The Deposit Slip

21





Jared trudged up the basement stairs into the kitchen. It was nearly midnight on Sunday. He had passed on an early bedtime to keep digging through the boxes. He rooted a Red Bull out of the refrigerator before trundling into the living room and dropping onto the couch.

Jessie was hunched over a computer, typing Jared’s document summaries. Erin had left several hours earlier after an afternoon spent organizing the boxes by topic. He noticed the empty cup of coffee on the table beside Jessie.

“So, Captain, you sure you want to continue with these depos, or slow down and finish reviewing the documents first?” Jessie asked over her shoulder.

She sounded tired. Jared had asked himself the same question repeatedly the past week. Was there a nugget in these boxes that he needed for the depositions—one worth delaying the process? Or was it all just fluff?

He’d scheduled the least important witnesses first and worked through them this past week. Jared always did that to give himself a chance to warm up. But starting tomorrow, he was closing in on the more hopeful witnesses—vice-presidents, account managers. Maybe he should put the last five depositions back.

No, he commanded himself. With only seven weeks before trial, a week or two delay was not possible.

“I don’t think so, Jessie.”

“Well, how about letting me help.”

No again. “Maybe,” he said aloud. “Let me see how it goes tonight. How is it staying with Erin?”

Jessie kept typing and did not answer immediately. “Fine,” she said at last.

Jared took a long drink of the Red Bull. There was a knock at the door.

Vic Waye, dressed in a khaki parka, stood in the weak illumination of the porch light. “Can I talk to you for a minute, Mr. Neaton?” he asked quietly, stomping his feet for warmth. Jared hesitated, then stepped aside and waved him in.

Jessie had slipped out of the room, Jared saw as he turned to follow. Vic wiped his feet on the entry rug before striding to the couch. Jared took Jessie’s empty folding chair.

“I’m here on my own account, Mr. Neaton. So don’t think anyone sent me.”

“Okay.” Jared saw Vic’s hands slide up his legs and grip his knees. They were thick, with pitted knuckles.

“Look, Verne—Verne Loffler—he was the guy that coldcocked you at the Legion Hall the other day. But you probably know that.”

Jared shook his head. “No.”

Vic looked surprised but continued. “Verne—he’s not a bad guy. I know that sounds pretty stupid after what he did. But he’s not. He’s a Vietnam vet—like Paul.” Vic searched Jared’s face for a sign of softening after this appeal. When Jared didn’t respond, he went on.

“Well, Verne worked at the grain exchange when your dad stole—had that problem there. The exchange cut some jobs right after that, and Verne lost his. Took him two years to find steady work again. He always blamed your dad’s problem for the job cuts.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Jared asked.

Vic hadn’t removed his coat and a sheen of perspiration began to glow on his forehead. “Because Verne had a few beers that night and Greg—he was at the table with us when you came in—he went and told Verne who you were, and that’s when Verne went off on you. Now Verne can’t sleep. He’s sure you’re gonna sue him.”

Vic went silent, staring at Jared.

Sue him? That was a thought. All he needed was more litigation in Ashley.

“He’s got a kid in college, Mr. Neaton,” Vic went on. “He and his wife live in a small house; he’s got no money—”

“Tell Verne,” Jared interrupted him, “that’s not going to happen.”

Vic looked at Jared uncertainly. “I’d heard you were getting ready to file something against him.”

“I don’t know who you’re listening to, but I’m not going to sue Verne.”

Vic froze on the couch, as though he should keep exploring the issue. He looked around the room, then back into Jared’s face. “Really?”

Jared nodded.

“Okay.” The hands withdrew from Vic’s knees. “Okay. I’ll tell him.”

Vic crossed the room with careful steps, looking like he was afraid he’d startle Jared into changing his mind. Stepping out on the porch stoop, he suddenly turned and grabbed Jared’s hand. The porch light lit up his look of relief, still mixed with doubt. “Thanks,” he said, as though exacting a promise.

Jared turned back into the living room. Jessie stood beside the kitchen door.

“Sue him? What’s he talking about? What’s ‘coldcocking’?”

Jared put a finger to his lips, pointing down the hallway toward his father’s bedroom.

