Chapter 9 - The Day I Was Somewhere Else
The clinic's appointment record was easy to retrieve. The footage took longer, but by evening Ortiz had secured it through the proper channels. I was on the waiting-room camera at 8:53 a.m., laughing at something a nurse said. Daniel was beside me, holding the ultrasound envelope.
At 9:04, according to the loan papers, we were supposedly signing documents in Ruth's dining room.
"We were choosing a middle name," Daniel said. "I remember because I spilled coffee on my shirt."
He looked down at the faded brown spot still there. For a second neither of us spoke.
Avery called with another question. "Daniel, did your father leave a scholarship fund for the orchard workers' children?"
"He talked about one. Mom said he never found the money."
"The county records show that a charitable trust was funded shortly before he died. A substantial one."
Robert Mercer had died four years earlier. I hadn't known him well, but I remembered the way workers cried at his funeral. He'd kept a jar of college acceptance letters by the office door. Every time somebody's child got into a school, he taped the letter to the refrigerator.
"What happened to that trust?" I asked.
"I'm still tracing it," Avery replied. "Victor Hale served as an outside financial adviser. Ruth was the trustee."
Daniel stared at the wall. "She told me Dad left nothing but debts."
He called the orchard bookkeeper, Nina Calder, who'd retired the year Robert died. Nina answered on the fourth ring.
"Daniel? Lord, I haven't heard your voice in years."
"I need to ask about Dad's scholarship."
The silence on the line went on so long I thought the call had dropped.
Then Nina said, "I begged your mother not to touch that money."
Daniel's mouth opened.
May you like
"I told her what Robert wanted," Nina continued. "She fired me the next morning."
And before Daniel could ask another question, Nina added, "I kept the last letter your father wrote."
