Rivers to Blood

by Michael Lister

  She paused for a moment, but it was obvious that she wasn’t finished.

  Lonnie’s office held black-and-white photographs from the early days of the bank, color portraits of his wife and two daughters, and newspaper clippings from various significant Pottersville events, especially those involving the bank. Everything was professionally matted in expensive frames that matched each other and the office.

  One look at his family and you knew they had money. I wasn’t sure what it was exactly, but I suspected it had far less to do with their clothes and jewelry and the quality of the photographs than their features and the way they held themselves.

  “The other thing is they were patient,” she said. “It takes fifteen minutes for the safe to open. They seemed to know that. And they stayed cool while they waited for it. They were professionals. Never endangered anyone’s life, never even raised their voices.”

  “Sounds like you were quite taken with them,” Dad said.

  Ignoring him, she added, “As far as I could tell, the only thing that they didn’t count on was how little money there was in the safe. That’s the only time they seemed the least bit upset or angry.”

  We were all quiet a moment.

  “Recovering the money so fast has got to help with the primary tomorrow,” Lonnie said to Dad.

  He shrugged. “Maybe. Hard to say.”

  “Well, you’ve got my vote. And Jake has my admiration and appreciation.”

  “Did they sound local?” I asked.

  Everyone turned and looked at me.

  “Huh?” Cathy said, seemingly distracted.

  “When the robbers talked,” I said. “Did they have strong Southern accents? Did they sound like they were locals? Was there anything familiar about the way they sounded?”

  She thought about it, looking up and squinting as she did. After a while, she began to nod. “They didn’t say much, but they were definitely Southern.”

  “You got any thoughts?” Dad asked.

  I nodded. “A few.”

  “Any you’d care to share?”

  “They need to develop a little more first,” I said.

  He looked at me, frustration filling his face.

  “If I had anything worth saying I would tell you,” I said.

  He frowned and sighed. “Okay.”

  Suddenly, there was additional tension in the room, and when he turned and looked back at the others, no one said anything.

  In a moment, the head teller walked over nervously and stood in the doorway of Lonnie’s office. She was a tall, big woman, but her sheepish demeanor made her seem small.

  “Ms. Morris,” she said.

  Most professional women in small Southern towns are called Miss whether they are married or not. The fact that this woman, Cathy’s age or older, was calling her Ms. had to be a result of Cathy demanding it.

  “Yes,” Cathy said, her voice cold and intimidating.

  “We’ve got a problem,” she said, as if it was her fault.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s the money,” she said.

  “What about the money?”

  “Are you absolutely certain there was two hundred thousand in the vault?”

  Cathy looked at her in narrow-eyed, open-mouth shock, as if utterly appalled. “Absolutely certain.”

  “Then—” she began.

  “What is it?” Cathy said. “Is some missing?”

  “No, ma’am,” she said.

  “What then,” Cathy said. “Spit it out.”

  “There’s actually more,” she said. “We got back extra.”

  Chapter Fifty-three

  “What do you mean extra?” Cathy asked.

  I slowly stood, trying not to be noticed.

  “We got more money back than what was stolen,” she said.

  “Maybe we had more in the vault than we realized,” Lonnie said. “It’s possible.”

  It was possible for somebody like Lonnie maybe, but not Cathy. She would know precisely.

  Ignoring Lonnie, Cathy said, “How much more?”

  “They stole two hundred,” she said, “and we got back two hundred and fifty.”

  “Two-fifty would include our teller drawers and everything,” Lonnie said. “And they didn’t take those.”

  I began slowly easing out of the office. I finally thought I understood what was going on, and it made me sick. My head ached, my throat constricted, and my stomach felt like I had been sucker punched.

  “Where are you going?” Dad asked.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t feel good. I think I’m sick.”

  “Are you okay?” Goodwin asked.

  “No,” I said, “I’m sick. I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go lie down.”

  “We’ve got a cot in the conference room,” Lonnie said.

  I shook my head. “I think I better go home.”

  “What?” Dad asked in shock, his face full of alarm and something that might have been a look of betrayal. “Now? With all that’s happening?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll call you the moment I feel better.”

  “Okay,” he said in a way that communicated that it was anything but.

  Cathy stood and walked out to inspect the money. The others followed. Merrill broke off from the group and followed me out the front doors. One of the tellers was quick to come over and lock it behind us.

  It was dusk now, the unseen sun illuminating the world with a diffused pastel softness.

  “What is it?” Merrill said.

  He knew me too well to buy what I had been selling inside.

  “I’m not sure,” I said.

  “You need me?”

  “I might.”

  “You know how to reach me,” he said.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  I didn’t just mean for the offer of help or things he might do but for the things he wouldn’t do—like press me or become petulant when I needed space.

  He nodded as if he knew what I meant and it made me want to hug him, which, for his sake, I did not.

  I drove as fast as I could to Pottersville Medical Center.

