Chương 6
“No, you just talk more.”
The drive to Millbrook took twenty-six minutes.
Neither of us spoke for most of it.
Snow from the previous night had turned gray along the shoulders.
A salt truck crawled ahead of us for three miles, spreading a pale stream across the road.
At a red light, Daniel drummed his thumb against the steering wheel.
“Do you think Patrick knows about the box?”
“No.”
“Then why ask about papers?”
“Maybe because he knows Fiona kept something.”
“Or because he’s worried she kept something.”
“That too.”
He looked at me.
“You’re finally learning.”
“I liked you better when you were grieving quietly.”
First County Savings occupied a brick building between a pharmacy and a dentist’s office.
The sign looked as though nobody had updated it since the nineties.
We arrived twelve minutes before opening.
Daniel parked facing the bank.
We sat in the truck with the heater running.
A woman in navy scrubs walked past carrying a breakfast sandwich and talking into her phone.
A man across the street shoveled slush from the entrance of a hardware store.
Ordinary morning.
That bothered me.
Fiona was dead, Patrick was hiding something, and somebody was buying windshield wiper fluid.
Daniel checked the time.
“You ever think it’s strange that everything keeps going?”
“Yes.”
“I hated that after Dad died.”
He stared through the windshield.
“I remember being furious at a school bus.”
“A school bus?”
“It stopped in front of us on the way home from the hospital.”
“That is usually what they do.”
“I know.”
“But you were angry anyway.”
“I wanted everybody to know.”
“Know what?”
“That something had happened.”
I looked at him.
He shrugged.
“Seventeen-year-olds are dramatic.”
“You’re still dramatic.”
“That’s marriage talking.”
At nine, the doors unlocked.
Inside, the bank smelled faintly of carpet cleaner.
A teller with silver glasses greeted us before we reached the counter.
“We need access to a safe-deposit box,” I said.
She asked for the box number and renter’s name.
“Fiona Mercer.”
Her fingers paused above the keyboard.
“And your relationship to Ms. Mercer?”
“I’m her daughter-in-law.”
The teller’s expression changed politely.
“Is Ms. Mercer with you?”
“She died yesterday.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
She folded her hands.
“In that case, access depends on how the box is titled and what authority you have.”
My stomach sank.
Daniel put the canvas bag on the floor.
“We have the key.”
“That helps with physical access, but not authorization.”
I took Fiona’s letter from my purse.
“She specifically told me to come.”
The teller did not reach for it.
“I understand.”
“No, I mean she wrote it.”
“I believe you.”
“But?”
“But I still need to follow the account terms.”
Daniel looked at me.
This was precisely the kind of obstacle neither of us had wanted to imagine at three in the morning.
The teller asked for identification, then disappeared through a door behind the counter.
We waited.
Five minutes passed.
Then ten.
Daniel picked up a brochure about home equity loans and read the same paragraph twice.
Finally a woman in a dark green sweater approached us.
She introduced herself as Elaine Porter, branch manager.
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you.”
Elaine held a thin folder.
“Mrs. Mercer’s box is unusual.”
Daniel glanced at me.
“How unusual?”
“It has a secondary authorized user.”
My pulse quickened.
“Who?”
Elaine looked at me.
“You.”
For several seconds I said nothing.
“I’ve never been here before.”
“I understand.”
“I didn’t sign anything.”
“The authorization was added three years ago.”
She turned the folder toward me.
There was a photocopy of a form.
My name.
My address.
My date of birth.
And a signature that was not mine.
Daniel leaned closer.
“That isn’t her signature.”
“No,” I said.
Elaine’s face tightened.
“I was afraid you might say that.”
“Then who signed it?”
“The account holder signed the authorization.”
“No, I mean the signature beside my name.”
Elaine pointed.
“That is marked as the account holder’s certification, not yours.”
I read the form again.
Fiona had not forged my signature.
She had designated me herself.
“She could do that?”
“Under the contract used at the time, yes.”
Daniel asked, “So Mabel can open the box?”
Elaine nodded.
“After I make a copy of her identification and complete an access record.”
My knees suddenly felt weak.
We followed her through two locked doors into a small private room.
A long metal drawer sat on the table.
Box 114.
Elaine inserted the bank’s key into one lock.
I used Fiona’s brass key in the other.
The lock resisted.
I twisted harder.
It clicked.
Elaine withdrew.
“Press the call button when you’re finished.”
The door shut.
Daniel and I stared at the box.
“Open it,” he said.
I pulled the lid back.
Inside were three thick envelopes, a plastic document sleeve, a small cloth pouch, and a stack of photographs held together with a rubber band.
On top lay another note.
My name was on this one too.
I unfolded it.
The first line made me sit down.
Mabel, if Patrick came looking for this before you did, then I waited too long.
Daniel bent over my shoulder.
I kept reading.
Walter Hale helped me save what remained after Patrick used my name to borrow against land he did not yet own.
Daniel whispered, “What?”
My fingers tightened around the paper.
The next paragraph was worse.
I signed some things knowingly because Patrick said he needed help keeping his business alive after his first company failed.
Other papers I signed because he told me they were renewals.
I was ashamed to admit I did not understand them.
By the time Walter checked the county records, liens had been placed against nearly everything.
I could hear Daniel breathing beside me.
Fiona’s writing continued.
Patrick did not steal all of it.
May you like
Do not make that mistake.
I gave him too much because I was afraid he would lose his house and because after his father died I could not bear watching another man in this family fail.
