“Jesus,” Divers exclaimed. “I think we know where the missing gold from Fort Knox is hidden.”
“It sure feels that way,” Broadman said.
The two men carried the box inside a rather cramped room, that only had two chairs and a cheaply laminated table that was attached to the wall. The unglamorous appeal of the room was in sharp contrast to the glitz and glam of the rest of the building. It was like they ran out of money or stopped caring when they got to that part of the building.
“I guess this won’t work, will it?” Ken asked.
“Not unless one of these guys sits in the other’s lap,” Broadman returned quickly.
“Rule number three twenty-nine: No lap dances inside the bank vault,” Divers said dryly, but good-naturedly. “I like the privacy of this room, but it’s too small. I tell you what,” he said, “if you don’t mind, I’ll set you up in a conference room. We don’t have any loan closings scheduled until this afternoon. Will that do?”
Broadman looked at us to get our okay. Dorchester and I nodded that it was fine by us. “Perfect, Ken. Thank you.”
“You lead the way, and I’ll help carry the safe deposit box,” I told the manager, who gladly let me hoist the bulky box with Broadman. The fucking thing weighed even more than I thought. “Jesus! Someone call Geraldo Rivera and tell him we found the missing loot from Al Capone’s secret vault,” I said excitedly. I sounded more and more like Josh every damn day, which was fine by me but I wasn’t ever going to wear his skinny jeans.
“You got this, buddy,” Dorchester said encouragingly.
We followed behind Divers to the conference room. “Is there anything else you need?” he asked once he flipped the lights on in the spacious room. The gleaming mahogany table was large enough to seat a professional football team around it and still have room. Divers’ eyes flipped between the box and each of us. I could tell his curiosity was getting the best of him, and he wanted to know what was in that box.
“That will be all,” I said, placing my hand on the doorknob as a subtle hint that he could leave.
“Oh, okay,” he said, slowly backing out of the doorway. “You know where to find…” I closed the door as soon as he was clear of it, cutting off his words.
Dorchester chuckled and said, “What an asshole.”
“Nah, he was just curious,” I said, waving off the idea.
“I was talking about you,” Dorchester told me.
We had a good chuckle then focused our attention on the safe deposit box. There was a bit of tension in the air since we weren’t sure what to expect. “Let’s do this,” I said, reaching for the top of the box. I waited for the guys to get ready and for Dorchester to give me the okay.
Broadman opened his notebook and clicked his pen to prepare for taking notes. Dorchester had pulled out his phone and clicked on the video feature. “Detective John Dorchester with Carter County Sheriff’s Department, Detective Gabriel Wyatt with the Blissville Police Department, and attorney Rylan Broadman at Blissville Bank and Trust.” He rattled off the date and continued with, “We are taking inventory of the box with the permission of Rylan Broadman, who also acts as the trustee for the Lawrence Robertson Revocable Trust. Okay, Gabe, open the box,” Dorchester said.
I opened the box slowly as if I expected the thing to be booby trapped or some shit. I watchedGooniesenough as a kid that I knew better than to just rush into a situation. Nothing exploded when it was finally opened, which was great, but the sheer number of items crammed inside the box seemed overwhelming. It looked like everything was wrapped in the plastic bags you get from the grocery store.
“We’ll go with the notion that the newest items would be on top, but we won’t take anything for granted. Dual control on each item with the camera on us at all times,” I said, making sure we were protected from false claims that we helped ourselves to whatever might be inside, especially cash. Not only that, the video could appear as part of the evidence presented at trial and we weren’t about to lose a case over the camera panning away from the box and then back or video feed that got cut and looked like it was edited. “Ready?” I asked Broadman.
“Ready,” he responded.
I grabbed the first plastic bag and opened it up. “There’s a stash of cash here,” I said clearly for the video. “A stack of hundred dollar bills with a ten-thousand-dollar money wrapper on it. Do we count it to verify for your notes or assume it’s full?” I asked Broadman.
“We count it to make sure we’re accurate,” he replied. “Are either of you opposed if I ask for a money counter machine?”
“Call the manager from your cellphone,” I said. “I don’t want to be accused of stealing anything out of the box.”
“Good point,” Broadman said. He called the bank manager, and we waited for a few minutes for the knock on the door.
Dorchester kept the camera firmly on the box, so it was clear that no one touched or moved the box. “I’ll take over for you if your arm gets tired,” I offered. It would be easy enough to move in behind him and take the phone, so he could move out from behind it and get a break.
Broadman set up the money counter right beside the box so that it was in sight of the camera. We ran the first pack of money through the machine and confirmed that there were exactly ten thousand dollars inside. We both initialed and dated the strap and set it aside. We repeated this same process with nine additional bags of cash.
“One hundred thousand dollars in cash so far,” I documented for the camera. It seemed that Mr. Robertson had some emergency money on hand just in case the banks failed. It was hard telling what else we would find.
Beneath the row of money was several envelopes that appeared to be letters. Most of them were thanking Robertson for his generous benevolence to their charity or university. Alice Davenport wasn’t wrong when she said that he was a generous man. The charitable amounts in that stack of letters equaled a staggering one million dollars. In my head, I said it in my Mike Myers voice fromAustin Powers.As impressive as his donations were, it was the last letter that sent my heart pounding.
It was a letter from Michael Larkin sent in September to Robertson. “Larkin was the guy from McCarren Consortium that Robertson didn’t like or trust, right?” I asked the men in the conference room with me.
“Yeah,” Dorchester agreed, “what do you have?”
