However Many More

by Bo Thunboe

  But what if Lawrence wouldn’t see him? Jake pushed that worry aside because he could do nothing about it. Besides, why wouldn’t Lawrence be happy for any break in routine after nearly thirty years here?

  Jake sat in a chair facing away from the glass and flipped through his notebook, reviewing what he knew and what he wanted to know that Bristol could help him with. But it wasn’t complicated; it was all about the silver. He put the notebook back in his pocket.

  Footsteps across tile. A nurse approached with a wiry man walking beside her. He was a slender five-six with the shoulder slope of a manual laborer. He wore khaki pants and a blue button-down shirt like his friend Mr. Martin, and his eyes were bright and intent. He clutched a black marble composition book. Jake had used one like it for his in-class writing assignments in Mrs. Swanson’s seventh-grade English class.

  “Here we are, Mr. Bristol.” The nurse had long straight hair running to gray, but a smooth unlined face. She guided Bristol into the chair next to Jake. “I’ll be back for Mr. Bristol in about fifteen minutes for afternoon group exercise. He leads it, so he can’t be late.”

  Jake thanked her, and she left without a glance back.

  “Mr. Martin-next-door sent you to see me?” Lawrence clasped his hands between his thighs, the book trapped with them, his eyes piercing. “That’s what Nurse Linda said.”

  “Yes he did, Lawrence.” Jake scooted to the edge of his chair and leaned over so he could keep the conversation as private as the big public room allowed. “He thought you could help me with something.”

  “Call me Larry.” Larry smiled. “That’s what Mr.-Martin-next-door calls me and you’re his friend, so you’re my friend too.”

  “Larry, I’d like to talk with you about your family.”

  “Lucy was my mom. My dad died but his name was Jonathan.” Larry sat the book on his lap and opened it to a page marked with a paper clip. He pulled a pen from his pants pocket. “What’s your name? You didn’t say it.”

  “Jake Houser.” Jake spelled it for him.

  Larry bent over his lap and started writing.

  Jake asked Larry a couple soft questions to get him comfortable: about how he liked living at Weston Oaks and how he liked to spend his time. Larry was open and honest and appeared comfortable with Jake and his questions.

  “Larry, I am curious about the silver bars.”

  “Secret, secret.” Larry wrote some more.

  “What’s a secret?”

  “I didn’t say that.” Larry closed the book.

  Jake didn’t challenge him. His eyes were locked on the cover of Larry’s diary. He’d seen a notebook just like it recently. More recently than seventh grade.

  “What do you have there?”

  Larry held up the book and showed Jake the front cover. A white card taped there said, The Life of Larry Bristol: June 1, 2016 – ______ with no end date written.

  “May I look at it?”

  “Do you want to read it?” Larry’s voice rose. “Momma said probably no one would ever want to read my books but it was still worth writing them. Momma was smart like that. She’s dead, God rest her soul.”

  “I do want to read your book. What do you write in it?”

  “It’s my about-o-pography.”

  “How long have you been writing about your life?”

  Larry closed the book and hugged it against his chest. “Since Mrs. King’s class.”

  “I had her as my teacher too,” Jake said. “I saw her yesterday.”

  “Say hi for me,” Larry said.

  “I will.” Jake reached out, and Larry poked the book into his hand. Jake smiled and opened the book to the clipped page:

  Jake Houser came to ask me about my family and the secret, secret.

  Jake smiled up at Larry, who gave him a tentative smile back.

  “Do you like it?” Larry asked.

  “I do.” Jake flipped back through the pages to get a sense of what Larry wrote about. He mainly narrated the high points of his day—meals and story time and routines for group exercise —and occasional observations like “Mr. Hemmings has big nostrils.” Jake flipped forward to the previous few weeks and read through a long string of entries describing a routine existence. Until the previous Friday.

  I have a new friend! His name is Henry.

  He is a friend of Mr. Martin next door. Henry came to see me about momma and Uncle Werner’s boys. He knew all about the loafs and I told him they were a gift to Momma for taking care of my daddy’s daddy until he died. I got the buns just for being me!

  Jake’s pulse sped up as he read the entry. Henry had found the silver and was trying to figure out its story. Exactly as he’d done when writing the book about his outhouse finds, he was pulling together a narrative of the artifact and the people who’d once owned it.

  Jake read on.

  Lawrence had had another visitor just this morning:

  The man with the angel’s kiss on his face came to see me about the heavy loafs. He looked a lot older but I still knew it was him! He should have worn a better disguise. I kept the secret, secret.

  Cole.

  Jake wanted to ask Lawrence about the silver, but a direct question about his “secret, secret” might shut him down.

  “Do you ever see your relatives from Texas? Werner Bunker and his family.”

  Larry smiled. “Great Uncle Werner gave me the buns. Just for helping Momma with her big loaves. I got one each for my fingers and toes.” Larry held up his hands and splayed his fingers wide, then lifted his feet off the floor and laughed.

  “Twenty buns?”

  “Yep. Twenty.” Larry nodded.

  “That’s a generous gift.” Twenty buns, and Henry had found twenty little silver bars. So the big loaves had to be the thousand-ounce bars. “What did your mom do with the big loaves?”

