Chương 3
I had assumed I had misplaced it.
Beneath the photograph, Shawn had written one sentence.
Everything is signed, so there is nothing Walter can do now.
I read the message twice because the first time my mind rejected it as if the words belonged to somebody else’s family.
Brenda kept the phone extended between us.
Greg said, “That doesn’t prove anything.”
His voice had changed.
The lazy confidence was gone, replaced by the sharp impatience of a man trying to close a door before anyone saw what was behind it.
Deputy Miller held out his hand to Brenda.
“Ma’am, may I look at the messages?”
She gave him the phone.
Greg muttered, “Unbelievable.”
Brenda turned on him.
“What exactly is unbelievable, Greg?”
“This.”
“No.”
She pointed toward the cabin.
“That is unbelievable.”
Miller asked Brenda if she would consent to forwarding screenshots of the relevant messages to an address he provided.
She nodded immediately.
Greg told her not to.
She ignored him.
I stood beside the porch while she sent them, and for a few minutes nobody said anything useful.
The U-Haul’s engine ticked as it cooled.
Somewhere across the lake, a power saw started and stopped.
A pair of geese moved through the grass near the shoreline with the solemn irritation geese bring to everything.
I kept looking at the photograph of my desk in my head.
The papers.
Susan’s pen.
Shawn had been inside my house.
That by itself was not a crime.
I had given him access.
The part that made my stomach tighten was how ordinary the theft must have looked while it was happening.
A drawer opened.
A binder lifted out.
A phone camera held over a page.
Maybe he had stood in my study while I was asleep in the recliner with an ice pack on my knee.
Maybe he had called out from the hallway asking whether I needed anything.
I had probably thanked him.
“Walter.”
Miller was speaking to me.
“Sorry.”
“Do you have security cameras at your primary residence?”
“No.”
“Doorbell camera?”
“I do now.”
“But not then?”
“No.”
He nodded without judgment.
“Do you still have the trust records at home?”
“As far as I know.”
“Don’t go through them alone.”
I looked at him.
“Why?”
“If documents are missing or altered, it’s better if your attorney helps you document what you find.”
He glanced toward the deed.
“And I’d avoid touching anything related to the signatures unless necessary.”
Greg gave another disgusted sound.
“You’re talking like Shawn robbed Fort Knox.”
Miller faced him.
“I’m talking like there may be forged real-estate documents.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You’re right.”
That answer seemed to annoy Greg more than an accusation would have.
Miller continued, “Which is why I’m preserving information instead of making conclusions.”
Brenda sat on the edge of the U-Haul’s loading ramp.
Her face had gone pale beneath her makeup.
“Did he use us?”
Greg said, “Don’t start.”
She looked at him.
“I’m asking you.”
“He didn’t use us.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he’s our son.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
It was strange hearing my own frustration come back through her voice.
Greg rubbed both hands over his face.
“He was trying to help us.”
“With what?”
“You know with what.”
“I want you to say it.”
He stared at the gravel.
Brenda’s mouth tightened.
Then she looked at me.
“We sold our house.”
I thought I had misheard.
“What?”
“Our house in Marietta.”
Greg said, “Brenda.”
She kept going.
“We closed last Friday.”
I looked from her to him.
“Because you believed this cabin was yours?”
“Because Shawn said it was going to be ours to use permanently.”
“Use or own?”
Brenda hesitated.
“Both, eventually.”
Greg kicked at a stone.
“It wasn’t supposed to matter.”
The anger came back so fast I surprised myself.
“You sold your house because my son-in-law promised you mine, and that wasn’t supposed to matter?”
“He said Hannah agreed.”
“Hannah says she didn’t.”
“Well, maybe Hannah says different things depending on who she’s talking to.”
That struck harder than I expected.
I wanted to reject it immediately.
Instead I thought of the silence on the phone before Hannah asked what deed I meant.
I hated Greg for giving that silence a second meaning.
I hated myself for allowing it.
Miller stepped between us again, though neither of us had moved.
“Let’s keep some distance.”
Greg pointed toward the truck.
“Fine.”
He walked away and started hauling boxes back out of the cabin by himself.
He moved too quickly, throwing his weight into each trip, angry at the boxes for being there.
Brenda stayed seated.
After a minute, she said, “We were behind.”
I looked at her.
“On what?”
“The mortgage.”
Greg stopped halfway up the ramp.
“Jesus Christ, Brenda.”
“What does it matter now?”
“It matters because it’s nobody’s business.”
“It became everybody’s business when we parked a moving truck in Walter’s driveway.”
She turned back to me.
“Greg’s business had a bad year.”
Greg said, “Two bad quarters.”
Brenda almost smiled.
It was a tired, bitter little thing.
“Fine.”
“Two.”
“Fine, Greg.”
She looked at me again.
“We had credit cards.”
I did not answer.
“More than I knew about at first.”
Greg slammed a box onto the truck.
“She knew enough.”
“I knew enough when the minimum payments started coming out of the joint account.”
“Can we not do this here?”
Brenda’s eyes followed him.
“We apparently do everything here now.”
Miller looked toward me.
I could tell he wanted to leave their marriage out of his report if he could.
I wanted the same thing.
But Shawn’s motive had started taking shape in a way I did not like.
Not greed exactly.
Pressure.
The kind that makes people tell themselves the first lie is temporary.
I called Evelyn again.
She answered immediately.
I told her about the photograph on Brenda’s phone and the message beneath it.
May you like
Then I told her Greg and Brenda had sold their house.
Evelyn made a low sound.
