The Deposit Slip

by Todd M Johnson

  “There’s something more, Jared. Someone at the bank has been pestering Andrea to get them in touch with Cory.” Mrs. Huddleston told Jared about the letters and phone call. “Andrea called it harassment.”

  Jared’s excitement rose another notch. “What did they learn?”

  “Just what Andrea told me—that Cory is out of reach for months.”

  Good. Marcus thought Spangler was worth reaching. And maybe he was still a step behind. He didn’t have a Mrs. Huddleston in his corner.

  The doorbell rang. “Hold on, Carol; there’s someone at the door.”

  He opened the door to a young man in his twenties. “Mr. Neaton?”

  When Jared nodded yes, he handed him a thick package. It was from Paisley. Cradling the cell phone at his ear, Jared closed the door and tore it open.

  “Jared, are you still there?”

  “Yes, Carol. I just got served with something.”

  “What is it?”

  He skimmed the motion papers that slid from the package. “It’s the motion for summary judgment Stanford’s been promising.”

  Jared dropped the package on the couch, feeling his excitement deflate.

  “What’s it mean?”

  “It means that we just have nineteen days until our response is due to come up with evidence of the deposit.”

  “What if you can’t?”

  “Then the case will be dismissed ‘with prejudice.’ ”

  “Which means?”

  Jared flopped onto the couch beside the motion papers. “Permanently.”

  Jessie arrived back in the midafternoon. She came into the house carrying a large document valise from the office. Jared took it from her hands and set it down beside the couch. It felt full.

  He filled her in on Mrs. Huddleston’s news about finding Cory Spangler, the call from Towers, and the papers he’d been served with. He still couldn’t bring himself to pass on his conversation with Erin, especially given how unimpressed Jessie had been with the comments from Carlos Navarrete.

  In fact, for a fleeting moment he thought he detected a look of relief when he told her about the summary judgment motion. It was gone in an instant.

  “We need to meet. All of us and right away,” he said as Jessie sat on the couch and skimmed the Paisley motion papers. “I’m going to call Towers and see if we can get him up here to join us. Let’s plan for an early supper.”

  Jared reached Towers. He sounded tired after the quick trip to Washington, but was available and would come up. When Jared pressed for details of the VA meeting, he asked if they could talk at dinner. Jared agreed. For the investigator’s convenience, they agreed to meet at the Perkins restaurant twenty miles south of town, where County Road 7 intersected with the freeway. Towers, he said, would wear a blue windbreaker.

  “Jared,” Jessie said as he hung up the phone, “what are you thinking of doing?”

  Jared was irritated by the all-too-common tone of the question. “I’m thinking one of us has to go to Europe to find Cory Spangler and confront her.”

  Jessie’s face contorted with surprise. “You’re kidding.”

  “No,” he said, annoyed. “We’ve got to find her, and if she’s got something to say, we’ve got to convince her to come back. I’d be content with an affidavit, but Marcus will scream that we can’t use it to defeat summary judgment if he doesn’t have the chance to take her deposition.”

  Her face was red. “Fly to Europe. How much of the Clay money do you have left?”

  “Enough,” he said.

  Jessie pointed to the valise. “Do you want to see what’s in there?”

  He shook his head. “Later.”

  Jessie’s finger was still pointing. “Stanhope Printing fired us. Along with Pleasance Motors. Two other clients are on the ropes. Even patient Phil Olney’s asking when we’re going to finish reviewing the bank account records and start to pressure his brother.”

  Anger swelled in Jared’s chest. “I said later.”

  “The phone company’s threatening.”

  Jared grabbed his jacket and headed toward the door. “I’ve got some errands.”

  “Can you at least leave me a trust account check so I can send in the bond on Olney’s case?”

  His throat constricted. “Later, Jessie. We’ve still got some time.”

  As he reached the door, Jared glanced back over his shoulder. Jessie was looking at him with the hollow surprise of disappointment.

  He left before she could utter another word.

