Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery Read online

  She spoke into the microphone. "Is your name Reuben Maynard?"

  The guy looked at Mandy, then at me, then back at Mandy. His cuffed hands rested on his lap, and the number on the front of his orange jumpsuit read 74835. As he studied her, looking from her face to her chest and back to her face, he rubbed himself. Finally he nodded and said with no explanation, "Bo."

  If Mandy felt intimidated by him, she didn't show it. She held up a picture of Sketch and placed it against the glass. "Have you ever seen this kid?"

  Reuben glanced at the picture and shook his head. Mandy raised her eyebrows, reached into her briefcase, and pulled out a digital video recorder. She turned it on, pushed iEcoxv, aimed it at him, and handed it to me.

  "Now, just so we're on the same page, I thought I'd ask you again. This kid-" She tapped the picture on the glass, then held it in front of the camera, where the lens automatically focused on it. After about five seconds, she placed it back against the glass. "Have you ever seen the boy in this picture?"

  He spat beneath the desk. "Nope."

  Mandy sat back. "Wow ... that's interesting. Because when I asked the boy the same question, he said he used to live in a trailer with you just down a little dirt road from Jesup Brothers Bottlers."

  Bo chuckled. "You're lying. Kid can't even talk."

  Mandy crossed her arms. "I'm wondering how you'd know that if you've never met him."

  Bo's brow wrinkled, and his eyes darted from her to me. Mandy didn't give him time to speak before she reached in her purse and pulled out a pair of pliers that you could buy at any hardware store. She held them up to the glass. "You ever seen these?"

  Bo began to fidget and then looked over his shoulder at the door behind him. Mandy didn't back down. She held the picture to the glass with one hand and tapped the glass with the pliers in the other. "Reuben ... have you ever used these pliers to pull the skin off this kid's back?"

  Reuben broke out in a sweat, looked over his shoulder again, and then said, "I want my lawyer."

  Mandy dropped the pliers and picture in her briefcase and stood up. "Reuben ... you'd better get one." She reached into her briefcase and pulled out a file. The label read BENNERSVILLE STATE PENITENTIARY, REUBEN MAYNARD, No. 74835. She opened the file and spread it across the desk in front of her.

  Reuben started backpedaling. "Hey, I get out of here in seven months, and all I want to do is serve my time and-"

  She shut the file and sat back, crossing her arms. "Oh, you'll do your time ... and a lot more." She picked up her briefcase, pushed her chair beneath the desk, and headed toward the door.

  I sat there, still filming, wondering when to cut it off.

  Reuben sat up straight and said, "Wait!" His handcuffs rattled on the desktop.

  Mandy turned, raised her eyebrows, and waited.

  Reuben opened both hands, like he was making a petition. "Yeah ... maybe I got a little rough with him." He looked at me and realized he'd just said that on tape. He swallowed. "But ... I didn't take him from that place. And I don't know where that old woman's necklace is. Honest."

  I didn't know anything about any jewelry, but the pale expression on Bo's face told me he was telling the truth. Mandy played it perfectly.

  Note to self: Never play poker with Mandy. She can bluff with the best of them.

  Mandy sat down, folded her hands across the desk in front of her, and tilted her head, waiting. Reuben nodded, swallowed again, and tried to talk, but his tongue had grown cottony, and he looked like he could use a drink. Mandy phoned the security guard and asked him to bring Reuben some water.

  The guard sloshed the water on the table. Reuben drank like a man three days in the desert and started over. "I was working the graveyard shift at the motor pool for the Fulton County Police Department. Working on cop cars. Now tell me that ain't ironic."

  Mandy spoke slowly into the microphone. "Reuben ... you're stalling."

  "And I met this girl. Sonya. She weren't no good, but she were a girl and-" He looked at me, then back at Mandy. "Anyway ... we had this thing going, and I learned she worked at this old folks home. You know, one of them places that smells like urine. Well, she was always talking about how these old people tell her stuff. Like about the diamonds and emeralds they used to wear when they was younger." He shrugged. "We'd been seeing each other a few months when she showed me some of the stuff. Said it was easy 'cause most didn't remember having it, so they never missed it. I liked the action, so we got us a rental off the Perimeter and started living the life. Easy money, free sex. You know, Bonnie and Clyde.

