Leave the Living (10 page)

“Originally he wanted us to rob a bank, the First National right here in town. He had this crazy idea to call in a bomb threat on the north side of the city and time it perfectly with when the pulp train came through at the paper mill. Then he was gonna pop the tracks with some dynamite, enough to derail the train and block all the main roads to the south end of town, which would give us enough time to pull off the robbery without getting caught.”

Gary laughed again and looked at the ceiling. “God we were stupid back then. Anyways, in the midst of planning and trying to find out where to steal some dynamite, your dad was in the bar one afternoon after putting in twelve hours at the sawmill. Back then the minimum age to drink was eighteen, and he liked being superior to me and going in for a beer while I waited outside. So he’s sitting at a little corner table, and a guy comes through the door wearing a suit and tie, but messed up, like he’d fallen down somewhere and hadn’t taken the time to dust himself off. Well, this fella’s already drunk, but he gets a whiskey anyways and plops himself down next to your dad, starts talking like drunks are apt to do. Turns out this guy was an employee of Northern Trust Financial over in Felling. He’s on a bender because he was let go for coming in late too many times over the last year. Well, he goes on and on to anyone that’ll listen about how it was unfair because he’s got a wife with health issues that he has to take care of and that’s why he’s late some mornings, and if they’d have paid him more, he could’ve hired someone to watch his wife while he got to work on time.”

Gary continued to move around the table. Mick matched his pace and circled the opposite way.

“So he says to your dad that he’d shit down both legs if he knew how much money went through that bank and that they’re a bunch of greedy bastards for not paying the employees more. Your dad, he’s got his thinking cap on already and this turns on the light bulb in his old brain, so he asks the guy how much money? This stupid sonofabitch tells him that an armored truck comes once a week to do a transport from four local banks. He mentions the day, the time, even the guard’s names. He tells him that on a good week, the truck might be hauling two and a half million dollars.”

Gary stopped pacing and leaned casually on the back of a chair.

“Let me tell you, Mickey, it was a good week.”

“I can’t believe it.”

Gary raised his hand, holding up two fingers. “Scout’s honor. Your dad got the info, and he came up with the plan. We watched the truck for weeks, knew its route and where we were going to hit it. During that time, we snuck into Olson’s junkyard and found an old truck that needed work. Your dad and I fixed it up good enough to run and then stole it the night before the robbery. We had a canoe stashed in the weeds near the river, and after we ditched the truck, we just floated downstream about ten miles and then hid the cash.” Gary smiled in the dim light, the shadows making his mouth appear to stretch much wider than it should. “The canoe, that was my idea.”

“So what were you going to do if the guards didn’t surrender? Blow them away?” Mick heard the anger in his words. The fear and doubt when reading the letter came back but was overridden by rage. Rage at his father for being someone he never knew, for wearing a mask of morals all these years while beneath he was a common criminal.

“Nah, kid, that’s where your dad’s soft side won out. I wanted live rounds in the shotguns in case we had to defend ourselves, but your dad, he wouldn’t hear of it. We never put a shell in either gun.”

Mick stared at the floor, letting the typhoon of information soak into him. The sick feeling in his stomach rose and fell like a tide.

“Why are you telling me this now? You two have some pact or something?”

For the first time, Gary showed a hint of annoyance, his face falling into a scowl.

“Of course we had a pact. How could we not? You know how things go wrong or why shit doesn’t work out most of the time? People talk too much. They share when they shouldn’t and word gets out. Your dad and I, we swore that we’d never tell anyone, not our parents, not our girlfriends, not anyone. And we kept our promise.”

“I can’t believe this. You’re—”

“We’re what, Mickey? Criminals? Sure, we stole that money. And guess what? It got replaced by insurance, no harm, no foul. No one got hurt. Even the drunk bastard who let the info slip probably didn’t remember he’d said anything. I bet he laughed when he heard the news.”

“You didn’t hurt anyone? Really? How about all the people you lied to over the years? You never told your wife, and I’m sure Dad never told my mom because he sure as hell never told me. How about the people you cared about?”

“It was for the best,” Gary growled, punctuating the last word by slapping the back of the chair. “We had options after that. We could do what we wanted. We weren’t going to be bound to our father’s sawmill for the rest of our lives. We were free.”

“Free to drink and gamble? Great choice; you really went far.”

“What the hell do you know about it, Mickey? Hmm? You with your weird ideas and living in a skyline apartment. Life is hard for some and worse for others. Your dad understood, at least he did for a while.”

“Yeah, he understood enough to pay for your stay at Diamond Point, understood so you could just throw the treatment away after you got out.”

“He didn’t do that out of the goodness of his heart. He wanted me gone. Out of sight, out of mind, kiddo. That’s how people deal with the ones they love when the going gets tough; they send them away.”

“This is bullshit. I’m leaving,” Mick said, striding for the door.

“With what keys?”

Mick felt like he’d run into a brick wall. He stopped, the light in his hand shaking, jittering shadows across the floor. He turned back to his uncle, who had rounded the table and was leaning against the wall.

“You took them?”

“I had to. I wanted to make sure we could talk without you getting all emotional on me and running off.”

“We talked. Now give them back.”

“I filled you in, but there’s still more to discuss.”

“Give me the fucking keys, Uncle Gary.” Mick stepped forward, shining the light in the other man’s face. Gary pulled something from his jacket pocket, holding it out at waist level.

The pistol was black, but he had no trouble making out its shape in the flashlight’s glow.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Mick said, taking a step back.

“Talking to my nephew, just having a nice, calm conversation that can end really well for both of us.”

Gary moved another step forward, and Mick retreated, keeping the light trained on the handgun’s dark eye.

“You’re right about one thing, Mickey. Gambling’s my first love, always has been. Problem is, it doesn’t always love me back.”

