For several seconds after Rebecca turned over the Polaroid, no one moved.
E.T.
Two initials written beneath the image of the blue canvas bag in Russell’s red pickup.
My mother had been Evelyn Turner.
There was no clever interpretation to soften that.
Russell stood beside the kitchen table staring at the photograph as though the truck might suddenly explain itself.
“That picture was taken behind Uncle Walter’s garage,” he said.
Walter leaned closer.
“How can you tell?”
“The fence.”
The Polaroid showed only a slice of chain-link behind the truck, but Russell pointed to a bent section near one post.
“I backed into that fence when I was sixteen.”
Walter looked annoyed.
“You told me Thomas did that.”
“I lied.”
“Incredible.”
Russell gave him a flat look.
“Would you like to compare lies?”
Walter sat back down.
I kept staring at the initials.
“My mother moved the package.”
“We don’t know that,” Rebecca said.
“It has her initials.”
“So does every object she ever labeled.”
“That isn’t helping.”
“I’m not trying to help. I’m trying to keep us from deciding before we know.”
She sounded like Daniel.
That hurt unexpectedly.
My husband had possessed the infuriating ability to slow a room by asking whether anyone actually knew what they claimed to know.
I picked up the Polaroid again.
The handwriting did not immediately strike me as my mother’s.
But three block letters were hardly enough for comparison.
“Do we have anything else she initialed?”
Rebecca started toward the boxes.
Walter stopped her.
“Wait.”
Something in his voice made us all turn.
He held out his hand.
“Let me see it again.”
I gave him the photograph.
He tilted it toward the kitchen light.
Then his face tightened.
“What?”
Walter rubbed one thumb lightly beneath the initials without touching the ink itself.
“That may not stand for Evelyn Turner.”
Russell frowned.
“What else would it stand for?”
“Evidence transfer.”
The room fell silent.
Rebecca was first to respond.
“Federal notation?”
Walter nodded slowly.
“Possibly.”
“You said you were cooperating with the FBI,” I said. “Would they mark photographs like this?”
“Sometimes evidence bags, notes, surveillance photographs. Different agents used different shorthand.”
“You sound uncertain.”
“I am.”
Russell folded his arms.
“You were certain enough five minutes ago that the blue package was federal property.”
“Because it was.”
“And now you suddenly remember E.T. could mean evidence transfer?”
Walter’s mouth tightened.
“I haven’t looked at FBI paperwork from 1981 in decades.”
“That conveniently explains a lot.”
I stepped between the accusation and the answer.
“Where are your old federal records?”
Walter hesitated.
“At my house.”
“Everything?”
“No.”
“Where is the rest?”
He looked toward the box from the bank.
“Some of it disappeared when the blue package did.”
I almost laughed.
“Of course it did.”
Walter accepted the contempt.
“The operation against Mercer was bigger than anything you’ve seen so far.”
“How big?”
“Multiple states.”
Russell pulled out a chair and sat.
“Then stop feeding us pieces.”
Walter looked suddenly tired.
“You think I enjoy this?”
“I think you spent your entire adult life deciding which truth everyone else could survive.”
That landed.
Walter lowered his eyes.
Russell continued.
“My mother thought her first child was dead because your family decided reality would embarrass them.”
“Yes.”
“You let Mercer blackmail her.”
“Yes.”
“You worked with federal agents while pretending nothing was wrong.”
“Yes.”
“And then you watched Mary and me get separated because everybody was scared of the consequences of telling the truth.”
Walter looked at his nephew.
“Yes.”
Russell’s voice dropped.
“Then you don’t get to control the pace anymore.”
The old man nodded once.
“All right.”
He reached for the cassette player but did not touch it.
“The operation started in spring 1981.”
“Against Mercer?”
“Against Mercer and three men he worked with. Gambling, stolen property, interstate transport, bribery.”
“Was my father involved?”
Walter looked at me.
“Not at first.”
“But later?”
“Robert had helped with the 1979 burglary. That made him vulnerable.”
“To Mercer.”
“And to federal charges.”
I understood.
“Your agents wanted Dad to cooperate too.”
“Yes.”
“Did he?”
Walter took a breath.
“Eventually.”
Russell stared.
“Robert Turner was an informant?”
“For six days.”
The specificity chilled me.
“What happened after six days?”
“He backed out.”
“Why?”
Walter looked at me.
“Evelyn.”
I felt anger stir again.
“What did she do?”
“She discovered what Robert had agreed to.”
“And?”
“She told him Mercer would retaliate against Mary Louise.”
I could almost hear my mother saying it.
Not me.
Our daughter.
Always the threat attached to me.
“Was she wrong?”
“No.”
That stopped my anger from becoming simple.
