The instant he stopped speaking, Jessie began. “I’ve been thinking that there are a lot of problems with this case. Like where did the money come from. If a jury’s going to award money to the farmer and his daughter, they’re going to want to know. If the money’s illegal, they’re not going to be that sympathetic, are they?”
Jared checked an audible sigh. “I get that. But they’re not going to like the bank keeping the money either,” he said. “And hopefully we’ll figure out where the money came from by trial.”
Jessie’s voice betrayed urgency. “Jared, have you thought about what I mentioned the other night? About it being so soon?”
“Yeah. I’ll take that into account. Now, did I get any messages yesterday?”
Jessie was worried and that was fine, Jared thought, jotting down the names and numbers of clients she repeated. But she wasn’t the one climbing out of a hole. She didn’t have the maxed out credit cards and unpaid bills stacking up in the living room.
His mind slid to the shattered windshield. He’d started the night thinking about his research and the Goering file. He’d fallen asleep to the image of broken glass on Erin’s car.
There was something to this case. The money and the account number so close to the farmer’s. The deposit slip itself. Even the safe-deposit box where Erin found the slip. The things in the farmer’s box were his treasures. Would he keep a fake deposit slip mixed in with his wife’s death certificate? His daughter’s report cards? The deed to his farm?
Jared realized that Jessie had grown quiet. “Is that it?” he asked, setting down his pen.
Jessie remained silent a moment more. “No. There’s one from Clay,” she said, and Jared heard the disapproval in her voice. “He must not have your cell.”
“So what’d he say.”
Jessie didn’t answer immediately. Just as Jared was going to press again, she sighed. “Jared, he said he’s willing to bankroll your office and case costs up to thirty thousand dollars if you take the Larson case. In return, he wants twenty percent of your contingent fee.”
The file papers flew as Jared threw off the sheets and sat up. “When were you planning on mentioning this?”
“Now, don’t get like that, Jared. I was getting to it.”
He bit back the response that came to mind.
“I just . . . I’m worried it’s too soon.” Her voice gentled. “So what are you doing today?”
Jared resisted the invitation to change the subject, but willed himself to settle down. Later, he told himself. He needed Jessie’s help. He had to let this go—for now. “Erin texted me a list of her dad’s friends,” he answered. “I’m going to start there and see what I can learn.”
“And you’ll be back when?”
“Later today.”
“Before you decide to take this case,” Jessie pressed quietly, “can we talk some more?”
He wanted to say no. It was his practice. His call. But Jessie took risks coming over as his legal assistant when he left Paisley two years ago. She gave up a large, financially solid law firm, surrendering benefits he still couldn’t match. She’d worked the long hours of the Wheeler case too, and taken several late paychecks. Now he was taking her for another potentially risky venture.
“All right. But not now. Let’s talk Monday.”
Jessie said okay and they hung up.
Thirty thousand dollars, Jared thought as he gathered up the file papers. Enough to assure the office bills got paid—including Jessie’s salary—and probably enough to cover the case costs the next few months. The twenty percent Clay wanted was fair and actually less than Clay could have asked just for referring the case to Jared.
But Clay wasn’t being generous. This was a carrot to get Jared to take a case his old mentor saw as valuable but tough. It was a good carrot—but Clay’s cash wouldn’t do the work or keep Jared’s remaining clients happy. And no amount of support was worth taking a contingent fee case he couldn’t win—particularly with a Rule 11 threat attached to it.
He finished putting the file back in order and then picked up the list of names Jessie had given him. The list made it clear that he was already falling behind at the office. Most pressing was the Olney case: he’d better call Olney and figure out when they’d get the paperwork done on his bond.
Jared dialed Phil’s number. The phone rang half a dozen times before the client’s familiar voice answered. Jared explained the need to get together next week to complete the bond.
“Jessie said you’re out of town,” Phil said. “’Cause if you’re comin’ back, I could swing by this weekend.”
Jared explained that he wouldn’t be back to Minneapolis until late that night, or early the next day. “I’ve got a new case against the local bank up here. It has some twist and turns.”
“Hey, Counselor,” Olney responded, “if you’re lookin’ for someone who knows about banks, I’ve got a guy who’s done some work for me on bad checks. He’s very sharp. There isn’t a rock big enough for a deadbeat to hide from ’im.”
Jared didn’t need a skip-tracing P.I. He needed someone who could tell him what he needed to know about banking practices and records.
“This guy’s very, very sharp,” Olney went on. “Takes a little gettin’ used to, but really knows his stuff. And listen—I feel real bad about the money. This guy owes me. Let me get you two together, work this off a little.”
The concern in Olney’s voice sounded genuine. Jared told Phil he could pass on his cell number.
Half an hour later, Jared was showered and headed out of his motel room to his car. He’d take a few hours and visit some of the witnesses Erin had identified. Most of the names on Erin’s list were neighboring farmers of her father. He would start there.
As he pulled out of the motel parking lot, Jared glanced at a blue Subaru parked across the street. The driver was turned away, talking on a cell phone. Jared steered left, driving toward the county road leading out of town, in the direction of the Larson farm.
