Karen Chaney didn’t call Neil Dougherty on Monday morning to tell him what she had learned about Sam Larkin. Her head still ached and her back and muscles were stiff, but that wasn’t the reason. It didn’t take much of a back or many muscles to lift the receiver of a telephone. Larkin had given her an empty box of information, and she didn’t know what to do with it. The four missing years were accounted for—she didn’t doubt that he had been truthful—but he hadn’t mentioned the money and there was no apparent willingness, on his part, to cooperate or assist her should she need him. She felt no more secure than she had before their mutual disclosures.
Finally, unable to put it off any longer, she picked up the phone, then put it down again. She didn’t know what to tell him. He would want to hear all the details and would then ask what revealing herself had accomplished. Again, she picked up the phone. This time she dialed his number.
“Dougherty.”
“Neil?”
“Yeah?”
“Sorry. It didn’t sound like you.”
“I seldom sound like me. Part of my training as a covert operations specialist.”
“What are you on?” she asked. “Or are you just drunk?”
“No, Belle, I am not drunk, but ‘tis a consummation devoutly to be wished’. Unfortunately, I have to work, so that makes being drunk out of the question. What can I do for you. No information on Larkin yet, if that’s what you want.”
“Prison,” she said.
“Prison? He told you?” The word captured his attention.
“Yes, but it’s not what it seems.”
“Never is, Belle. Tell me,” he said.
Karen told him, in detail, everything she had learned. When she was finished, there was a pause before Dougherty spoke.
“Who was the judge? Did he say?”
“Hunnywell, Hunnycut? Something like that.”
“Sounds like something Thornton Hunnycut would do.”
“Who the hell is Thornton Hunnycut?”
“Used to be a federal judge in Louisiana. Had people calling him Senator before he ever ran for office. Corrupt as they come. I’m surprised he ever admitted his error,” Dougherty said, “but I guess when you are an ex-federal judge who becomes a United States senator, you can do most anything you want and get by with it.”
“According to Sam, he didn’t.”
“What?”
“Admit his error. A federal prosecutor called on Sam’s attorney. They worked out a deal, including the money I assume, though Sam didn’t mention that, and their absolute silence, as well as a complete expunging of the trial.”
“You mean his record.”
“Not from what Sam says. The whole arrest and trial was removed from the records. State, local and federal. It never happened, and there’s nothing to prove it did. Blue, how could a federal judge send him to a state prison?”
“Consider the state and consider the government. But it is strange. Hunnycut must’ve made one hell of an error. What’s Larkin gonna do?”
“About what?” Karen asked.
“You.”
“I was afraid you’d ask that,” she said. “To tell you the truth, Blue, I don’t know. Have no idea.”
“Oh, that’s great. You expose yourself, and you’re not sure you can count on him?”
“I think I can, but—”
“You can’t think you can depend on someone when you’re in our business, Karen. It’s hard enough to have faith in the people you work with every day of the week, not to mention someone with a questionable past who won’t commit to you. I think you’ve gotten yourself in a mess of trouble, young lady.” Exasperation turned to anger. “You should have better sense. I can’t believe this.”
“Blue, listen to me. I’m not going to jeopardize myself and whatever operation I have going here, which I can’t define at the moment because there doesn’t seem to be anything going on. At least I haven’t been able to spot it. I know this is a prospecting mission.”
“I did get one thing on your Mr. Clay. His name was mentioned in conjunction with the Descartè` investigation. Just a phone call in the records, but my eyes widened when I saw his name. I’m not saying he’s involved in anything, but it seems logical, all things considered. Could be anything. There were a lot of numbers.”
“I’ll see what I can find out. I pray he’s is a player. I need a target. The can is here, I’m sure. I’ve just got to find the opener to let out the worms. People are pretty close-mouthed and protective in this place. What else is happening on Descartè?”
“Just observation and investigation at the moment, but we know he’s networked. I don’t think he’s aware of what’s going on. Something will happen. Keep me posted if you learn anything about Clay.”
“I will.”
“And, Belle, don’t trust Larkin, not until he’s willing to earn it.”
“I promise. Good night, Blue.”
“Take care of you, Karen.” The phone went dead in her hand. She got up, walked to the window and looked out at the river. Sam Larkin’s house was over there on the other side of Matthew’s . So near and so far out of reach on so many levels.
“Damn you, Sam Larkin,” she said out loud and slammed her hand against the sill. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” She pulled the drapes together, turned out the lights and went up the circular stairway to bed.
