Chapter 9 - THE MAN BEHIND THE HEDGE
Detective Cole arrived just before midnight.
He was a broad-shouldered man in his late forties with a quiet manner that contrasted sharply with the chaos in the house. He reviewed the security video, collected copies of the financial records, and interviewed everyone separately.
David sat with him in the dining room.
“Tell me about Victor Lang,” Cole said.
David looked at the family photographs lining the wall.
“Twenty-two years ago, I owned a construction company with a partner named Samuel Price. Victor managed procurement.”
“How much did he steal?”
“Nearly nine hundred thousand dollars.”
“That was substantial money then.”
“It was enough to destroy the company.”
“Was he convicted?”
“Yes. He served six years.”
“Did he threaten you?”
“At sentencing, he said he would take everything I loved.”
Cole made a note.
“Did you report it?”
“It was said in a courtroom. Everyone heard.”
“What happened to your partner?”
David paused.
“Samuel died before the trial ended.”
“How?”
“Car accident.”
Cole looked up.
“Any reason to question it?”
“Not at the time.”
The detective leaned back.
“Victor receives a six-hundred-thousand-dollar payment from a company financed using your identity. A life insurance policy appears in your name. Your son-in-law gives you capsules containing a toxic pesticide. That is not ordinary revenge.”
“No.”
“It’s organized.”
David nodded.
Cole closed his notebook.
“Your daughter should not stay here.”
“She’s coming with me.”
“You shouldn’t stay at your own house either.”
David frowned.
“Why?”
“Victor knows where you live. Brandon had copies of your personal records. Until we locate Lang, you should assume he knows your routines.”
David looked through the glass doors toward Emily.
She was packing a bag while Patricia helped her.
“What about Brandon?”
“He’s being held pending arraignment on fraud, identity theft, forgery, and assault-related allegations. Toxicology charges will depend on the laboratory results and evidence connecting him to the capsules.”
“Will he talk?”
“He’s afraid.”
“He should be.”
Cole studied David.
“Fear can make suspects useful or reckless.”
Before leaving, the detective gave David a direct number and instructed him to report any contact from Victor.
At 12:17 a.m., David, Emily, Patricia, and Richard left the house in separate vehicles.
Patricia refused to ride with her husband.
Melissa went home under police escort. Noah took the company laptop to the station.
David drove Emily to a small roadside motel outside town rather than his farmhouse. Patricia followed and checked into a separate room.
Richard remained in the parking lot.
“Where will I go?” he asked.
Patricia looked at him through the open passenger window.
“That is no longer my responsibility.”
She walked inside.
Richard turned to David.
“I made a terrible mistake.”
“Several.”
“I want to help.”
“Then tell the police everything you know.”
“I did.”
“Everything?”
Richard hesitated.
David noticed.
“What haven’t you told them?”
Richard looked toward Emily, who was standing near the motel office.
“Not here.”
They walked to the far end of the parking lot.
Richard lowered his voice.
“Victor asked me about Laura.”
David’s body became rigid.
“My wife?”
“He wanted to know where she kept old company records.”
“When?”
“Last December.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t understand why it mattered.”
“What did you say?”
“That after she died, you stored her belongings in the workshop.”
David’s thoughts went immediately to the locked cabinet beneath his workbench.
Laura had managed accounting for Whitaker Construction. She had kept copies of everything, even after the company closed.
“Did Victor ask about anything specific?”
“A ledger.”
David remembered a red leather ledger Laura had refused to destroy.
She once told him it contained information more dangerous than stolen invoices.
He had never opened it after her death.
Richard gripped David’s sleeve.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“Brandon said the ledger proved Victor wasn’t the only person stealing from the company.”
David stared at him.
“Who else?”
“He didn’t say. But he said if the truth came out, someone important would lose everything.”
A sudden crash echoed from the second floor of the motel.
Emily screamed.
David ran toward the staircase.
Her room door stood open.
The lamp had been knocked onto the floor.
The window was raised.
On the bed lay David’s gray vitamin bottle, even though the police had taken the original as evidence.
Beside it was a handwritten note.
May you like
BRING LAURA’S LEDGER TO THE OLD WHITAKER SITE.
COME ALONE.
