Finders Keepers

Andy, now going by Drew, eats breakfast and thinks about Rothstein’s notebooks. Two weeks earlier, Pete came into his bookstore calling himself “Jim Hawkins,” the name of the main character in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. Pete brought scans from a notebook to be appraised. He lied to Drew, telling him that he only had six notebooks, which he got them from his deceased uncle. Drew plays along but knows the truth due to his history with Morris. He tells Pete he may be able to give him $50,000 if he returns with the notebooks, though Drew knows they are worth millions. Pete leaves the scanned pages with Drew, who discovers Pete’s real identity through the local library.

When Pete returns a week later to discuss the notebooks, Drew reveals that he knows his true identity and threatens to turn him in to the police. Drew also reveals that he knows about the money and how he used it to help his family. Pete calls his bluff, pointing out that Drew, too, is in financial trouble, and turning him over to the police would cost both of them the money. Pete says he needs time to think and promises to return the following week. Drew agrees, promising himself to call the police if there is any chance the deal won’t work out.

Kermit William Hodges, 66 years old, leaves the airport, where he has apprehended a conman a client of his private detective firm, Finders Keepers. He founded the firm after apprehending the Mercedes Killer and realizing that he wanted to continue doing detective work. His doctor told him that he needs to watch his heart, and he is eating healthier. He thinks of Janey Patterson, who he was “halfway to in love with” and died four years ago in an explosion during the Mr. Mercedes investigation. He changed his diet partially because “he believes it’s what Janey would have wanted” (159). As he returns home, his partner, Holly Gibney, calls him. Tina Saubers and her friend Barbara Robinson are at the office and, according to Holly, Tina “acts scared to death” (211). Hodges agrees to come to the office and meet with them.

Meanwhile, Pete goes to the school nurse and asks to be excused for the afternoon because of a migraine. He goes home and gets the keys to the Birch Street Rec, a property his father is attempting to sell. Pete moves the notebooks into the rec basement for hiding. Since meeting Andy, as he toils with how to deal with the notebooks, he has had trouble sleeping and has lost weight. At night he often has nightmares.

Hodges returns to the office, where Barbara and Tina are waiting. Tina informs him that she thinks Pete stole money and cannot give it back because it’s gone. She tells Hodges “he’s worse now” (224), talking in his sleep, losing weight, and crying. Tina tells Hodges everything she knows: Pete asked her one night what she would do if she found a buried treasure, and the money started appearing shortly thereafter. She once caught him reading a Moleskin notebook, which he quickly hid and would not let her see. Hodges says he wants to talk to Pete, but Tina tells him he is on a school trip, so Hodges plans to see him Monday after school. After Tina and Barbara leave, Holly and Hodges discuss Tina’s story. They believe that Pete did not steal the money and decide to start their investigation by looking for robberies where the stolen cash was never found. They also worry for Pete’s safety, nervous that he is acting differently because the thieves returned for their money and found it gone.

Morris goes to a motorcycle shop where a former fellow inmate named Charlie Roberson works. Roberson was in prison for rape and murder. When DNA evidence became possible, Morris wrote a letter for Roberson to a lawyer, who proved Roberson’s innocence. Roberson was released from prison, earning Morris a favor. Roberson gives him a truck, which Morris plans to use that night to get the notebooks. That afternoon, Morris’s parole officer, McFarland, visits him at work. He says that Morris looks sick and thinks he is up to something. After Morris passes a drug test, McFarland tells Morris to be careful. He is either a wolf or a lamb, and he’s “too old to howl and much too old to run” (247). Despite being intimidated, Morris is adamant about retrieving the notebooks.

Morris gets the truck Roberson left him and feels himself “edging ever closer to a nervous breakdown” (248). He is paranoid that McFarland is following him or waiting for him. Morris buys a spade, hatchet, and duffel bags to help him extract the trunk. He sits in the truck and pretends to read a map, waiting for dark to fall as his paranoia grows. He drives to the rec center and briefly considers hiding the notebooks in the basement there but decides against it. As he returns to his hiding place, he thinks about using the hatchet to kill anyone on the path. He is much more like a wolf, he thinks, than McFarland knows. When Morris unburies the trunk and finds it empty, he sits in the grass and cries.

Morris returns the truck, then begins the walk back to Bugshit Manner. Along the way he stops worrying about McFarland catching him; he has lost his hope and will to live now that the trunk is gone. Near his apartment, he finds himself thinking about Andy and remembers Andy telling him to bury the notebooks and sit on them for years. He decides that Andy must have found and taken the notebooks.