  I found Jake in one of the small exam rooms alone. His left shoe off, the pant leg above it had been rolled up and a clean white bandage covered his wound.

  When I caught his eye, I shook my head.

  “What?” he said.

  That one word held his usual disdain but he averted his gaze and refused to meet my eye.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  He started to protest but stopped when he finally locked eyes with mine.

  I felt the urge to punch him, to close the space between us and just pound him until I felt better, but then tears formed in his big brown eyes, and I felt sorry for him.

  The pity didn’t replace my anger, just slipped in beside it and sat there, tempering, restraining.

  “I need my boot,” he said.

  I looked around and found it. When I handed it to him he made no attempt to put it on, just held it as he pushed himself off the bed and hobbled toward the door. Alternating between wanting to help him and wanting him to hurt, I followed as he slowly limped over to the door and started down the hallway to the exit closest to the room.

  We were near the exit when I heard the nurse rushing up behind us. She was a middle-aged gray-haired woman with an abrupt manner and a smoker’s voice.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she asked. “He can’t—”

  “Official police business,” I said. “It’s an emergency.”

  “I don’t care what it is,” she said. “He’s got to stay off his leg.”

  “He will just as soon as I get him in the car,” I said. “I promise.”

  “He’s got to stay here,” she said. “I’m going to call the doctor.”

  When she was gone, I said, “Think you can walk a little faster?”

  He picked up the pace marginally and we made it out the door, across the side yard, and into the car before she returned with th
e doctor or anyone else.

  As we drove off into the darkening evening, the street lamps beginning to come to life all around us, he said, “How much do you know?”

  I shrugged. “No way of knowing without knowing how much there is to know,” I said. “But here’s what I think.”

  Chapter Fifty-four

  “I think the plane I saw the day Michael Jensen escaped crashed into the river,” I said. “I think it belonged to Air Ads Inc. and a guy called Junior was flying it. You guys were doing your search and rescue drills on the river and a plane crashes down on top of you. And when you go to search and rescue it you discover that the crash killed Junior, right? He was dead, wasn’t he? Tell me y’all didn’t help him along?”

  “He was dead. I’ve never killed anyone––not even on duty.”

  “Y’all also discover that Junior’s not one of the good guys. So instead of reporting the crash you take his money. Was it just money or something else too? Drugs, guns?”

  “We only took his money,” he said. “We saw an opportunity and took it. Hell, it happened so fast we didn’t even really think about it.”

  I shook my head.

  We drove through town, the lights inside houses blinking on, kids still out on bikes and skateboards, young women in groups of twos and threes power walking down the sidewalks in skimpy shorts, pumping their arms and working their mouths as they did.

  “It was just money,” he said. “He didn’t need it anymore. We were going to divide it up.”

  “What the hell were you thinking, Jake?” I asked.

  “Only one thing,” he said. “Getting Mama a transplant.”

  For a moment I couldn’t speak. The dumbest thing he had ever done might just have been for the best reason he’d ever done anything.

  “That’s why you were so certain Mom was going to get one.”

  He nodded.

  “Your plan was to buy a black-market organ?” I asked.

  He nodded again.

  I shook my head. “Even if you actually could, which would be next to impossible, don’t you realize somebody most likely would be murdered in order for her to get it?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Where’s the plane?”

  “In the river,” he said. “Almost dead in the middle, straight out from the cross that marks the spot where Taylor drowned.”

  “That’s why it hasn’t been found,” I said, “why there was no debris field or fire. You’re going to take me to it. Is one of the search and rescue boats still at the landing?”

  He nodded.

  “So after I recovered from Jensen jumping me,” I continued, “I came to the landing with Dad to see if anyone saw a plane go down, and you guys, knowing exactly where it was and having just come from it, go and help me not find it.”

  He nodded again.

  When we passed the bank I could see that Dad and the others were still inside. There was no sign that the FBI agents had arrived yet and I wondered how long it would be.

  “The money was actually in the boat at the time,” I said. “In your bags. That’s why Goodwin was so anxious for everyone to unload their things to make room for me. It’s why Todd was in no hurry to get the dogs and get searching for Jensen. It’s why the equipment wasn’t in your bags. The money was.”

  He didn’t say anything, just stared straight ahead, wiping silent tears.

  “Junior was dead when you got to the plane, wasn’t he?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I think so,” he said. “How’d you know?”

  “What do you mean you think so?”

  “I didn’t actually go into the plane,” he said. “Only Todd, Shane, and Kenny. But they said he was dead.”

  “He was the lynching victim, wasn’t he?”

  He nodded. “Think so. Haven’t seen him but based on the description …”

  “From the autopsy result we thought he’d been beaten to death before he was lynched, but actually he’d been in a plane crash. That’s why he had water in his lungs too. Y’all hung him after he was already dead. But why? Why not just leave him in the plane?”

  “We did,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I swear,” he said. “I swear to God, we only took the money. We left the pilot and everything else in the plane.”

