The Deposit Slip

by Todd M Johnson

  Jessie tossed the garbage bag into the bin and replaced the cover. As she turned to walk back, she thought she saw movement in the trees, just visible beyond the edge of the house, where the woods of the windbreak ascended the hill into darkness.

  A deer, she thought. Each morning their tracks crossed the farmyard in the frost, mixed with rabbit prints and beaver. It made her feel like she slept in a menagerie. She stood a moment longer in the cold, hoping to catch a glimpse of the animal coming out of the trees. But there was no more movement.

  Jessie returned to the kitchen door and stepped back inside, shivering in the welcome warmth.

  “I think I saw a deer,” she called to Erin standing at the sink.

  “That’s not too unusual.”

  “Not for you, maybe,” Jessie said with a smile.

  They finished the dishes together and then retreated to the living room, now deep in papers and boxes. Cory excused herself for an early bedtime. Her fatigue showed in dark rings beneath her eyes and a fading voice, and they said good night. Jared didn’t plan to work with her until the weekend anyway, Jessie explained, so they wouldn’t disturb her until morning.

  Jessie looked around the cluttered living room. They probably still had plenty of time to lay out the notes and exhibits Jared needed to prepare Carlos, since it was such slow going tonight. Jessie glanced once more out the window into the dark. She just hoped Jared would drive carefully.

  Marcus couldn’t wait any longer. Another day had passed since he’d spoken with Proctor. He knew that the man said only to call with emergencies. But three days until trial and still nothing had happened.

  He pressed Proctor’s number.

  The sound of a car engine was audible in the background as the man answered—but otherwise, there was only silence.

  “Proctor?”

  “What’s the emergency.”

  “I . . . I’ve got to know when this is going to happen.”

  “It’s happening tonight.”

  It was what he wanted to hear, but Marcus was staggered at the words.

  “You’re sure?”

  “The farmer’s moving tonight. I’m cleanup.”

  Marcus, still dazed, asked, “And what am I to do?”

  “I told you. You do everything just the same way you’ve been doing it. Nothing changes tonight. Do not call again.”

  Keeping his eyes riveted on the vague outlines of the road, Richard pulled out his phone and punched in Jared’s number. The phone rang several times before Jared’s voice answered.

  “Mr. Neaton, I’ve been trying to find the Larson farm but haven’t had any luck. The visibility is so poor that I think I’m going back to Ashley to find my motel.”

  “Okay. That’s fine. We can talk tomorrow.”

  Richard paused. He knew how absurd his sensibilities sometimes sounded to people—and this one probably more than most.

  “Is that it, Richard?” Jared asked. “I’ve got to stay focused on the road right now.”

  “Well . . . Mr. Neaton . . . I did see something odd a few minutes ago that I thought I should tell you about.”

  “Okay. But please make it quick.”

  “I came across a truck in a ditch. I think I saw the truck in town earlier, near the Ashley Legion Hall. It appears to be a hunter, and he’s left the truck.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Jared’s voice sounded distracted. How did Richard explain what was troubling him, especially when he was so uncertain of what it was himself.

  “Well, I saw a car around the Legion Hall as well—and I think I just passed that car on the road.”

  “Okay . . . where are you?”

  Richard shrugged, then answered, “I don’t know. But where I saw the truck, I think it was not very far from Erin’s farm.”

  “Wait a minute. Richard, I’ve got to call you back. The road’s too slippery. I’ll call you as soon as I get to Erin’s place.”

  The line went dead before Richard could reply. He set the phone down to concentrate on staying on the road.

  As vague as his impressions were, this one was sticking with him. He considered turning back, but what good would that do? He was almost to Ashley now, and he didn’t even know where the Larson farm was.

  He’d just have to wait for Jared to call back and try to explain himself more clearly.

  “Erin, could you grab that note file?” Jessie asked, pointing toward a box on the sofa. “Yep, that one. Thanks.”

