Chapter 4 - WHAT FORTY-TWO MEANT
“What happened to them?”
Evelyn’s voice sounded steady.
She did not feel steady.
Preston looked at the photograph again.
“My father never wrote that part.”
Adrian’s hand closed around the watch.
“But Gabriel knows.”
“Yes.”
“Then we ask him.”
Nobody at the table mistook those words for a suggestion.
Twenty-five minutes later, Gabriel Rourke walked into Adrian’s private office three floors below Mercer Atlantic’s Philadelphia headquarters.
Nobody had explained why he had been summoned.
Adrian wanted it that way.
Gabriel was sixty-one now, broad through the shoulders, silver-haired, with the weathered face of a man who had spent more years beside loading docks than behind desks.
He entered without hesitation.
Then he saw the watch.
His feet stopped.
Evelyn knew immediately.
Preston had not lied.
Gabriel looked at Adrian.
“Where did you get that?”
“You know where.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
Adrian stood behind his desk.
Evelyn remained near the window.
Preston sat in a chair he clearly disliked occupying.
The old photograph lay beneath a lamp.
Adrian touched the watch.
“You moved eight million dollars.”
Gabriel said nothing.
“That wasn’t a question.”
“Yes.”
Evelyn watched Adrian absorb the answer.
“Why?”
Gabriel looked toward her.
His eyes dropped to her bracelet.
Something like pain crossed his face.
“You’re Joseph’s girl.”
Evelyn felt every muscle in her body tighten.
“Don’t call me that.”
Gabriel nodded once.
“Fair.”
“You knew my father.”
“Yes.”
“How well?”
“Better than he wanted anybody to know.”
Adrian stepped between them.
“The money.”
Gabriel looked at him.
“It wasn’t stolen.”
“Thirty-four million is missing.”
“No.”
“What would you call it?”
“Returned.”
That word landed heavily.
Evelyn moved closer.
“To whom?”
Gabriel looked at the old photograph.
“Forty-two families.”
Preston sat straighter.
Adrian’s expression did not change.
Evelyn asked, “What families?”
“Dockworkers.”
She remembered Preston’s notebook.
Forty-two.
Not dollars.
People.
Gabriel lowered himself into the chair opposite Adrian.
“Twenty-one years ago, Mercer Shipping and Hale Transport created a worker protection reserve.”
Preston frowned.
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“You weren’t supposed to.”
Gabriel continued.
“The waterfront was different then. Injuries disappeared. Safety reports changed. Men got hurt and were told they could take a small envelope or never work the river again.”
Adrian’s face hardened.
“My father did that?”
Gabriel did not soften the answer.
“Yes.”
Preston looked away.
“And mine?”
“Yes.”
Nobody spoke.
Gabriel pointed at the photograph.
“Joseph Monroe figured out money was being withheld from a reserve that should’ve covered disabled workers, widows, and long-term medical care.”
Evelyn swallowed.
“He was a dock supervisor.”
“He was also the union treasurer for one local yard.”
She had never known.
“My father hated bookkeeping.”
Gabriel gave the faintest smile.
“Your father hated everything involving a desk. But he could count.”
Evelyn almost smiled back.
Almost.
“What happened?”
“Joseph confronted Patrick.”
Adrian’s eyes narrowed.
“And?”
“Your father threatened him.”
Evelyn stared at Gabriel.
“Patrick threatened my father?”
“At first.”
Adrian looked sick.
Gabriel went on.
“Then Joseph showed him the numbers.”
The room became very still.
“Forty-two men and families had been shorted over almost nine years. Some a few thousand. Some hundreds of thousands. Together, the amount was just under nine million back then.”
Preston said, “That isn’t forty-two million.”
“No.”
“Then where does forty-two come from?”
Gabriel looked at Adrian.
“Patrick decided every family would receive one million dollars eventually. Not because that was what the books showed.”
“Why?”
“Because he said money had been taken from people who didn’t have enough power to say no.”
Adrian looked at the watch.
“My father?”
“He wasn’t a saint.”
Gabriel’s voice remained firm.
“He approved things that should’ve put him in prison. He frightened people. He ruined men. But when Joseph put those forty-two names in front of him, something changed.”
Preston leaned forward.
