(2007) Chasing Fireflies - A Novel of Discovery

by Charles Martin

  When Ellsworth didn't answer his phone, Liam said, "We better check on Dad."

  "Not me. You. Old coot don't use much electricity anyway." Jack checked his watch. "They're cutting cards in twenty minutes." Without another thought, he hopped into his convertible and aimed the nose toward the beach, the pub, and the backroom Wednesday night poker game. Except it was only Monday. For the last several months, every night had been Wednesday.

  Liam drove through the hail, down the row of pecans, and into the yard. The peacocks were all spooked and roosting in the barn away from the wind, baseball-sized hail, and coming noise. Big Bubba was in the barn, the house was empty, and Ellsworth's truck was nowhere to be seen. Hearing a radio report of a tornado in town, Liam drove back to the bank to wait out the storm. He walked up to the door to find the front glass broken and a man in black wearing a ski mask rummaging through the cash drawers.

  Because Ellsworth had survived one world war, one depression, and countless attempted bank robberies, he'd become partial to carrying a Colt 1911. He had also given one to each of his sons when they turned sixteen. The pistol held more bullets than a revolver, and if you were looking at it from the business end, the sheer diameter of the barrel might convince you to do something other than what you were currently contemplating.

  The boys had grown up knowing how to shoot and shoot well. So when they joined the bank after college, it was assumed they would keep their Colts close at hand when near the bank. Liam kept his in his briefcase. So when he found the man in black rummaging through his tellers' drawers, he reached into his briefcase. Liam placed the barrel to the man's head, and James Brown Gilbert put his hands in the air and confessed every crime he'd ever thought of committing.

  That's about when all Hades broke loose. The tornado hit the bank, and Liam was lucky to get the vault open before the wind tore the roof off, which it did. Liam shut the door, and both men sat in the dark while the noise outside tore apart the world. Due to the portion of the roof that had fallen in front of the vault door and across every roadway in town, it was after dawn when folks found Liam locked up tight and dry in the vault with James Brown, whose rap sheet was already three pages long. They pulled away the wreckage, freeing the door and the duo inside.

  Not long after, Jack showed up fresh with winnings from an all night vigil at the poker table. The newspaper people arrived in time to take a picture of cuffed James stepping into the squad car and the police patting Liam on the shoulder. The picture ran in the afternoon paper several hours later: SON OF ZUTA SAVES BANK.

  Remember how they say "glory is fleeting"?

  Noticeably absent during all the chaos was Ellsworth. When he didn't show and didn't answer the phone, Liam drove to the house to check on him while Jack worked to open the bank. Despite the carnage of the storm, the bank's innards were in fine shape. People's deposits were safe with the FDIC, and on-hand cash had been kept safe in the vault. Nothing had been lost except the roof and furniture inside, so Jack ordered a circus tent, erected it in the parking lot, and set up business in the sunshine-which was glorious.

  Liam arrived at the house to find the lights out. He found his dad's truck parked in the barn, then noticed a maroon Lincoln Town Car with a white ragtop parked out front. Perry Kenner had been the bank's attorney since its inception. He was not only the second highest stockholder, but also Ellsworth's best friend. He had handled the FDIC filings and handled oversight of the bank's securities. Witnesses say the two men were friends of the closest kind. They often scheduled business meetings that had little to do with business and much to do with horses, fishing, or cigars.

  The amount of leaves and twigs covering the car suggested it'd been there longer than just this morning. Liam placed his hand on the hood, but it was cold. He walked up the porch steps, then pulled open the back door.

  "Dad?"

  No answer.

  "Dad?"

  The only sound was a wind chime sounding oddly muted.

  He noticed the tangled chime, spent a few minutes untying the knot that the wind had tied, and then walked through the back door into the kitchen and hollered again. The front door was wide open, and rain had blown in clear through to the dining room. He closed the door, began mopping up the water, and then noticed that his dad's office door was open-and water was coming out of there too. He dried the foyer, then slid on his knees across the wood to the puddle coming from his dad's office. He began mopping it up, but it was sticky-like somebody had spilled a Coca Cola. He went outside to empty the mop bucket, but the sunlight showed something else. The water was red.

