Heat

Chapter 54

Jesse pored over the charts until midnight, then he began reading the pilot’s operating handbook for the Cessna 182. He concentrated on the airplane’s systems, then memorized the operating speeds for takeoff and landing and for the stall speeds. He read up on the avionics, aircraft icing and emergency procedures. By two o’clock his eyes were burning. He put down the book and got into his coat.

He drove once around the town, as if he were simply an insomniac out for a wee-hours drive. All was quiet. He parked in an alley, as he had done before, and walked to the courthouse. The locks were easier this time, and inside half an hour he had entered the county clerk’s office and forged a birth certificate for Carrie.

As he walked back toward the truck the waxing moon came from behind the clouds and lit the streets as if it were daylight. Jesse crossed the street to stay in the shadows and, at that moment, he saw the police car.

It was driving slowly up the street toward him, swinging its spotlight back and forth from one side of the street to the other, checking the storefronts. Jesse flattened himself against a building, feeling terribly exposed; if he ducked into a doorway, he would be illuminated when the light hit the front door of the shop. He stood, frozen, waiting to be seen, trying to make up a story to explain his presence on the street in the middle of the night.

The spotlight hit the front of a shop across the street, then swung to the other side. As it moved, it caught Jesse full in the face, momentarily blinding him. It paused on the shop’s front door next to him, then moved on down the street. After a few seconds, the police car turned right and disappeared around the corner. Jesse couldn’t move for a moment. He had been fully visible to the driver, but he apparently hadn’t been seen. He sprinted for his truck.

He gave the police car another minute to move on, then he started the truck and headed east from town. He passed Wood Products and came to the bridge over the creek. A foot-long length of duct tape was stuck to the railing on the opposite side of the road. He pulled the truck off the road and into the woods, then walked back to the side of the road. He looked in both directions, then sprinted across the road and down the embankment, snatching the strip of duct tape from the railing as he went.

His flashlight found the bundle, taped securely in a corner of the bridge supports. He used his pocket knife to cut it free, then stripped off the remaining bits of tape and stuck them in his pocket. Back at road level, he knelt behind the bridge railing and waited for an eighteen-wheeler to roar past, then ran for his truck.

Back at home, he took the bundle into the kitchen and ripped away the plastic covering with his knife. Inside he found a canvas backpack, and inside that were all the items he had requested, plus one more. There was a typewritten note taped to it: “You must wear this wire to the meeting,” it read. “The tape will be crucial to our court case.” He ripped up the note and flushed it down the garbage disposal. The recorder was small, he’d give them that. If he wore it in some clever place, a body search might even miss it.

He put the materials back into the backpack, took it out to the garage and concealed it under a stack of firewood. Then he got under the truck, opened the safe and stashed Carrie’s birth certificate with the passports.

As he climbed the stairs to bed, he thought carefully about his plan. He had nearly everything he wanted now; the remainder of his needs he would find at Wood Products.

On Monday morning, Jesse rapped on Herman Muller’s office door, and Muller waved him in.

“Morning, Jesse.”

“Morning, Herman; have you got a minute?”

“Sure I have. Sit you down.”

Jesse sat. “Herman, I think I’ve got a pretty good grip on how the plant runs now, and I seem to have a little time on my hands. I just wondered if you could use a hand at the bookkeeping.”

Muller regarded him for a moment, then smiled. “Jesse, you put your finger on the thing I hate doing most around here. My wife kept the books until she died; fortunately, she got the computer system up and running before she passed, and she taught me to run it. I guess it’s time I taught you.”

“I’ll be glad to learn,” Jesse said.

“Pull your chair around here and look over my shoulder,” Muller said, switching on the computer. “You start from the main menu and press B for books, then it will ask you for your password. The password is Tommy.”

Jesse spent most of the morning following Muller through the program; it really was very straightforward. When everybody left for lunch, Jesse went to the computer, entered the password and asked the program to print out a balance sheet for the previous year. It took less than a minute to do so.

He put the statement into his pocket, found his coat and went down to the parking lot, then he drove into town and parked in front of the bank.

“I’d like to see Kurt Ruger,” he told the secretary. Then he looked up to see Ruger waving him into his office.

“What can I do for you, Jesse?” Ruger asked, and his tone was cool. “You want to borrow some money?”

“Thanks, Kurt, but I’m here to do something for you.” He produced the balance sheet, unfolded it and handed it over.

Ruger read the document, then smiled, the first time Jesse had ever seen him do so. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “The old goat is doing even better than we thought!”

“This year ought to be a lot better,” Jesse said. “I’ve developed two new plywood outlets in the East, and I think those will lead to more.”

“Yeah, Casey told me about the order from Maryland. That and the New York order, on top of the usual business, ought to keep the plant humming for the better part of the year.”

“That it will,” Jesse said.

“How’d you do it? How’d you get the computer password?”

“I just asked. I offered to help with the bookkeeping, and Herman jumped at it; said he hated doing it himself.”

Ruger stood up and offered his hand. “Jesse, I’ve underestimated you, and I’ve been suspicious of you over nothing. I want to apologize.”

Jesse shook the man’s hand. “Don’t mention it,” he said. “Is there anything else you want from Herman’s books?”

“If you could get me a temporary balance sheet for this year so far, that would help,” Ruger said.

“I can do that; I’ll drop it by tonight on the way home.”

Ruger smiled again. “We’ll own that business before the month is out,” he said.

Jesse left the bank and went back to his truck. Before the month is out, he mused, you’ll be in the joint. Or in hell.