A Simple Plan Page 27

  "Different?"

  "I can trust you. I couldn't trust him." As soon as I said it, I realized how it sounded. It was only half what I meant, but I didn't say anything else. It seemed like I'd only make it worse by trying to take it back.

  Sarah sat there thinking.

  "You know what I mean," I whispered.

  Just barely, I could see her nod. After a moment, she slipped out of bed and took Amanda to her crib. When she came back, she snuggled up close against me. I could feel her breath on my neck, and it made me shiver.

  I debated for a bit before I spoke. Then I said, "Would you kill me?"

  "Oh, Hank." She yawned. "I don't think I could kill anyone."

  Outside, in the garage, as if he were much closer than he actually was, I heard the dog begin to howl. Jacob's ghost, I thought.

  Sarah lifted her head and kissed me on my cheek.

  "Good night," she said.

  WEDNESDAY evening I came home from work and found three pieces of paper sitting on the kitchen table. They were photocopies of articles from the Toledo Blade. The first one was dated November 28, 1987, and its headline said:

  DEADLY DUO KILLS SIX, KIDNAPS HEIRESS

  Huge Ransom Demanded

  The article told the story of Alice McMartin, the seventeen-year-old daughter of the Detroit millionaire Byron McMartin. On the evening of November 27, Alice was abducted at gunpoint from her father's estate in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. The kidnappers, dressed as police officers, with badges, service revolvers, and truncheons, bluffed their way into the house shortly before 8:00 p.m. A security camera filmed them as they handcuffed six of the McMartins' household employees -- four security guards, a maid, and a chauffeur -- with their arms behind their backs before making them kneel with their faces against a wall. The kidnappers then took turns shooting their victims in the back of the head, using the security guards' own revolvers.

  Byron McMartin and his wife discovered their daughter's absence, as well as the six corpses, when they returned home from a social function just after ten o'clock. The article quoted an unidentified source as saying that the kidnappers had left a ransom note behind, demanding as much as $4.8 million in unmarked bills.

  The second article, like the first, came from the Blade's front page. Its headline read:

  HEIRESS' BODY ID'D BY FEDS

  Father Loses Daughter, Ransom

  This article was datelined "Sandusky, OH, Dec. 8," and it told how Alice McMartin's gagged and handcuffed corpse had been pulled out of Lake Erie three days before by a local fisherman. The body had apparently been in the water for some time, because the FBI needed the young woman's dental records to confirm her identity. She'd been shot in the back of the head before being dumped into the lake, probably within twenty-four hours of her abduction.

  A ransom had been paid, the article said, after the FBI told Alice's father that it would help them catch the kidnappers.

  The final article was from page 3 of the Blade.

  It began:

  FBI ID's McMARTIN KIDNAPPERS

  Detroit, Dec. 14 (AP) -- Using a security camera's film of the November 27 kidnapping of Alice McMartin, the daughter of the millionaire and former paper cup manufacturer Byron McMartin, during which six employees of the McMartin estate were murdered, the FBI has established the identity of two suspects and begun a nationwide manhunt for them.

  The two men, identified as Stephen Bokovsky, 26, and Vernon Bokovsky, 35, both of Flint, Michigan, are brothers.

  The FBI, acting on a hunch that one or both of the kidnappers were former employees of Mr. McMartin, searched through thousands of personnel files, trying to match employee photographs with the grainy, low-quality images taken from the security camera. A match came when they opened the younger Bokovsky's file. He'd worked as a gardener on the McMartin estate in the summer of 1984.

  Vernon Bokovsky, the elder brother, was identified after FBI agents interviewed the brothers' parents, Georgina and Cyrus Bokovsky, of Flint. The two suspects reportedly stayed with their parents throughout the month of November. Cyrus Bokovsky, reached by phone, told a Blade reporter that he hasn't seen either of his sons since November 27, the night of the kidnapping.

