The Deposit Slip

48





They could have asked for more, Jared knew. Perhaps they should have. After all, Paisley was about to face a mountain of ethics charges—probably a criminal investigation—and had every incentive to settle quickly to show their “shock” at Marcus’s actions, their desire to make things right.

But Erin wanted this over, and Jared advised that a million dollars was probably the breaking point between Paisley’s interest in a quick resolution and willingness to fight. That fight would have included attacking her father for receiving and trying to keep the money in the first place.

The latter was very important to Erin because—now that all the facts were out—she was only beginning to grieve her father’s theft of the funds. Carlos and Vic had consoled her with repeated assurances of Paul Larson’s remorse about keeping the money, his desire to do the right thing. But no one could confirm that. Marcus was dead, and Sidney Grant hadn’t opened his mouth to recite anything more than the Fifth Amendment.

The checks and letters arrived from Paisley, exactly one week after Jared’s meeting with Whittier. Per Jared’s request, they were sent to his father’s home. Now was the time to collect them and drive out to deliver them to Erin. But before they met, he first needed to speak with his father.

The house was empty and the letters unopened on the kitchen table when he arrived. Jared pocketed them and returned to his car to search for his dad.

An unseasonably warm spell the past week had melted some of the snow from lawns and roofs, but today the town was chilled again by a blustery wind. Jared drove to the church, wondering if his father might be working, but Samuel wasn’t there. Next, Jared tried the library, where Mrs. Huddleston said she had not seen him.

Half an hour later he recognized his father’s car in the lot at Skyler Park and spied a lone figure sitting on the wooden stands, wrapped in a winter coat. Jared parked and walked in Samuel’s direction.

His father didn’t stir until Jared was nearly upon him.

“Cold day to be out here, Dad.”

Samuel tossed him a brief smile. “I’m fine.”

Jared sat beside his father and joined him in studying the snowy diamond. “Do you remember the night against the Mission Falls Tigers when we got that double play in the last inning?” he asked.

“Of course. Your junior year. A great throw. You were quite a second baseman.”

“No. But I could hit the ball.”

“You were always your own worst critic,” his father disagreed.

Jared felt surprise at the comment. Several minutes passed, silent and unmoving. Though the cold seeped through his thin jacket, Jared did not feel like interrupting the moment, and so they sat together looking at the field.

His father spoke first. “I saw they arrested Sidney Grant.”

“Yeah.”

“And it looks like Joe Creedy’s going to recover from his wound?”

“I read that too. He’ll be healthy enough for his trial. Looks like Ashley’s got something to chew on for another ten years.”

His father nodded. “Are you glad the case is over, Jedee?”

Jared nodded.

“Satisfied?”

He shrugged. “There are a few loose ends. Actually, maybe you can help me there.”

Samuel looked at him. “What do you mean?”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the envelopes with the two checks.

“Dad, these envelopes have two checks totaling more money than I’ve ever seen in my life. Most of it is going back to the feds. But a million-dollar reward and a million dollars from Paisley, less my fees and costs, is headed into Erin Larson’s hands.”

“That’s great, Jedee. I’m glad for her.”

Jared shook his head. “I’m not. It could be ten times that amount, and it couldn’t stem the disappointment and betrayal that Erin is going to carry around the rest of her life about her father.” He paused, then added, not unkindly, “You and I know something about that, Dad.”

His father’s eyes looked weary, Jared thought. Worried too—perhaps at where this was going. Jared ached at the thought of how many times he’d contributed to that careworn look. He looked away, back toward the field. “Dad, I can bring Erin the money. But I can’t offer anything else. And I want to.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Samuel asked cautiously.

“Because I want you to tell me what Paul Larson said when he called you the afternoon before he died.”

The shock that settled over Samuel’s features lasted only a moment, but in that interval Jared half expected him to take his place behind the stands, pacing and fretting, the worried father unable to control events. Then the alarm melted from his father’s eyes, replaced by a mystified look of surrender.

“Did the pastor tell you?”

“No. I got Paul Larson’s phone records.”

A grudging smile appeared, and Samuel shook his head. “I always was impressed with your smarts, Jedee.”

“What did Paul Larson say to you?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because just like he did with Pastor Tufts, Paul Larson made me swear, on everything that’s holy to me, to never tell a living soul.”

“Haven’t things changed, Dad? With his death—the lawsuit over? I think Paul Larson would want you to share anything that would help Erin sort this out.”

The conflict playing out on his father’s face told Jared he’d struck a chord. Just once more, he told himself, he’d allow his father’s guilt to play out for this one last cause.

Samuel closed his eyes, looking overwhelmed.