  "That's when we really started working the old people. Her on the inside, working their rooms and what was left of their memories, and me on the outside, working the homes they'd moved out of. Then one day, she meets this kid, and 'cause she'd drunk her insides rotten and couldn't never have no kids, her motherly instincts kick in and she starts talking about us being a family and blah, blah, blah. Whatever. She was a girl, and I needed one. So I let her talk. Anyway, Sonya kicks the bottle and starts acting all respectable, and next thing I know she's gone and filed papers to adopt this stupid kid. Couldn't even talk. What kind of dang kid is that? I just called him Snoot. Anyway ... I didn't care as long as ... well, she knew this old lady had taken to the kid, and she had a rock about the size of a gumdrop. So she used him like bait, lifted the candy, and next thing I know, I'm driving Sonya and her kid in the getaway car, and she's draped in some old lady's family heirloom." He sat back and paused. "We drove to the coast and lasted about a year 'fore she drank half our money and shopped away the rest. It ain't ever enough. So I took up at the bottling plant."

  Mandy sat up. "How long ago was this?"

  "Two, maybe three years."

  Mandy reached into Reuben's file and pulled out a mug shot of a woman who looked to be forty with enough miles to make her look fifty. She held the picture to the glass. "This the woman?"

  Bo nodded. "Sonya." He laughed. "And when you see the of biddy, tell her she better bring back my dang Impala."

  Mandy pulled a second picture out of her briefcase and looked at it briefly before she showed it to him. It was the picture of the charred and burnt body of someone driving a car-a car that had gotten so hot the rubber had burned off the rims. The driver's fingers were still wrapped around the steering wheel, but most of the skin, hair, and clothing had been burnt off.

  Mandy held the picture to the glass and said, "I'll tell her, but I don't think she's going to be able to hear me ... and you're not going to get your car back."

  Bo's head turned sideways, the picture registered in his brain, and he swore. "I knew I never should've picked up with that woman." He spat again. "And that was a good car. Paid for, too."

  Mandy stood, threw everything into her briefcase one final time, and walked to the door. She turned and said, "I'll be in touch."

  Reuben stood up and screamed, "But I still don't know what she did with all them dang jewels! And tell that crappy kid I want my baseball card back." He banged on the glass. "Don't let that kid fool you ... he's a better thief than all us put together."

  We walked out into the sunshine, into freedom, and I took a deep breath-one I'd been needing for about twenty minutes. We drove out of the security gate, onto the highway, and I looked at Mandy. "Remind me never to do anything to make you mad."

  She looked in the rearview mirror and licked some lipstick off the front of her tooth. "What?"

  "You're vicious."

  She smiled and adjusted the air conditioner. "In my experience dealing with the Bos of the world, if you can ask the right question and get under their skin, then get them to backpedal a bit, they'll start talking. Reuben was just like all the rest. They all live by the philosophy `If I go down, I'm taking somebody else with me.'"

  "You think he was telling the truth?"

  She tossed her head. "Mostly. But we'll find out. You think your paper will let you do some research in Atlanta?"

  "The question is not will they let me
research, but are the Braves playing, and if so, can I submit the tickets on my expense report?"

  She laughed and then stuck a finger in the air, her tone growing serious. "One thing."

  "What's that?"

  "The kid ought to go with us."

  I smiled. "Few things are better than a ten-dollar Turner Field hot dog. Every kid ought to eat one."

  "Is baseball all you think about?"

  'When the Braves are leading the pennant race, yes."

  She set the cruise and began tapping the steering wheel with eight fingers, telling me her mind was working. "I need to petition the judge to take John Doe outside county lines, but I think she'll go for it."

  'Who's the judge?"

  "Thaxton."

  I shook my head. "Better not tell her I'm going."

