Chapter 5 - The House and the Company
Mara advised me not to answer Caleb's message. Instead, she asked her investigator to trace Northline Development and the shell company listed on the purchase agreement. By lunchtime, he had found three transfers from the Vale family trust to an entity called Morrow Consulting. The total was $2.8 million.
The company had no office, no employees, and no tax filings beyond a mailbox address. Its registered agent was Dean Mercer, Stacey's brother. The payments were labeled as environmental consulting, dock restoration, and legal review. None of the work had been done.
"Robert wasn't just trying to protect the land," Mara said. "He may have discovered that someone was stealing from the trust."
Deputy Grant called with an update. The original drowning report had two missing attachments: the photographs of the dock and the inventory of Robert's personal effects. The evidence locker showed the envelope had been checked out the morning after the funeral by a deputy who later resigned.
"No note. No return entry. He's dead now, but his daughter says he kept boxes of old case files in his garage. We're getting a warrant to review them."
That afternoon, a courier delivered a letter from the court. The guardianship hearing would proceed Monday, but the judge had ordered Caleb and Stacey to preserve all financial records and refrain from selling or encumbering the property until the hearing.
When Wren checked her phone, she found a new message from an unknown number.
Stop helping your grandmother if you want your father to stay out of prison.
Wren's hands began to shake. I took the phone and photographed the message.
We returned to the house only with Deputy Grant and another officer. I had lived there for forty-one years, and yet when the patrol car pulled into the drive, it looked like a place that belonged to strangers. The blue front door stood open. The curtains were drawn. Caleb's truck was gone.
Then I noticed a muddy handprint on the pantry door. It was high, too high for me. The print ended in a smear, as if someone had steadied himself there while carrying something heavy.
Upstairs, Wren discovered a small envelope tucked behind the loose board in Robert's old desk. Inside was a key and a folded note in her grandfather's handwriting: "If they tell you the camera is dead, look where the birds sleep."
Deputy Grant took the key into evidence. She said the team would retrieve the birdhouse camera under warrant the next morning. Until then, we were to stay with Nora and not return alone.
As we left the house, my neighbor's motion light clicked on. A figure stood at the far edge of the yard, just beyond the reach of the porch lamp.
May you like
The second officer followed, but came back empty-handed a minute later. In the mud where the figure had stood lay a torn strip of paper.
It was a photocopy of my signature, cut from an old birthday card.