“I’ve prayed about this since the day the lawsuit started, Jedee,” he began softly. “Then when you got into the case, I could hardly sleep. But if I could’ve kept what I did from you and your mother, I probably would have. So how could I reveal his secret: especially to Erin—the person Paul most wanted to hide it from? I did everything I could to help you on the case, except break my word.”

Jared waited for a moment, wondering if he should press for more when his father went on.

“But I guess it’s a fool who can’t see when things have changed.” He leaned back against the next row of the stands and closed his eyes.

“Paul called that afternoon before his crash. He said Pastor Tufts recommended he talk to me. He came over that night.”

Samuel looked up at Jared. “He stayed for three hours. Sat on that ratty couch of mine and told me that he’d kept some money he didn’t deserve, then passed it to Sidney Grant. Said he’d worked out some kind of split with Grant for help concealing it. Then he changed his mind and demanded Grant return the money—said he’d go to the authorities if he didn’t. Grant wouldn’t give back the money, and Paul couldn’t get around to turning himself in. They were stalemated for years.”

“Did he ask you what he should do?”

Samuel nodded. “I told him to tell whoever he must to get it over with. Anything was better than what I put myself and my family through. It was the moral thing to do—but also just the best thing for everyone. That’s what I told him. But he already knew that. He was looking for a push.”

“What was stopping him?”

His father shook his head. “And here I was just saying how clever you are.”

“Erin.”

“Yes.”

“That’s important. She’ll want to know if he really was planning to make it right.”

Samuel nodded yes again. “He was. Soon. He planned to have a meeting with Grant to give him the final choice that they either returned the money together or Paul dealt with it himself. But he was still trying to figure out what to say to Erin first.”

The wind rustled through acres of uncut cornstalks behind the fence line. Jared listened to the sound, weighing how best to share all this with Erin.

“Was that the loose end you needed to tie up?”

“One of them.” He paused again. “Dad, do you pray often?”

“All day long when I’m working. I tell the pastor that the gardening is just to keep my hands busy since I’m kneeling already.”

Jared thought back to everything that had happened the past several months—and particularly to his thoughts the evening on the Areopagus.

“How about when I was in Greece?”

His father smiled. “Jedee, especially when you were in Greece.”





Jessie’s car was full of boxes and office supplies as she started her drive from Ashley toward the highway taking her back to the Twin Cities. She’d made a detour to fill the car with gas and now was passing between farm fields on a two-lane road that skirted the edge of the town before returning to Highway 7 and the freeway.

To her right, a baseball field emerged from the expanse of tilled earth, its parking lot empty but for two cars. She recognized both. Her eyes were drawn to two figures seated on stands facing an empty diamond.

As she watched, the figures embraced. Then she was past, driving toward clouds that threatened an evening of fresh snow.





They parted company in the Skyler Field parking lot. Jared pulled onto the road heading south as his father turned north behind him.

At this corner of Minnesota, the crossroad of their memories, Jared had forgiven his father. It felt like the reluctant shedding of a cast from a healed limb—the relief of a discarded burden mixed with caution at the tenderness and weakness exposed. Mostly, it felt like something new and better and right.

Now as he drove away, Jared believed he understood why his father had returned to Ashley after prison. He recalled the image of his dad standing on the grounds behind the church, shaking hands with Verne Loffler. That manicured lawn; his father’s daily labor out there for everyone to see; accepting the hard stares, gestures, anger, and invective—all without response or complaint.

“We go back four generations in Ashley,” his father used to preach when Jared was very young. “This place is family. When something happens to a neighbor here, it’s not a headline like in the Cities. It’s personal.”

When his father stole that money, it tore Ashley deeply. The open wound was evident everywhere. Jared avoided the streets his senior year of high school—despising the looks of anger and sympathy alike, spending Saturdays hiding in his library refuge, sheltered under Mrs. Huddleston’s watchful protection. The event was front-page news for weeks, second page for months, and the source of gossip to this day.

If Samuel Neaton had just disappeared after prison, flitting away like an exorcized ghost, people would have said he got away with it; imagined him living a life without remorse or consequence. It wouldn’t have been true, but people would have believed it.

People could be hardened by thoughts like that. The damage his father caused would have weakened the fabric of Ashley long after most folks had forgotten how the first thread came loose.

Working out there for everyone to see, day after day—painting a message on the palette of the church grounds—that was his dad’s apology. He was writing a different ending on what he had done to this town. Changing the story. By demonstrating every day that he’d paid a price for what he’d done and wanted to make amends.

And by allowing people like Mrs. Huddleston, Verne Loffler—and even his son—a chance to heal the only way he knew how: by giving them the opportunity to forgive him.