  She laughed. "Yeah ... I read your file too." She shook her head and looked at me suspiciously. "Seems like you've been spending a good bit of time downtown in run-down and condemned buildings."

  "I'm studying the architecture."

  "And why is that?"

  "That would be the question."

  "You play your cards pretty close to your chest, don't you?"

  "When I need to."

  "Listen, I didn't grow up here, but I've got two ears. You'd have to be an idiot to live here for any period of time and not know the story."

  "It's pretty well woven into the fabric of this place."

  "Don't tell me you actually believe the rumors?"

  I nodded.

  She frowned. "Come on. Really? After all this time, and all the construction, if it was ever there to begin with ... you don't really think it survived?"

  "It was, and I do."

  "Even with the water level just a few feet below the surface?"

  "Even with."

  She shook her head. "Well, you'd be alone on this one."

  "Won't be the first time," I said, smiling.

  "You know, if I were investigating you, I'd look at an aerial photo and begin to wonder if you weren't just casing out the ZB&T."

  "I'm sure my uncle believes the same thing, which is why he owns all the property for three blocks in every direction ... and why I'm not allowed within fifty feet of his bank."

  "That doesn't make sense."

  "It does if you've got something buried and you want to buy yourself a protective barrier around the grave."

  "Sounds like a conspiracy theory."

  "Sometimes the truth is hard for people to believe."

  She nodded. "Good point, but if that's the case, you've got your work cut out for you. But don't you think somebody would have caught him by now? I mean, all those municipal bonds are no good if you don't cash them in. Wouldn't they have to show up somewhere?"

  "If he cashed them in at all."

  'Why would you steal a bunch of money and never spend it?"

  'What if the money wasn't the goal?"

  'What was?"

  "You tell me. What's worth dying for?"

  "Mostly, money."

  I shook my head. She might have graduated law school near the top of her class and be one of the best attorneys on the planet, but I'd had a lifetime to consider. "No, he had plenty of that."

  'What then?"

  'What was the one thing he didn't have?"

  She thought a minute. "You don't actually think he framed his brother?"

  "I know that the first recorded sin in the Bible, after the Fall, was the murder of one brother by another."

  'What's your point?"

  "Think about it, Counselor. For all intents and purposes, this town hung William McFarland on a murder he didn't commit-which, by the way, included his wife and father-and a theft of millions in municipal bonds that they never found, can't prove he took, and have no evidence were ever cashed in. They were just looking for someone to blame, and he was the easiest to peg. Lastly, if he did take them, doesn't he have a rather funny way of showing it?"

  "Okay, let's say Jack did all this to gain control. Control of what?"

  "The Zuta. Twenty-six thousand acres of virgin, South Georgia real estate. The bank is petty cash compared to the opportunity at the Zuta. It's no secret that I think Jack McFarland is a murdering crook, but I never said he was a stupid murdering crook."

  "What makes you say that?"

  I shrugged. "What I know about Jack McFarland. You of all people should know that appearances can be deceiving."

  "True. If this job has taught me anything, it's that people are good at hiding who they really are. But what about William McFarland? No one ever explained that pardon. A lot of people around here were mad, thought he didn't get what he deserved. A lot still do. Let's assume for a minute an underground basement, tunnel, call it what you will, actually existed at one time. What good would knowing that do you?"

  "It would prove Jack had or knew about access to the vault."

  "So what? The same would be true of William McFarland."

  "Sure, but for so long the finger's only been pointed in one direction."

  "Let's say Jack knew. What was his motive? We're starting to argue in circles."

  "Welcome to my life."

  "Twice you've been held and questioned about snooping around the bank's surrounding buildings."

  "Those are just the times they know about," I said, grinning.

  She rolled her eyes. "I didn't hear that. The third time, the judge put you in jail until she could figure out what to do with you. Which"she shrugged-"is nothing, because it's difficult to take anything out of empty and gutted buildings."

  "Yeah, my uncle is good at that."

  "What?"

  "Gutting stuff."

  "He says he's renovating for the historical society."

  "Yeah, he's preserving history all right. If you believe that, I've got a bridge I'd like to sell you."

