Page 89 of The Dearly Departed

"Yeah," he replied, his eyes meeting mine. "Every year, two hundred grand was deposited into Leonard’s personal bank account. Always during the first week of the new year, except for the first time, which was … some random day in the middle of April about fourteen, fifteen years ago."

"Two hundred grand?" I repeated, casting my suspicious glare at the table.

Shawn nodded slowly, never taking his eyes off me. "A couple hundred thousand bucks just … deposited into his personal account. Every single fucking year for well over a decade."

I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms tightly over my chest.

The funeral home wasn’t the most lucrative of businesses. As expensive as funeral services cost, we pocketed little of the money we brought in. While Leonard had still been alive, the four of us had each made somewhere around sixty-five grand annually, which was an okay full-time salary—surely better than nothing—but none of us were living in the lap of luxury.

Certainly, we weren’t making enough for any one of us to pocket two hundred grand every single year.

How much will I make now that I’m doing Gerald’s dirty work? I wondered, the thought striking involuntarily.

Tick’s decapitation alone had earned me twenty grand in cash, the money now sitting beneath my bed in a black duffel bag, like I was nothing more than a Hollywood drug mule. Who knew how much I’d accrue in a year or two?

A thought crossed my mind then. A dark, interesting thought, one that felt a whole lot like a few little puzzle pieces sliding easily into place.

"Who was making the deposits?" I asked, my brain working overtime.

"Well, that's the funny thing, isn't it? Because it was Leonard himself making them," Shawn said. "Every year, he dropped two hundred grand, exactly, into his bank account during the first week of January. Like clockwork.”

"Which would mean he was likely depositing cash.”

"Right. And I've been looking at these books and wondering, where the fuck was he getting that kind of money? In cash?"

"And how did he deposit it without flagging the Feds?" I muttered, rubbing my hand over my bearded chin.

Shawn took a bite of his burger, and as he chewed, he said, "Oh, no, he did. Found those letters too. I'm sure he got phone calls also, but …" He shrugged, lifting a flippant hand. "His explanation for it must’ve been believable enough ‘cause, obviously, he never landed himself in federal prison."

I grunted with a subtle nod. My tired brain raced toward a thousand different reasonable justifications, searching for another reason why the old man I’d loved and relied on had come into that much money year after year, all in a desperate attempt to avoid admitting the one thing I didn’t want to be true.

That he’d been collecting blood money from the devil.

Yet every road I traveled down brought me back to the same place.

The truth.

Gerald had said they were friends, but to what capacity, I didn’t know. To be honest, I wasn’t sure the man was capable of maintaining an honest friendship with anyone. He only showed up when he wanted something, when he'd found a way to benefit from his association with you.

Could he have become buddy-buddy with Leonard over the years? I still had a hard time envisioning it, but, sure, it was a possibility. Anything was at this point.

But that friendship, whether genuine or not, I was certain now that it’d begun with a business transaction. And now I had a hunch it had something to do with a whole lot of money in exchange for funeral services.

"There's something else," Shawn said, and I looked up at him, an exasperated expression on my face. "That money … I don't know where he got it, but apparently, we survived on it.”

A loud bark of a laugh burst through my lips as I leaned against the back of the chair, tipping my head back and staring at the wooden beams stretching the length of the ceiling.

"Of course we did," I said, shaking my head.

Because that was what Gerald did.

Made you desperate.

Made you need him.

"So, we either have to figure out how he got it or"—he took a sip of his soda and swallowed—"we’re all fucked."

Leonard might've gotten up to some shady shit over the years, and who knew how low he'd been willing to go to collect some cash? But that man saved us. He was there for us when we needed someone. He could've easily turned us away, but didn't. He'd given us shelter, food, clothes, and work … and we'd gotten him killed.