Chapter 20: Betty's Memory
The diner was half a block from the bank, with pie under glass. Betty chose a booth by the window.
"You picked a public place," Nora said.
"I picked a place with pie," Betty said. "If I am going to be nervous, I will be nervous fed."
The waitress came. Betty ordered coffee and apple pie. Nora ordered the same.
"Let me say it plain," Betty said. "No pretty words changing it."
The pie arrived warm. Betty took a bite and wrapped her hands around her mug.
"You asked about the lease file," she said. "I told you it was moved. That was true, but not all of it."
"I wrote only what you said," Nora said. She set her green notebook, closed, on the table. "I will not open it until you say I may."
"May I ask now?" Nora said. "When did you last handle the original lease file yourself?"
"In 2011," Betty said. "Spring. I remember because your father was in the hospital that week."
"Northwestern," Betty said. "His heart. We passed a card around the teller line. I called the hospital myself about flowers. His assistant said visitors were family only."
"He was not anywhere near the bank," Betty said. "He was in a bed with tubes, hon."
"Tell me about the file," Nora said.
"Mr. Pierce sent down word," Betty said. "He wanted the original lease file brought up from records, whole, not a copy. For the auditors, he said. That was the phrase."
"Brought up to whom?" Nora asked.
"To his office," Betty said. "I carried it up myself, in the gray folder with the trust seal. I signed it out. His assistant signed it in."
"Why are you sure of that week?" Nora asked.
"Because of the card," Betty said. "I carried it around the same morning I carried that file. One in each hand. A man in hospital, and his building on paper, going upstairs."
"A few days later it came back down," Betty said. "Then I heard Mr. Pierce tell someone everything was settled. Mr. Wexford had signed off on the renewal paperwork. Collected that week, he said. His exact word."
Nora felt the booth go quiet. "Collected that week."
"That is what he said," Betty said. "And I thought, collected from where? A hospital room? I told myself managers visit hospitals. I told myself it was none of my business. For years."
"Your father was kind to tellers," Betty said, her eyes filling. "He knew my name before he knew my window. When I read that planted story calling you disgruntled, I got mad at my kitchen table."
"Will you say this on the record?" Nora said. "To Angela Torres, in a signed statement. What you carried, who ordered it, what Mr. Pierce said, where my father was."
Betty was silent. The waitress refilled their coffee without being asked.
"I am sixty one," Betty said. "Thirty four years at that bank. My pension sits in that building like a cat in a window. My sister says, keep your head down, you are almost done. She is not wrong. We planned on it, me and Ray, before he passed."
"You ask anyway, because it is true," Betty said. "If it was gossip, I could wave it off. It is not gossip. I carried that file."
"No one will rush you," Nora said. "Angela will take it at your pace, with your words read back. If you need your own lawyer, she will help you find one who is not the bank's."
"And if they fire me?" Betty asked.
"Then we document that too, and fight it in the open," Nora said. "I cannot promise it will cost nothing. I will not lie to you over pie. You will not stand alone, and your statement will say only what you know."
Betty gave a small, wet laugh. "Your grandfather talked like that. No syrup. Just the promise, kept in public."
"May I open the notebook?" Nora asked.
Betty nodded. Nora wrote the date, the diner, and Betty's words, plainly.
"Read it back," Betty said.
Nora read it back. Betty corrected her. "Leave the day out. Just the week. I am sure of the week."
"That is right," Betty said. "That is what happened."
"On the record?" Nora asked, quietly.
Betty looked toward the bank tower, then back. Her hand shook once on the mug, and steadied.
"On the record," she said. "Write that down too. Betty Kaminski will say it on the record."
Nora wrote it, and felt the chain draw tight: a fired analyst with ledgers, a teller with a hospital card, a file carried upstairs. One remembering was a story. Together, in writing, was evidence.
"Finish your pie," Betty said, wiping her eyes. "A statement goes better if nobody faints."