“What did my father do?”
“Franklin refused.”
Preston’s jaw tightened.
Gabriel continued.
“He said paying would be admitting guilt.”
“That sounds like him.”
“Patrick wanted to move the money quietly. Joseph refused.”
Evelyn looked at him.
“My father wanted it public?”
“No.”
Gabriel’s answer surprised her.
“He wanted the families paid first. Truth second.”
That sounded like Joseph.
Practical.
Stubborn.
Protect the people before winning the argument.
Evelyn stared at the photograph.
“Why wasn’t it done?”
Gabriel looked at Adrian.
“Patrick died.”
The restaurant shooting.
Adrian folded his arms.
“And my father’s watch ended up with Joseph.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It was authentication. Patrick had already ordered an old reserve account reopened. The watch serial unlocked the internal instructions.”
Evelyn looked at the engraving.
J.M.
Patrick had trusted Joseph Monroe with the key.
Her father had been carrying the thing that could force two powerful families to make good on a debt.
Then he died six days later.
Her mouth went dry.
“Was my father’s accident really an accident?”
Gabriel did not answer quickly enough.
Adrian noticed.
So did Preston.
Evelyn stepped forward.
“Gabriel.”
“I don’t know.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It’s the only honest one.”
She wanted to believe him.
That frightened her.
Adrian said, “What happened to the watch after Joseph died?”
Gabriel looked toward Evelyn.
“His coat came to me.”
Her heart stopped.
“What coat?”
“Brown canvas. Torn left pocket.”
She remembered it.
Her father wore that coat every winter.
Her mother had told her the warehouse misplaced his work clothes after the accident.
Evelyn took one step toward Gabriel.
“You had my father’s coat?”
“Yes.”
“For twenty years?”
“No.”
Gabriel looked ashamed.
“I had it for three days.”
“Then where is it?”
“I gave it to Patrick’s sister for safekeeping. When she died, it came back to Mercer storage.”
Adrian frowned.
“I’ve never seen it.”
“You weren’t meant to.”
Evelyn laughed once without humor.
“Apparently none of us were meant to see anything.”
Gabriel reached inside his coat.
Adrian’s guard moved.
Gabriel stopped.
“It’s only a key.”
Adrian nodded.
Gabriel removed an old brass locker key and placed it on the desk.
“Mercer storage room on Delaware Avenue. Locker twenty-seven.”
Evelyn looked at the number stamped into the metal.
“What’s inside?”
“Joseph’s coat.”
“Anything else?”
Gabriel hesitated.
“A rosary Patrick carried.”
Adrian’s face changed.
“My mother gave him that.”
“Yes.”
Preston stood.
“Why would Joseph have Patrick Mercer’s rosary?”
Gabriel looked at all three of them.
“Because the night Patrick died, he gave Joseph two things.”
“The watch,” Evelyn said.
“And the rosary.”
“What was Joseph supposed to do with them?”
“Finish what Patrick started.”
Evelyn took the locker key.
One hour later, the four of them stood in a climate-controlled storage room beneath an old Mercer office overlooking the Delaware.
Locker twenty-seven opened with a metallic click.
Inside hung one brown canvas coat.
Evelyn recognized it immediately.
Her knees nearly failed.
She touched the sleeve.
Twenty years disappeared.
Her father walking through the kitchen.
Her father smelling like cold air and coffee.
Her father promising he would fix the bathroom window Saturday.
He never had.
Adrian stood behind her without touching her.
He understood that this moment belonged to her.
Evelyn reached into the torn left pocket.
Nothing.
Then the right.
Her fingers found wooden beads.
A rosary.
And beneath it, stiff paper.
She removed an old freight ticket.
On the back, written in Joseph Monroe’s blocky handwriting, were six words.
42 ISN’T MONEY.
42 IS THE PROMISE.
Below it was one more line.
FRANKLIN BROKE IT.
PATRICK TRIED TO FIX IT.
Preston went pale.
Evelyn turned the card over.
Another sentence was written across the bottom.
If they tell my daughter I was stealing, they’re lying.
Evelyn stopped breathing.
Adrian looked at Gabriel.
“Who accused Joseph of stealing?”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
When he opened them, he looked twenty years older.
May you like
“Your father did.”
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