Second: Other men, cops, took the money, and my father was complicit only in hiding it. All the same implications apply to my father—dirty cop, coward. But it would add another layer, other people he had to fear or protect. Maybe he was even forced into this role. It was somewhat more palatable, but not by much.
Third: Someone else stole the money and used our property to hide it. My dad didn’t know it was there. So when they came for it, he had no idea how to save us. In it, my dad was just a victim, like Mom and me. Blameless, innocent. This was my preferred theory, though it was probably the least likely one.
But the truth was that I had no idea, even after all these years of poring over evidence with Boz and Mike, who was behind that initial heist and who sent Didion and the Beckham brothers to find the stolen money. Didion and Beckham were thugs, hired men, pirates who took their spoils; there was someone else at the helm. Seth’s theory that there were cops involved from beginning to end made sense, but it was hard to stomach. Cops stole the money, sent men to get it from my father, impeded the investigation to the degree that Didion and the Beckham brothers were questioned and released, the case went cold. It couldn’t be the truth, could it?
I slipped from the Suburban and moved quickly in the growing dark. There was the silence of the urban wasteland, a particular quiet to buildings that sat empty, something about the way air moves around and through abandoned structures. Life usually finds the deserted places—foliage springs up through cracks in concrete. Birds and small animals nest in windowsills, chimneys and rafters. The faint chirping of an unseen bird was the alarm of my arrival, if anyone was listening. But most people weren’t listening, not to things like that.
I found the back door open and slipped inside. Voices carried, echoing. I could hear the tone, measured, but not the words. Through towers of boxes, I crept toward the sound of men talking.
“Why did you do that? I can hear the sirens from here.”
“I was destroying all the evidence,” he said. Beckham. I recognized the rumble of his voice. “Getting rid of witnesses.”
“If you’d done it your brother’s way, it could have gone differently. You called a lot of attention.” The voice was odd, muffled.
There was a rasping breath, a long, unhealthy cough.
“My brother spilled his guts to that woman,” said Beckham. “He told her why we were there, what we wanted.”
Only a tense silence followed.
“And then you bring a stranger here.”
“She’s cool,” said Beckham. “She found the tunnel. Without her, we wouldn’t have known about it maybe.”
A nervous giggle followed the silence that was growing heavier. The skin on my arms tingled. I couldn’t see the other man. His voice was strange, disguised somehow, something over his mouth? I used the shadows to hide, moving closer to the dim light that burned. Even then, I didn’t know. A cough, rasping and long. But no—the mind resists. No.
The three of them gathered around a long table, a camping lantern the only light. His back is to me; there’s something on his head—a stocking cap, a mask. I can’t make it out. Rhett Beckham stood tense and shifting from foot to foot, his hands in his pockets. The woman who hit me with a shovel was behind him, looking back toward the door. She wants to leave. She’s scared. She should be.
The stranger’s hands are gloved. There’s a large plastic tarp on the ground beneath where Beckham and the woman are standing. They don’t get it. What’s about to happen. I want to stop it. Rhett Beckham is mine. But I was frozen, my body tingling; I don’t know why.
“She’s taking part of my cut,” said Beckham. He smiled, lifted his hands. I had a good view of his face. He was scared, too. Way out of his league. “You don’t have to worry about her.”
“I’m not.”
“Good,” Beckham said. He issued a nervous laugh, glanced over at the girl, who was nodding stupidly. “Because I’ve been quiet all these years. Didn’t run my mouth off in the joint like so many of those losers. I promised you one day I’d go back for it. And here I am.”
The stranger dumped the contents of the bag on the long table and a pile of cash cascaded across the surface. The girl reached for Beckham’s hand in excitement, her eyes bright, but he pushed her away. The gloved man started counting, shifting the stacks into neat piles.
Situation assessment: There were three people, all of them motivated to fight for the payout they’ve waited years to collect. What were my odds? Poor. I would have to take my moment in the chaos I could sense was about to descend. The thinker panics, goes off half-cocked. Or freezes, paralyzed by indecision. The watcher bides her time, waits for the opportunity.
Then, “Where’s the rest of it?”
“That’s all there was,” said Beckham. His voice cracked and he cleared his throat “We took the bag from the tunnel, some kids had it first. But I brought it straight here.”
“What kids?”
“The girl, her friend,” said Rhett. “They got to the bag first.”
“They got to the bag first.” His tone was flat with menace. “How did that shake out?”
“I don’t know,” Rhett said. He rubbed a hand over his mouth. “I don’t how they got to it. Like I said, Josh was spilling it.”
“There’s only four hundred thousand here,” said the stranger.
“That’s what there was.” I can hear the creep of fear. “I swear.”
“You swear.” Not a question. I could hear the mockery.
“Yeah,” Beckham said. It was only a whisper.
The stranger issued another long cough.
“The night the money was stolen from Whitey Malone, there was a million. Two hundred thousand got paid out that night. Then it sat, locked in that tunnel for ten years. There should be eight hundred thousand here.”
Silence. Beckham shook his head and lifted his palms. I thought about the money in my bank account, tried to do the math—the money my mother had saved, my father’s death benefit and pension paid to my education trust. An extra three hundred thousand give or take.
It happened so fast.
Two sharp explosive bursts of sound bounced and expanded in the space, causing me to drop into a protective crouch, my ears ringing, head vibrating. When I looked again, Beckham and the girl both stood for a moment, wobbling slightly, their expressions slack. What? What just happened?
Then they crumbled, first him, then her, onto the waiting tarp. She stared at me, unseeing, a neat red circle between her eyes, blood from the hole that must have opened in the back of her head pooling black around her. I felt bad for her, even though she’d hit me in the head with a shovel. Some people were just not smart; they make bad decisions, throw their lot in with the wrong people. It’s a problem.
My breathing came shallow. I deepened it. I pushed myself against the wall. The man at the table, slowly started packing up the money. My whole body was tense, vibrating, ears ringing in the silence.