  It was closing in on eight o’clock, and Jessie was starting to get worried. The wind had died down, but through the window she could still see the soft cloud of descending snow. With the temperature dropping, it would cover the icy roads like a trap. She had forced herself not to call so far, but this was getting to be too much. She looked around, saw her cell phone on the table near the staircase, crossed the room, and started to press Jared’s number.

  What was that sound? Jessie stopped and turned to the quizzical look on Erin’s face. She’d heard it too. Like wood being forced in a stuck door or window.

  Erin’s mouth was open, but she remained silent.

  “I don’t think any animal would make that sound,” Jessie said.

  There it was again. It was hard to locate, but Jessie thought it came from the side of the house nearest the hillside.

  “I think we should—” Erin began. Her words were lost in a crescendo of shattering glass.

  “Oh . . .” Jessie forced through a closed throat, her stomach plummeting.

  “The basement,” Erin whispered, and Jessie could see fear glazing her eyes.

  Jessie walked quickly to the fireplace. She extended a hand toward an iron—then realized she was fumbling in the dark.

  The lights were out.

  It felt like driving on a skating rink, the ice painted white. His phone buzzed, and Jared dug it out of his pocket. He kept his eyes fixed on the highway ahead of him as he pushed the answer button.

  “Yeah.”

  “Jared” came a hoarse whisper. Was it Jessie? “Someone’s in the basement. Jared, where are you?”

  Jared’s hands grew slick. “Jessie, what’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. Someone broke in and the lights are out.” The fear in her voice gripped his chest.

  “Where are you now?”

  “The living room.”

  “Call the police, Jessie. I’m only a mile away. Then get out of there and call back.”

  “Okay. Please, Jared, hurry.”

  Jessie found Erin’s hand in the darkness, felt the quaking fingers and heard her stifling a whimper. Pressing her lips to Erin’s ear, she whispered, “Quiet.”

  She led Erin toward the kitchen entrance, then stopped. Cory was asleep upstairs.

  Cory. They were probably looking for Cory.

  Jessie located Erin’s other hand and slipped the fireplace iron into her fingers. She led them both back to the fireplace, fumbling around the mantel until she found the fireplace tool stand and grabbed another heavy iron for herself.

  Think. The steps to the basement were on the far side of the kitchen, away from the living room entryway.

  She listened. No sound came from that direction.

  They had to get Cory before they fled the house. Erin’s arm felt rigid as Jessie led her toward the staircase leading upstairs. With another whispered “Quiet” in Erin’s ear, Jessie started up the wooden steps with gentle steps.

  A banister lined the upstairs hallway surrounding the staircase. Jessie groped for it in the dark, then followed its contours to the upstairs landing before heading left in the direction of the front corner room where Cory would be sleeping tonight.

  Erin’s hand was wet with moisture. Or maybe it was Jessie’s own hand. She held the fingers tighter.

  They reached the door and Jessie felt for the knob in the dark—turned it carefully, opening the door into the black space beyond. In the stillness of the open room, Jessie could hear Cory’s gentle breathing and see the silver shadow of her form in bed. Still
grasping Erin’s moist hand, they crept across the room until the soft edge of a pillow brushed Jessie’s hand.

  She knelt near the sound of the hushed breaths and whispered, “Cory.” No response. Jessie leaned closer and once more hoarsely whispered, “Cory.”

  “WHAT,” Cory called out, startled, and Jessie slid a hand across her lips.

  The darkness was a chasm of silence in the wake of Cory’s outburst. Three seconds passed. Five. Then Jessie heard the thump of a heavy footfall on the wooden stairs below.

  He grasped the wheel hard in both hands, pushing down on the accelerator. The back of the car fishtailed. He turned into the skid, eased off the pedal, tried again.

  Jared explained Jessie’s call to Carlos through a haze of adrenaline and fear. His mind ached at the creeping pace of each painstaking yard of snow-covered road.

