It hit Flynn when the final hymn started. It was just a short song to finish off the service, and it wasn't a piece of music that meant anything to him, in fact he thought the words seemed quite bizarre given the situation, but it had been chosen by his grandmother. He didn't mind that, but the fact that he was standing in an almost empty chapel with his mother, grandmother, a minister and his father's coffin, having just heard the minister give a simple summary of his father's life, which was now clearly and definitely over, finally enabled his mind to settle on an emotion, and that emotion was devastation.
It had been creeping up on him all day, first with anger, then uncertainty, then sadness, but during that hymn it suddenly hit him with an enormous wallop and made him bend over double and weep. Skyler swept him into her arms and sat him down, cradling his head in her shoulder. Patricia, the only one left standing for the hymn, watched them, her hard set features fading.
...
The two DEA agents sitting in their car outside White Rose Funeral Home were beyond bored. Agent Thompson was eating chips. Agent Fornes was texting. He hit send, then put his phone back in his pocket and stretched. "Could this be any more boring?" he asked.
"I know. But it'll be over soon."
"Are you sure of that? Seems like ASAC Hoffman's got us tailing Skyler White until he can pull a bunny out of his ass."
"My missus said now that Walter White's murdered half of the meth suppliers in the Southwest, we're gonna be out of a job soon."
"What? Don't be ridiculous. Something else will start up, it always does."
"Yeah. Work is just really boring in the meantime is all. Especially since that Jesse Pinkman DVD's solved half of the open cases we had on our books, and pinned every single one on someone who's dead."
"There's lots of mop up work with that, surely. Why do we get stuck with this boring shit?"
"This is mop up. Follow Walter White to his fucking funeral."
"Well you never know, Jesse Pinkman might show up. Pay his respects to his former teacher."
"That'd be nice," said Thompson. "I'd like to be the guy that got him."
"Here they come."
Skyler, Patricia and Flynn emerged from the funeral home. Flynn and Patricia began walking towards the car, while Skyler stood outside the building having a smoke.
"Don't you ever start smoking, Walter, do you hear? Your mother is not setting you a good example."
"Don't worry grandma, I-I think it's gross too. Can you please n-not call me that?"
"Why not? It's your name!"
"No it isn't, I ch- I changed it. I'm in the...process of changing it, anyway. Just w-waiting on a court order for it."
"What? Why?"
...
Marie made it to the hardware store, and the man there was more helpful on the one in the homeware store. He picked out the right hooks for her, and gave her an explanation of how to use them. She thanked him and made her way towards the register, checking her phone as she went. No calls or messages. She brought up Skyler's number and paused, not sure if she should phone or not. But she knew that she was falling over the edge herself, and she thought her sister might be able to talk her out of it. So she dialled.
"Hi," came Skyler's voice on the other end of the line, quiet and defeated.
"Oh. That didn't sound like a very good hi."
"Yeah, well, my mother-in-law is here."
"Oh! Right. Tricky. How's it going?"
"Just finished. We're going to get Holly now, she wants to see her."
"Good, ok, listen. This is something Hank used to help me with but now I need you to help me. Well, for obvious reasons, I mean there isn't anybody else now."
"Sure. What's up?"
"I'm in a store, and I need you to tell me to make my purchases and leave."
Skyler started walking towards the car. "What do you mean?"
Marie looked warily at a shop assistant who was walking past her. "I mean...just that. I need your help. Can't say anything more."
"Oh god, Marie, yes, please just make your purchases and leave the store right now!" She stopped and turned away from the car, walking back towards the funeral home entrance.
"I'm really... struggling."
"So am I, honey, but it'll be ok. All you need to do is make your purchases and leave the store. Or put your purchases down and leave the store."
"Put them down is not a good idea, put them down is probably going to lead to…"
"Ok, just go to the register. You can do that. How far away is that?
"It's a hardware store, it's pretty far."
"That's ok, just start walking and keep talking to me. And I will remind you that you and I are the only two adults Holly has and it would really not be good if both of us were facing charges."