“Old Pauly Larson, he never had nothin’ like ten million dollars.”
Jared could feel the spring beneath him on the seat cushion of the battered couch. Was this the fourth, no, the fifth farm he’d visited in as many hours? This farmer, the neighbor to the south of Larson’s place, scowled at Jared from an ancient rocker across the living room.
It was the last farm on Erin’s list. The farmer’s cold expression had scarcely changed since he’d arrived. Jared knew he was on borrowed time in this house.
“Like I told that other lawyer, that fast talkin’ one, you think Pauly’d be working over his 2755 Deere every night if he had ten million sitting in a bank somewhere? Not if he wasn’t crazy, he wouldn’t.”
Jared listened politely while Joe Creedy spoke as rapidly as he rocked. His wife stood behind him, nodding in supportive cadence. It was the same story in a different voice that he’d heard at each stop. Maybe a little angrier.
More wasted time, Jared thought, glancing at the spindly hands of a wall clock. It was nearing four in the afternoon.
“So you don’t recall anything unusual Mr. Larson may have said to you a few years ago? I know it’s a long time, but something that sticks in your memory about some windfall for Mr. Larson?”
“No, I don’t. An’ that would’ve stuck with me, things being so hard this past few years. An’ he didn’t say nothing to Susie,” he said, jerking a thumb toward his wife, “or she’d remember. She remembers everything.”
The wife nodded quickly.
“So that’s it,” the farmer ended.
These last words carried an air of finality. Jared took the hint, thanked the farmer and his wife, and stood to leave. “Thanks for your time. If you think of anything, please give me a call.”
“Um-hmm,” the farmer grunted noncommittally.
Joe stayed seated as Jared walked to the door and out onto the front porch of the farmhouse. He stepped down to the dirt yard, rounded the porch, and headed toward his car near the
farthest corner of the house. As he reached for the car door, he was surprised to see the farmer’s wife emerge from the back door of the house.
“Mr. Neaton,” she called in a quiet voice. Jared stepped around the front of his car to meet her.
“You know,” she began as she neared, “since that Mr. Goering visited this summer, I’ve been thinking. I do remember something. I’d prefer you kept it to yourself, though. Joe,” she said with the glimmer of pain, “he’d probably like me to stay out of this.”
Jared nodded his understanding.
“Pauly was closer to Joe’s folks than us,” she went on softly. “They farmed this land until a couple years ago. Joe and me lived in the trailer in the back and helped out until his folks retired to Tampa.”
“Mr. Larson said something?”
The wife shot a glance toward the house.
“Well, not to me—or Joe. But Joe’s dad came back from town once a few years ago and said he’d run into Pauly. He said Pauly’d asked him about soil money.”
“Soil money?”
“Money from the Conservation District. You know, government money. For not planting acreage.”
Jared nodded. “What did he ask?”
“Well, that’s what was funny. Pauly asked if Joe’s dad ever got an excess check. You know, one that paid too much. Pauly asked if that’d ever happened to him.”
“That’s all?”
“Yeah. Dad told him he hadn’t, and that was that. I just remember it because Dad came back wondering if Pauly’d gotten an excess check or something. From the government.”
Jared thanked her.
“You know,” she went on, “everyone liked Pauly. He was good to everyone. He’d help with repairs or hauling if he had the time. Quiet fellow, you know, but solid as oak. Joe must’ve liked him too because he took Pauly’s death real bad, hardly talked for weeks after. But Ashley State Bank’s got the paper on our farm like it did with Pauly, and we’re behind. That bank cuts no one slack. Joe’s tried to meet with Mr. Grant over there a half dozen times, and it’s not helped. Joe prob’ly doesn’t remember what his dad said, but even if he did—well, you know.”
Jared said he did and thanked her before getting into his car.
Soil money. Excess check. Maybe Clay knew someone who could fill him in on the likelihood of that and how he could explore it.
The afternoon was waning. Jared knew he had to make a decision about his dad. He hadn’t even called to tell him he was in town yet. Reluctantly, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and punched in the number.
“Hello?”
“Dad?”
“Is that you, Jared?”
“Yeah. I’m in town.”
“In Ashley?”
“Yeah. Okay if I stop by?”
“Of course, son. You’re in town? In Ashley?”
He answered yes again, and said he’d be there soon.
Jared approached the house feeling unsettled—like he always did getting together with his dad. The rage that used to surge when he was in proximity to his dad had faded years ago, replaced first by a sense of futility and loss that eventually numbed into general discomfort. He vowed that he’d never forgive him. But there were times—like today—when the vow weighed on him almost as much as the anger once did.
He had visited his dad’s home several times over the years. Still, he was always surprised when he pulled up. It was a tiny two-bedroom rambler at the end of a cul-de-sac where the road met the edge of town. The house was a third the size of the one they used to own on the other side of Ashley. Farm fields bracketed it, visible beyond the backyard. Overhead, a satellite tower loomed like a giant derrick from the empty lot next door. His dad would have been embarrassed living here when Jared was growing up.