  Just ahead Jared saw the driveway, but it was on him too soon. He slammed the brakes, felt the car spinning toward the ditch. He fought the slide, pumping the brakes like a piston. The spin slowed, the car sliding sideways across the road . . . easing, easing—then stopping at an angle somewhere near the edge of the far ditch.

  Jared slammed the car into first gear, pressing the accelerator. The wheels started to spin. He lifted the accelerator, then tried again, more slowly. Please move. The car began to inch forward.

  Twenty yards away, the headlights splayed over the driveway entrance they’d slid past, almost indistinguishable from the surrounding snow. He turned the CR-V onto it and began the drive to the house.

  The winds had decreased for the time being, but the rate of snowfall was increasing and the headlamps lit a waterfall of solid white. He flipped the lights to Low, revealing the road more clearly, and strained to recall the gentle curves of the driveway as it approached the house.

  The house was ahead of them, rising out of the wall of blowing snow, looking abandoned against the dark sky and surrounding white. No lights lit the windows.

  Only now did it strike him—Jessie hadn’t called back.

  Jessie whispered frantically to Cory, begging her to remain quiet. In the stillness, she pressed the prone girl’s shoulder, driving her across the bed to the floor in the narrow space between the bed and interior wall. She tugged Erin, who followed them. She felt the bed give beneath their weight as they slid across the mattress and then down on the far side, coming to rest in a crouch next to the wall.

  Jessie trembled, clutching the iron in her hand; she felt the soft shaking of Cory beside her. The terror wrung her like a rag, but Jessie repeated to herself that she was going to fight.

  The footsteps had faded after the sound of the lower steps, but now she thought she could hear shoes sliding on the carpet along the banister.

  A door creaked open along the upstairs hallway; then another, closer. Now the only remaning door on the hall was to this room.

  Before she heard it, she felt it: the presence of someone entering the room through the door to her left. A ragged breath scraped in the darkness, followed by the hack of a cough. The figure seemed to be moving around the far side of the bed.

  The figure’s shadow was outlined by a light that suddenly glimmered through the bedroom windows to the front of the house. It was a man, Jessie knew through the prism of her fear. The figure glanced through the window toward the source of the light, then turned back to stare toward the interior of the bedroom.

  In his hands he held something black and long. It was a shotgun.

  A minute passed, frozen in time. Another. Then Jessie’s ears were shattered by Erin’s scream.

  Jared stopped the car well short of the house, at a spot where the car lamps threw light across the first story of the house. He shifted into Park, threw open the door, and launched himself into the snow. He heard the passenger door open, knew the veteran would have problems with the icy ground, but couldn’t wait, racing ahead on sliding steps toward the kitchen entrance.

  The kitchen was black, lit only by the headlights through the nearest window. Jared stopped himself, trying to slow his tumbling thoughts.

  “Someone’s in the basement,” she’d said. The basement door on his left was ajar. Jared knelt and ran his fingers on the linoleum floor, feeling melting puddles of snow.

  His breath still ragged after the sliding run from the car, Jared stood back up, drawing deep gulps of air to bring it under control. After a moment, he stepped toward the living room, easing his footfalls on the hard linoleum.

  In the living room, the car lights cast ghostly shadows through curtained windows. Jared scanned the length of the room. No one was visible, and there were no sounds.

  The staircase ascended to his left. He’d only been there a few times—to use the bathroom at the head of the steps. Three other doors lined the carpeted landing to the left.

  Jared crossed the living room to the staircase, touched the lowest stairs with his fingers, felt again the chill of cold water on each. He eased his foot onto the first step, pressed gently down, raised his other foot toward the next.

  He was halfway up the staircase when the dark was split by a scream.

  Jared pounded the remaining stairs three at a time, grabbing the banister and yanking himself onto the landing. The scream came from the darkness to the left. Thundering down the hall, Jared saw the door to the farthest room ajar, faint light tracing its outline.

  He burst into a ghostly light of the room, wet shoes screeching on the hardwood floor.