  Liam found his father facedown on his desk, shot in the head. Across from him lay Perry Kenner-his blue hand still gripping the pistol that had killed them both. Spread across the desk-apparently the subject of last night's work-lay Ellsworth's last will and testament.

  But Liam's heartaches were just beginning. On the floor behind Ellsworth's chair lay another body. Perry's gun had killed one more. Liam rolled over the body and stared into the face of his young wife, Suzanne.

  Liam and Jack buried Ellsworth and Suzanne alongside Sarah Beth on a grassy hill in the Sanctuary where their tombstones would face the rising sun.

  Between the storm and the murders, questions abounded. So following the funeral, Liam swallowed his grief long enough to do what his father would have done-he asked that auditors be brought in to set the customers at ease. Two days later, auditors came in. Three days later, the bank was shut down and taped off. Two weeks later, a flashlight awoke Liam in the middle of the night in his bed, where his three-year-old son was tucked in alongside him. He was arrested and cuffed. This time the caption on the front page read SON OF ZUTA STEALS MILLIONS. Seven million to be exact. Seven million in untraceable bearer bonds.

  Because his alleged crime was federal, the district attorney placed Liam in Fulton County Federal Penitentiary, where he awaited trial in Atlanta. Ellsworth McFarland's last will and testament called for the orderly disposition of his estate, granting an even split between the two sons with managerial control of both the bank and Zuta Lumber left in the hands of the firstborn. While Liam got used to daylight filtered by prison bars, Jack became the uncontested Managing Director of Zuta Properties.

  During the months preceding the trial, Jack did two things: he publicly distanced and disowned Liam, and he rolled up his sleeves and learned how to become a banker. From newspaper to television, the rift between the two grew like the Grand Canyon. Because Liam was damaged goods, no one stepped forward to care for his threeand-a-half-year-old child. They said it had something to do with the sins of the father being carried down on the son. So, making sure that sin didn't go unnoticed, his three-year-old quickly became a ward of the state.

  Following the robbery, folks got itchy to know about their bonds. 'Course, when they heard that every single one of them was gone, they started screaming. To prove their point, a lynch mob gathered outside the bank screaming Liam's name. Technically, Jack could have folded his arms and closed the doors, leaving the town to wrestle with their own debts.

  Not many would have blamed him. In the absence of the bonds, regulators found the bank woefully underfunded and unsecured. They told Jack that he either had to come up with several million or shut the doors. Given that most of the bonds were held as collateral for loans, Jack looked at the balance sheet, rolled up his sleeves, and took a long, honest look at his options.

  Option one was to close the doors and walk away. Sure, he wouldn't be too welcome in church, but what did he care? He wouldn't be broke. Second option was to fund the bank himself. But where could he get the money? That's when he surprised most of South Georgia. Jack traveled to Atlanta and found a Savings and Loan that gave him a $10,000,000 line of credit using the Zuta as his collateral. With the line of credit in his back pocket, he met personally with every bondholder, forgave their debt to the bank if they had one, and then paid any outstanding difference out of his own money. That meant, if someone had secured a $90,000 loan w
ith a $100,000 bond, he forgave the ninety and paid the extra ten out of his own checkbook-or rather the S&L's. When folks heard, they said, "Boy's got his dad's character. It's a good thing too, 'cause the other one sure didn't get it."

  Word of an honest banker spread, and pretty soon cars with outof-state tags were parked out front. Around town, perception changed. Where once folks had seen nothing more than a footloose card shark who was a little too thick in the middle, those same people began tipping their hats on the sidewalk.

  Jack was no dummy. It required work, but he turned his misfortune into the bank's fortune. Within two years, his loan balance had nearly doubled and his bank was making cash hand over fist. He couldn't have printed it any faster. For each of the next twenty-five years, the ZB&T had its best year ever. The path of the bank's success was a moon shot taking its cue from the American-Soviet space race. Within a few years, people were whispering Jack's name and mayor all in the same sentence. A few even whispered governor. Jack seemed unfazed, content to work hard and make good on the bad his brother had caused.