Jared saw him now, on his knees in the front yard, stuffing leaves around the hedges beneath the picture window. That image also surprised: his dad never touched a hoe in all the years Jared lived under his roof.
“Son!” Samuel Neaton called, wiping his hands on his pant legs.
His excitement when Jared visited only fueled the discomfort. As Jared extended his hand his father grasped it like a lifeline and pumped excitedly.
Inside the house, Jared looked around the spare living room. A set of keys and a wallet lay beside a Bible on an entryway table; the few end tables held knickknacks Jared recognized from their old home. An assortment of framed pictures of his mother and him lined the walls.
The mantel was adorned with a photograph of the Ashley First Lutheran Church. Jared swallowed a surge of disdain.
“I just got back from a Saturday service,” his dad said, waving him to a chair and offering him coffee or pop.
It had been several months since they’d last spoken. As his dad settled into a chair across the room, Jared asked about his work as the church grounds keeper, the job he had held for seven years now.
“It’s going fine. Pastor Tufts has been at First Lutheran four years now. He’s still pretty young, but a good man.”
Jared could hear the caution in his father’s voice as he lingered on the church. Jared recalled the First Lutheran sanctuary on Sunday mornings growing up and remembered sitting with his parents, singing hymns while dust motes hovered overhead, glowing with the light passing through rich panes of stained glass. He could picture his father, a church elder, standing beside the pastor at the pulpit, and recalled some of the good times he’d had with friends at youth group meetings.
Still, he’d not been inside First Lutheran—or any church—since he’d left Ashley. He couldn’t imagine when that would change. The only betrayal in his life that approached his father’s fall from grace was the failure of the pastor or a single church elder to visit his mother in the wake of his father’s fall.
His father knew better than to linger on a topic that had spawned so many arguments over the years, and he soon launched a new subject.
“So, does that same legal secretary still work with you?”
“Jessie. Yeah. She’s stuck it out with me so far.”
His father’s face was tanned under white hair. He looked younger than his sixty years. Maybe lost a few pounds too. Working outside agreed with him, Jared thought.
“Dating anybody?” his father asked.
“No. It’s been pretty busy since I left the other firm.”
“I don’t remember you dating anyone when you were at that other firm either.”
When Jared remained silent following his last comment, Samuel smiled, looking embarrassed, and asked, “So why are you here in Ashley?”
This was the reason he’d made this pilgrimage in the first place. If he was going to consider a case that would land him in Ashley for a while, he wouldn’t just sneak in and out of town. He had to let his dad know he might be around.
“I’m looking at a case up here.”
His dad nodded, looking uncertain how much he could ask. “So, can you tell me about it?”
Jared explained about the case, repeatedly making clear he was only considering it.
“What happened with that other big case you were handling? I thought that was coming up for trial.”
Jared had never told his dad the Wheeler case had gone to trial, nor the result, but wasn’t sure why. Right now, whatever his father thought was of no consequence to him. “It went away. Dismissed.”
His dad moved on. Within half an hour, they’d run out of safe topics. The longer Jared sat in this room, surrounded by skeletal relics of the family, the more old feelings welled up. This was why his dad never stayed with him when visiting Minneapolis. Samuel never asked and Jared never offered. With years of practice, they had discovered their margins of safety and respected them.
“I’ve got to go—early morning,” Jared said at last and stood to leave. His dad followed.
“Talk to your mom lately?” Samuel asked.
This was not one of the safe topics, and Jared felt a tug of annoyance.
“Some. I visited her over Fo
urth of July.”
They approached the door together.
“I spoke to your mother last week. Sounds like she’s moving into a new townhouse north of downtown Columbus. Likes her new job too.”
Sam made it all sound so normal—as though she would emerge any moment from the kitchen with tea and cookies and join in the conversation. Jared felt his restraint slipping.
“I may give her a call tonight,” Samuel went on.
Jared was nearly out of the door when the words tumbled out, razor-edged.
“Dad, are you going to divorce Mom one of these days? It’s been seven years since you separated.”
His father looked startled. “Your mother’s never asked.”
“Have you offered?”
“No,” Sam said, staring. “But the church, Jared. I don’t know what they’d think about it.”
“Well, did you check with the church before you stole the money, Dad?” Jared lashed back.
The worst thing when Jared let his anger speak was looking into his dad’s eyes. They showed no fight, only a rush of unexpected pain. It drained all the satisfaction out of the rage, seeing his dad like a fighter who wouldn’t raise his gloves.
“Forget it,” Jared said, retreating out the door and onto the front step. “I’ll let you know when I’m coming back into town.”
As he dropped into his car seat, rammed the car into drive, and sped away up the cul-de-sac, he expected the satisfaction of righteous anger. Instead, he felt only the whisper of something that might have been shame.
10
Jared’s cell went off at nine the following day. He didn’t expect anyone to call on a Sunday morning, and nearly didn’t answer when the caller ID was unfamiliar.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Neaton?” a cautious voice asked.
“Yeah.”
“It’s Richard. Richard Towers. I’m an investigator. I’ve worked with Phil Olney.”
The voice was so quiet that Jared was forced to press the phone hard against his ear.
The Deposit Slip Page 6