Mick found his uncle’s eyes and held them, understanding washing over him.

“You lost it all, didn’t you? You gambled it all away.”

“Not all of it, just my half.” Gary smiled, but it was grim and without humor. “There was almost three million in that truck, Mickey, three million. We split it fifty-fifty, but we agreed it would look strange if we both up and bought mansions with cash, so we promised to spend it a little at a time. Your dad, he was a real hell-raiser back in the day, kiddo, he really was, but your mom, she changed him while they were together. Not in a bad way either. I wouldn’t ever say anything against your mother. I loved her like a sister, and it broke my heart when she passed giving birth to you. But that was the final nail in your dad’s past. He moved here and built this place, told me he was going to dedicate his life to you and making sure you were always taken care of no matter what. I never had someone to care about like that. Linda and I never truly got along, and when she left…”

Mick watched the gun and how steady it was in his uncle’s hand.

“So you want dad’s half, is that it? You burned up your own money and now you want his?”

“Hey, hey, I’m not a greedy bastard. I only want half, same deal as your dad and I had. I want you to take the other half and use it to better your life. I’m sure Aaron could use more therapy or treatment. Am I right?”

“Don’t you dare talk about my son. Don’t you say his name.”

“Listen, Mickey, we can work this out. I know you know where the cash is. I’m not stupid. That pirate stuff your dad mentioned means something. So let’s just split it up, and we’ll go our separate ways. No one ever has to know about any of this. I’m sure you don’t want the truth coming out about your dad, and I don’t either.”

“You don’t want to go to jail. That’s—” Mick halted, his words dying in his throat. “You read his letter? How? It was locked in the safe.”

Gary squinted, his lips pressing into a tight line. The gun rose an inch.

“You were going to steal it from him, weren’t you? You were going to take his half.”

“I asked him for a loan, just a loan, Mickey, and he turned me down flat. He paid for that treatment bullshit and said we’d talk once I got out, but he was lying. He wasn’t ever going to give me anything, his own brother.”

Mick glanced around the kitchen, searching for a weapon. A rack of knives sat two strides away on a counter, their handles ready to grasp, but there was no way he could beat a bullet there.

“I talked to Cambri a half hour ago, and she’s going to call me back. If I don’t answer, she’ll know something’s wrong.”

Gary laughed. “You talked to her on what, kiddo? Your cell phone that I took out of your jacket pocket this morning or the wall phone over there that I cut the line to while you were napping downstairs?”

The strength seeped from Mick’s legs. He glanced at the phone and then back at his uncle.

“Just show me where the money is, Mickey, and this’ll all work out.”

Mick opened his mouth to respond but a noise in the entryway made him stop. The outside door opened, the wind growing in volume, rushing across his skin in a cold draft before being cut off as he heard the door shut. Heavy-booted steps came closer, and Mick shifted the flashlight to illuminate the doorway.

Sheriff Reed appeared and stopped on the threshold, turning his eyes first to Mick and then to Gary and the gun in his hand.

“What the hell’s the meaning of this?”

“Sheriff, he’s got a gun,” Mick said, moving away from his uncle and in the direction of the lawman.

Reed shot a glance at Mick and then returned his gaze to Gary.

“I thought you said this would be taken care of by now.”

14

Mick hesitated, his movement faltering as he stared at the sheriff.

“What did you say?” Mick asked.

“Shut up,” Reed said, drawing his service pistol. He waved it in Mick’s direction. “Move over there by the sink and be quiet.”

“What are you doing?”

“I said shut up,” Reed said, leveling the pistol so that Mick looked directly into the barrel. The sheriff turned his head toward Gary. “Where’s the money?”

“I haven’t gotten that far yet. We were still discussing it.”

“Still discussing? You said you’d have it in hand by now and he’d be dead,” Reed said, gesturing in Mick’s direction.

Mick shifted his gaze to his uncle, but the older man didn’t meet his eyes. There was no acknowledgment on his face that they were speaking about killing a man he’d taken fishing dozens of times as a boy, attended his birthdays, and had bought him his first six-pack of beer when he was seventeen.

“My brother hid it well. We won’t find it without him. He’s the only one that can figure out where it is,” Gary said.

“I don’t know where it is,” Mick said, putting his hands on the counter behind him for balance. His legs were shaking, and his throat was full of sandpaper.

“You said it’s buried somewhere,” Reed said. “He mentioned some kind of pirate bullshit, right?”

“Yeah. What does that mean to you, Mickey?” Gary said, finally facing him.

“Fuck you.”

“You’re really not in the position to be insolent, you little prick,” Reed said, moving closer. “I can make you disappear. Make things look like an accident, just like I helped your uncle do.”

The words were thunder in his ears. Their implications snapped his head back as if he’d been punched. He blinked at the sheriff’s angry red face and slowly shifted his gaze to his uncle. Gary swallowed and licked his lips, raising the pistol he held higher as the wind screamed outside the windows.

“You…you killed him? You killed Dad?”

“Mickey, I didn’t mean to, not really. I just went out there to talk to him the other day in the woods, try and reason with him, see if he’d loan me a little, just a little. He told me no and then said that I wasn’t even in his will and I wouldn’t be until I sobered up. I…I don’t remember picking up the tree limb. All of a sudden, he was just lying there on the ground, and he wasn’t breathing anymore. And his head, it—”

Gary grimaced and then glanced down at the floor. Mick looked at Reed, whose eyes shone like hard stones in his face.

“And you made it look like an accident?”

Reed continued to stare at him and finally spoke. “I have your address, Mick, along with your ex-wife and son’s. Do you know how long I’ve worked without thanks for this rotten, fucking county? Where do you think I’ll stop now that I’ve been promised a million dollars? Do you really want to test me?”