  Six months after the robbery, William Walker McFarland was put on trial for stealing more than $7 million in bearer bonds. The witness stand was chock-full of unhappy people-including Jack and every other customer of the bank, which included most every inhabitant in Brunswick, Sea Island, St. Simons Island, and Glynn County. Six different tellers placed their hands on a four-inch Bible and swore "So help me God" that the bonds were in the vault that afternoon before closing. Four different police officers and two plainclothes investigators swore on the same Bible that the bonds were gone when they inspected the vault the morning after the storm. As the DA laid out his case, it became clear that the only two people in or near the vault who had access or any hope of getting into it were Liam and his new best buddy, James Brown Gilbert. The only other person who knew the combination was Jack, but his alibi was a hard nut to crack. Six people, including two exposed church elders who did not like facing their fellow congregants in the jury, swore under oath that Jack had been sitting at the card table with them.

  The DA put James Brown Gilbert on the stand, but they soon discovered what most in town already knew. James Brown was about ten cards shy of a full deck. When he said, "I don't know nuffin' 'bout no bombs," the jury looked at Liam and frowned. Then they swore.

  The jury made a simple decision. Called it a crime of association. Liam, and only Liam, was in the vault, and so were the bonds. By the time he left, they were gone. Given the storm, no one else had access or could have gotten away with it. This alone explains why the trial was short and sentencing severe: forty-seven years in prison-and 200 percent retribution. The courtroom cheered when the verdict was read. Liam's ownership in the bank was spread among the current shareholders. But that only paid half his debt to the bank, and because it was early in the seventies and interest rates were on their way to 20 percent, cash was in low supply-meaning few to no buyers existed who could fork out several million for timberland. To pay the remainder of his debt, Liam sold half his ownership in the Zuta to Jack who, with his own S&I. line of credit, paid him fifty cents on the dollar. The result did two things: it gave Jack 61 percent of the bank and 75 percent of the Zuta, and it gave Liam forty-seven years to think about it.

  Funny thing, no one ever found the bonds.

  Somewhere about this time, the reality of Liam's life began to sink in. Looking at a clean mirror, only one issue remained. Given the climate at home, the absence of family willing to step up and raise his son, and the fact that most of the town wanted his head on a platter, Liam decided he could help his son most by distancing him from his name and the stigma of his incarceration. Somewhere in a jail cell in Atlanta, he made the second hardest decision of his life. He signed over power of attorney for his three-year-old son to the State of Georgia. Further, he asked the state to seal the file-forever. That done, he lay in his cell and refused to eat or drink for nineteen days. When they took him to the medical ward and attempted to put an IV in his arm, he fought until he passed out, at which time they inserted the needle and fed him. When he awoke two days later under the heavy fog of sedation, he wiggled his fingers and toes, saw the ceiling instead of God, and realized that he was healthy and still in hell.

  The local incarcerated population learned of the silver-spoon kid gone bad, and to heap insult atop injury, they collectively renamed William Liam Walker. Within days, he was affectionately referred to as "Wil-Lee."

  Five months into Liam'sjail sentence, Jack arrived at the prison for an unannounced visit-the first time the two had seen each other or talked since the courtroom. The guards brought Willee in and sat him down. The room was cold, concrete, and dotted with hard, dull steel tables and chairs painted battleship gray. Every profane word in the dictionary, and some not, had been etched into the thick paint.

  Beyond the glass, the guards watched a game show and ate pork rinds.

  "William ..."Jack rubbed one hand with the other. "Something's happened."

  Liam leaned in and listened as though his ears were plugged with cotton.

  "It's your boy ... somebody ... somebody found out ... and well..."

  Like a dog studying something he didn't understand, Liam's head tilted, weighing what he heard.

  Jack spread a letter on the table. "They left this ..."

  A typewritten letter read simply: $4 MILLION IN UNMARKED $1005. WATERTIGHT. LEAVE ON TOP OF CLIFFORD WILLOWS CSA GRAVE, CHRIST CHURCH CEMETERY. MIDNIGHT, TOMORROW. No FEDS. OR WE'LI. SEND YOU YOUR SON IN A BOX CUT FROM YOUR OWN LUMBER.

