The Deposit Slip (32 page)

J
essie was up early, finalizing Jared’s trial notebook, when her phone rang.

“Yes?”

It was Mrs. Finstrude. “I’ve got it. I found a check from Sara Larson.”

Jessie hadn’t even seen or spoken with Jared since her encounter with the elderly woman the night before; he’d already left the farmhouse when she returned from the drugstore. That was fine. She wasn’t sure it was a good idea to mention this until she saw if it produced any useful evidence. Jared’s roller coaster ride on this case made it difficult enough for him to prepare for trial. He didn’t need any more false hopes.

“Can you read me the account number?”

She heard Mrs. Finstrude calling to her husband, asking whether he had her reading glasses. Then she was back on the line. She read the number.

Jessie jotted it down and thanked Shelby for her help. As soon as she set down the phone, she opened the trial notebook to Exhibit 1: a photocopy of the deposit slip.

As Jessie traced the numbers she had written on her pad against those on the photocopy, she felt like she was scanning a potential winning lottery ticket.

The first three numbers matched; the next three also.

She dropped the phone and screamed aloud in the empty farmhouse.

Jared couldn’t believe the words Jessie had just uttered. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. I’m on my way now to pick up the check from Shelby.”

Jared’s mind raced like an uncoupled locomotive. They had the account. And it was an Ashley State Bank account.

He wondered why this possibility hadn’t occurred to him before. The farmer had used the number for his wife’s old personal checking account, perhaps the account they used for household costs. Was it sentiment? A good luck charm? Perhaps, Jared thought. But he thought it was more than that. He had a sense of Paul Larson. The farmer had kept this money because he believed he deserved it—for what he had suffered in the war, and the crippling loss of the wife he loved. Using her account to store the money was just the right thing to do. An affirmation of his belief, hope, that she would approve.

With an account number, they had the necessary proof that the bank received the money. They still didn’t have proof of the critical element that the bank retained the money—that Paul Larson didn’t remove the money sometime after its deposit. But in view of Grant’s lies about receiving the funds in the first place, there was a fair chance they could convince the jury Grant was lying on this point as well.

“Jessie, send notice to Whittier that Shelby Finstrude is a new witness on our list. Then retrieve the check and produce a copy to Whittier immediately. Tell them it’s our new Exhibit 2.”

At dawn, Marcus listened to the chirping of birds in the pines and ash surrounding the cabin and wondered how much longer he could go with only a few hours of rest each night. Even the mild sedatives he’d been taking since returning from New York had grown impotent to bring him sleep.

He knew Proctor had warned him not to call again following their conversation last night, but each hour the vacuum of communication grew more agonizing.

Whittier was now staying at a motel in Mission Falls and commuting each day to Marcus’s cabin to prepare for trial. Marcus was helping plan the defense, but knew that Whittier could sense his distraction and indifference.

The fact was that the bank could still win this lawsuit. The Spangler statement fell far short of the evidence Neaton needed to actually prevail. Still, Grant was right: they could not try this case, though for reasons of which the man was unaware.

Marcus still had told no one about the subpoena seeking the Paisley trust account. Too many people at Paisley knew about the settlement and the unusual and secretive measures Marcus had insisted upon in the matter—including personally depositing the settlement check into the trust account. He’d be unable to hide the evidence if it came out at trial. Questions would circulate, and someone at the firm would eventually press for more information.

Marcus rose and padded through the silent house to the kitchen. He poured himself some orange juice and then sat at the large dining room table, now strewn with deposition transcripts, document notebooks, and legal research printouts.

Whittier was in the loop about the VA money, but knew few details—including how Marcus had cashed the Veterans Administration check through the Paisley trust account. The junior partner had
no
information about Anthony Carlson in Washington, or the man’s recruitment to prevent government audits from detecting the accidental overpayment of funds to Paul Larson.

All Whittier really knew was that Marcus was helping Grant to keep an overpayment on a VA check issued to Paul Larson, following the farmer’s death. And of course Whittier knew that his share of the proceeds was five hundred thousand dollars and a guaranteed recommendation for partnership. It was a sum twice that due to Carlson.

The sun now began reflecting off the ice on the lake visible through the picture window. Marcus walked closer to the glass, orange juice in hand, to admire it. But today it failed to move him.

