Chương 7
They sat in the living room around a coffee table covered with magazines, prescription bottles, and a bowl containing three wrapped peppermints.
A game show rerun played silently on television.
Adrian placed the jewelry invoice on the table.
Ruth did not touch it.
Nora did.
She read it twice.
Then looked at Ruth.
“You were right.”
Ruth’s expression barely moved.
“I was right before they printed that.”
Nora lowered the page.
Adrian accepted the rebuke.
“We also found inconsistencies in the accident records.”
“What kind?”
“The initial police report doesn’t say Daniel was driving anything.”
“I told you.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And there’s no documented theft investigation.”
Ruth stared.
“What?”
“We found no police complaint concerning the ring.”
She looked confused.
“Your father said he filed one.”
“I know.”
“No. Krell showed me a paper.”
Mara leaned forward.
“What paper?”
“A complaint.”
“Did it have a police department heading?”
“I think.”
“Did you keep a copy?”
Ruth laughed.
“Krell didn’t leave souvenirs.”
Mara nodded.
“What else did he show you?”
“Pictures.”
“Of?”
“Daniel’s locker. They said they found money.”
Adrian looked at Mara.
“How much?”
Ruth answered.
“Four thousand eight hundred dollars.”
Nora frowned.
“Did Uncle Daniel have that kind of money?”
“No.”
Ruth stood.
She went into the bedroom.
Nora looked at Adrian.
“What happens if you prove your father planted money?”
“We’re nowhere near proving that.”
“What if you do?”
Adrian hesitated.
It was the right hesitation.
“I don’t know.”
Nora folded her arms.
“You people always know exactly what happens when you’re giving money away at galas.”
Mara said, “Nora.”
“No, I’m serious. They have a program. They have a podium. They have giant checks. Everybody knows where to stand.”
Adrian let her finish.
“But when the money is because somebody in your family got hurt, suddenly nobody knows what anything means.”
Ruth returned carrying a cardboard box.
She set it down heavily.
“This was Daniel’s.”
Inside were photographs, tax forms, a yellowed employee badge, letters, a tire-pressure gauge, two cassette tapes, and a folded blue handkerchief.
Adrian picked up nothing.
Ruth sat.
“I haven’t opened it in years.”
Nora looked at her.
“That’s not true.”
“No.”
“You showed me the photograph when I was twelve.”
“I said years. Twelve was years ago.”
Nora rolled her eyes.
A little life entered the room.
Ruth lifted a photograph.
Daniel stood beside a pickup truck, grinning with his head tilted back. He had dark curly hair and a narrow face. One hand was covered in grease.
Beside him stood Vanessa.
Adrian stopped breathing for a moment.
She wore denim shorts, sunglasses, and one of Daniel’s work shirts over a bathing suit.
Her hand was tucked into his back pocket.
Nothing about the photograph could be explained as employer and employee.
On the back, in Vanessa’s handwriting, were five words.
Stop making that stupid face.
Adrian sat down harder than he intended.
Ruth watched him.
“She was happy.”
“Yes.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I am.”
“Why?”
He looked at the photograph.
Because Vanessa had spent most of her adult life becoming a woman who never looked like that.
He did not say it.
Ruth put another photograph beside the first.
Daniel sitting on a dock.
Vanessa’s bare feet visible near the edge of the frame.
Another.
Two paper cups on a dashboard.
Another.
Vanessa asleep against a car window.
None were evidence of what happened June third.
All were evidence that the Vale family’s version of Daniel Bell had been a lie.
Adrian looked at Ruth.
“Why didn’t you show these to Krell?”
“I did.”
He closed his eyes.
Of course.
“What did he say?”
“That rich girls take stupid pictures.”
Nora muttered something.
Ruth glanced at her.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“I heard the first word.”
“Good.”
Mara examined the cassette tapes.
“What are these?”
“Daniel liked making mixtapes.”
Nora groaned.
Ruth looked offended.
“They were very good.”
“I’m sure.”
“He had taste.”
“Grandma, you listen to Engelbert Humperdinck.”
“That man could sing.”
Adrian laughed.
It escaped before he could stop it.
Everyone looked at him.
He cleared his throat.
“Sorry.”
Ruth almost smiled.
Then Mara held up one tape.
The handwritten label said VAN — CAR.
“Do you have anything that plays these?”
Nora pointed toward a cabinet.
“Of course she does.”
Ruth glared.
“My things work.”
The cassette player did not.
Ruth hit it twice.
“That is not working,” Nora said.
“It needs persuasion.”
“That is hitting.”
Mara took the tape.
“We can have it professionally transferred.”
Ruth’s hand shot out.
“No.”
Mara stopped.
“That leaves this apartment only if I go with it.”
“Understood.”
“And you make a copy in front of me.”
“Fine.”
Adrian looked at the label.
“What is it?”
Ruth shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“You never listened?”
“It was Daniel’s.”
The answer surprised him.
“You kept his things for thirty-two years without listening?”
“Some things aren’t yours because the person died.”
Adrian looked away.
His father’s desk had been emptied less than forty-eight hours after Malcolm’s funeral.
Assistants had sorted watches, cuff links, letters, files, photographs.
Adrian had taken the signet’s replacement.
It sat in a safe.
He had never questioned why his father had ordered another ring rather than publicly reporting the original stolen.
That night, Adrian called Vanessa again.
She answered this time.
“What?”
“I found photographs.”
Silence.
“You and Daniel.”
“I know what photographs you mean.”
“She showed them to Dad’s lawyer.”
Another silence.
Adrian stood at his study window.
“Did you know?”
“Yes.”
“And you let Dad describe Daniel as a thief.”
“Adrian.”
“No. Answer it.”
“I was terrified.”
“So was Ruth.”
“You think that makes us the same?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“It makes what you did worse.”
Vanessa stopped breathing for a second.
He heard it.
Then her voice hardened.
“You have spent your entire life benefiting from things Dad did.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
May you like
“No, you don’t. You got the company. You got his confidence. You got to disagree with him and still be invited back for Christmas.”
“You got forty percent of the trust.”