  He saw it all in an instant. The light was passing through the front windows. To Jared’s right, pressed against the wall, he could make out Jessie and Erin crouched almost to the floor behind a high double bed. Jessie’s arm was held high, slung across the whimpering figure of another girl between them—Cory. In Jessie’s hand, she clutched a metal iron over the sobbing girl’s head as though to ward off a blow.

  A fourth figure stood slouching before the windows. He wore a camouflage-patterned hunting jacket, a stocking mask covering his face. At his waist, he held a double-barreled shotgun that now rose in Jared’s direction.

  He expected the blast and covered his stomach with his hands to block it. But the gun did not explode.

  The man before the windows pumped rapid breaths—whether from exertion or excitement, Jared could not know. Though the man’s back was to the faint window light, even in the near darkness Jared could see eyes opened wide with surprise.

  The covered head swung back toward the figures of the women behind the bed. The shotgun followed, stopped, and Jared saw that it was pointing at Erin’s head.

  There was a flash of sudden light. Jared threw himself across the bed, into the line of the shotgun’s aim. The weapon cracked as he felt the bed’s surface beneath him, and Jared thought, So this is my death.

  He lay for a moment as the mattress settled under his weight; raised his fingers to search for the blood-gorged holes where he knew his life must be escaping.

  Elbows and knees scrambled roughly across his body. Jared opened his eyes. Jessie was now standing on the other side of the bed, her hair wild in the glare of a brighter light than before. The iron was gone. She was clutching the shotgun, pointed toward the floor.

  Cory, still cringing behind the bed, let her whimpers rise to deep, wracking sobs. Erin was gone.

  Jared rolled toward the window, wondering why the room was inexplicably bright. In the shadows at floor level he saw the slumped figure of the man. A moan escaped his lips.

  Jared crossed to the window, covering his eyes against the glare of light passing through it. Below, the CR-V car lamps were now on high beam. Even through the light and the pattern of whirling snow, he could make out Carlos below, squinting down the length of the .22 rifle, which rested across the top of the frame of the open driver’s door.

  The figure on the floor was rolling, his moans growing louder. Jared turned back to him and felt along the man’s head, then his back, until he felt sticky moisture seeping through the jacket near his left shoulder. Then the room lights came
on, blinding him.

  Erin stepped back into the room just as the gray was fading from Jared’s vision and he could see again without pain. “Get something to press on the wound,” he said, louder than he intended, and watched as Erin left the room once more to comply.

  Jared reached down and removed the ski mask.

  Joe Creedy’s eyes were glassy with shock. The stale stench of alcohol rose from his lips as he tried to speak, but no sound came out except the rising moans.

  The adrenaline of fear was fading in Jared, replaced by something akin to rage—but colder and more irresistible. He looked up at Jessie. She was still holding the shotgun, which was aimed at Creedy’s head. He saw her lips move and heard her say, “I’ll call the police. We need to wait for them.” Then Erin reappeared and pressed a bundle of washcloths against Creedy’s shoulder.

  Jared sidestepped the body and headed toward the stairs, ignoring Jessie urgently asking him where he was going. Downstairs, he passed Carlos, limping across the kitchen floor, the .22 still in his hands. He didn’t respond to the veteran’s question: “What’s happening?” before stepping back out into the snow.

  He crossed to his vehicle, slid into the driver’s seat, and roughly turned the vehicle around to head back down the driveway.

  He knew where Marcus’s cabin was located. Marcus never let his help work far from his reach and control. That’s where he would be now.

  By the time he reached the cabin, the wind had calmed and the snow had slowed momentarily. Jared recognized Marcus’s BMW parked in the driveway, several inches of white covering its windshield and hood. The house beyond was dark and silent.

  Jared got out of the car cautiously. His anger was still burning strong, but it was no longer fresh, and he felt caution creeping in at the stillness of the scene. He looked at his watch. It was nearly nine thirty.

  The front door was unlocked. He considered knocking, then realized how absurd that would be. He turned the knob and opened it.