Walter continued.
“Mercer had already started watching Mary. The fairground photograph proves that.”
I looked at the picture of my seventeen-year-old self beside him.
“Who took it?”
“Probably one of Mercer’s people.”
Russell pointed toward the blue-bag Polaroid.
“And this one?”
“I don’t know.”
“Federal agent?”
“Maybe.”
“Mercer?”
“Maybe.”
“You’re doing wonderfully.”
Walter ignored him.
“The blue package was supposed to be placed in Mercer’s possession during a controlled exchange. Marked bills. A recorder hidden in the lining. Documents.”
“What documents?”
“Copies of payment records that would make him believe somebody inside the operation was betraying the government.”
“A trap.”
“Yes.”
“Why keep it at your garage?”
“Because Mercer trusted places more than people. My garage was somewhere he understood.”
“And he discovered the package.”
“He discovered something existed.”
Rebecca said, “But not where it was.”
“Correct.”
“Then someone moved it into Russell’s truck.”
“Yes.”
“And took a photograph.”
“Yes.”
“Who had access to the truck?”
Russell answered.
“Everybody at the garage.”
“That’s not useful.”
“It was 1981. Half the time the keys stayed under the seat.”
I stared at him.
“You really were stupid.”
“I keep admitting that.”
Walter looked toward the bank documents.
“There may be an inventory sheet.”
We searched the leather folder.
Nothing.
Then Rebecca found a narrow pocket sewn into the folder’s interior.
Inside was a folded photocopy so thin the paper almost tore when she removed it.
Across the top:
OPERATION RIVERGLASS.
Russell looked at Walter.
“That was the operation?”
“Yes.”
Beneath the title was an evidence inventory.
Marked currency.
Cassette recorder.
Microphone.
Two federal affidavits.
Photographs.
One sealed envelope containing original correspondence.
Then:
Transfer designation: E.T.
I looked at Rebecca.
“You were right.”
She nodded.
“Not Grandma.”
For one second, relief moved through me.
Then I noticed another line.
Transfer custodian: R. Turner.
My father.
I read it twice.
“Dad was supposed to move the package.”
Walter closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
“You said he backed out.”
“He did.”
“Then why is his name here?”
“Because that paperwork was prepared before he withdrew.”
“Did he ever take custody of the bag?”
Walter hesitated.
“Briefly.”
“How briefly?”
“One night.”
“Which night?”
“August seventeenth.”
The evening Russell and I sat beside the river planning a future.
The day my mother showed Russell the marriage agreement.
The day before my father nearly killed him.
Everything was converging.
“Where did Dad keep it?”
“In your basement.”
Russell stared.
“The metal box.”
Walter nodded.
“The letters weren’t in it?”
“Some letters were. The federal package was hidden behind it.”
I remembered Russell saying my mother had sent him to confront my father and hoped he would discover Mercer’s correspondence.
Had she also known federal evidence was there?
“Did my mother know about Riverglass?”
Walter’s answer took too long.
“Yes.”
I stood.
“You keep doing that.”
“What?”
“Giving us the next piece only when another document corners you.”
“I’m trying to remember events from forty-five years ago.”
“No. You’re deciding how much damage each answer will cause.”
Walter looked at me.
“That habit kept people alive once.”
“Did it?”
His face changed.
The room went quiet.
I heard the clock above my stove.
“What does that mean?”
Walter leaned forward with both hands wrapped around the head of his walking stick.
“Riverglass failed.”
“We figured that out.”
“No arrests from the operation. No successful exchange. Two witnesses disappeared.”
Russell’s expression hardened.
“Who?”
“One was a bookmaker named Neil Sutter.”
“And the other?”
Walter looked toward me.
“An FBI source named Thomas Bell.”
“Dead?”
“Never found.”
My throat tightened.
“Were they connected to my family?”
“Not directly.”
“Then why does this matter?”
“Because Mercer believed Robert was responsible for the failure.”
“My father?”
“Yes.”
“He was barely cooperating.”
“That made him believable as the leak.”
I sat again.
“Did Mercer threaten him?”
“Repeatedly.”
“Then Dad attacked Russell because he was already terrified Mercer thought he betrayed him.”
“That’s part of it.”
Part.
Always part.
Russell noticed too.
“What’s the rest?”
Walter looked at him.
“Robert caught you in the basement.”
“I know.”
“But you weren’t alone.”
Russell stared.
“Yes, I was.”
“No.”
“I remember it.”
“You remember entering alone.”
Russell’s expression changed.
Memory was not a film.
It was fragments held together by certainty.
“Who was with me?”
Walter said, “Margaret.”
Russell’s mother.
He shook his head immediately.
“No.”
“She followed you there.”