“I had a little problem at the Legion Hall.”

Jessie crossed her arms. “Are we not communicating anymore?”

“I don’t know,” Jared answered, falling back onto the chair and looking up at Jessie. “So tell me, how is it staying with Erin?”

Jessie stared back sullenly.

“Out with it, Jessie,” he muttered.

Jessie stepped purposefully to the couch and flopped down as well. “All right. What’s going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“This case. What’s going on?”

“It’s a case, Jessie. Like any other. Long hours, hard work.”

Jessie shook her head, and Jared noticed how deep the rings were encircling her eyes. “No, it’s not. You’ve never taken chances like this before.”

“Big reward, big risk,” he said, knowing the words sounded trite—and worse, insincere.

“Stupid decisions, stupid results,” she responded sarcastically, her mouth set in a line between anger and resolve. When Jared didn’t answer immediately, she went on.

“Is it her?”

He caught himself before saying Who.

“No,” he answered, not sure if it was really true.

Jessie looked away, and Jared was knifed with regret, seeing the depth of her disappointment that he was not engaging.

He let loose a deep sigh. “Really, Jessie. At least not the way you mean it.”

Jessie looked back, waiting for more. “Whatever it is, Jared, you’d better figure it out. Because it’s killing us.”

“We’ll be fine.”

“Uh-huh.” She stood and grabbed her jacket slung over the back of a chair. “Well, tell that to Stanhope Printing.”

Jared’s stomach twisted. “Stanhope?”

“Yep. One of our last clients? Remember? Because they called last week and left a message—it’s one of the two dozen messages I brought back last time from Minneapolis that you haven’t bothered to answer. I didn’t have the heart to tell you myself, but it’s there on the message slip. They’ve gotten an offer for their business. From guess who? Our friends at Paisley suddenly want them back. Stanhope’s about six inches from taking it. And they’re not the only one. This is worse than the Wheeler case—because we never really recovered from the Wheeler case before you jumped onto this one.”

Jessie strode across the living room before turning at the door. “Jared, I hope you know what you’re looking for from this case. It had better be worth everything. Because that’s the price you’re paying for it.”

Jessie’s words echoed in the silence that followed the closed door. Stanhope? If Paisley was taking a run at that one, they’d also be after Pleasance Motors and half a dozen other clients he’d taken when he left the firm. If they succeeded, even the trickle of fees he’d been earning these past months would dry up.

Jared felt sick at the gulf growing between himself and Jessie—on the case, in the office, and particularly over Erin. But he felt an inevitability about this now, that it had passed beyond just choice.

He’d told himself it was about the money. But he’d known for weeks now the money couldn’t be what wedded him to this case. After pounding the pavement for evidence and deposing half the allowed witnesses, the possibility he was going to lose this case was mounting. Plus, he’d received the Rule 11 sanction letter promised by Marcus—another thing he hadn’t shared with Jessie.

If it had been about the money, he should have packed up and headed back to Minneapolis by now. And it wasn’t about attraction to Erin, either, as Jessie suspected.

Two nights ago, he’d had the familiar dream about his father, spread-eagle on the floor. The dream was coming more frequently since he’d moved here. As before, he’d heard his mother’s scream; leapt from his chair; run down the hall. But this time—for the first time—the face of the man on the floor was not his father. It was obscured, unrecognizable. And the voice that called to his mother from the floor was foreign to him too.

Since leaving Ashley years ago, he’d kept a tight hold—on his ambitions, his goals, his focus. Returning to his hometown, living with his father, handling this case. It had begun to feel like sand through his grip.

“You got into a fight at the Legion Hall?”

Jared turned, startled. It was his father, standing in the hallway in his bathrobe. His eyes looked sleepy, his hair tousled.

Jared shook his head. “No. It’s nothing, Dad. Go back to bed.”

Sam remained in the hallway. “Why didn’t you tell me you lost that other big case you handled, Jedee?”

How did he know? Jessie. She was working here all day with his father around. Jared felt the familiar spark of betrayal.

“You’re working all night,” Sam continued. “You look exhausted; Jessie tells me you’ve got a mountain of work back at your office. . . .”

“Dad.” He knew his voice was tinged with anger. “I can move out if you want. But don’t get into my business.”

