The Deposit Slip (21 page)

“Okay. What next?”

When Jared and Towers returned from the rest room, the ladies watched in surprise as Towers walked past the table toward the exit. Jared sat down and said in a clear voice, “He got a call. I’ll have to fill him in later.”

Jared continued talking about general trial preparation while he slid a note to Mrs. Huddleston. She read it and passed it in turn to Jessie and Erin. Each looked at Jared with expressions of bewilderment.

Jared’s phone rang. He answered it and said okay. “That was Peterson,” he said to blank expressions around the table. “He’s asked if we can move up the meeting by half an hour. Let’s continue talking in the car.”

They rose. Jared dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the table, then led them from the restaurant.

Following Towers’s instruction, Jared forced himself not to look back as he got into the driver’s side of his CR-V. Erin joined him in the front while Jessie and Mrs. Huddleston settled into the back seats.

Jared turned the key and dropped the car rapidly into Reverse. His hand was still on the shift lever when someone walked past the front bumper—a man wearing a baseball cap, his face mostly turned away. He was looking through the restaurant window, but even from the partial view seemed vaguely familiar.

Jared shifted into Drive and moved slowly past the restaurant door toward the lot exit. In his rearview mirror, a boxy blue Subaru darted backward, three slots away from Jared’s parking spot.

The driver’s head twisted, his mouth open, as the Subaru rocked to a violent stop before it could clear its space. An aging gray Accord had emerged at the same instant directly behind the Subaru, stopping just close enough to prevent escape.

As Jared turned toward the exit, the scene disappeared from his rearview mirror. Traffic was clear; he twisted the wheel right, onto County Road 7, heading for Ashley.

The engine whined reluctantly, creeping faster, and Jared’s gaze returned to the mirror. When was the Subaru going to reach the road? A hundred yards later the pavement snaked right. The CR-V wheels squealed on the cold road, and Erin let out a gasp in the back seat. Then the restaurant was gone from view, shielded by a passing farm.

Jared kept the pedal down. A quarter mile beyond the curve a side road emerged—a longer, slower but, most importantly. a different route to Ashley. He eased off the gas just enough to avoid another skid, wrestled the car over onto the side road, then flattened the pedal again. The side road meandered away in a V from the county road until a rise separated the two routes. Jared felt an ache in his lungs—realized he had been holding his breath—as he eased off the pedal. He relaxed his hands from the wheel and softly exhaled.

Towers entered the Ashley Library conference room twenty minutes after Jared and the others arrived.

“What happened to the Subaru after we left Perkins?” Jared asked.

The investigator cleared his throat. “I kept him boxed in until you were out of sight. Actually, I waited until he started getting out of the car. Then I drove away—toward the freeway. Hopefully he just thought I was a miserable driver.”

“Did he follow us?”

Towers nodded yes.

“All that tells us is he was headed north,” Jessie said sarcastically.

“I think he was following us,” Erin said. “I think I’ve noticed that blue car around Ashley. Maybe we should call the police.”

“Sure. Let’s give them the frightening news that we were at a restaurant near the freeway and when we left a car headed in the same direction,” Jessie said flatly.

Jared gave Jessie a long look. “We’ll keep an eye out for someone following us,” Jared said, then quickly asked Mrs. Huddleston to relate what she had found.

When she was finished explaining her discovery of Cory Spangler, Jared raised a hand to ward off more skeptical remarks from Jessie.

“It’s nothing certain, I know—either that Spangler has critical evidence or that we can find her,” Jared said, “but it’s the best we have on that front.” He turned to the investigator. “Tell us about the trip to Washington.”

Towers explained his visit to the Veterans Administration, lingering on his reasons for believing that Anthony Carlson was lying. Listening to his cautious, sonorous tone, Jared thought that a loud word could send the investigator out of the room. But once again, he found his observations compelling—even if too vague for trial evidence.

Jared spoke up next. “I called this meeting because I got served with the summary judgment motion today. Until I got this motion, we had just under six weeks to find our evidence. Now we’ve got nineteen days—the time until we have to file our response to the motion with evidence to avoid summary dismissal of the estate’s claims. If we can’t present
some
admissible evidence of the deposit by then, the judge
will
dismiss the case when we stand up to argue in a month.”

