William had just plugged in his cell phone to recharge when it trilled. The movement of Dodge’s thumb paused.
William checked the caller-ID screen, then picked up and asked, ‘You got him for us?’
‘Those bastards at Susanville PD aren’t going to turn Shepherd White over to us.’ Boss Man’s voice was tense and driving. ‘In fact, he was released nearly three hours ago.’
‘Released?’ Rattled, William sat on a waist-high stack of brittle newspapers. ‘Dodge prepped the cellar already. Where the hell was Graham?’
‘Dead,’ Boss Man said.
‘Graham’s dead,’ William repeated for Dodge’s sake.
Dodge looked up, sipped his tea, and lowered his gaze again to the comic. His thumb resumed the gentle scratching motion.
‘He’d gone offline, so I had Sac PD send over a car to take a look,’ Boss Man continued. ‘Shot in his bed.’
William realized what he’d heard in Boss Man’s voice that had made him so uneasy. Something he’d never heard in it before. Desperation. William breathed out through his nose, scratched his cheek, quelled the rush of concern in his chest. ‘It’ll be okay.’
‘Oh? You’ve handled this before, have you? You’ve dealt with state officials when they come knocking? You know how to pull strings inside a murder investigation of the goddamned director of an agency?’ His breaths filled the receiver. ‘Don’t tell me what’ll be fine. I say when it’ll be fine.’
‘Yessir.’
‘Now, fortunately we still have plenty of friends. I’m sitting across from one of Graham’s chiefs right now. It seems Graham sent us a little gift from beyond the grave. Our soon-to-be partner here has been monitoring a particular individual’s activity. Once he caught word of Graham’s death, he came here to deliver the news personally.’ A heightened pause. ‘He managed to back-trace a signal.’
William shot a breath of relief, then said, past the phone to Dodge, ‘We have an address.’
Dodge set down the graphic novel, smoothed his hands across the cover, and rose.
‘The name is a familiar one,’ Boss Man said.
William flipped over a piece of paper and held the bloodred point of the marker at the ready. He felt his lips stick to his teeth and realized he was grinning in anticipation.
‘Go get answers,’ Boss Man said. ‘Any way you can.’
Chapter 53
The photo negatives – aside from the top one in the stack, which had disintegrated in Mike’s hands – had emerged from the water surprisingly intact. They had stuck together at first, which actually served to protect the ones in the middle. Mike had been eager to deliver them, but Shep had forced him to let them lie for a time after drying so the floodlights could bake out any hidden moisture. Now it was a few minutes past midnight, and Mike sat alone with Two-Hawks in a sealed room behind the fill bank at the Shasta Springs Band of Miwok Casino, where jackpots were paid out. The table between them was stainless steel, and a matching cart in the corner held a money-counting machine, an accountant’s calculator, a heavy phone, and a Polaroid instant camera. This was a room that changed the course of people’s fortunes, and tonight, Mike prayed, would be no exception.
Shep was waiting nearby, parked on an unlit road, prepared to unleash hell if Two-Hawks failed to deliver what he’d promised. On the way over, Shep and Mike had stopped to make an addition to the growing stash hidden behind their motel room’s heating vent – the Deer Creek tribe genealogy report. Back in the dank warehouse, with the footlights warming his shoulders, Mike had stared down in wonderment at his family tree, that official scalloped seal marking the top of the wet page. All those names and dates, the entanglements and forks, a history in which he was embedded. When he saw the place reserved for his own name, Michael Trainor, amid the vast and intertwined lineage, he had felt too overwhelmed to speak. But hours later, once the water had dried, leaving the pages stiff, it had struck him that the words were only ink on paper, that he’d already had a place in the world. The only path to reclaiming it ran through the man sitting opposite him now.
Two-Hawks raised each negative to the light and squinted up at it, his dark eyes moist. Wrinkles fanned through his cheeks. His tribe would keep their federal recognition, certainly, but it was clear that the images meant much more to him. He was soaking them in one at a time, and Mike’s patience had grown thin enough to put a fist through.
‘Thank you,’ Two-Hawks said. ‘These are amazing. I’ve dreamed about that settlement since I was a young boy. Did you see?’ He offered a fragile negative across the table, but Mike just stared at him.
Two-Hawks’s expression of wonder was replaced by sheep-ishness. He rode his rolling chair over to the cart and murmured something into the phone. A few minutes later, Blackie entered and set down a safe-deposit box on the table in front of Mike.
Though the room was cool, Mike felt sweat roll down his sides, tickling his ribs. He lifted the lid. What struck him first was how empty the box was – some papers sliding in the long metal case.
On top were surveillance photographs – Brian McAvoy with Dodge and William. Multiple meetings, each photo sporting a different time stamp. Mike looked up at Two-Hawks, unimpressed.
Two-Hawks said, ‘Our man smuggled out the material beneath.’
Mike lifted the final few photos to reveal a stack of photocopies – cramped handwriting and figures filling lined pages.
A ledger.
Mike’s heart quickened.
Two-Hawks’s finger appeared beneath Mike’s downturned face, one manicured nail tapping. ‘These represent payments issued through McAvoy’s personal slush account. Yes, that is McAvoy’s handwriting. He must not have wanted digital files’ – a note of irony – ‘as they’re too easy to copy.’
‘Your inside man?’ Mike said. ‘You said he’s an accountant?’
‘Ted Rogers. A specialist in offshore bookkeeping. McAvoy brought him in to expedite the cash flow between offshore entities. In the process Mr Rogers needed to clean up some wires that had gone astray between accounts. So he was given limited access to this ledger. The recipients are identified by bank-account number – see there? You can probably guess who the most frequent fliers are.’
‘Rick Graham,’ Mike said faintly. ‘Roger Drake. William Burrell.’
‘And, if you reach back far enough, Leonard Burrell. I guess he’s-’
‘William’s uncle.’
Mike riffled through the pages, the scrape on the underside of his arm throbbing. The dates trailed back through the decades. Next to certain payments were lengthy numbers without commas or dashes. Mike counted and recounted; each number had nine digits.
Mike said, ‘Are those what I think they are?’
‘Social Security numbers.’
Mike tried to swallow but found his mouth too dry to carry it off. ‘Belonging to?’
‘Your mother. Your father. Those brothers who wouldn’t sell their land. A councilwoman in the way of a zoning law. A high roller who couldn’t make good on a seven-figure marker. These payments are issued and the people corresponding to those Social Security numbers go missing a day or two later. To a one.’
Seeing it laid out so brazenly was sickening. Dollar and cents, human lives.
‘Which ones…’ Mike wet his lips. ‘Which ones belonged to my parents?’
Two-Hawks pointed out the entries. Mike ran a finger across the dates. Stared at the Social Security numbers. Just John. Danielle Trainor. Two-Hawks cleared his throat, and Mike realized he’d zoned out for a time.
He flipped to the end of the photocopies, but the dates ended about a week before Dodge and William had stepped from the shadows into his life. The thought of the actual ledger still out there, sitting in some safe or locked drawer, chilled him. He knew what would be written there now in the same strained penmanship – his own Social Security number, and that of his daughter.