  "You really don't like him, do you?"

  "What is there to like?"

  "Well, for starters, he's one of the most well-respected businessmen in South Georgia. Not to mention an elder in his church and ... the list goes on."

  I studied her. "Do you have a boyfriend?"

  "What kind of question is that?"

  "Well, 'cause if you do this to every guy you meet, it might be kind of difficult to find yourself on a second date."

  "Sorry. Too many courtrooms. I get carried away. But, seriously ..."

  "See? There you go again."

  "I'm not kidding."

  I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. "You don't trust people too easily, do you?"

  She took a deep breath. "In my job, that's an asset."

  "But what about your life?"

  "It's given me some trouble before. Seriously"-she wouldn't let up, which I began to see as a strength in her character-"looking at an aerial photo of the block, I'd say you were casing out the bank."

  "It's not necessarily the bank I'm interested in."

  "Really? You can believe that somebody, somehow, came up through the Spanish-era basement-that no one can find-and bored through a couple feet of concrete and into the old vault, where they then stole most of the town's municipal bonds, all of which were kept in individual lock boxes that required two keys, one of which was only held by the box holders?"

  "You've done your homework."

  "Law school taught me that."

  "Is that the same law school that taught you not to trust people?"

  "No, this job pretty much took care of that."

  "Did you just break up with a boyfriend or something?"

  She laughed and shook her head. "Even if the basement still exists, wouldn't it flood? What about the water table?"

  I wasn't about to play all my cards at one time. Not until I knew more. "Maybe, but not necessarily."

  "Then how do you explain the new high-tech vault you see when you walk in the front door?"

  "I don't. I'm only interested in how they got into the old one."

  "Just what are you looking for? Certainly, you don't think J
ack McFarland is dumb enough to keep anything of value down there."

  "That depends on what you value." I looked at her over the top of my Costa Del Mars.

  "Sounds like there's a story there."

  "Yes ... but I'm not quite ready to write it."

  There's a lot I don't know about my life. Don't know my real name, don't really know where I came from, who my parents were, or why they dropped me off on the doorstep of a boys' home. Lastly, I don't know much of anything about the man who raised me except this: I have lived my entire life in a chasm between hope and hate, and the only man to climb down into it with me was Unc.

  And that's enough.

  Chapter 17

  the afternoon of my man-overboard adventure with Unc, we cleaned the fish and put most of them in the freezer in Ziploc bags. Needing some cornmeal for a fish fry and horseradish for the cocktail sauce, we drove to town. Returning from the grocery store, we were driving down Highway 99 when we came upon an entire fleet of flashing lights. Eight fire trucks, six police cars, four state troopers' cars, and an ambulance were parked in a random circle around what looked like a well head out in a farmer's pasture.

  Unc wasn't too welcome most anywhere in town, but when he saw all the lights, he stopped and asked the trooper who was directing traffic, 'What's going on?"

  The trooper pointed. "Ain't good. Little kid fell in a well. Wedged in. Can't get him out."

  Unc looked at the swarming chaos, then at me. He clicked on his blinker and pulled into the pasture. We approached the crowd of professionals who had gathered around the top of the well, and he elbowed his way in and quickly put two and two together. Most farmers in and around Glynn County feed their flocks with surface water. Few wells exist because the surface of the earth is so close to the water table, but there are exceptions and this well was one of them. It was a fifty-foot seepage well, and its walls were made of coquina.

  The boy had climbed down into the well much like he would a set of monkey bars. Problem was, when he neared the bottom, he was hanging upside down with his flashlight when he lost his grip and fell. Given the diameter of the shaft and complications of the bars, the men in the group were all too big to climb down, and the kid-who was upside down and only partly conscious-couldn't grab hold of anything sent to him. Lastly, they couldn't disturb the construction of the well because it had grown brittle over time. If they did, chances were good it would collapse on the boy. That meant they needed somebody small who could retrace the boy's steps, wind around the crossbars, and take a rope down to him-even tie it around him if need be. And they needed all this done right then.