“Given where we’re at,” Jared concluded, “I’ve decided to go to Europe to try to find Spangler.”

“Then who’s going to write the summary judgment reply?” Jessie asked, pondering her hands on the table.

“I will, when I get back. I’m only going for a few days.”

“Paisley’s brief is forty pages long,” she shot back instantly. “The trip’ll take you a day of travel each way, a few days to find her, make arrangements—that’s a minimum of a week.”

“Then get a law clerk to do the research and rough it out.”

“Where? Where do I find a clerk on short notice—up here in Ashley?”

Everyone’s eyes were locked on the exchange.

“Call Mort Goering’s office,” he said, his voice beginning to crack. “See if they can recommend someone.”

One of them was about to let loose, and Jared figured it was probably her. Jessie’s eyes flashed and he braced—when Mrs. Huddleston intervened.

“When are you leaving, Jared?”

“I’m planning to leave next Monday. If I’m successful, I’ll come back with Cory in tow.”

The tension between Jessie and Jared, though relieved by Mrs. Huddleston’s intervention, had rendered everyone silent. Jared looked around the room. Erin’s expression was energized, Jessie’s dead flat. Mrs. Huddleston was examining each of the other women from the corners of her eyes.

Jessie’s look as Jared left the house earlier today came back to him—an unmistakable expression of pain that told him she knew about his use of the Olney money. The memory of her eyes knifed at him, and for the first time he wondered if he was doing permanent harm to their relationship.

He’d deal with it, he told himself; as soon as he had things under control. After Europe. Then he’d clear everything up, make it up to her. When he had more proof—evidence that showed Jessie he could win this case—that would set things right.

Jared turned to the investigator. “Richard, is there
anything
we can do to search out other sources for this money? Other banks? Tax records? We’re down to the wire now.”

The investigator sat mute, unperturbed by the eyes of everyone in the room. “I haven’t got any idea where to go financially,” he replied in a tone of contrition. “You haven’t got time to challenge the VA, and I’ve no clue where else the money could be.”

Jared had feared this. Before he could respond, Towers went on in the same calm tone.

“But Mr. Neaton, I do have this.”

He unclasped his briefcase and withdrew a cell phone. After manipulating the surface screen, he held it up for everyone around the table to see.

On the screen was a photo, digitally enlarged and enhanced. It was taken through glass and overexposed, but was clear enough.

It was a look of fury on the face of the man emerging from his blue Subaru.

J
ared walked the sidewalk, kicking crisp leaves that twisted and swirled at his feet. A terrier raced from the backyard of a white rambler toward him, skidded to a halt at the picket fence enclosing the yard, and let off a frenzy of barking. That’s what this case felt like, Jared thought.

Over an hour of walking and Jared still couldn’t fully accept that Stanford and Whittier were having him followed. This was a potentially big case—but until recently, it had seemed like a sure winner for Paisley. If Paisley was so concerned that they were having him followed, what did that imply?

After the meeting at the library earlier in the week, Erin was texting every few hours, Mrs. Huddleston had promised to keep beating the bushes for witnesses, and Towers was off to identify the man in the Subaru. Jared had also found an opportunity to speak with Towers privately long enough to confirm he still had not located Paul Larson’s phone records. As for Jessie, Jared simply told her to call Goering’s office to get a lead on a law clerk for the summary judgment motion response.

A breath of a breeze crept down Jared’s neck. As he stopped to zip up his jacket, the sound of marching band drums carried over the trees. Why would a football game be starting on a Saturday afternoon so late in the fall?

Then he recalled seeing decorations around streetlights and parking signs driving home from dinner the night before. It was Ashley Founder’s Day. All signs of the approaching event had completely passed Jared by.

Growing up, this was a big day, spent wandering with friends through the crowds along Main Street, pocketing tossed candies, and sampling barbecued chicken and brats at Central Park, where the parade ended. Later, Jared appreciated it as something more: a celebration of the waning days of autumn, before winter drove families behind doors to await the relief of spring.

He considered going to watch the parade and weighed the likelihood of unwelcome encounters with people he knew. His own hesitation made him think again about his father’s life in hostile territory all these years.