  Vernon had been paroled from the Milan Correctional Facility in 1986 after serving seven years of a twenty-five-year sentence for the 1977 murder of a neighbor in a dispute over the sale of a car. The FBI expressed confidence in their ability to track down and apprehend the suspects. "Now that we've ID'd them," one of the agents said, "it's only a matter of time before we bring them in. They can run all they want, but sooner or later, whether it's next week or next year, we'll get them."

  The article ended with a quote from the same agent, expressing outrage at the brutality of the brothers' crime:

  "It was coldly methodical," Agent Teil said. "It's clear that these guys had planned it out with extreme care. They weren't killing out of panic. The thing you come away with after watching the film is how calm they were. They knew exactly what they were doing."

  Teil speculated that they murdered the six McMartin employees to eliminate the possibility of Stephen Bokovsky being recognized.

  "They saw it as tying up loose ends," he said. "Fortunately for us they forgot about the camera."

  I went back to the first article and read it again. Then I reread the other two articles. Included with the third one were three photographs. The first was a head-and-shoulders shot of Stephen Bokovsky. It was from his employee ID at the McMartin estate. He was small, dark haired, with a thin-lipped smile. His eyes were sunken and tired looking.

  The second photo was of Vernon. It was a mug shot, from when he'd been in jail. He was bearded, intense, his jaw clenched tightly, as if he were in pain. He was much bigger than Stephen. They didn't look like brothers.

  The third photo was a magnified image from the estate's security camera. It showed Stephen aiming down his arm at the back of a kneeling man's head.

  I glanced around the kitchen. There was a pot on the stove, making bubbling sounds. It smelled like beef stew. Sarah was upstairs, with the baby. I could hear her, the low hum of her voice. It sounded like she was reading out loud. Her knitting was across from me on the table in a messy pile, the long needles pointing straight up into the air, like a booby trap.

  I reread the articles again. When I finished, I went upstairs.

  SARAH was in the bathroom, taking a bath with Amanda. She looked up when I came in, glancing quickly at the photocopies in my hand. I could tell that she was pleased with her discovery. Her face was radiant, triumphant. She grinned at me.

  The bathroom was full of steam. I shut the door behind me and sat down on the closed lid of the toilet, loosening my tie.

  Amanda was lying on her back in the warm water, smiling broadly, kept afloat by Sarah's thighs. Sarah was leaning forward, her hands clasped behind the baby's head. One of Amanda's little feet was pressed up against her breast, denting it slightly.

  Sarah was making up a story for Amanda. She paused only briefly when I arrived, then continued, picking up where she'd left off.

  "The queen was very mad," she said, rocking the baby a little in the water. "She stormed out of the ballroom, casting angry looks from side to side. The king ran after her, his whole court following at a distance. 'Beloved!' he yelled. 'Forgive me!' He ran out into the street, glancing this way and that. 'Beloved!' he yelled. 'Beloved!' He sent his soldiers out to search the city. But the queen had disappeared."

  Amanda giggled. She slapped one of her hands at the water, and it made a hollow clapping sound. She kicked her foot at Sarah's breast. Sarah giggled too.

  I couldn't tell if the story was finished, so I waited a few moments before I spoke. I had the photocopies in my lap. They gave off a faint chemical smell in the moist air.

  Sarah lifted her thighs, then dropped them, drawing a gasp from the baby. They were both pink from the water. The ends of Sarah's hair were limp and damp.

  "You found them at the library?" I
asked.

  She nodded.

  "I guess it has to be our money, doesn't it?"

  She nodded again, bending forward to kiss the baby on her forehead. "Do you recognize one of them from the plane?" she asked.

  I turned to the back page and stared at the photographs. "I can't really tell. His face was all chewed up."

  "It's definitely our money."

  "He'd have to be the younger one. He was small." I held the picture out toward her. "The other guy's big."

  She didn't look at the photo. She was watching Amanda. "It's weird, their being brothers, isn't it?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean you and Jacob."

  I allowed myself to pursue that for a moment, but then I stopped. It wasn't something I really wanted to think about. I set the photocopies down on the edge of the sink.