  “I put them away for her.”

  “Did you write about them in your book?” Jake held it up. “One like this?”

  “Yep.” Lawrence took the journal back from Jake and placed it on his lap.

  The rush of discovery pumped through Jake. He now remembered where he’d seen notebooks just like Larry’s: in the stacks of books on the floor by Henry’s reading chair. Henry must have found them in one of the boxes from the Bristols’ storage unit. Henry would have loved reading the old journals for the historical perspective on Weston. All Jake had to do was find the right journal and he’d know exactly where the silver was.

  He spotted the nurse coming back for Larry. He was out of time.

  “I know the man with the angel’s kiss on his face,” Jake said. He watched Larry closely.

  Larry looked down and away, then back at Jake from the corner of his eye. “He didn’t watch me empty the truck. He drank coffee with Momma.”

  “That was a big job. He told me there were five hundred of them in the truck.”

  “Yep.”

  “He said you did a good job emptying the truck, and he was glad to see you again this morning.” Jake didn’t like lying to this gentle man, but he needed everything Larry could tell him.

  “I didn’t tell him anything about the secret.”

  “Larry?” The nurse was back, her return silent on her soft-soled shoes. “Are you ready for exercise time?”

  “You betcha.” Larry bounced out of his chair and stuck his hand out for Jake. Jake stood up, and Larry grabbed his hand and pumped.

  Jake thanked the nurse, said goodbye to Larry, and headed for Henry’s house—and the stack of black-marbled notebooks.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Lynn stood in the doorway watching April put together the photo boards for Henry’s wake. She had boards propped up against the couch and photos strewn across the living room. Lynn had tried to help, but April said she had it handled and to go take a nap.

  A nap
was out of the question. April’s betrayal still had Lynn’s brain buzzing. How could April keep that from her own mother? Especially after they’d talked about whether the big bars even existed.

  A thousand ounces of pure silver. The police officer who carried it away was grunting like he was moving a piano. If April hadn’t been a high school gymnast, she probably wouldn’t have been able to bring it home.

  “What do you think of the boards, Mom?”

  Lynn pulled on a smile. “Very nice.” And they were. April had sorted through every photo they had, plus a box full of them the police let her get from Henry’s house, and had broken them up into four piles: Henry pre-high school, Henry in high school, Henry with Lynn, and Henry with April. She’d included pictures with as many other people as she could find. Which was smart. People loved to see themselves in pictures.

  “I’m sorry about keeping the big bars secret, Mom.” April sat on the couch and pulled Lynn down next to her.

  “I understand, honey. But did you have to tell that detective about the silver? She’ll—”

  “You’re more important to me than the silver.”

  Lynn’s heart swelled. She reached up and stroked April’s face.

  “And it worked, too. That detective’s got a bunch of cops searching Mr. Bowen’s house right now.”

  “Conner called?”

  “His dad’s lawyer is there, but Mr. Bowen said they could search.”

  “If he didn’t do it then they won’t find anything, right?”

  April looked down. “They already found Conner’s stash.”

  “Of pot?” Lynn knew April smoked marijuana. She’d never seen her do it but they had talked about it. April made her read a bunch of articles that said it was safer than alcohol. Lynn still didn’t like it. It was illegal, and getting arrested would cloud April’s future.

  “He could lose his scholarship.”

  “Consequences,” Lynn said.

  “Geez, Mom, I know. But saying so now doesn’t help.”

  Not with this, but teaching April that actions and decisions have consequences—consequences that could sometimes stretch on forever—was the one thing Lynn had gotten right as a parent. She’d certainly had no shortage of examples to show April from her own life. Divorcing Henry was just one of them.

  April shot a hand into the pocket on her hoodie and came out with her phone. “It’s Conner.” She looked at her phone and her face went slack. “It says, ‘The cops just went crazy about something.’”

  “What is—”

  “He’s typing.” April stared hard at her phone. “They found something in his dad’s office.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.” Lynn reached out to touch April’s hand but her daughter pulled away, holding one hand up in a “wait” gesture.

  “The murder weapon. They found the murder weapon in Mr. Bowen’s office.”

  “Jesus,” Lynn said. Bowen really did do it. “Did they find the silver? No—never mind. It doesn’t matter. We’ll be fine without that damn silver. It will be hard, but we’ll do it.”

  “We won’t even be able to pay my tuition to community college, Mom.”

  “Of course we will.” Lynn reached for her, but April leaned away, shaking her head. “Why would you think that?”

  “Because without the silver we have nothing.”

  “No, honey. You’ll have your dad’s money, eventually.”

  April’s head snapped up. “What?”

  “After all the legal mumbo-jumbo. You get his house and all his stuff. That’s why I wanted you to call your dad’s lawyer, Mr. Coogan. Remember?”

  “I thought Dad gave his money to some charity? A trust, or something.”

  “He put it all into a trust, but it’s for you, not for a charity.”

  Tears welled in April’s eyes.

  Lynn grabbed her and pulled her into a hug. “Oh, honey. Of course your dad provided for you. He loved you more than anything.”

