Anvil novel · Chapter 20 of 24
Chapter 20: Church
The Forge had no heat, and the men filled it anyway.
Thirty cuts sat along two long tables under bare bulbs, and every face turned when I came through the door.
I carried Danny's green toolbox in both arms.
Tucker walked beside me with his left arm in a sling, the shirt sleeve cut away to the shoulder.
He had told me in the truck that I did not have to do this.
I had told him I was the only one who did.
My neighbor was at home with Birdie and a bowl of popcorn.
At the head of the table sat Dutch, with his gavel and his tank.
At the foot, tied to a metal chair, sat Rhett.
He had a split eyebrow and a swollen jaw, and the bite on his hand had been wrapped in a rag.
He looked at me and smiled.
"Sit, Lizzie," Dutch said. "You're going to talk, and nobody's going to interrupt you. Not one man in this room."
I did not sit.
I walked down the length of the room and set the toolbox on the table in front of him.
I took off the lid.
The yellow straps lay in their rows under the lights.
Somebody at the back swore.
A big gray-bearded man half stood, and sat again.
"Four hundred and ten thousand dollars," I said. "My brother took it out of your safe the night he died, and he drove it to my house, and it sat in my hall closet for three years."
"That's what you've been hiding?" said the man with the gray beard.
"It's what my brother told me to hide. He told me never to open it. I kept my word to him, and I kept it until last week."
"You lied to our president."
"I did. In my own front room, with my daughter on the stairs. I'm sorry for that, Dutch."
"Go on," Dutch said.
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