When the yellow school bus creaked to a halt on the dirt road in front of Bitta Smalls’ house, Marvon Jefferies was waiting. Marvon’s bus came earlier because he was in middle school. It was all planned: Bitta would drop off his book bag, and they would head to Turner Lockett’s trailer, just as they had done the day before. Bitta had leaned a piece of scrap lumber he found in the yard against the trailer door, so they wouldn’t have to go inside to see if anyone had been there while they were in school. No one had come on Monday.
From their hiding place, someone would have to come through the woods and marsh to approach without their knowing well in advance. Sitting quietly and watching was exciting for the first hour, talking enthusiastically in low voices about what they would do with the money if no one showed up, less enthusiastically about what they would do if anyone did. After an hour and a half, they were tired, hungry and ready to pack it in and head home when they heard the sound of a boat coming up the creek. There was no reason for anyone to venture up this far unless they were coming to Turner Lockett’s trailer. The creek petered out not more than twenty-five yards beyond it.
Bitta Smalls struggled to keep from shaking. Marvon sat, eyes as wide as full moons, watching the creek for sight of the boat. Seeing it round the final bend caused their fear to grow even greater.
“It be de po-lice,” Bitta whispered, seeing Ray Breslin’s brown uniform and the gun on his hip.
“What de po-lice doin’ up here?” Marvon asked.
“Come to see de trailer, I reckon. What else dey be up here fo’?”
“Why you spec’ de po-lice won’ see dat trailer?”
“Man dead, ain’ he? Dey has to check an’ see what goin’ on,” the younger boy said.
“What happen he go inside an’ see what we done?”
“He ain’ see us do it. Be quiet.”
The boat eased into Turner Lockett’s sad excuse for a dock. Breslin got out and tied up. He carried a fire ax with him.
“What you reckon he gone do wid dat ax?” Bitta asked.
“I don’ know, but it don’ look good. I think we ought to get outta here an’ go home. I ain’ got no truck wid dis. Come on.” He started to get up, but Bitta put his hand on Marvon’s shoulder and held him down.
“I won’ see what he be doin’. Maybe he jus’ walk aroun’ an’ look things over. Dat what dey do.”
“How you know?” Marvon asked.
“I seen it on TV. Cops always walkin’ aroun’ quiet-like, an’ dey say a curse under dey breath when dey do it. ’At’s what dey do.”
Ray Breslin did not walk around and look at anything. He went straight to the door of the trailer, pushed the board aside and looked at the broken lock.
“Fuck!” he said and went through the door. “Holy Christ!” his voice echoed from inside the trailer. Bitta and Marvon looked at each other and would have run, but they were locked in place by fear.
He looked around the inside of the trailer in amazement. The cabinet doors under the sink were open, and everything stored under there was scattered on the floor. The ceiling light fixture was smashed. And it looked as if someone tried to pull the wiring out of the wall, for whatever reason. Had to be kids, he thought. They wouldn’t know what they were looking for, but then he didn’t really know what to look for either. Lockett was a crazy old fart. No telling where he might have hidden his money.
He began by emptying all the cabinets and drawers, throwing the hanging clothes on the floor and tapping on walls for hollow sounds, but the whole damned trailer was hollow-sounding. He emptied all of the open containers of rice, flour and cornmeal, thinking maybe Turner had stuffed it in one of those and just covered the top so it appeared full. None of them contained any money. Frustrated, he began pulling the paneling off the interior walls. Nothing. He didn’t have to get up on a chair to pull the remaining water-stained acoustical tiles from the ceiling; he could reach them from where he stood. Nothing hidden there either.
“Motherfucker!” the boys heard after the hammering and ripping inside the trailer stopped.
“Le’s go,” Marvon said. “He lookin’ fo’ sumpin’, an’ he ain’ gone find it. I don’ wan’ be ’round when he finished.”
“We try to go, he gone see us.”
Breslin came out of the trailer and looked in all directions. His shirt had turned dark with sweat, and his hair clung wetly to his forehead. He went to the edge of the trailer, got down on his hands and knees and crawled underneath. By lying on his back he managed to traverse the whole underside of the structure looking for any sign that the money might be hidden there. Satisfied there was nothing to be found, he worked his way out from under. Brushing off his clothes made little dent in the filth that had accumulated on the back of his uniform. Breslin was not aware of the six eyes watching every move he made.
The trailer was a dead issue. He had examined every possible hiding place. If anyone else came to check it out, there would be no question in their mind that someone had ripped it apart looking for something. The only remaining possibilities were that Turner buried it somewhere on the property or, God forbid, that someone else had found it. The prospect of locating buried money was unlikely, but he had to give it a try. He still couldn’t believe it wasn’t somewhere in the trailer. “How stupid could Turner be?” he asked himself silently, then realized the question didn’t make sense. “Not stupid enough,” he muttered to himself. Charley would not accept his not finding it.