  She meant the words to comfort her daughter, but they just made her cry harder.

  * * *

  Jake was sure one of the journals stacked next to Henry’s chair would lead him right to the big bars, just as they had done for Henry. Even if Larry had described the silver bars as buns and loaves, it would have caught Henry’s interest: he loved Weston history and the thrill of discovery, and he lived only a few houses from the Bristols’ old estate. And if Larry used the same “secret, secret” phrasing back then… well, that would have really grabbed Henry’s attention.

  Then when Henry discovered the “buns” were hundred-ounce silver bars, he would naturally have concluded that the “loafs” were even bigger silver bars. If money fever had hit him—like it had Cole and Trane—that’s when it happened.

  Jake checked his phone for a message from Grady. It had been almost two hours without a report, and Grady still hadn’t responded to Jake’s earlier text. He called again but it went to voicemail after a couple rings.

  He called Erin. “I have Grady tailing Trane and haven’t heard from him in a couple hours.” Worry made his voice rise, and he tried to bring it back down. “Have you heard from him?”

  “No.” Erin’s voice echoed his worry. “You want me to put a BOLO out on him?”

  “On his Jetta and on Trane’s truck. And talk to the downtown zone patrol officer personally, okay? Have him check the B&B and up and down the Riverwalk by Centennial Beach.”

  “Right away.”

  “What’s the status on Henry’s house?” His phone buzzed with a message and he hoped it was Grady. He pulled it away from his face to check the screen. Another Call me! text from Callie.

  “All dusted and forensics collected. The house and the barn both. Locked up tight and sealed with tape.”

  “Guarded?”

  “Let me look.” Papers rustled and computer keys clacked. “No guard as of about one this afternoon. Two hours ago. You think this silver is real and it’s hidden there somewhere?”

  “If it was at Henry’s, it’s gone by now.”

  “If you’re going over there, I can have an officer bring the keys.”

  “Please do.”

  It would take the officer a few minutes to get to Henry’s with the keys, so Jake called Callie. She answered immediately.

  “We found the murder weapon here.”

  “What?” He was so surprised his voice squeaked.

  “A hundred-ounce silver bar stuffed in the back of the credenza in Bowen’s office. Field test for blood came back positive.”

  “He let you search his house?”

  “He consented in writing. Trying to save himself after I trapped him with the alibi from Fox’s ex-wife. Guess he thought we wouldn’t find it.”

  “Hallagan was there?”

  “Yep. He tried to talk Bowen out of letting us search.”

  Callie had been working the case for less than twenty-four hours and might have already solved it. Motive, means, opportunity, and the murder weapon. Jake was so surprised one of the Texans hadn’t killed Henry that he was speechless.

  “Jake?”

  “I’m here. Sorry. Anything else?”

  “He revoked consent and clammed up. Insists he’s being framed. We have a search warrant on the way so we can keep going.”

  “You want me to come out there?”

  “No. I got this. Anything going on at your end?”

  “I’ve about got the silver part of it nailed down.”

  “Good. I’ll call you later.”

  The call ended. Then Jake said, “Bowen did it,” just to hear the words out loud. They sounded wrong, but if they were right, then his screw-up with Lynn’s phony alibi had almost let the man get away with it. His entire body flushed with a hot shame, and he apologized to his dead friend for failing to avenge him. Thank god for Callie. />
  He put the Crown Vic in gear and headed back to Redhawk Court, his spirits lifting as he realized that if Bowen killed Henry then maybe Trane wasn’t dangerous and Grady was fine. Maybe his cell phone battery had died.

  Halfway to Henry’s house, his phone buzzed again, this time with a call. He pulled over to the curb across the street from Centennial Beach and answered. It was Levi.

  “You find a connection between the Bunkers and Weston?” Jake asked.

  “Yep. The head of that Texas family came from right here in Weston.”

  “Werner Lafayette Bunker,” Jake said.

  “Must be why they called their sugar trading business WLB Foods.”

  “WLB Foods,” Jake repeated, thinking. “And Great Western United—GWU—was a division of the food company, right?”

  “Yep.”

  “Thanks, Levi.”

  Jake hung up and got back on the road to Henry’s house. Since Great Western United, GWU, was a part of WLB Foods, it would have been included in WLB’s bankruptcy. And if the lost assets of WLB Foods and the silver were one and the same thing, as Coogan had speculated, that explained why Trane was in town. He thought he owned the silver.

  So why was he keeping his purpose secret?

  * * *

  Conner sat on the living room couch, shoulders curled forward, head down. The room was full of cops, but they were all joking about something that happened at a bowling league and had forgotten about him. His parents had gone out on the back deck with the lawyer, where they huddled together arguing about what had just happened. His dad was insisting he’d been framed. Conner wasn’t sure anyone believed him.

  Conner sure didn’t.

  He pulled out his phone and looked around the room, but no one was paying him any attention. Not even the detective. She’d been on the phone since they found the silver bar, making call after call.

  She looked up suddenly, her eyes locking on his. She gave him a sad smile, then looked away.

  His dad had killed Mr. Fox.

  His dad was a killer.