“Have you seen the article?” his father asked.

“What article?”

His father retreated to his bedroom. He returned a minute later to hand Jared a copy of a newspaper.

It was this week’s Ashley Gazette. Jared scanned the top headline: Lawsuit Could Close Local Bank.

“When did this come out?”

“Monday.”

Jared skimmed the article. It described the lawsuit and the “risks” the lawsuit posed to Ashley State Bank. The fourth paragraph told Jared’s high school graduation year. It then gave a brief history of his legal career. The next three paragraphs were dedicated to his father’s arrest, prosecution, and jail time.

“This is ridiculous.”

Sam nodded. “I know.”

Marcus arranged for this article. There had been plenty of articles about the bank case. The difference was that this one highlighted his father’s crime. Marcus was trying to muddy up the pool, turn potential jurors against the case. In the process, he was also trying to make it harder for Jared to find sympathetic witnesses willing to talk.

“I just want to help if I can,” Samuel said carefully.

Jared’s chest filled with a mix of combustible emotions.

“I’ve got a lot of work to do” was all he let escape. He headed past his father and into the kitchen, toward the basement stairs.

As he descended the wooden steps, Jared felt that stomach-lurching sensation he remembered as a boy when he jumped from the fifty-foot cliffs into the rushing St. Croix River. That instant when excitement turned to fear as the fall went on and on—past anything he’d ever experienced before.

He could only wonder: when was the landing on this leap?





Jared awoke with a start and sat up. The cold metal on the back of the chair leached through his sweatshirt as he struggled to rise out of a disorienting haze. The room was lit by a lamp on the edge of a table spread with bank documents. An alarm clock on the table read four thirty in the morning. The chilled basement was silent except for the humming of a small space heater, blowing warm air across his stockinged feet.

Jared rubbed his eyes and looked around. Bankers boxes lined one wall, stacked nearly to the ceiling, three rows deep; the thinner stack of boxes he’d already reviewed lined the other wall. It seemed at once discouraging and incongruous: the finished stack was growing, but it didn’t seem like he was making nearly enough progress on the unfinished rows.

Jared straightened, stretching an ache in his back; glanced again at the clock. Asleep two hours. He grimaced at the stale Red Bull taste in his mouth and headed upstairs for a glass of water.

He’d stayed in the basement since the confrontation with his dad and tried to put it out of his head. It didn’t matter what his father thought, Jared lectured himself through a vague sense of discomfort. It didn’t matter how this impacted his father. The small penance his father paid by letting him use the house was nothing.

Jared wandered into the dark living room. A stack of Jessie’s typed document summaries sat to one side of the computer monitor. Jared picked the top sheet up and held it close in the darkness.

Tomorrow—no, today—was Monday. Five witnesses to go. Maybe this week would be better.

Even standing, Jared felt himself slipping into sleep and shook his head hard. Too much more work to doze off again just yet. Maybe another hour, then he’d catch some sleep before showering for today’s depositions.

As he turned to go back downstairs, Jared’s eyes were drawn to a thin line of light slashing across the carpet in the hallway leading to the bedrooms. He walked toward it. The light came from his father’s bedroom, the door barely ajar. Jared pushed it gently to open it.

In the dim light of a bedside lamp, his father lay asleep, splayed across the bed, his head angled across a pillow in surrender. Strewn over the bed were half a dozen piles of documents, each neatly organized and covered in sticky notes. A notepad lay near his father’s hand, a pen near his open fingertips. One of his father’s accounting manuals lay open nearby.

At the base of the bed were four bankers boxes, three with stacks of typed sheets on top. The fourth was open and empty and, Jared saw, the source of the papers on the bed.

Jared stood for a full minute, disoriented by the vision. At last, he turned away and headed back to the basement stairs.

In the basement, Jared walked along the stack of unreviewed bankers boxes. At the farthest corner, he looked behind the front stack.

Here, in the darkest corner of the basement, at least thirty bankers boxes had been removed from the back rows. Jared sized up the other side of the room once again, where the finished boxes stood.

How many days had this gone on? How completely had he lost control?

He had answers for neither.

Powerless, Jared headed up the stairs and to bed.