Six Years

“What was it?”

“Mackenzie!”

I turned toward the scream and saw a woman who looked a bit too much like Shanta Newlin for my taste. Same height, same relative weight, same hairstyle. The woman had her eyes wide open as though a plane had suddenly crashed in the backyard. I followed her gaze. Mackenzie was back standing on the slide.

Shanta was mortified. “I’m so sorry, Candace. I told her to sit down.”

“You told her?” Candace repeated incredulously.

“I’m sorry. I was watching her. I was just talking to a friend.”

“And that’s an excuse?”

Mackenzie, with a smile that said, My work is done here, sat, slid down the slide, and ran toward Candace. “Hi, Mommy.”

Mommy. No surprise there.

“Let me show you out,” Shanta tried.

“We’re already out,” Candace said. “We can just go around the front.”

“Wait, Mackenzie drew the nicest picture. It’s inside. I bet she’ll want to take it home.”

Candace and Mackenzie were already heading toward the front of the house. “I have hundreds of my daughter’s drawings,” Candace called back. “Keep it.”

Shanta watched them both disappear into the front yard. Her normal military posture was gone. “What the hell am I doing, Jake?”

“Trying,” I said. “Living.”

She shook her head. “This will never work.”

“Do you love him?”

“Yes.”

“It’ll work. It’ll just be messy.”

“How did you get to be so wise?”

“I was educated at Lanford College,” I said, “and I watch a lot of daytime talk shows.”

Shanta turned and looked back toward the swing set. “Todd Sanderson had a safety-deposit box at the Canal Street bank,” she said. “He was one of the victims of the robbery. That’s all. On the surface of it, he’s pretty meaningless too.”

“But a week later, he gets murdered,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Wait, does the FBI think he has something to do with the robberies?”

“I’m not privy to the full investigation.”

“But?”

“I didn’t see how it could be connected—the bank robbery in Manhattan and his murder down in Palmetto Bluff.”

“But now?”

“Well, your Natalie’s name came up too.”

“In a very, very small way.”

“Yes.”

“How small?”

“After a robbery like this, the FBI does an inventory of everything. I mean, everything. So when the safety-deposit boxes are blown up, most people have all kinds of important papers in them. Stocks and bonds, powers of attorney, deeds to homes, all that. A lot of that ended up on the floor, of course. Why would a thief want any paperwork? So the FBI goes through all that and catalogs it. So, for example, one guy was holding his brother’s car deed. The brother’s name goes on the list.”

I was trying to keep up with what she was saying. “So let me see if I follow. Natalie’s name was on one of those documents from the safety-deposit box?”

“Yes.”

“But she didn’t have a box of her own there?”

“No. It was found in a box belonging to Todd Sanderson.”

“So what was it? What’s the document?”

Shanta turned and met my eye. “Her last will and testament.”

Chapter 32

The FBI, Shanta said, wanted to know what I knew about all of this. I told her the truth: I knew nothing. I asked Shanta what the will and testament said. It was pretty simple: All of her assets should be split equally between her mother and sister. She had also left a request to be cremated, and interestingly enough, she wanted her ashes to be spread in the woods overlooking the quad at Lanford College.

I thought about the will and testament. I thought about where it had been found. The answer wasn’t yet in my grasp, but it felt as though I were circling right above it.

As I started to leave, Shanta asked, “Are you sure you don’t have any thoughts about this?”

“I’m sure,” I said.

But I thought now that maybe I did. I just didn’t want to share them with Shanta or the FBI. I trusted her as far as I could trust anyone who had openly told me that her first allegiance was to law enforcement. To tell her about Fresh Start, for example, would be catastrophic. But more to the point—and this was key—Natalie had not trusted law enforcement.

Why?

It was something I had never really considered before. Natalie could have trusted the cops and testified and gone into witness protection or something like that. But she didn’t. Why? What did she know that prevented her from doing that? And if she didn’t trust the cops, why on earth should I?

Once again I took out my cell phone and tried Malcolm Hume’s number in Florida. Once again there was no answer. Enough. I hurried over to Clark House. Mrs. Dinsmore was just settling into her desk. She looked up at me over the half-moon reading glasses. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

I didn’t bother defending or cracking wise. I told her about trying to reach Malcolm Hume.

“He’s not in Vero Beach,” she said.

“Do you know where he is?”

“I do.”

“Could you tell me?”

She took her time shuffling papers and sliding a paperclip into place. “He’s staying at his cabin off Lake Canet.”

I had been invited once many years ago for a fishing trip, but I didn’t go. I hate fishing. I didn’t get it, but then again I was never one for ease-back, Zen-type activities. I have trouble turning myself off. I’d rather read than relax. I’d rather keep the mind engaged. But I remembered that the property had been in Mrs. Hume’s family for generations. He joked that he liked to feel like an interloper, that it made it more like a vacation spot.

Or like a spot perfect for hiding.

“I didn’t know he still owned a place up here,” I said.

“He comes up a few times a year. He enjoys the seclusion.”

“I didn’t know.”

“He doesn’t tell anyone.”

“He tells you.”

“Well,” Mrs. Dinsmore said, as though that were the most obvious thing in the world. “He doesn’t like company there. He needs to be alone so he can write and fish in peace and quiet.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Escape that hectic, jam-packed life at the gated community in Vero Beach.”