  "How'd you find them?" I asked.

  She reached forward and pulled the plug on the drain. There was a rushing sound beneath the bathroom floor as the water began to make its way out. Amanda lay very still, listening.

  "I just started going back through the old papers from the time you discovered the plane. I didn't have to go far. It was right there on the front page. When I saw it, I even remembered reading it."

  "Me too."

  "But it was just an article then. It didn't seem important."

  "It changes things. Doesn't it?"

  She glanced over at me. "How's that?"

  "The way we talked ourselves into keeping it was that it was lost money -- it didn't belong to anyone, no one was looking for it."

  "And?"

  "And now we know someone's looking for it. We can't say it isn't stealing anymore."

  She stared up at me from the tub, her face confused. "It's always been stealing, Hank," she said. "It's just that before we didn't know who we were stealing from. Knowing where it's from doesn't make it any different."

  She was right, of course. I saw it as soon as she said it.

  "I think it's good we know where it came from," she said. "I was beginning to worry that it might be counterfeit, or marked. That we'd done all this and it was useless, we'd never be able to spend it."

  "It might still be marked," I said. I felt my heart throb painfully at the idea -- the bills were worthless; we'd killed them all for a bag full of paper. My mind reeled at the thought of it -- all our struggle, all our terrible choices, coming now, like this, to nothing.

  But Sarah waved it aside. "They demanded unmarked money. It says so in the article."

  "Maybe that's why they shot her. Maybe they got the ransom and discovered--"

  "No." She cut me off. "It says they killed her right away. They shot her before they even saw the money."

  "Couldn't we tell by looking at it? Can't you hold it up to an ultraviolet light or something?"

  "They wouldn't have given them marked bills. It'd be too much of a risk."

  "It just seems like--"

  "Trust me, Hank, all right? The bills aren't marked."

  I didn't say anything.

  "You're being paranoid. You're just looking for something to worry about."

  A little whirlpool formed at the far end of the tub. We both watched it spiral. The drain made a loud sucking sound beneath it.

  "It makes me want to go back to the plane," I said. "See whether or not it's him."

  "Was he carrying a wallet?"

  "I didn't even think to check."

  "It'd be stupid to go back, Hank. It'd be just asking to get caught."

  I shook my head. "I'm not going back."

  Sarah lifted Amanda off her legs. The water was nearly gone from the tub. "Get a towel," she said.

  I stood up, pulled a towel from the rack. I lifted the baby from Sarah's hands, swaddling her, and then brought her back to the toilet. When I sat down, I rested her on my knees, bouncing her a little. She started to cry.

  "What scares me," I said, watching Sarah dry herself, "is that someone out there knows about the money."

  "He's terrified, Hank. They have his name."

  "The FBI said they're sure they'll catch him. He'll tell them about his brother disappearing with the money in a plane."

  "And?"

  "The connections are just under the surface, Sarah. It wouldn't be that hard for things to come together. Carl knows I heard a plane with engine trouble out by the nature preserve. He knows about Jacob and Lou and Sonny and Nancy getting shot. If they find the plane, and they know it's supposed to have four million dollars on it..." I trailed off. Hearing myself say these things, I felt an instant's flicker of panic, a tremor in the muscles at the back of my neck. I waved toward the photocopies on the sink. "It's like them forgetting about the security camera. We're bound to be overlooking something."

  She dropped her towel into the clothes hamper. Her bathrobe was hanging from the back of the door; she took it down and put it on. Then she picked up Amanda from my lap.

  "The connections only seem obvious to us," she said calmly. "No one else would see them." The baby slowly stopped crying.

  I stood up. I was beginning to sweat beneath my suit, so I took off my jacket and draped it over my arm. My shirt was stuck to my back. "What if Jacob or Lou or Nancy left something behind, a diary or something. Or if one of them told somebody we don't know about..."

  "We're okay, Hank," she soothed me. "You're letting yourself think too much." She stepped forward and hugged me with one arm, the baby -- still whimpering a little -- pressed tightly between our bodies. I let her rest her cheek against my own. Her skin smelled clean and damp and fresh.

