Seeds of Trust

by Cynthia Reese

  “We have only Murphy’s word about it. He is surely not the most trustworthy soul.”

  Ryan shrugged, resigned and defeated. “He knew about the check. How did he know about the check unless she—”

  “I don’t know. But one thing I do know is that you can’t keep guessing about that money. Do you— You didn’t destroy the check, did you?”

  “I’m stupid, but I’m not that stupid,” Ryan told her. “First, destroying that check would put me on a slippery slope. Plus, even if I could have squared what I’d done somehow with myself, I know enough about banking to know that it wouldn’t make any difference. There’s a copy somewhere in some bank’s database.”

  “Well, I hope you have the original document handy. We can tell a lot about where J.T. cashed it by routing numbers and other info on it. If Mee-Maw won’t tell us where to find J.T.—”

  “She honestly may not know,” he protested.

  “If she won’t tell us, then we’ll find him.”

  Ryan blew out a breath. “I’m trusting you. You’ve told me that I can. I think…after last night, that you really care. You do, right? Jack would tell me that this was all some elaborate scheme of yours to worm your way into my affections—”

  “No. No.” She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him. “Ryan, I promise you. I will do what I can for Mee-Maw. I will do what I can for J.T. But we cannot keep concealing knowledge—or even possible knowledge—of a federal crime. I could lose my P.I. license…and we could both end up on the wrong end of a federal indictment as coconspirators.”

  He pressed her into him. “How do you know it will work out?”

  She tightened her hold for a moment, then stepped back so she could stare him full in the face. “I don’t. Even if Mee-Maw had the best of intentions, she could still be charged with accessory after the fact. She aided and abetted a person involved in a conspiracy to defraud the government.” Becca yanked her train of thought from going in that direction. “No. We can’t think like that. We have to know the truth and deal with it, the sooner the better. So, I think it’s time for a meeting with Mee-Maw.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  THE CORNERS OF Mee-Maw’s mouth pulled down in a frown. She turned away from Becca and Ryan, busying herself with the pot of peas she had on the stove.

  “I don’t know why you are so set on hunting down J.T. That boy has had a rough enough time, and if he’d wanted to stay in touch, he would have called or wrote or sent up smoke signals.”

  Becca exchanged a look with Ryan.

  “Mee-Maw,” Ryan started in a resolute voice, “that check you wrote to J.T. before he left—”

  “I done told you about that.” She slammed the lid down on the peas and marched over to the refrigerator. Mee-Maw occupied herself for a few minutes, shifting the contents around. “Need to throw half of this stuff away. Can’t find nothing in this refrigerator.”

  “Why did you write him a check for five thousand dollars, Mee-Maw?” Becca pressed.

  “Wages owed, of course. And expenses. Mac hadn’t got around to paying him back for a few things.”

  “Five thousand dollars?” Ryan’s voice was full of disbelief. “J.T. waited on five thousand dollars’ worth of pay and reimbursements? Mee-Maw, I’ve told you before—”

  She closed the refrigerator door with a thud and turned around. “He wasn’t ever that interested in money. Why did he need money, anyway? He stayed out in the pond house, we provided him with lights and water and he ate what we ate, when we ate. What did he need, except a little spending money for taking Charlotte out on the town? He didn’t do that very often. That boy was a worker. If you’d known him better, Ryan…”

  “Maybe you didn’t know him as well as you thought you did, Mee-Maw—”

  “Hush your mouth, Ryan! For a while there, that boy ate at my table more ’n you did, and I didn’t get this many wrinkles and gray hairs without a decent judge of character to go along with them. Whatever he did—or didn’t do—he did the best he thought at the time. And I for one think you should stop hounding him.”

  “Well…what about that social-security number, Mee-Maw? You did say you’d get it for me?” Becca asked.

  “I did, didn’t I? Well, I shouldn’t have. I should have stuck to my guns and let you and Ryan figure it all out, since you young folks think you’re smarter ’n me. Me doin’ it thataway would have at least let J.T. have peace for a little longer.”

