Chapter 7 - The Man at My Dining Table
The man in the window reflection was Martin Hale, my father's former business partner.
Martin had told me he was too ill to attend Dad's funeral.
Now he was sitting in my house with my husband.
I called Naomi.
She told me not to return alone.
Instead, we went to the sheriff's office and reported the identity documents and threatening messages.
An investigator, Detective Ruiz, listened carefully without promising an immediate arrest.
He asked for copies of the drive and the altered footage.
Then he asked a question that made me uncomfortable.
“Has anyone else had access to the storage unit?”
“Mara, Naomi, the manager, and me.”
“Before today?”
I looked at Mara.
She shook her head.
When we returned to Naomi's office, Martin was waiting in the parking lot.
His face had aged badly since I last saw him.
“I came to warn you,” he said.
“Then start talking.”
Martin claimed Dad had discovered the diversion of company money but had been pressured to sign a false settlement.
He admitted he'd signed witness papers without reading them carefully.
“Eliam told me your father was going to bankrupt the company,” he said.
“Did you believe him?”
“I believed what was convenient.”
I asked why he had met Eliam in my house.
Martin rubbed his forehead.
“He wanted me to testify that your father was losing his memory.”
“And you agreed?”
“I didn't answer.”
He withdrew a document folded into quarters.
It was a copy of a beneficiary designation for Dad's life insurance.
The beneficiary had been changed one month before his fall.
The new name was mine.
But the signature authorizing the change wasn't Dad's.
And attached to it was a consent form bearing Eliam's name as the person who witnessed the signing.
Martin lowered his voice.
“If you want to know who was at the basement that day, find the emergency dispatcher recording.”
He started walking away.
“Martin,” I called.
He stopped.
“Why are you helping us now?”
“Because Eliam just told me who he plans to blame.”
He turned to face me.
May you like
“You.”
