One Summary
Emmett
When Emmett picks up his newly painted car, Townhouse discloses that detectives returned the night before; they are now looking for Emmett, since he is the owner of the car. The detectives also revealed that someone had entered Ackerly’s home and hit him on the head with a blunt object hard enough to send him to the hospital. Townhouse assures Emmett that Ackerly got what he deserved but directs Emmett to get out of New York.
When he returns to pick up Billy, Emmett learns that Sally will be riding with them because her truck is a “goner.” As they climb into the car and begin their journey to California, Sally reveals that Sheriff Petersen had visited her to investigate a friend of Jake’s who had been hit in the head in an alley and had to be taken to the hospital.
Emmett asks Billy whether Duchess and Woolly had been with him the entire time he had gone into town that morning, and Billy recalls that Duchess left for a while. Emmett realizes that Duchess must have been the attacker and decides that they need to find Duchess and Woolly before leaving New York.
Sally
Emmett pulls into a roadside hotel, and once they have checked in, Sally instructs Billy to take a bath so that she can have a moment alone with Emmett. She reveals that she will not be dropped off in Morgen as Emmett has assumed. Emmett stammers about the “expectations” she might have of him and Sally announces that she has no desire to become “a part of [Emmett’s] household.” Instead, she wants to live independently, where the only cooking and cleaning that she is required to do is for herself.
After Emmett leaves to find Duchess and Woolly, Sally knocks on the bathroom door three times to check on Billy’s progress. When he doesn’t answer, she opens the door and finds an open window and an empty bathroom.
Emmett
Emmett locates the vacation home that belongs to Woolly’s family and lets himself in. No one answers as he calls out for Duchess and Woolly, so Emmett searches through the various rooms in an effort to locate them. At one bedroom door, he hears a radio playing and knocks. No one answers, so he enters and finds Woolly positioned on the bed with his eyes closed and his arms crossed. With apprehension, Emmett gently shakes Woolly and finds him stiff to the touch. Looking around, Emmett finds the empty pill bottle which was prescribed to Sarah Whitney. He turns off the radio and inspects the photograph of young Woolly with his parents. As he leaves the room, he hears a clanging downstairs and realizes that Duchess has returned.
After making his way toward the sound, Emmett finds Duchess hacking at a safe with an axe. Emmett asks whether Duchess knows about Woolly, and Duchess comments without emotion that “it’s terrible.” Furious and confused, Emmett asks whether Duchess even bothered to call an ambulance, but Duchess replies that by the time he found the body, Woolly was already as “cold as ice.” When Emmett expresses the need to call the police, Duchess wonders why he would do such a thing. Duchess’s main concern is securing Woolly’s inheritance for themselves because it’s “what Woolly would’ve wanted.” Emmett grabs him by the collar and asks why he cannot understand that there was never any money; instead, he believes that Woolly invented the entire inheritance story to lure his friends to his pre-planned suicide location.
Emerging from the darkness, Billy announces to his brother that there is money...
(This entire section contains 1326 words.)
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in the safe. Stunned by the sudden appearance of his brother, who should be at the hotel, Emmett turns to face him and is knocked unconscious by a sudden blow to the head.
Duchess
After knocking Emmett out, Duchess takes Billy into the house and locks the door. Billy is horrified that his brother is unconscious, but Emmett quickly recovers and pounds on the locked door. Duchess explains to Billy that Emmett wants to call the police, but if that happens, the house Billy wants to build for their mother will never come to fruition. Billy kicks Duchess hard in the shin and then disappears. As Emmett breaks a window to gain entry, Duchess breaks the glass of the locked rifle cabinet.
Billy
Billy explains how he had escaped through the window of the bathroom at the hotel and hidden in the trunk of Emmett’s car while Emmett was inside talking to Sally; he had gotten this idea from the strategy Duchess and Woolly had used to hitch a ride with the warden. After the car stopped, he waited five minutes before popping the latch on the trunk and proceeding to the house. Wandering through the house, he had stumbled across the safe and noticed that someone had been trying to get into it with hammers and screwdrivers. Knowing that these tactics would never work, Billy decided to try to guess the combination Woolly’s great-grandfather would have used. It only took Billy six guesses to determine the correct combination. Inside the safe, he found fifteen stacks of fifty-dollar bills. Billy closed the safe and spun the dials.
Wandering back through the house, Billy discovered Duchess and Emmett arguing. After kicking Duchess, he hid underneath the stairs.
Emmett
When Emmett steps into the kitchen, Duchess points a rifle at him. As they argue, Billy reappears and reveals that Duchess can’t shoot him because he can’t read and therefore doesn’t know how to properly close up the house when they leave; furthermore, he can’t swim, either. Billy’s intuition, based on various clues Duchess has provided in conversation, proves correct. While Duchess stands aghast that his secrets have been revealed, Emmett swiftly grabs the rifle and uses the butt to smash Duchess in the head.
While Duchess is passed out, Billy shows Emmett a letter which Woolly had left prior to taking his life. He then tells his brother that he had guessed the combination of the safe using Woolly’s great-grandfather’s love of the Fourth of July. The correct combination is the date of the Gettysburg Address: 1119.
The brothers inspect the contents of the safe and consider that in Woolly’s final letter, he left one-third of his inheritance to each of his friends: Duchess, Emmett, and Billy. The brothers believe that Woolly’s final wish was for them “to use it as they pleased.” Emmett begins cleaning up the house so that it will appear that Woolly came there alone to die. Then they decide that they need to do something with Duchess as well.
When all of their work is complete, Emmett reveals his plan to pick up Sally and begin their journey at Times Square, where the Lincoln Highway begins. He assures his younger brother that they still have thirteen days to make it to San Francisco by the Fourth of July.
Duchess
When Duchess regains consciousness, he is in a boat with no oars in the middle of a lake. A stack of money is at the opposite end of the boat, but if Duchess moves, water pours into the boat. As the wind begins lifting money out of the boat, Duchess makes a bold move to claim what is left of the cash and subsequently topples into the lake. Just before darkness closes in, Duchess believes that he is once again on a busy street, surrounded by the people who have accompanied him on this adventure. He bows to Sarah and Sally and then to Woolly and Billy. Finally he bows to the “one and only Emmett Watson.” With his last breath, Duchess utters, “The rest is silence.” He can’t recall if credit should be given to Hamlet or to Iago for this parting phrase.
