Chapter 10 - Uncle Thomas
Thomas Mercer answered Sarah’s call on the second ring.
“Sarah?”
She had not spoken to him in almost eight months.
After David’s death, Thomas became part of the family.
He helped with insurance paperwork.
He took Noah to baseball games.
He repaired a leaking roof.
Then, slowly, contact faded.
Richard disliked him.
Eventually Sarah stopped inviting Thomas over because every visit ended in an argument.
Now she wondered whether that had been deliberate.
“Can we meet?”
Thomas became silent.
“Is this about Richard?”
Sarah gripped the phone.
“How do you know about Richard?”
“I saw the news.”
There had been no news coverage.
Sarah’s pulse accelerated.
“What news?”
A pause.
Then Thomas corrected himself.
“I heard from someone.”
“Who?”
“Sarah, where are you?”
She ended the call.
Officer Collins traced the number.
Thomas was forty miles away.
Police brought him in voluntarily.
He looked older than Sarah remembered.
He stared through the interview room glass before sitting.
When Sarah entered, Thomas stood.
“Are you okay?”
“Did you know Richard before I married him?”
Thomas’s face answered before his mouth did.
Sarah stepped backward.
“Oh my God.”
“No.”
“You did.”
“Not personally.”
“You knew who he was.”
“I knew the name.”
“And you said nothing?”
“I wasn’t sure.”
“My son was hurt.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
Sarah struck the table with her palm.
“You knew.”
“David told me there was a man named Vale.”
“When?”
“Two weeks before he died.”
“What did he say?”
“That Vale was used to get close to targets.”
“And three years later a man named Richard Vale started dating me.”
“I didn’t know his first name.”
“You could have asked.”
Thomas had no defense.
Officer Collins entered.
“Mr. Mercer, tell us about Blackwater.”
Thomas stared at her.
“I don’t know anything.”
Collins placed David’s photograph on the table.
The picture from the storage unit.
David.
Martin.
Richard reflected in the window.
Thomas looked at it.
Then Collins placed a second image beside it.
A traffic camera photograph from the night David died.
David’s SUV heading toward Blackwater Road.
A second vehicle followed.
Registered to Mercer Financial Consulting.
Thomas’s company.
Sarah’s voice nearly disappeared.
“You followed him.”
Thomas’s shoulders dropped.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he told me to.”
“What?”
Thomas looked at her.
“David knew someone inside his investigation was leaking information.”
“He suspected you.”
“Yes.”
Sarah sat slowly.
“He asked me to follow him from a distance. If another vehicle followed, I was supposed to photograph it.”
“Did one?”
“Yes.”
Thomas reached into his wallet.
From behind an old photograph, he removed a tiny folded piece of paper.
A license plate.
“I wrote it down.”
Collins took it.
The plate belonged to a car reported stolen that evening.
Recovered abandoned two days later.
Thomas continued.
“I lost David near Blackwater Road.”
“What happened?”
“He called me thirty minutes later.”
Sarah leaned forward.
“What did he say?”
“He said the meeting was a trap.”
Thomas’s voice broke.
“He told me to go home.”
“And you did?”
“Yes.”
“You left him there?”
“He ordered me to.”
Sarah stood.
“And then he died.”
Thomas looked at the floor.
“I’ve regretted it every day.”
“Why didn’t you tell police?”
“David warned me that somebody had access to investigators.”
Collins stiffened.
“Police?”
“I don’t know.”
Sarah stared at Thomas.
“What happened after David’s funeral?”
Thomas swallowed.
“A man came to my house.”
“Martin?”
“No.”
“Richard?”
“No.”
“Who?”
“I never learned his name.”
“Describe him.”
Thomas looked at Collins.
“Late forties then. Tall. Gray eyes. Burn scar on his right hand.”
Sarah had never heard that description.
“What did he say?”
“That David had died because he opened a door he should have left closed.”
“And then?”
“He showed me photographs of Noah.”
Sarah went cold.
Thomas continued.
“He told me if I wanted David’s family to remain alive, I would stay away from his investigation.”
“Then why did you stay close to us?”
“To watch you.”
“Until Richard came.”
Thomas nodded.
“He made it impossible. Every time I visited, Richard was there.”
“So you stopped coming.”
“I thought maybe they had changed the plan.”
Sarah laughed bitterly.
“They hadn’t.”
Thomas looked toward Collins.
“There’s something else.”
Everyone waited.
“David called me from Blackwater one last time.”
“When?”
“Twenty minutes before the crash.”
“What did he say?”
Thomas’s face became pale.
“He said, ‘If they tell Sarah I died on the highway, don’t believe the first report.’”
Silence.
Sarah could hear her own heartbeat.
Thomas continued.
“I asked him what he meant.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing.”
“Why?”
“The call disconnected.”
Officer Collins looked at the original accident file.
David Bennett had been pronounced dead at the scene.
Identification had been made using his wallet, dental records and personal effects.
Sarah whispered,
“Dental records?”
Collins looked at her.
“Yes.”
“Who supplied them?”
A records request produced the answer three hours later.
May you like
David Bennett’s dental records had been sent to the medical examiner by his family attorney.
Martin Shaw.