  The Perkins restaurant on County Road 7 was within sight of the freeway leading to Minneapolis. With Jessie, Erin, and Mrs. Huddleston in the car, Jared pulled into the lot and parked near the entrance, pleased that they made it right on time. The four of them headed inside, where they seated themselves at a table near the front door.

  Twenty-five minutes passed. Just as Jared was becoming concerned, Richard Towers arrived, wrapped in his blue windbreaker.

  The investigator approached and shook each person’s hand with a grip as soft as an apology. He was a squat man, with thinning gray hair and lips pursed in a permanent mien of solitary thoughtfulness. Towers rested an ancient satchel briefcase with a broken clasp and taped handle on the table and then settled gingerly into his chair.

  Jared had no confidence from the investigator’s demeanor, and he sensed the surprise of everyone else around the table at Towers’s appearance. Still, the man had come through twice now, and Jared decided to reserve judgment until hearing the Washington report.

  Jared began by recounting the Pokofsky deposition testimony, including the afternoon session that had proven fruitless. Several times while Jared was speaking, he noticed the investigator’s eyes wander the restaurant and wondered silently whether Towers’s affect signaled an attention disorder. When Jared finished, he turned next to Mrs. Huddleston.

  “Tell everyone your news, Carol.”

  As Mrs. Huddleston opened her mouth to speak, Towers raised a large hand.

  “Mr. Neaton,” he said quietly, “I need to use the rest room. Perhaps you could come too.”

  Jared was stunned into silence. Towers spoke again. “Mrs. Huddleston, could you wait with the story until we return?”

  The librarian nodded yes, a puzzled frown on her face. With a glance at the other blank expressions around the table, Jared followed Towers back to the men’s room in the rear of the restaurant.

  As the door closed behind them, Towers turned to Jared. “Mr. Neaton, there’s a man sitting at a booth within earshot. I think he’s listening to us.”

  Jared was unsure how to respond. “You mean deliberately?”

  “Yes. In fact, I believe he followed you here.”

  Jared felt rising discomfort—not with the unlikely possibility of being followed, but from growing unease about this man he had placed such confidence in.

  “Why do you think so?”

  “I was sitting outside and saw you pull in. Before I got out of my car, a blue Subaru pulled in after you. It parked on the other end of the line of cars next to the building. That seemed odd since there was open parking right next to you, closer to the door. The man watched you four go into the restaurant before he got out of the Subaru and followed you in.”

  “You sat out in the parking lot for twenty-five minutes after you saw us arrive?” Jared asked, incredulous.

  Towers nodded.

  Jared had sent this man to Washington, built hope on his “belief” that the veterans department manager was lying, and had even assumed Towers was accurate in his early report about the Federal Reserve. He felt rising panic at the precious time, money, and trust he may have wasted on this man.

  “We’re next to the freeway, Richard. It could be anyone.”

  “Maybe,” Towers said. “But the man has been sitting at a table for four, all alone, for forty-five minutes now. All during that time, he’s faced directly away from us so we can’t get a good view of his face. And he’s ordered a Coke and nothing else.”


  “Maybe he’s waiting for someone.”

  “Forty-five minutes, Mr. Neaton. And his back is to the door and window.”

  It all sounded ridiculous. “What do you suggest we do?”

  “If you want to find out, we can try something and see how he responds.”

  Even with Paisley—even with Marcus—the possibility that they would have someone follow him had never occurred to Jared.

  Jared considered saying no, getting Towers’s report, and ending this meeting quickly. But the investigator’s tone of subdued confidence was difficult to ignore.

  “Okay. What next?”

  When Jared and Towers returned from the rest room, the ladies watched in surprise as Towers walked past the table toward the exit. Jared sat down and said in a clear voice, “He got a call. I’ll have to fill him in later.”

  Jared continued talking about general trial preparation while he slid a note to Mrs. Huddleston. She read it and passed it in turn to Jessie and Erin. Each looked at Jared with expressions of bewilderment.