Once he’d made the decision to hire Proctor, he thought this would all sit easier. Some moments it did. Other times his ambivalence tortured him until he longed for the act to be irrevocably done to banish the specters of doubt.

Whittier and Grant could not know about Proctor or what was about to occur. Marcus wouldn’t allow anyone else into that innermost circle of knowledge. It was not shame, he insisted to himself, but simple pragmatism. They might suspect when it was all done, but no one could be certain.

He finished the orange juice and set the glass on a corner desk to the right of the window. Each day he followed the same interminable pattern. After Whittier arrived around nine o’clock, they prepped for trial until late afternoon, when the junior partner finally left. Too unsettled to prepare his own meals, Marcus drove to Mission Falls for supper, returning in the early evening. Then the wait would begin again for some word from Proctor Hamilton that this agony was finally over. Until, in the early morning hours, Marcus would finally crawl into bed for another sleepless night.

Marcus looked at his watch. Eight o’clock in the morning. Whittier would be here within an hour. Another long day of waiting.

Richard Towers’s Honda Accord offered a new rattle as he drove down Main Street in downtown Ashley. Sounded like the muffler this time. But then his mechanical skills ranked just below his prowess with computers and all things technical. He’d have it looked at when he got back to St. Paul.

The echo of four church gongs sounded the hour. Richard had told Mr. Neaton he’d arrive in the early afternoon, so he was running a little late.

Despite a thickening of the falling snow, the street was busy. Students recently out from school wandered in packs in and out of storefronts, letter jackets and parkas predominating. Richard glanced quickly at the directions Jared had given him.

He must have missed the turn. At the next stop sign, Richard rolled to a stop, then cranked the steering wheel to the right, searching for a spot to review his directions more carefully.

As he completed the turn, he passed a truck parked near the intersection, directly in front of an American Legion Hall. Richard saw the driver behind the wheel, a gaunt man with a dark green John Deere hat.

Moments later, a tan sedan rolled past as Richard pulled into an open spot a few parking spaces farther ahead of the truck. Richard placed the Accord in park and picked up the directions sheet. He reread them carefully, trying to retrace where he had deviated from the instructions.

A man dressed in a dark jacket and slacks sidled past on the sidewalk to the right. The man’s chin was set back, his gait straight. His clothes were rough and unpressed. His boots were stained with mud, but his hands were clean and his face smooth.

Richard saw where he’d likely missed his turn. He reached for the shift lever to put the car back in Drive, casting a glance to his right hand side-view mirror.

The darkly dressed man was now passing within inches of the truck he’d observed in front of the Legion Hall. A quick look in the rearview mirror showed the truck empty, but the pedestrian had stopped and was peering into the back seat of the truck.

Richard did a U-turn and drove slowly back to the stop sign, planning to retrace his route on Main Street until he found the turn he’d missed. Stopped at the intersection, Richard noted the pedestrian now standing at the corner, to his left. The man stood a moment longer, then turned abruptly around and started walking back in the direction from which he’d come.

As Richard turned left onto Main Street, he felt the familiar discomfort again. Only this one did not play cat and mouse at the edge of his awareness. Why was a man scrubbed for a dress parade wearing clothes for the field? Where had he been so recently that the mud still caked his boots? What was this man with unmistakable military bearing looking for in the truck?

Richard shrugged it off—incongruous observations of matters irrelevant to him were a daily experience, sometimes several times a day. He was used to accepting that he’d usually never know the
why
of his observations, only the
what
.

He spun the wheel to the left and drove on toward the Neaton house.

Five minutes later, he pulled in front of the tiny one-story home at the end of the cul-de-sac described by Jared Neaton. There were no cars in the driveway. Richard checked the address again before walking to the front door and knocking.

No one responded. He peered in through the living room window, confirming no one was around.

He checked his watch. It was closing in on four thirty. Jared had given him alternative directions to the Larson farm if he arrived too late to meet at the house. The snow was quickening, but Richard hoped to spend at least a few minutes with Jared and his trial team this afternoon and evening to share some of his thoughts and offer any help he could.

He slipped the envelope containing his bill and report into the mailbox, along with a separate envelope containing the Larson phone records his contact had finally delivered. Then he returned to his car and looked over the directions. They said it was only about a twenty-five minute drive to the farm from here. He’d confirm his reservation at the motel and then drive out to the farm. He should make it back into town by seven, hopefully before the worst of the storm settled in.