He noted his position and began walking in a grid pattern, forward and backward and side to side, doing five yard squares. The only giveaway would be freshly disturbed ground or soft earth. He paced from the trailer outward toward the woods and back. Just before he reached the area where Bitta and Marvon had secreted themselves, they began to creep away. They had no choice; he would come face to face with them if they waited. They might have made it, but halfway to the tall trees, Marvon straightened up, and Ray Breslin caught the movement out of the corner of his eye. Kids. He started to run after them, but when he reached the edge of the woods, something hit him from behind and he fell forward.
Breslin’s next conscious thought was the pulsating ache in his head. He pulled himself to his knees and looked around; there was no one to be seen. When he stood up, his knees went weak, not from the blow he had received, but from the realization that the holster on his belt was empty. He fell to the ground, trying to shield himself from whoever had taken his weapon. There was still no sound or evidence of anyone being in the area. After a cautionary wait, he began crawling toward the trailer.
By the time he got to the dock, he was shaking. The more he thought about the kids having found the money, the more panicked he became. He saw two of them, but maybe there were three. Somebody had to have hit him. New questions kept presenting themselves. If they found it, what would they do with it? Who would they tell? They would tell someone. Maybe not. Maybe they’d just hide it. Unlikely. They were kids. What if they went on a spending spree? They’d get caught that was certain. Then they’d tell where they found it. They would also mention seeing him ripping the trailer apart.
He didn’t know what to do. The obvious solution was to get rid of them, but it was difficult to imagine killing little boys. It would be easy enough to get away with because nobody would ever find them. He could lose anything in the creeks and marshes. That would be no problem at all. But what about the money? With the kids gone, how would he ever find it unless he forced them to tell before he killed them. He had to call Charley. When he started the motor on his boat, he took one look back at where he’d been. He didn’t see the eyes looking back at him
“Nothin’,” he said into the telephone.
“Hard to believe Turner was that clever,” Charley Clay said, wondering if Breslin found the money and planned to keep it all for himself. He wouldn’t mind that. The money itself wasn’t important. It was someone else finding it that worried him.
“Charley? I’m sure someone else was there before me,” Breslin said reluctantly.
“What makes you think that?” Breslin described the condition of the trailer: the open cabinets, the broken light fixture on the floor and the wire pulled out of the wall.
“Sounds like kids,” Clay said.
“Yeah. That’s what I figure. I saw a couple of little nigger boys playing in the woods near the trailer.”
“Don’t use that word, Ray; it demeans you.” Breslin didn’t respond. “I’ll have to think about this. It could be a big problem. Whatever it is, it’s going to have to be resolved one way or another. Think you can do that?”
“Whatever you say,” he answered.
“Find those boys and watch ‘em for a couple of days and get back to me.”
“I’ll do that.”
Breslin left the phone booth, got in his car and headed back out to the road that ran behind Turner Lockett’s trailer. It was time to take an inventory of mailbox names. His head was still hurting, and the loss of his gun was as humiliating as it was frightening. It was out there somewhere in someone’s hands. He would never tell Charley Clay or anyone else he had been suckered.
Bill Reichert sat in his office with nothing to do. He wondered how he had filled all his time in the past. The fact was there were things to be done, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do them. He sat or drove. He went out to dinner rather than going home. Isabel had developed an unusual sense of detachment from him, virtually ignored anything he said. All of the normal things about him had ceased to function. He hated Mexico, Ortega, Las Brisas, Isabel, the bank, and sometimes he hated Morgan Hannah and what he perceived she had done to him.
Depression was smothering him. He was underwater and there was no surface. Morgan had killed him, or at least what he was. She was right when she said he didn’t know how to handle it. If it was love, he had tasted it and it was bitter. It would never happen again. Honestly, he suspected it was pride and ego more than love that brought this humiliation upon him. No woman had ever discarded him before. It was maddening because there was nothing he could do about it. In optimistic moments, he told himself he was waiting her out. In reality, he knew there was nothing to wait for.
Reichert looked around his office and saw nothing of value. It was a nice office with absolutely no personality. There was not a personal touch in the whole room. He could as easily have been sitting in the showroom of an office furniture store as in the office of the president of the Covington National Bank. There was nothing to reveal its identity. Looking at it and thinking about himself and where his life was at the moment, it was clear the office perfectly reflected where his life was at the moment.
He was also panicked about the millions of dollars he would be in charge of handling in a few weeks. Charlie had gone too far with all this foreign investment, bringing in more people, dealing with real criminals. It was a mistake.
He stood up, reached into his pocket for his car keys and left the office. He wouldn’t be back, he told his secretary. Everything was running smoothly as he passed the teller-line and went out the door. It would be fine. They didn’t need him. No decisions to make except where in hell was he going.