  The only asset Liam had left was his 25 percent ownership in the Zuta. His 6,500 acres were estimated at $7,000,000. Five minutes later, he had sold it to Jack for $4,000,000. He kept two things-neither of which Jack wanted: the house in which he grew up and where his father and wife were killed, and DuBignon Hammock.

  Using his connections in the banking industry, Jack acquired the cash, noted the serial numbers, packed two duffels to overflowing, and dropped both on top of the grave. To protect himself and defend against foul play in case the deal went bad, Jack brought in the sheriff and a local attorney to witness both the packing of the duffels and the drop. They placed the money on top of the grave, sat with the engine running in the parking lot, and waited.

  The kidnappers never showed.

  An hour later, the three spread out looking for the boy, but there was no sign of him-or the money.

  The following day, somebody dropped the boy's burnt body on the courthouse steps, and the following day one of the prison guards slid the news article through Liam's prison bars. The State of Georgia let Liam out of prison long enough to bury his son. He was driven to the morgue, given fifteen minutes with the body, then driven to the Buffalo, where he canoed across to DuBignon and dug a 4x2x6-foot grave next to his wife's. A few hours later, they drove him back to Atlanta to serve the remaining forty-six-and-a-half years of his prison term.

  Walking back into prison, Liam shut off his mind, cut away his heart, and wrote "Willee McFarland" inside the collar of his shirts and the waist of his shorts. For two years, he existed. He read books, studied orchids, and talked to the hands that fed him food behind the cafeteria line. The glove-covered hands belonged to a female voice, and while she could see him, he never saw her. Until a year later, that is, when for no logical reason I can uncover, the governor of Georgia signed a full pardon. Willee McFarland walked out of prison-fatherless, wifeless, childless, penniless, and free.

  The pardon reads ". . . for hardship, time served, and evidence that has since surfaced that was not available during trial." Seems sort of weak, doesn't it? And no, I've never been able to find that piece of evidence either.

  Willee had walked almost a mile down the road when a ragtopped Mustang pulled up alongside. The driver stuck out a gloved hand, and for the first time he saw the face attached to it. Lorna Sanchez was a Mexican bombshell who looked like a cross between Madeline Stowe and Elizabeth Taylor.

  Before meeting Uncle Wi
llee, Aunt Lorna was a twice-divorced waitress and part-time housecleaner working the cafeteria line at the Fulton County Penitentiary. So when Unc tells you he met his wife in prison, he's not kidding. They met sometime in his first month and spent the next three years getting to know one another across the glass. Lorna says he wooed her with his charm and the way he holds his mouth when he talks. Unc says she seduced him with her spaghetti. If that's true, then she seduced a couple hundred men.

  "You can get in this car if you tell me the truth and only the truth, every time you open your mouth. From now 'til forever."

  He squatted next to the car and threw his bag over his shoulder. "Lorna, my daddy told me that at the end of the day all I've got, the only thing I can control is my word-" He looked back at the prison. "And to this day, I've kept it."

  Unc promised her a rather certain life of poverty, hardship, and endless hounding rumors. The two married and moved to his childhood home back in Brunswick.

  Lorna walked through the front door, saw the red stain in the foyer, and asked, "What's that?"

  "It's a long story, but it doesn't start here." He took her to the Sanctuary, sat her down next to the graves, leaned against his daddy's marble tombstone, and started at the beginning. A year went by, but Lorna's body would not give them children, so they jumped through some hoops and registered as a foster home.

  After all my research-and the writing of my thesis-three questions remain: First, who stole the bank securities, and where are they? Why would William Walker McFarland steal them? What did he have to gain?

  Second, the coroner said Perry Kenner didn't appear to have powder residue on his right hand. If he'd shot a.45-caliber revolver, chances are good there'd have been some type of residue. So if Perry Kenner didn't shoot Ellsworth and Suzanne, who did? And if he did, then who shot Perry Kenner?

  Lastly, who kidnapped William Walker McFarland Jr., and how'd they find out his real identity if the documents were sealed? How did the swap go bad, who killed him, and what happened to the cash? In twenty years, shouldn't some of those serial numbers have been circulated through?