  Jared’s phone rang. He answered it and said okay. “That was Peterson,” he said to blank expressions around the table. “He’s asked if we can move up the meeting by half an hour. Let’s continue talking in the car.”

  They rose. Jared dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the table, then led them from the restaurant.

  Following Towers’s instruction, Jared forced himself not to look back as he got into the driver’s side of his CR-V. Erin joined him in the front while Jessie and Mrs. Huddleston settled into the back seats.

  Jared turned the key and dropped the car rapidly into Reverse. His hand was still on the shift lever when someone walked past the front bumper—a man wearing a baseball cap, his face mostly turned away. He was looking through the restaurant window, but even from the partial view seemed vaguely familiar.

  Jared shifted into Drive and moved slowly past the restaurant door toward the lot exit. In his rearview mirror, a boxy blue Subaru darted backward, three slots away from Jared’s parking spot.

  The driver’s head twisted, his mouth open, as the Subaru rocked to a violent stop before it could clear its space. An aging gray Accord had emerged at the same instant directly behind the Subaru, stopping just close enough to prevent escape.

  As Jared turned toward the exit, the scene disappeared from his rearview mirror. Traffic was clear; he twisted the wheel right, onto County Road 7, heading for Ashley.

  The engine whined reluctantly, creeping faster, and Jared’s gaze returned to the mirror. When was the Subaru going to reach the road? A hundred yards later the pavement snaked right. The CR-V wheels squealed on the cold road, and Erin let out a gasp in the back seat. Then the restaurant was gone from view, shielded by a passing farm.

  Jared kept the pedal down. A quarter mile beyond the curve a side road emerged—a longer, slower but, most importantly. a different route to Ashley. He eased off the gas just enough to avoid another skid, wrestled the car over onto the side road, then flattened the pedal again. The side road meandered away in a V from the county road until a rise separated the two routes. Jared felt an ache in his lungs—realized he had been holding his breath—as he eased off the pedal. He relaxed his hands from the wheel and softly exhaled.

  Towers entered the Ashley Library conference room twenty minutes after Jared and the others arrived.

  “What happened to the Subaru after we left Perkins?” Jared asked.

  The investigator cleared his throat. “I kept him boxed in until you were out of sight. Actually, I waited until he started getting out of the car. Then I drove away—toward the freeway. Hopefully he just thought I was a miserable driver.”

  “Did he follow us?”

  Towers nodded yes.

  “All that tells us is he was headed north,” Jessie said sarcastically.

  “I think he was following us,” Erin said. “I think I’ve noticed that blue car around Ashley. Maybe we should call the police.”

  “Sure. Let’s give them the frightening news that we were at a restaurant near the freeway and when we left a car headed in the same direction,” Jessie said flatly.

  Jared gave Jessie a long look. “We’ll keep an eye out for someone following us,” Jared said, then quickly asked Mrs. Huddleston to relate what she had found.

  When she was finished explaining her discovery of Cory Spangler, Jared raised a hand to ward off more skeptical remarks from Jessie.

  “It’s nothing certain, I know—either that Spangler has critical evidence or that we can find her,” Jared said, “but it’s the best we have on that front.” He turned to the investigator. “Tell us about the trip to Washington.”

  Towers explained his visit to the Veterans Administration, lingering on his reasons for believing that Anthony Carlson was lying. Listening to his cautious, sonorous tone, Jared thought that a loud word could send the investigator out of the room. But once again, he found his observations compelling—even if too vague for trial evidence.

  Jared spoke up next. “I called this meeting because I got served with the summary judgment motion today. Until I got this motion, we had just under six weeks to find our evidence. Now we’ve got nineteen days—the time until we have to file our response to the motion with evidence to avoid summary dismissal of the estate’s claims. If we can’t present some admissible evidence of the deposit by then, the judge will dismiss the case when we stand up to argue in a month.”

  “Given where we’re at,” Jared concluded, “I’ve decided to go to Europe to try to find Spangler.”