  Mee-Maw set her mouth and refused to answer any of their other questions.

  Frustrated, Becca stepped out on the back porch. Ryan followed her out, slamming the screen door behind him.

  “See? That’s how it always is with her. She gets her back up, and there’s just no reasoning with her. She thinks—she honestly thinks—J.T. is going to get hurt or in trouble if we find him.”

  Becca dropped into a chair and put her fingers to her temples. “We need that social-security number and that check. Dad said he’d work on tracking him down without the number, but it will eliminate duplicate names and we can start to work on piecing his financial info together. The check, depending on where it was cashed, could give us a lead on his current whereabouts.”

  “I’ll get the check. It’s in Gramps’ office. I put it away so it would be safe. If I can’t lay my hands on any of J.T.’s tax info, our CPA ought to be able to dig up the social-security number.” Ryan shook his head. “I just wish I didn’t have to do it this way. I wish she’d understand why we need to do this.”

  “She does, Ryan. But for some reason, it’s not worth it to her. Or else, she knows something that would make losing the farm more of a certainty if J.T. is found than if he stays gone.”

  “Her refusal to explain anything about J.T. is really what makes me think Gramps did have something to do with that dodder vine.”

  Becca stood up and crossed the porch to Ryan. She took his hands in hers. “From everything that you knew about him, would he do something like this?”

  A spasm crossed Ryan’s face. “A year ago, I wouldn’t have answered that question with anything but a ‘No!’ But then…a year ago, I wouldn’t have thought Mee-Maw would have written out a check for five grand to a hired hand the day he left—the day we buried Gramps. That’s a huge severance package J.T. got. Becca, I’m so confused, I don’t know which way is up. But I want some answers. At least, I think I do.”

  A dull rumble in the distance broke into the stillness of the morning. Ryan frowned, but Becca recognized the sound. She stepped off the porch and shaded her eyes with her hand.

  Sure enough, a motorcycle rider was dodging potholes in the drive up to the house.

  “My dad,” Becca told Ryan. “He rode the Harley down. I should have guessed he’d be here by now.”

  Her father pulled up on the bike, dropping the kickstand and silencing the beast beneath him. He pulled off his helmet.

  For a moment Becca was afraid to meet her father’s eyes. Would she see disappointment in them? Resignation that, yet again, he had to come rescue his daughter?

  Before she could brave those eyes, her father pulled her into a rough embrace, then set her back from him. “I thought you said the bruises were almost gone.”

  “Well, they are. I’m better. Really.”

  Ryan had joined Becca and her father. He stuck out his hand. “Ryan MacIntosh.”

  Her father hesitated before accepting the hand. Becca knew in that instant, her father had sized up Ryan and come to a conclusion that would be hard to shake.

  The devil of it was, her father was usually pretty accurate in his assessments.

  “Matt Reynolds.”

  “Glad to meet you.” Ryan’s greeting was pure politeness, nothing more. After a beat, Ryan tagged on, “Sir.”

  Becca’s
stomach tensed as she registered the stiffness between the two men. It would have been a funny show of machismo if she didn’t care about both of them.

  She decided to cut short their mutual sizing-up of each other. “Ryan, could you go dig up that check?”

  Ryan must have recognized the hint for what it was. He gave a quick mock salute and turned toward the house.

  “Dad, did you find anything on J.T.?”

  “Nope. Not a trace. I tracked down his hometown from what you told me, found some family who says they haven’t heard from him since before he left south Georgia. They don’t have a clue as to where he might be. I could use that social-security number. There’s got to be a thousand John Thomas Griggses in this country.”

  “We may have a lead on where he headed after he left here.” Becca paused. She wanted her dad to meet Mee-Maw before she told him everything. She wanted him to see how loveable Mee-Maw was, how unlikely a player she was in this scam.

