren’t what you think, Jim,” he said addressing my father now.

“Huh?”

“It’s drug slang. Your daughter is involved in a drug ring! And now we have a dead man! In Bisbee!”

“Wait. what?

“$20,000, lollipop, dead man. You do the math, Jim.” he said, giving my dad a look of pity.

“You’re mistaken.”

“Look, I know, I know. We want to remain naive. Want to think Bisbee is the exception to this. Certainly don’t want to think about our own children being involved in something like this. But we have video footage of Chloe entering the bank. We have his notes in the little black notebook. We have Chloe’s report basically admitting guilt right here. She’s just 14. She’ll go to juvy. I’ll make sure they go easy on her” Officer Bennet was getting strangely excited as he planned my new life as a juvenile delinquent.

“I have some evidence I should probably turn in then,” I said.

“Thank you Chloe. I knew you would be cooperative. I was shocked as anyone when we figured out you were involved. I’m getting paged though. I’ll be right back.”

He stepped out for a moment. My dad and I exchanged uncomfortable laughs.

He slid back in a few minutes later.

“Sorry about that,” he said, puffing out his chest, like he was the NYPD Police Chief, who had just solved a complicated murder case. “Press release.”

“Press release?” my dad asked in exasperation.

“Don’t worry. I kept things simple and to the point. I’m one to give someone the benefit of the doubt,” he said proudly. “Now, we will take care of the last bit of evidence and then get Chloe on her way. Do you need to phone your wife, Jim? I don’t normally allow suspects to say good-bye to family first, just the nature of things. But I’ll call in a favor just this once and let your wife come down if she’d like” I thought about my mom at home. I wondered if she was at home listening to the news about the 14 year old suspect in a drug death.

I slid him over the check penned out from The Estate of Elspeth M. Gilbertson for $20,000 and my grape flavored lollipop wrapped in the customized Bisbee State Bank wrap.

Officer Bennet fell off his chair. There was no pulse.