“No.”
“She knew Evelyn had shown you the marriage agreement. She knew you were furious.”
“I would remember my mother.”
“You had a concussion.”
“I remember Robert coming downstairs. I remember shouting. I remember the tire iron.”
“Do you remember what happened immediately before he hit you?”
Russell opened his mouth.
Nothing came.
Walter looked at him gently for the first time.
“You saw Margaret holding the blue package.”
Russell went still.
My own breath caught.
“She took it?”
Walter nodded.
“She had gone into the basement before you arrived.”
“Why?”
“Evelyn asked her to.”
There it was.
Not my mother moving the bag into Russell’s truck.
Russell’s mother.
At Evelyn’s request.
I felt the implications forming.
“Why would Mother want federal evidence moved?”
Walter answered, “To protect Robert.”
“From the FBI?”
“From Mercer.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Mercer was coming for the package.”
“How did she know?”
“Margaret told her.”
Russell stared at Walter.
“My mother was talking to Mercer?”
“Mercer was blackmailing her with Caleb.”
“So she knew what he wanted.”
“Yes.”
“And Evelyn decided to remove the evidence before he arrived.”
“Yes.”
“By putting it in my truck?”
Walter looked sick.
“That was not the plan.”
The room sharpened around those words.
“What was the plan?”
“Margaret was supposed to drive it to me.”
“In Russell’s truck?”
“No.”
“Then who put it there?”
“I don’t know.”
Russell leaned across the table.
“You know more than that.”
Walter’s knuckles whitened.
“I know Margaret left the Turner house with the bag.”
“And?”
“She arrived at my garage twenty minutes later without it.”
“Where was Russell’s truck?”
“At the garage.”
Russell stood.
“She put it in my truck.”
“I never saw her do it.”
“Why would she?”
“I asked her that.”
“What did she say?”
Walter looked down.
“She said she panicked.”
Russell laughed without humor.
“My entire childhood was apparently built from people panicking.”
“She said Mercer’s car followed her from Sycamore Street. She was afraid he would search her vehicle.”
“So she moved the bag into mine.”
“Yes.”
“Without telling me.”
“Yes.”
“And then Mercer photographed it.”
“Apparently.”
The letter from Mercer suddenly made sense.
Bring the blue package from Walter’s garage.
Mercer believed Russell had it because someone had photographed it in Russell’s truck.
“Did Russell ever drive that truck afterward?” I asked.
Walter nodded.
“The next day.”
Russell frowned.
“The eighteenth.”
“Yes.”
“The day Robert hit me.”
“You took the truck to Sycamore Street.”
Russell stared into space.
A memory surfaced.
“I parked behind the house.”
“Yes.”
“So the bag was outside in my truck while I was in the basement.”
“Yes.”
“What happened to it?”
Walter said nothing.
Russell looked at him.
“What happened?”
“I told you. It disappeared.”
“When?”
“While you were inside.”
The entire sequence shifted.
Someone knew the bag was in Russell’s truck.
Someone came to my parents’ house.
Someone removed it while Russell confronted my father.
“Mercer?” Rebecca asked.
Walter shook his head.
“He claimed he never got it.”
“Did you believe him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because for the next month he tore apart half the county looking for it.”
I looked toward my mother’s cassette.
“Then somebody else took it.”
“Yes.”
“Who knew where Russell was going that night?”
“Evelyn.”
“Margaret.”
“Robert.”
“Walter.”
Russell added, “And probably Mercer if he was watching us.”
Rebecca started counting on her fingers.
“Anyone federal?”
Walter hesitated.
“One agent.”
“Name?”
“David Harlan.”
“Alive?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can we find him?”
“Maybe.”
Rebecca was already reaching for her phone when Walter said, “Before you do, there is something you should know about Harlan.”
I almost did not want to ask.
“What?”
“He was the agent who recruited Robert.”
“And?”
Walter’s gaze moved to the photograph from the county fair.
“He was also the man who told Mercer where the blue package was.”
Russell stared.
“So the FBI had a mole.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know then?”
“No.”
“When did you find out?”
“1992.”
“From whom?”
Walter looked at me.
“Leon Mercer.”
That name seemed incapable of staying buried.
“He told you?”
“Sent me a letter.”
“Do you still have it?”
Walter nodded.
“At home.”
Russell let out a long breath.
“So Harlan betrays the operation, Mercer learns about the bag, my mother moves it, somebody steals it from my truck, I get beaten nearly to death, and everybody decides the best solution is to lie to two teenagers.”
“That is an ugly but accurate summary.”
I looked at the Riverglass inventory.
One sealed envelope containing original correspondence.
“What was in the correspondence?”
Walter’s face went carefully neutral.