  I thought about it.

  “We couldn’t’ve hidden him in a duffle bag,” he said. “He wasn’t in the boat when you got in with us—just the money. Why would we go back later, pull him out of the plane, and then lynch a dead man?”

  As I turned onto River Road I couldn’t help but feel the action carried a certain inevitability, as if everything that had been happening had been leading to this. It was as if the river had been silently beckoning us all along—whether to the cleansing of baptism or for its waters to turn crimson with our blood I could not tell. Perhaps only the river could.

  “So who lynched him?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Probably whoever killed Turtle and that SEAL guy.”

  “I figured it was you guys covering your crime,” I said. “Figured they saw something—the plane, what you did, something, and y’all killed them.”

  He turned toward me in his seat, a slack-jaw stunned look on his face. “John,” he said, his voice full of hurt and betrayal, “you think I’m a murderer? You think I could … All I did was take some piece of shit’s drug money so I could save Mama. That’s all. I ain’t killed nobody. I can’t believe you think I could.”

  I had wondered why he had been so willing to talk to me, so open and honest. He’d only been confessing to taking some drug money—and for a reason he knew I would understand and empathize with.

  “You had nothing to do with the three murders?” I asked.

  “I swear on Mama’s life. I didn’t kill anybody.”

  “Doesn’t mean some of the other SAR members didn’t,” I said.

  He nodded. “True. Thought they were gonna kill Sandy. He wouldn’t take any of the money. Then he quit the team the next day. They thought he was gonna turn us in but I told ’em he wouldn’t. He said he understood what I was doing and that he’d do the same thing for his mom. Told them to give me his share but they split it evenly between the five of us.”

  We were silent a moment and I thought about it some more.

  “She’s gonna die, John,” he said.

  “But you found out you couldn’t get her a black-market organ because you had stolen counterfeit money,” I said.

  “How did you—”

  “You staged the robbery today to exchange some of the funny money for some real,” I said. “When I heard that there was more money returned than was taken, it brought to the surface all the other little things that had been bothering me about the whole thing, and I remembered Dad taking that secret service agent to the beach because a counterfeit bill was found down there.”

  “We got paranoid about the money,” he said, “so we decided to float a little out there to see if anything was wrong with it. We did it over at the beach so it wouldn’t be connected to us. If something was wrong with it everybody would think it came from a tourist. Hell, we were afraid it might be marked. Counterfeit never crossed our minds.”

  The winding road to the river was empty and dim, only an occasional streetlight and the half-moon to aid my headlights’ attempt to cut through the low fog that crept out of the swamps on either side of us and hovered just above the road.

  “Who did the bank job?” I asked. “Kenny and who?”

  “Fred,” he said. “How’d you know?”

  “Kenny’s size,” I said. “I knew it wasn’t Todd and Shane because they were in the restaurant when it happened. I knew it wasn’t you because I saw you playing your part. I wondered how you got there so fast—and so far ahead of all the other cops. That was the plan, wasn’t it? You weren’t responding to an alarm or 911 call. And you never had a shoot-out with the robbers. They never even went in the river, did they?”

 
He shook his head.

  “That’s why the boat had no trace evidence at all,” I said. “You guys cleaned it and left it where it was found before the robbery even began—just like the money. Drop the two bags of counterfeit money in the river and then tell your story when someone arrives.”

  He nodded. “Fred and Kenny took the real money out of the truck and into Kenny’s car,” he said. “Then drove the truck into the river.”

  “It wasn’t a bad plan,” I said, “but you guys only stole two hundred grand and you had already put two hundred and fifty in the other bags.”

  “We knew we couldn’t exchange all of it,” he said. “So—”

  “How much is all of it?” I asked.

  “Eight,” he said. “We asked around and found out how much the bank kept on hand, how long it took for the safe to open. Hell, I already knew about the alarm and the marked money in the tellers’ drawers.”

  “The bank keeps around two hundred and fifty,” I said, “but that includes what’s in the tellers’ drawers.”

  “We fucked up,” he said.

  “Wasn’t the first time,” I said. “Did you shoot yourself in the leg?”

  He nodded. “I didn’t mean to,” he said. “It was a stupid accident. Accidentally shot the asphalt and it ricocheted up and hit me. Hurt like hell. But helped my story. Least I thought it did.”

  “Did Turtle or the SEAL guy see you guys when you were at the plane?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Sure as hell didn’t see them.”

  I thought about it for a minute, trying to assimilate what I had learned from him with what I already knew, trying to go with the shift in paradigm I was experiencing.

  “You only have Todd, Shane, and Kenny’s word about what was in the plane,” I said. “Maybe Junior wasn’t dead or maybe there was a lot more money in it than what they told you. Or other things.”

  “They could have gone back and—”

  “Been seen by Turtle and the SEAL,” I said, though something at the edges of my consciousness nagged me.