  “Then who’s going to write the summary judgment reply?” Jessie asked, pondering her hands on the table.

  “I will, when I get back. I’m only going for a few days.”

  “Paisley’s brief is forty pages long,” she shot back instantly. “The trip’ll take you a day of travel each way, a few days to find her, make arrangements—that’s a minimum of a week.”

  “Then get a law clerk to do the research and rough it out.”

  “Where? Where do I find a clerk on short notice—up here in Ashley?”

  Everyone’s eyes were locked on the exchange.

  “Call Mort Goering’s office,” he said, his voice beginning to crack. “See if they can recommend someone.”

  One of them was about to let loose, and Jared figured it was probably her. Jessie’s eyes flashed and he braced—when Mrs. Huddleston intervened.

  “When are you leaving, Jared?”

  “I’m planning to leave next Monday. If I’m successful, I’ll come back with Cory in tow.”

  The tension between Jessie and Jared, though relieved by Mrs. Huddleston’s intervention, had rendered everyone silent. Jared looked around the room. Erin’s expression was energized, Jessie’s dead flat. Mrs. Huddleston was examining each of the other women from the corners of her eyes.

  Jessie’s look as Jared left the house earlier today came back to him—an unmistakable expression of pain that told him she knew about his use of the Olney money. The memory of her eyes knifed at him, and for the first time he wondered if he was doing permanent harm to their relationship.

  He’d deal with it, he told himself; as soon as he had things under control. After Europe. Then he’d clear everything up, make it up to her. When he had more proof—evidence that showed Jessie he could win this case—that would set things right.

  Jared turned to the investigator. “Richard, is there anything we can do to search out other sources for this money? Other banks? Tax records? We’re down to the wire now.”

  The investigator sat mute, unperturbed by the eyes of everyone in the room. “I haven’t got any idea where to go financially,” he replied in a tone of contrition. “You haven’t got time to challenge the VA, and I’ve no clue where else the money could be.”

  Jared had feared this. Before he could respond, Towers went on in the same calm tone.

  “But Mr. Neaton, I do have this.”

  He unclasped his briefcase and withdrew a cell phone. After man
ipulating the surface screen, he held it up for everyone around the table to see.

  On the screen was a photo, digitally enlarged and enhanced. It was taken through glass and overexposed, but was clear enough.

  It was a look of fury on the face of the man emerging from his blue Subaru.

  29

  Jared walked the sidewalk, kicking crisp leaves that twisted and swirled at his feet. A terrier raced from the backyard of a white rambler toward him, skidded to a halt at the picket fence enclosing the yard, and let off a frenzy of barking. That’s what this case felt like, Jared thought.

  Over an hour of walking and Jared still couldn’t fully accept that Stanford and Whittier were having him followed. This was a potentially big case—but until recently, it had seemed like a sure winner for Paisley. If Paisley was so concerned that they were having him followed, what did that imply?

  After the meeting at the library earlier in the week, Erin was texting every few hours, Mrs. Huddleston had promised to keep beating the bushes for witnesses, and Towers was off to identify the man in the Subaru. Jared had also found an opportunity to speak with Towers privately long enough to confirm he still had not located Paul Larson’s phone records. As for Jessie, Jared simply told her to call Goering’s office to get a lead on a law clerk for the summary judgment motion response.

  A breath of a breeze crept down Jared’s neck. As he stopped to zip up his jacket, the sound of marching band drums carried over the trees. Why would a football game be starting on a Saturday afternoon so late in the fall?

  Then he recalled seeing decorations around streetlights and parking signs driving home from dinner the night before. It was Ashley Founder’s Day. All signs of the approaching event had completely passed Jared by.

  Growing up, this was a big day, spent wandering with friends through the crowds along Main Street, pocketing tossed candies, and sampling barbecued chicken and brats at Central Park, where the parade ended. Later, Jared appreciated it as something more: a celebration of the waning days of autumn, before winter drove families behind doors to await the relief of spring.