  But Mee-Maw was a player, no matter what Becca and Ryan wanted. Becca had no doubt that Murphy was growing more and more determined to make a move to protect his position. How on earth he thought he could get away with this, she had no clue, but he obviously did.

  “A lead? Good. Fill me in.”

  So she did. By the time she was finished, Ryan had rejoined them, a cancelled check and a slip of paper in his hand.

  “Sir, my grandmother swears it was back wages.”

  “Mighty convenient to have such a nice round number as the total. Any chance J.T. might be blackmailing your grandmother?”

  Ryan shook his head, but doubt pulled his features taut. “I don’t know. She won’t hear anything bad against him. I can’t imagine what he could possibly hold over her. My grandparents valued good morals over making money.”

  Matt Reynolds didn’t look convinced. “Morals can take a beating when the family homeplace is at stake—or when an old woman doesn’t want her late husband’s name dragged through the mud.”

  “I just—I know it looks bad. But I cannot picture Mee-Maw doing something that she knows is illegal. Or even condoning it.”

  Becca’s father took the check that Ryan had extended to him with a grudging hand. Examining it, Matt Reynolds pursed his lips. “Cashed in a bank in Arkansas. Looks like it cleared three weeks after it was written.”

  “Well, that delay could have been because Mee-Maw had to move money from the savings account to the checking. If J.T. had cashed it the day it was written, it would have bounced. That’s something else I can’t understand—she’s never written a check without sufficient funds. If the money wasn’t there, she didn’t write the check, simple as that. But this…” More pain etched into Ryan’s face.

  “Any more checks like this?” Becca’s dad asked. “Maybe smaller amounts? Especially since J.T. has been gone.”

  Ryan shook his head. “No, sir. Just the one.”

  “Well, if ol’ J.T. was extorting money, I can’t see why he stopped at such a small amount. Never saw a blackmailer who wasn’t greedy.” Her father turned to Becca. “You’ve been sitting on this?”

  “No, sir! I would have told you—”

  “Sir, it’s my fault,” Ryan interrupted. “I told her just this morning. I—I kept thinking that I would tumble onto a reasonable explanation.” Ryan toed the dew-covered grass with his workboot, but then lifted his head and met her father’s eyes. “Finally I figured…maybe there wasn’t one.”

  “We’ll be able to find him—at least his trail to this—if you have his social-security number.”

  “Yeah. Here.” Now Ryan surrendered the slip of paper. “I found the number while I was pulling out the check.”

  “Good.” Her dad tucked the number into his jacket pocket. “You don’t have Internet access by any chance?”

  “We have dial-up, if that will do.”

  “Well, okay. It will be slow, but what can you do? Lead the way.”

  The three of them entered the house. Becca’s throat tightened when she saw Mee-Maw at the kitchen table, her head in her hands. When Mee-Maw glanced up, she looked as though she’d aged another ten years.

  But her prickles still showed in her voice. “Ryan? Who’s this?”

  “Mee-Maw, this is Becca’s father—”

  Becca’s father didn’t wait for the formal introductions. He crossed the room to where Mee-Maw sat and extended his hand. “Ma’am. Matt Reynolds.”

  Mee-Maw grouched in response, then apparently remembered her manners. “’Scuse me.” She stood up, bracing herself with a hand to the tabletop. “These young’uns have been worrying me a bit this morning.”

  Becca’s father’s face twitched with more than a little amusement. “So I gather. They’re just trying to help you.”

  “So they say.” Mee-Maw didn’t seem convinced. “Will you be staying with us, too?”

  “No, ma’am, but thank you. I’ve reserved rooms for Becca and me in Dublin.”

  “I’m sure sorry to be losing Becca. She’s mighty good help with the chickens and all. But y’all will stay for dinner?”

  Becca felt her face flush as her father wheeled his gaze to her. “Chickens? I sent you down to investigate a fraud case, and you’ve been helping with chickens?”

  “Some of my best thinking is done in the chicken coop, Dad,” she told him tartly. “You ought to try it.”

