Redemption Road(107)
“All I know is that Eli played here as a boy.” Adrian touched the trunk and circled to the other side. “And that after sixty years in prison, it was the only place in the world he ever truly missed. Just this island. Just the tree.”
“I’ve never seen a tree like this.”
“He said that from the top he could see the ocean.”
“That’s eighty miles.”
“He wasn’t much for exaggeration. If he said he could see it, he probably could.”
Elizabeth craned her neck but couldn’t see the tree’s crown. It rose, enormous and ancient. She tried to imagine a boy climbing it, then perching high enough to see a gleam of ocean eighty miles away.
“What are you doing?” Elizabeth circled the tree and found Adrian on his knees, digging in a hollow spot where rot had long ago invaded the trunk. She watched him scrape in the loose soil, and it felt wrong: the place, the reason. “Please tell me this is not about stolen money.”
“Yes and no.”
“What does that mean?” He said nothing. “Can you just stop for a minute?”
Adrian rocked back on his heels. Soil stained his hands and left a smear on his face when he wiped sweat from his eyes. “It’s not about money or greed, but about the warden and the guards and a man I loved more than life itself.”
“I’m listening.”
“The warden came to the prison nineteen years ago. By that time, anyone who knew about Eli or the armored car was dead or forgotten. Eli was just an old man destined to die inside. He was a statistic, a number. Just like anyone else. Eight years ago that somehow changed.”
“How?”
“Newspaper clippings. Eli’s file. I don’t know. But, the warden figured out about the shooting and the car, and the fact no one ever found the money.” Adrian spread his hands above the hole he’d dug. “This is what Eli died for. This is why they tortured me.”
“For money?”
“I said it’s not about that. It’s about Eli’s life and his choices, about courage and will and a final act of defiance.”
“Call it what you will, Adrian, your friend died for money.”
“Because he refused to be broken.”
“For a hundred and seventy thousand dollars.”
“Well, that part’s not exactly true.”
“I’m tired of riddles, Adrian.”
“Then give me a minute.” He kept digging. When finally he stopped, he leaned in shoulders deep and heaved out a jar, dropping it with a thump. The top was rusted away, the glass smeared with dirt.
Elizabeth pointed. “Is that…?”
“The first of thirty.”
She reached for the jar, but stopped short.
“Go ahead.”
She plucked out a single coin, smearing dirt with a thumb until it glinted yellow. “How many?”
“Coins? Five thousand.”
“You said he stole a hundred and seventy thousand dollars.”
“Gold was thirty-five dollars an ounce in 1946.”
“How much is it, now?”
“Twelve hundred dollars, maybe.”
“So this is…”
“Six million,” Adrian said. “Give or take.”
28
Stanford Olivet let his daughter sleep in and started pancakes when he heard the shower run upstairs. It was just the two of them, and today he wanted to hold her close, spend a little time. The kitchen around him was neat and clean, a smell in the air of batter and coffee and gun oil. The .45 was beside the stove. Before that it was beside his shower, and before that, the bed. Olivet was terrified, and not of Adrian Wall.
“Good morning, sweetheart.”
“Pancakes. Yes.” His daughter moved down the stairs. She was twelve, a tomboy who loved archery and animals and sports cars. She kept her hair short, avoided makeup. Already, she could drive better than most adults. “Are you going to the range?”
She meant the gun. The .45 wasn’t his duty weapon, but a military-grade pistol he’d bought secondhand at a surplus store. “I thought I might.”
“How’s your face?”
She rounded the kitchen island and kissed him gently on the cheek. He had stitches, bandages. Four teeth were loose. “It’s okay.”
“I hate that your job is so dangerous.”
He let the lie stand: that two prisoners jumped him at bed check. Not that Adrian Wall had almost killed him, then inexplicably chosen to let him live. “What do you want to do this morning?”
“I don’t know. What do you want to do?”
He slid pancakes onto a plate, and she forked a bite.
“Car in the driveway.” She pointed with the fork.
He saw it, too. “Shit.”
“Daddy!”
“You stay here.” He went to the door and took the gun with him.
The warden was already out of the car. Jacks and Woods stayed by its side. “You’re supposed to be at work.”
“I thought—”
“I know what you thought.” The warden pushed into the house. “You thought a few bruises bought you a day off. This is not that day.”
Olivet closed the door and trailed the warden into the kitchen. His daughter stopped eating when the warden pointed. “Isn’t she supposed to be in school?”