"Yeah I know, that's why I'm trying really hard here."
Skyler leaned against the wall of the funeral home, one hand over her eyes. "I'm sorry," she said. "This is my fault, isn't it?" She took another cigarette out of her pocket and lit it.
"Oh no, not necessarily. It's more of a cumulative thing."
"Should I not have told you? About the funeral? It was awful by the way. If that makes you feel any better. Walt would have really hated it, though, so that's something I suppose."
"Really?" Marie quickened her pace. "Was it really generic?"
"Yes. And religious."
"Really? Is that down to your mother-in-law?"
"Absolutely."
Marie grinned. "Awesome. He would have really hated that."
"Yep."
"That's incredible, thanks Sky. I'm at the register now. There's a line." Marie's eye fell on the candy bars next to the register.
"Ok, well whatever you do, don't look at those things they're selling there."
Marie looked up. There was a security camera right above her. "Yep," she said. "So where is your mother-in-law now?"
"Waiting for me in the car. With Flynn. They're both giving me death stares at the moment."
"Flynn went? He said he wasn't going to!"
"Yeah. Some emotion came out, which was good for him."
"It must be very confusing for him." Marie looked at the candy bars again.
"Yeah. Must be pretty confusing for you too."
"Yes. That's true."
"Well, thanks for calling me in spite of that."
"You're thanking me for calling you to ask you for a favour?"
"Yes. Call me when you need help. Always. That's a really big step for you, calling for help. That's awesome."
"Thank you."
"We have to try sort out our lives out together. The kids need us."
Marie smiled. "We'll be fine." She reached the register, paid for her hooks and walked out.
...
The good news came on Wednesday morning in the form of a phone call from Skyler's lawyer. "Can we meet?" he asked. "I've got something I want to run by you, I think you'll like it."
Skyler was doing a short shift that day, so she met him in his tiny office downtown after she finished.
"Do you have something from the DEA?" she asked.
"Yeah. I spent a large portion of yesterday with them. First thing is, they want you to sign a non-disclosure agreement regarding this because they don't want anyone to know that they have let you sit on this information for two weeks already. They want to make it look like they found the bodies themselves with their good old fashioned police work."
"That's fine. I don't want anybody knowing I sat on it for two weeks either."
"That's good."
"I told my son and my sister about it, though."
"Ok, then they will probably have to sign agreements too."
"Sure."
"The second thing is, and as you know, this was unlikely anyway, they will not agree to a non-custodial sentence."
Skyler nodded.
"And if the court decides to impose fines, not even bankruptcy will get you out of paying them. However, what the DEA will do if you give them your information is drop all the other charges against you, apart from the money laundering."
Skyler frowned. "Even profiting from a felony?"
"Well our argument has always been that you were forced into that, that you were not in charge of what money was coming in or how it was spent. Everything that was bought with it has now been confiscated and the feds are happy to wash their hands of it. But they will not wash their hands of the money laundering, and I think this is mainly because with Jesse Pinkman, Mike Ehrmantraut and Saul Goodman being missing, and apparently everyone else being dead, you are the only person they can put to trial, and money laundering was your part in the whole thing. That was your cog in the wheel. They're not going to let that go."
"That's fair enough. Dropping the other charges is amazing, thank you."
"What they want you to do is to plead guilty to money laundering now, but I would advise against that because I think we can get better sentencing options if it faces trial, maybe even knock it back to a misdemeanour if you can look good in front of the jury. And we want the jury to hear that phone call."
"So they're not willing to make any concessions on sentencing at all?"
"They want a custodial sentence and they know we'd be stupid not to take a deal that drops all the other charges. I am still trying to get it written into the deal that they will push for sentencing at the lower end of the scale, but they haven't yet agreed to that."
"So if I take the deal I am still facing up to the maximum sentencing for money laundering."
"Technically yes, but it's very unlikely. You have a strong case for trial. And you never know, they might offer you a plea bargain at the last minute with sentencing at the lower end of the scale. Right now, I think dropping all the other charges is a pretty good deal and I think you should take it."