Kent Haruf - Where You Once Belonged

When she spoke finally, her voice sounded harsh and rusty, as if she hadn’t used it in days. “I don’t know anything about your newspapers,” she said. “And I don’t want to. I read the Bible.”

Then she shut the door in their faces. They could hear her locking it. Afterward they could hear the faint sound of her steps retreating into the interior of the silent house. So the men were left standing on the front porch. They felt foolish. They looked at one another and moved quickly down off the porch like little boys who had done something silly.

In any case, by the end of January the alarm in Holt had turned at last to shock and fear. People had finally grown afraid that something serious had happened to Jack Burdette and they were disturbed to think so. They still liked Burdette and thinking something bad had happened to him made them feel less secure for themselves in their corner of Colorado. The police had begun to send out all-points bulletins across the state, hoping that might turn him up. But nothing did. Burdette had disappeared without a trace.

Meanwhile at the Farmers’ Co-op Elevator things were a mess. Without Burdette there to manage the elevator every day, nothing was getting done properly and Arch Withers and the other members of the board of directors didn’t know what to do. Finally they decided to ask Doyle Francis to come back. They wanted Doyle to run things again, on a temporary basis, so that the routine shipment of corn and wheat might continue once more, until Burdette turned up, or until … well, until they had to hire his replacement. Still they refused to think it would come to that.

Then, about the middle of February, that private feeling of shock and fearfulness in Holt turned suddenly to hostility and public outrage. For, by that time, Doyle Francis had had sufficient opportunity to examine the books at the elevator. And in going over the books he had discovered that something was wrong. He called a special meeting of the board to tell them about it. It was on a Tuesday afternoon.

“Jesus Christ,” he told the men when they were assembled before him in his office. “What in the goddamn hell were you boys thinking of anyhow?”

“What do you mean?” Arch Withers said.

“Didn’t you even check on him? Didn’t you even think to look at these books yourselves?”

“Of course we did. We looked at them. Charlie Soames went over these books every year with us. So did Jack Burdette. What’s wrong with them?”

“Plenty,” Doyle said.

“Like what, for instance?”

“Like this, goddamn it.” Doyle pointed to the books spread out before him on the desk. “As near as I can tell, you’re missing about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That’s what’s wrong with them.”

“What? Hold on now. You mean to say—”

“I mean that’s just an old man’s estimate. It’s been going on for three or four years.”

“What’s been going on? What are you talking about?”

Doyle explained it to them. In careful, rational detail, he showed the men sitting across from him what had happened, how the books had been manipulated, how they had been juggled by someone who knew what he was doing. But just a little at first, Doyle said, pointing to the pages of neat figures, then in larger and larger amounts as the months passed. And all very cleverly, in a kind of sleight of hand, as a CPA might do it if he had in mind to do something neat and criminal. Doyle said it had taken him days to understand how it had been done. Finally he had, though. “Oh, it was careful,” he said. “I’ll give them that much.”

The men sat silently, looking at the opened books on the desk. They picked at their hands and refused to look at one another. For his part, Doyle Francis sat back in his chair watching them.

At last Arch Withers said: “All right. If what you say is true, who did it? Who’s them?”

“What?”

“You said them. Who do you mean by that?”

“Who do you think I mean?”

“How the hell do I know? Do you mean Charlie Soames?”

“Why not? Charlie did the books, didn’t he? He did the books when I was here before and I assume you boys kept him on after I left.”

“That son of a bitch,” Bob Wilcox said. Wilcox was the young man on the board. “Goddamn that old—”

“And Burdette?” Withers said, interrupting him. “What about him? Was he in on this too?”

“Of course he was. Don’t you think he had to be? Why else was he going to charge those new clothes on Main Street and then disappear and not come back home again?”

“By god,” Wilcox said. “He’s another son of a bitch. We ought to—”

“Shut up,” Withers said. “It’s too late for any of your hysterics.”

“That’s right,” Doyle said. “It’s too late for a lot of things. Except I believe that Charlie’s still in town, isn’t he?”

“He’s still in town.”

“Then I’ll go get him, if none of you will. I’ll bring that—”

“Damn it,” Withers said. “I already told you to shut up. Now do it.” Young Bob Wilcox started to say something more, but Withers turned and stared at him. Then Wilcox closed his mouth tight and Withers turned back to Doyle Francis. “So what do you suggest we do about this? You seem to of thought about it.”

“Oh yes. I’ve thought about it,” Doyle said. “It’s about all I have thought about for the last two weeks.”

“So? Are you going to tell us what to do or not?”

“There’s only one thing to do. We let the sheriff’s office handle it now. We call Bud Sealy and tell him to go over to Charlie Soames’s house and arrest him and lock him up and then we wait for the trial. What else is there?”

“But there’s still the money, isn’t there? What about the money?”

“What about it?”

“Well goddamn it. It was our money. It was all us shareholders’ money.”

“Sure it was,” Doyle said. “And you can tell that to the judge too, when you get the chance. But I don’t suppose that will get it back for you. Jack Burdette’s been gone for a month a half and god only knows where he’s gone to. But wherever he is, he’s already begun to spend it. You can count on that.”

There was silence again while this new thought sank in. The men stared hatefully at the accountant’s books on Doyle’s desk. After a time, Arch Withers roused himself once more.

“Go on, then.” he said. “What are you waiting on? Make your goddamn call. Call Bud Sealy.”

“No,” Doyle Francis said. “I don’t think I will. I think one of you boys ought to be able to call him. It’s your funeral. I’ve been thinking about this mess for too long already.”

So Arch Withers, as president of the Farmers’ Co-op Elevator’s board of directors, called Bud Sealy from the manager’s office that Tuesday afternoon, with the books still spread out on the desk before him and while Doyle Francis and the other men watched him.

And subsequently that same afternoon Bud Sealy arrested Charlie Soames at his home in the six hundred block on Cedar Street, where Soames had a small office at the back of the house. Sealy drove over to the house, parked and knocked on the door. He was let in by Mrs. Soames. She was an excitable old woman with heavy breasts and meaty arms. She led the sheriff back to Charlie’s little office and stood in the doorway.

When Sealy entered the room — it was all neat and tidy as ever — Charlie Soames seemed to be waiting for him. He was sitting at his desk with his hands folded and he seemed to have everything in order. It was as though he had prepared himself for Sealy’s arrival, as if he were glad that it was over now. “So you know,” Soames said.

“Yeah. I just got a call from Arch Withers.”