  Her father expelled a long, overly patient breath. “What I ought to try is that dial-up connection. I need to make some phone calls, too. I want to find J.T. before the close of business day.”

  Ryan led the way to the office, her father trailing behind. Becca stood there for a moment, feeling a bit superfluous as she stared after them, but when she turned, she saw that Mee-Maw’s face had blanched and she had sat down heavily in her chair.

  “Mee-Maw? Mee-Maw, is there something you need to tell me about J.T.?”

  Mee-Maw put her head in her hands again. “The better question is, child, is there something I’m able to tell you about J.T.? And the answer is no.”

  * * *

  A FEW FRUSTRATED HOURS later, Becca’s father had come up with nothing.

  “I don’t get it. The man has to work somewhere, but my contacts with the Social Security Administration, the IRS and the Arkansas state revenue department say no taxes have been withheld on that social-security number,” her father told them as they sat together in Gramps’s office.

  “So?” Ryan let the question drag out.

  “It means he’s working on a cash basis…if he’s alive,” Becca said.

  Her father gave her an appreciative look. “Got it in one.”

  “He does farm labor for a living, working as day labor or even for room and board—wouldn’t be that hard to do,” Ryan mused. “He could literally be anywhere.”

  “My bet is Arkansas,” her dad told Ryan. “Is there any connection between Arkansas and your grandmother? Because I’ve looked, and there’s no connection between J.T. and Arkansas other than this check. Why would he cash a check there? Five thousand dollars wouldn’t keep him all these months if he’s on the run, so he’s got to have some stream of income.”

  Ryan frowned as he pondered the question. “We don’t have family in Arkansas, if that’s what you mean. I’ve been there a time or two for work, mainly to Little Rock. But Mee-Maw or Gramps…neither one of them had ever visited Arkansas.”

  “I’ll keep digging, see what I can find. It’s just going to take longer than I’d like. If I’d had this information days ago—”

  Becca stared at her hands, feeling miserable and incompetent. She should have dug this up sooner, but her dad had been right on the money: he’d sent her down to investigate, and she’d been feeding chickens.

  In the middle of her self-recriminations, a kn
ock sounded on the door frame. She looked up to see Mee-Maw, still tired and tense, standing there.

  “I sure hate to break up your powwow in here,” Mee-Maw said, “but, Ryan, Brandon Wilkes is on the back porch. He says he needs to talk to you urgentlike. Says it can’t wait.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “MAN, YOU’VE REALLY stirred up a hornet’s nest now,” Brandon Wilkes told Ryan the minute the screen door closed behind him. “Murphy’s in high gear. You know my brother’s girlfriend works at the paper, right?”

  A lump of dread coalesced in Ryan’s gut. “Yeah. What’s that got to do with Murphy?”

  Brandon dug out a folded sheet of paper stuck in his sheriff’s uniform shirt pocket. “Here. It’s a forced-sale notice. Melton over at the tax office faxed it over to the newspaper, told ’em he’d pay double to get it in this week’s legal notices. Said he should have put it in with the others but it was an oversight.”

  Ryan took the official foreclosure notice from Brandon. “Melton’s nothing but a stooge for Murphy.”

  “I know that, man, but take a look at it. It’s on your farm. Murphy’s putting the same squeeze on you that he did on Uncle Jake.”

  Nausea roiled up within Ryan. For a moment, his brain refused to wrap around what Brandon was telling him. Becca had assured Ryan that it was a bluff, that there was no lien on the property.

  So had she been wrong? Or would Murphy and his brother-in-law dare to create a tax debt out of thin air?

  One look at the Latin phrase, fieri facias, told him all he needed to know. The words that followed, like on the courthouse steps didn’t get put in the paper unless the county was willing to go forward with a sheriff’s sale.

  “I’m sure sorry, Ryan. Soon as I found out, I figured you would want to know.” The expression on Brandon’s face mirrored what Ryan was feeling. “This the first time you’ve heard about it?”