Chapter 15: The Note

He didn't say anything until we were in his truck with the doors shut.

Then he put both hands on the wheel and told it to the windshield.

"In March the bank called Colin's loan. Four hundred and ten thousand dollars, on the shop, the building and the stock."

"Colin never told me that."

"He never told anyone. He told his mother, and she wouldn't cover it. She said a man who couldn't run his own company shouldn't be handed hers."

"So what did you do?"

"I went to the bank on a Thursday and bought the note."

I turned in the seat.

"You bought it."

"I sold my father's cabin up in Leelanau and used what I had saved. The bank was glad to be rid of it. Now I'm the one the loan is owed to."

"Colin knows?"

"Colin thinks a fund in Chicago holds it. I sign the paper every month with a company name he's never looked up."

I sat there with the folder in my lap.

I had spent four days believing Conroy was a man who cleaned up after Colin.

I had been right about the cleaning, and wrong about everything it meant.

"You've been keeping his business alive," I said.

"I've been keeping my own half alive. It was the same thing."

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