  "Think about how people see you," she said. "You're just a normal guy. A nice, sweet, normal guy. No one would ever believe that you'd be capable of doing what you've done."

  SARAH'S birthday was Saturday, the twelfth of March. I wanted it to be a memorable one, not only because it was her thirtieth but also because of the money and the baby, so I got her two big gifts -- both of which were well beyond my pre-duffel bag means.

  The first was a condominium in Florida. Toward the end of February, I'd seen an advertisement in the paper announcing a government auction of property seized in drug raids. They listed all sorts of things that had to be sold -- boats, cars, airplanes, motorcycles, satellite dishes, houses, condominiums, jewelry, even a horse farm -- merchandise that could be purchased for less than 10 percent of its appraised value. It was on the following Saturday, March 5, in Toledo. I told Sarah that I had to work that day and drove into the city around nine, the hour it was scheduled to begin.

  The address listed in the advertisement was a small warehouse, down by the port. Inside there were folding chairs lined up across the floor, facing a wooden podium. None of the actual merchandise was there -- they simply had photographs of it, and long written descriptions, all pasted together in a catalog that they handed to you as you entered from the parking lot. There were about forty people already there when I arrived, all men, and a handful more came in after me.

  The auction was late starting, so I had a half hour to sit and explore the catalog. I'd come to see if there was any nice jewelry, but, as I flipped through the glossy pages, I began to change my mind. The fourth item scheduled for bidding was a three-bedroom beachfront condominium in Fort Myers, Florida. It had a deck, a hot tub, a solarium. There were color pictures of it, interior and exterior. It was white stucco, with a red-tiled roof, like a Spanish house. It was beautiful, luxurious, and I decided immediately that I was going to buy it for Sarah.

  Its appraised value was listed as $335,000, but the bidding was set to start at $15,000. Sarah and I had a little over $35,000 saved up in the Ashenville bank, our nest egg for the move we'd been planning out of Fort Ottowa, and I decided, quite spontaneously, that I could spend $30,000 of it if I had to. I reasoned that if it came to the worst, and we still had to burn the hundred-dollar bills, I could sell the condo and probably even make a profit on it. I saw it as an investment -- shrewd and calculating.

  I'd never been to an auc
tion before, so when it began, I watched to see how people bid. They simply raised their hands as a price was called out, and when someone finally won, a woman with a clipboard took him aside and wrote down some information.

  There were only three other men besides myself who took part in the bidding for the condo. The price gradually climbed through the twenties. As it approached $30,000, I began to get nervous, thinking I wasn't going to get it, but then, suddenly, everyone else dropped out, and I ended up winning it for $31,000.

  The woman with the clipboard took me off to the side. She was young, thin faced, with short, black hair. She had a name tag on, and it said Ms. Hastings. She spoke very quickly, in a hushed tone, explaining to me what I had to do.

  She gave me a business card. I had to get a check for the full amount bid to the address listed on the card within the next week. I should allow ten working days after the receipt of my payment for them to process my papers. After that time, but not before then, I'd be able to come to the same address in person and receive my property -- in this case the deed to the condominium. When she finished telling me this, and I'd filled out my name, address, and telephone number, she left me, moving on to the next person.

  I sat back down in my chair, trying to sort through my feelings. I'd just committed myself to spending $31,000, nearly all of our savings. It seemed like a tremendously foolish thing to do. But then, in comparison to the money we had sitting on the floor beneath our bed, it was nothing. And I'd gotten a deal, too, had bought the place for less than a tenth of its appraised value. The longer I sat there, the more strongly this latter interpretation began to dominate my thoughts. I was a millionaire, after all, four times over; it seemed like I ought to start acting like one. By the time I got up to leave, I was feeling pleased enough with my purchase that there was a just perceptible jauntiness to my stride, and as I made my way to the exit, I even found myself wishing that I had a cane, so that I might twirl it as I walked.