Jared turned toward the direction of the sound. At Main Street, people were lined rows deep along the curb, children in front dashing out to recover treats thrown from floats and cars. Many of the adults were bundled up on folding chairs while others stood in groups engaged in conversations more engrossing than the parade.

Little had changed. Jared leaned against the ledge of a store window, watching the Ashley Middle School band follow the local Kiwanis Club float. The paraders and the watchers seemed indistinguishable to Jared. This parade
was
the crowd—children, parents, friends, and siblings of Ashley, separated by a few feet of pavement and nothing else. The parade would unwind itself at the park; the onlookers would follow after, and they would all mix and reconnect again. What a living thing a small town was.

“Hi.”

It was Vic Waye. “Hey, Vic,” Jared said.

Vic joined Jared on the ledge. “That’s my son over there,” he said, extending a finger toward a small group of boys carrying a banner that read
Ashley High Swim Team
.

Jared couldn’t figure out which one Vic was pointing to. “Looks just like you,” he answered.

A few minutes later, Vic nudged his shoulder, cocking his head across the street and to their right. “That’s Verne Loffler,” he said, gesturing toward a man standing with a woman and an older boy.

Jared thought he looked unremarkable in a green pullover sweatshirt and jeans: just another neighbor or friend. As he stared, Verne looked back, and his head inclined in a slight nod. Jared returned the gesture, then looked back to the parade.

Jared heard the commotion before he saw it; turned to Vic as the veteran uttered, “Oh no.” Vic was looking across the street to the middle of the next block, and Jared followed his eyes.

It was a moment before Jared recognized the figure of Joe Creedy half a block away. His steps were uncertain, and he steadied himself with a hand on the side of a building. His meandering gait took him stumbling into the crowd with every other step.

Vic started across the road, weaving around parade horses, and Jared followed. Reaching the far curb, they broke into a jog. Vic was only a yard away when Joe Creedy finally stumbled and went hard to the pavement, just out of reach.

“Hey, come on, fella,” Vic said, putting strong hands under the man’s shoulder and arm and raising him up. Joe’s face was pummeled: blood bubbled from his nose as he came off the sidewalk.

Jared helped raise the farmer to wobbly feet. The man was dead weight. Seeing Vic sling one of Joe’s arms across his neck, Jared did the same.

“Vic, can I help?” someone asked from behind them.

“No, I got it,” Vic called, “but get someone to clean up this mess, will you?”

They dragged the farmer to the corner and up a street away from the parade—stopping half a block away, just as Jared’s burning thighs gave way under the weight. Following Vic’s lead, Jared helped ease Joe into a sitting position on a bench in front of the post office building. “Keep him here; I’m getting my truck,” Vic grunted and disappeared into the alley.

Joe’s alcohol breath was coming in fetid gasps, spitting blood still streaming from his nose and across his lips. Jared reached into his jacket pocket for a napkin that he pressed to the farmer’s nostrils. It was soaked in an instant. He put a hand to Joe’s chest and leaned him against the bench, easing his head back to staunch the flow.

The farmer’s eyes opened as his head rolled back and fixed, glazed and passive, on Jared. Recognition seeped into his stare. “Neaton,” he murmured.

Jared heard car tires crunching the leaves at the curb behind him at the moment that the farmer lurched to a sitting position, pushing Jared’s hand away. Leaning forward, he vomited a bloody spray onto the pavement at their feet.

“Go away, Neaton,” the farmer slurred. “Y’er killin’ this town. You and Larson, y’er killin’ everything. It ain’t gonna happen, Neaton. You ain’t gonna win that lawsuit.” He tried to rise to his feet but failed and collapsed back onto the bench.

Jared caught the sleeve of Joe’s jacket before he rolled from the bench onto the pavement. “Let’s get him in the truck,” Vic said over Jared’s shoulder. “I’ll take him home to Susie.”

Vic muttered an exclamation of disgust as they pulled Joe’s arms across their shoulders again. They eased him into the back of the pickup, wrestled him up into the bed, and then rested him on his stomach before Vic pulled a tarp across his prone body.