I saw it.
So did Russell.
“No,” Russell said. “We are not doing this again.”
Walter closed his eyes.
“The letters were between Mercer and David Harlan.”
“Proof the agent was corrupt?”
“Partly.”
“What else?”
Walter looked at me.
“One of them discussed Robert Turner.”
“What did it say?”
“That Robert had agreed to help expose Mercer.”
“We know that.”
“No.”
Walter shook his head.
“Not expose his gambling.”
My heartbeat slowed.
“What, then?”
Walter’s voice dropped.
“Expose who Leon Mercer had killed.”
Nobody moved.
“Killed?”
“Yes.”
“How many people?”
“At least two.”
The missing witnesses.
Neil Sutter.
Thomas Bell.
“Did Dad know where the bodies were?”
Walter nodded.
“He believed so.”
“Where?”
“Along the Mississippi.”
Russell’s face tightened.
“Our river?”
Walter looked at him.
“The same stretch where Mary threw the locket.”
A cold sensation moved through me.
All those years I had remembered that place as ours.
First love.
A silver heart.
Loss.
But beneath that memory, adults had been using the same river for something else entirely.
“The blue package contained proof of murder.”
Walter nodded.
“And whoever stole it may have kept that proof.”
“Yes.”
Rebecca whispered, “For forty-five years?”
Before anyone could answer, my phone rang.
Unknown number again.
Caleb Mercer.
I answered.
“You opened the box.”
Not a question.
“How do you know?”
“Because Walter is talking.”
I stared at the old man.
He shook his head.
I stepped away from the others.
“What do you want?”
“The Riverglass file.”
“Why?”
“Because it belongs to my family.”
“It belongs to federal evidence.”
“Not anymore.”
“What are you afraid we’ll find?”
Caleb went quiet.
Then he said, “You think Leon Mercer was the dangerous one.”
“He threatened my family.”
“My father threatened everybody.”
“Then why protect him?”
“I’m not.”
“Then help us.”
A humorless laugh.
“You still don’t understand.”
“Understand what?”
“The blue package wasn’t stolen from Russell’s truck.”
I looked at Russell.
“What?”
“Someone replaced it.”
My grip tightened.
“With what?”
“An identical bag.”
Russell saw something in my face.
I raised one finger, signaling him to wait.
“How do you know?”
“Because I saw the real one that night.”
“You were there?”
“I was twenty-two years old and doing errands for my father. Of course I was there.”
My skin went cold.
“Where did you see it?”
“In Evelyn Turner’s car.”
My mother.
Again.
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
“She told Margaret to move it.”
“She changed her mind.”
“Why?”
“Because she found out what was inside.”
“The letters?”
“The murder evidence.”
“And?”
Caleb’s breathing sounded rough.
“Your mother realized one of the dead men wasn’t dead.”
I stopped.
“What?”
“Thomas Bell.”
“The FBI source?”
“Yes.”
“Walter said he disappeared.”
“He did.”
“But he survived?”
“For a while.”
“Where was he?”
A pause.
“Ask Russell.”
I looked at him.
Russell’s expression showed only confusion.
“He doesn’t know Thomas Bell.”
Caleb answered softly.
“Yes, he does.”
Then he hung up.
I lowered the phone.
Russell approached.
“What did he say?”
I looked at the man I had known first at seventeen and again only weeks ago.
“He says Thomas Bell survived.”
Walter went rigid.
“That’s impossible.”
“And he says Russell knew him.”
Russell shook his head.
“I’ve never heard that name in my life.”
Rebecca picked up the Riverglass sheet.
“Maybe Thomas Bell wasn’t his real name.”
The thought settled over us.
Federal source.
False identity.
A man who vanished.
A person Russell might have known under another name.
Walter reached slowly for the photograph of Russell leaving St. Anne’s.
His finger moved toward a figure in the far background.
Not Leon Mercer.
Another man.
He stood beside a dark sedan, half turned away from the camera.
Walter’s hand began to shake.
Russell leaned closer.
“Who is that?”
Walter did not answer at first.
Then he whispered, “Thomas.”
Russell stared at the grainy figure.
His face emptied.
“No.”
I looked at him.
“You recognize him.”
Russell sat down hard.
“Yes.”
“Who was he?”
Russell kept staring at the photograph.
Finally he said, “My father’s best friend.”
“What was his name?”
Russell looked at Walter.
“Frank Bellamy.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 10: Frank Bellamy Was Supposed to Be a Family Friend, but His False Identity Explained Why Russell’s Father Vanished for Three Days
A Twelve-Dollar Toaster Led Me to the Silver Heart I Had Watched Vanish Beneath the Mississippi Forty-Three Years Earlier
Part 9 of 47
