As Buck Would Have It

Driving home from Harlanville, Buck Oliver is unusually quiet. He and Jules Kendall have been digging into the past of his late father, Cash Oliver, and though it has been years since Buck lived in Harlanville, the town still feels like home to him. When they arrive back in Odyssey, Buck's foster parents, Eugene and Katrina Meltsner, have exciting news at dinner: they love Buck like a son and want to adopt him. They explain that a relative has recently come forward too, and that his social worker will require a meeting, but the choice of family is ultimately his. To their shock, Buck refuses. He does not want them - or anyone - to adopt him, and he leaves the table without explaining why. Later he tells Jules the reason: he once heard Eugene say he had not bonded with him, and Buck refuses to be adopted out of pity. Jules reminds him he will soon age out of foster care and insists he belongs in Odyssey, but Buck disagrees: "I'm more kielbasa than kombucha."

The next morning, Buck and Jules visit Sheriff Adam Stone in Harlanville, who serves them shrimp and grits - Cash's favorite - and shows them a garage full of Cash's belongings from a storage unit: a Harlanville Hornets football jersey, a motorcycle, fishing rods, and a fingerprint-locked safe. It seems hopeless to open without Cash, until they discover it was programmed for Buck's own fingerprint when he was tiny. Inside are papers, including a college scholarship letter with a hand-drawn map on the back, marked with local roads. Adam explains that Cash loved hiding little treasures and drawing maps for friends, but he keeps reaching for the letter, dismisses the map as chicken scratch, and tucks it away. Buck grows suspicious and hurries Jules out, convinced Adam knows something.

At the newspaper office, editor Walter Greentree shares a file on Cash's crimes - mostly petty theft, plus cons pulled with Buck's old guardian, Mr. Skint. The one big job was robbing Goldwyn's jewelry store, though Cash oddly struck when the most valuable gems were away, took a backpack Mr. Goldwyn claimed was empty, and later turned himself in and returned every diamond. In the file, Buck finds something worse: the person who reported his father's final car theft - the arrest that happened during Cash's job interview for a fresh start - was Eugene Meltsner.

Buck confronts Eugene, who admits he reported the stolen car long ago without ever knowing whose life it touched. Buck explodes: "You ruined my dad's life! And mine too!" After he storms off, Eugene tells Katrina the story: as a young foster child, he tracked down the thief of his foster parents' car using a dropped donut-shop receipt, hoping to prove himself worthy of adoption. He remembers telling his social worker, "All I wanted was a dad who wanted me." Now he wonders whether turning Cash in was right. Buck, overhearing Katrina say Cash would likely have stolen again, announces he has asked to move to another foster family; staying with the Meltsners feels like betraying his dad.

Later, Jules shares a theory: the map may point not to Decker Road but to the Descartes Diamond, a 27-carat gem stolen from an exhibit Mr. Goldwyn attended. Perhaps Goldwyn stole it, Cash found out and took it from the store - which Goldwyn could never report - and hid it. Needing the map, Buck and Jules sneak back to Adam's garage before dawn, using the door code Buck memorized. They snatch the map from the safe just as Adam catches them, and with a shout of "Run, Jules!" the two dash into the dark woods as the story ends.