“Want me to go with?” Jared asked, wiping stains from his hands onto a rag Vic tossed to him from the cab.

“Probably not a good idea.”

Vic started to get into the cab, then called back to Jared.

“Hey. Don’t listen to Joe. He’s got a foreclosure problem, and he’s reading the newspaper too much. Only a few hotheads believe those articles about the bank closing. It’s no big deal.”

Jared nodded thankfully. As the truck pulled away, he thought about Creedy’s words and wondered what Vic’s “few hotheads” really added up to. He glanced up the street in the direction of the parade, then turned his back on it and began to walk home.

Jared took the basement steps as though he were descending into a tomb. At the base of the stairs, he took a single look at the few remaining boxes of unreviewed documents, shook his head, and trudged back upstairs to the kitchen.

He was still wearing his jacket when he walked into his bedroom, wondering if he could manage a nap. A white envelope was propped against the pillow.

Jared picked it up and wandered back to the living room. His father was standing there, his hair still twisted from the gusting wind outside.

“What’s that on your jacket?” Samuel exclaimed. Jared looked down at the spray pattern of blackened crimson spots across his chest and shoulders. He gingerly removed his jacket and dropped it on the floor.

“Nothing,” he said, sitting on the couch.

His father watched closely, working himself up to say something. When Jared laid his head back and closed his eyes, his father began to speak.

“Jedee, I’ve been meaning to have a talk with you.”

The old familiar words induced a groan in Jared.

“Jedee, I know you don’t want to hear from me—on this or anything—but how far are you willing to take this thing?”

“What thing,” Jared murmured.

“The case. This lawsuit against the bank.”

Jared looked at his father through one eye. “Have you been talking to Jessie again?”

His father stayed silent. Jared wished he had the vigor to engage but was too weary to raise his voice above a monotone.

“Dad, this is my business. I know what I’m doing.”

“Do you, Jedee? Because I know you’re nearly out of money. You’re a zombie most days. And you’re about to lose a terrific employee and friend who cares about you and your business.”

“She tell you that?”

“No. But you’re about the only person who doesn’t see it.”

Jared roused himself enough to lean forward and open his eyes. “She works for me, not the other way around.”

His father shook his head in the negative. “It doesn’t matter. When someone who cares about you plans to leave because of your behavior, you’d better take stock.”

The fire was starting to kindle at last. “You’d know something about that, wouldn’t you, Dad.”

“Yes, I would,” he answered without flinching.

When Jared didn’t respond, Samuel sat down on the chair opposite him. “Is this about the money? The . . . ‘breakout’ case?”

“ ‘Breakthrough’ case.”

“All right, breakthrough case. Tell me you’re not emptying your bank accounts or putting your career at risk just for the money, son.”

How much had Jessie shared with his father? Jared felt the blood pumping in his temples.

“You’re off base, Dad. Drop it.”

“Because that’s what Jessie thinks,” Samuel went on.

Of course that’s what Jessie thought. Jared hadn’t even tried to explain everything at stake for him in the case. She couldn’t understand, and it would only make her more adamant he should drop this.

Before he could speak, Samuel went on.

“Jessie thinks it’s about the money, but I’m not so sure. You know, winning this case for Paul and Erin: it won’t fix anything about us, Jedee.”

Jared looked his father in the eye. “At least Erin wouldn’t have to wonder for ten years why her own father betrayed his family, his town, and everything he claimed to stand for.”

He saw his words had wounded his father. He expected him to growl back like he used to when confronted, but his eyes reflected back only apprehension.

“All right, Jedee,” Samuel responded softly. “But even if that’s worth the fight, you’d better figure out where your limits are, where you’ll draw a line in this case. No matter how important you think this is, if you can’t see any line you wouldn’t cross for this, then I’m telling you, eventually you’re going to be no different than me.”

“No. I’m not you,” Jared said. “I’ve spent the past ten years making sure of that.”

With these words, the last life drained from his father’s face. Samuel remained immobile for a minute more, then put his hands on his knees and rose slowly to his feet.

“You’re right, son,” he said before he turned away. “You’re not me. You’re a better man than I was and my last source of pride in this world. All I’m asking is . . . try to stay that way.”