Chapter 4 - UNDER THE PORCH
The police search lasted almost six hours.
I watched from the hospital television as reporters gathered outside the rental house.
They didn't know my name yet.
They only knew that police had searched a property connected to a domestic violence investigation.
Then Detective Harris called.
“We found something.”
I sat upright.
“What?”
“Your husband kept a storage box beneath the porch.”
“What was inside?”
“Photographs.”
“Of me?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
“Your father.”
My heart began racing.
“Why would he have pictures of my father?”
“We don't know.”
“What else?”
“A key.”
“To what?”
“We're trying to find out.”
I closed my eyes.
The pieces were becoming impossible to ignore.
My father.
The land.
The trust.
My husband.
The doctor.
The violence.
The pregnancy.
The secret phone.
Everything connected.
But I didn't know how.
That afternoon, Detective Harris came to the hospital carrying a plastic evidence bag.
Inside was an old brass key.
I recognized it immediately.
“That's from my father's office.”
Harris nodded.
“We found it in your husband's storage box.”
“What does it open?”
“Your father had a safe deposit box.”
I stared at him.
“I didn't know.”
“Neither did your husband.”
“Then why did he have the key?”
“That is what we're trying to determine.”
He placed another photograph on the table.
It showed my father standing beside a man I didn't recognize.
“Do you know him?”
“No.”
“Look closely.”
I did.
Then I noticed something.
The man was wearing a ring.
A silver ring with a black stone.
I had seen that ring before.
On my mother-in-law.
I looked at Harris.
“That man knew my mother-in-law.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she has the same ring.”
Harris's expression changed.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He took the photograph.
“That's important.”
“What happened to the man?”
“We're checking.”
He left.
Two hours later, he returned.
His face was grim.
“We identified him.”
“Who?”
“Your mother's brother.”
I stared.
“My uncle?”
“His name is Robert.”
“But he disappeared years ago.”
“Exactly.”
My father's brother had vanished when I was a teenager.
My family had always said he moved to Arizona.
Apparently, he hadn't.
“Where is he now?”
“We don't know.”
“What does he have to do with my father?”
Harris sat down.
“We believe he may have been involved in a business dispute with your father.”
“What kind?”
“Land.”
Again.
Always the land.
I looked toward the window.
“What was my father planning to do with it?”
Harris opened his folder.
“Sell part of it.”
“To whom?”
“A development company.”
I frowned.
“Why?”
“Because he discovered something beneath the property.”
“What?”
“Natural gas.”
I stared at him.
My father's land wasn't worth ten million.
It could be worth hundreds of millions.
Harris continued.
“The company that wanted to purchase the land was connected to several shell corporations.”
“Owned by whom?”
He didn't answer immediately.
Then:
“Your mother-in-law.”
My stomach dropped.
“She was trying to buy my own land?”
“Through intermediaries.”
“Why?”
“We think your father refused.”
“And then he died.”
Harris nodded slowly.
“That is why the case is being reopened.”
I couldn't speak.
Then I remembered something.
A sentence my father had said during our last Christmas together.
At the time, I'd thought he was simply being sentimental.
Now it sounded like a warning.
He had held my hand and said:
“If anyone ever tells you I left you nothing, don't believe them.”
I had forgotten.
Until now.
I looked at Harris.
“There is something else.”
“What?”
“My father left me a letter.”
“Where is it?”
“I don't know.”
“When did you last see it?”
“Before the funeral.”
“Who handled his office?”
“My husband.”
Harris stood.
“Then we need to find that letter.”
My heart pounded.
“What if he destroyed it?”
“Then we'll find something else.”
He reached the door.
His phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed.
“Where?”
He listened.
Then looked at me.
“They found your father's safe deposit box.”
My heart stopped.
“What's inside?”
Harris lowered the phone.
“A videotape.”
“A videotape?”
“Yes.”
“Of what?”
May you like
He looked at me.
“Your father.”
