Chapter 5
By one in the morning, Mercer House no longer looked like a wedding venue.
It looked like a crime scene wearing flowers.
Yellow evidence markers sat beside broken champagne glass. Officers moved through the corridors with cameras and gloves. Half the candles had burned down to puddles of wax. The white roses on the tables were beginning to droop.
Abigail had changed out of her wedding dress.
She wore sweatpants, a gray sweater, and no makeup. Ryan thought she looked more like herself than she had all day.
They sat together in his father’s old study while Detective Ortiz questioned Grant in the library across the hall.
Neither of them spoke for several minutes.
Finally Abigail said, “Do you believe him?”
Ryan stared at the dark fireplace.
“I don’t know.”
“About the package?”
“About anything.”
She nodded.
The answer hurt, but she understood it.
A knock sounded.
Caroline entered carrying two mugs of coffee. Oliver was asleep upstairs under the supervision of one of Nora’s nieces, who had come to help after police began interviewing staff.
Caroline handed a mug to Ryan.
“You look terrible.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She sat in their father’s old leather chair.
For a moment they were children again, waiting for Thomas Mercer to finish a phone call so he could lecture them about some disaster they had caused.
Ryan looked at his sister.
“You really wanted an autopsy?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you push harder?”
Caroline stared into her coffee.
“Grant said Dad had told him he never wanted one. He said Dad hated hospitals and would have considered it an indignity.”
“That sounds like Dad.”
“I know. That’s why I let it go.”
Ryan rubbed his eyes.
“What else do you remember about that night?”
Caroline was quiet.
“Evan was there.”
Ryan looked up.
He had forgotten that too.
Abigail frowned. “At dinner?”
“No. He came later.”
Ryan searched the memory.
Then it surfaced.
Evan entering through the side door after the ambulance had already left.
Evan hugging him.
Evan saying he had been nearby.
“Why was he nearby?” Ryan asked.
Caroline shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“He was living downtown then. Forty minutes away.”
“I remember asking him the same thing.”
“What did he say?”
“That he’d been meeting someone about work.”
Abigail leaned forward.
“At ten at night?”
Caroline looked uneasy.
“I didn’t think about it then.”
Ryan stood.
“Where is Evan now?”
“Still downstairs, I think.”
Ryan headed for the door.
Abigail caught his arm.
“Don’t confront him based on a memory from two years ago.”
“I’m going to ask a question.”
“You don’t look like someone going to ask a question.”
She was right.
Ryan stopped.
Before he could decide what to do, Detective Ortiz appeared in the doorway.
“Good. You’re all here.”
She carried a thin folder.
Ryan sat again.
“What did Grant say?”
“That is part of an active investigation.”
“Detective.”
Ortiz studied him.
“He says the package from Benton Specialty Compounding belonged to your father and was found in a box of Thomas Mercer’s personal effects three weeks ago. He claims he brought several old files to the house because he intended to review them with you after the wedding.”
“Review what?”
“Financial irregularities.”
Ryan felt his stomach tighten.
“What irregularities?”
Ortiz opened the folder.
“Your uncle says Mercer Holdings has been losing money through vendor accounts that don’t correspond to legitimate services.”
Caroline frowned. “How much money?”
“Grant estimates at least four million dollars over three years.”
Abigail whispered, “Four million?”
Ryan stared at the detective.
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
“He says he was trying to identify who was responsible before you assumed voting control.”
“That happened today.”
“Yes.”
“And if I had died before midnight?”
Ortiz did not answer immediately.
Caroline did.
“The shares would stay in trust.”
Ryan looked at her.
She continued slowly.
“Until your thirty-fifth birthday provision was resolved by the successor clause.”
Abigail looked between them. “Who is the successor?”
Caroline’s face tightened.
“Me.”
The silence that followed was brutal.
Ryan hated himself for the thought that appeared.
Caroline saw it anyway.
“Oh, come on.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I’m trying to understand the trust.”
“No, you’re trying to understand who benefits if you die.”
Detective Ortiz spoke calmly. “That is a question we have to ask.”
Caroline stood.
“My son almost got crushed by a wedding cake while accidentally stopping someone from killing my brother.”
“Nobody is accusing you.”
“You are discussing my inheritance in a murder investigation.”
“Attempted murder investigation,” Ortiz corrected.
Caroline laughed in disbelief.
“That really makes it better.”
Ryan stood too.
“Caroline.”
She looked at him.
He crossed the room and hugged her.
For a second she remained rigid.
Then she hugged him back.
“I don’t think you did this,” he said.
“Good.”
“But I need to know everything.”
She pulled away.
“So do I.”
Ortiz waited until she sat again.
“Grant also turned over copies of the vendor records.”
She removed several pages.
“The largest payments went to three companies: Archer Logistics, Bellweather Consulting, and North Vale Systems.”
Ryan recognized two names.
“Those are approved vendors.”
“Were.”
“What do you mean?”
“Archer Logistics dissolved four years ago. Bellweather has no active office at its registered address. North Vale is registered to a mailbox in Delaware.”
Abigail frowned. “Who approved payments?”
Ryan knew the answer before Ortiz showed him.
The authorization forms carried his electronic signature.
“That isn’t possible.”
“Your credentials were used.”
“I didn’t sign these.”
“Who had access?”
Ryan thought.
“Finance administrators. Grant. Possibly IT.”
“Evan?”
Ryan hesitated.
“Evan had emergency executive access when we were restructuring.”
Caroline whispered, “How long?”
“Years.”
Ortiz handed him another page.
“This transfer was approved the night your father died.”
Ryan stared at the date.
The amount was nine hundred thousand dollars.
Approved at 9:42 p.m.
Thomas Mercer had collapsed at approximately 9:30.
Ryan was in the dining room trying to revive him.
“I couldn’t have authorized this.”
“No,” Ortiz said. “You couldn’t.”
Abigail leaned over the page.
“So whoever did it knew Ryan was occupied.”
“And knew the family would have other things on their minds,” Caroline said.
Ryan felt sick.
The office door opened again.
Nora entered holding an old cardboard file box.
“Sorry,” she said. “But I think you need to see this.”
Ortiz immediately stood.
“Where did that come from?”
“Mr. Thomas’s storage closet.”
“You cannot remove items from potential evidence areas.”
“I know. I didn’t open it.”
Nora set the box carefully near the doorway.
“It was behind the old hunting coats. I remembered something Mr. Thomas said before he died.”
Ryan looked at her.
“What?”
“He told me if anything happened to him, I should make sure you received the blue ledger.”
“The what?”
“I thought he meant a business account book. We searched his desk after the funeral and never found one. Then tonight, when everyone started talking about vendor payments, I remembered he kept old records in that closet.”
Ortiz put on gloves.
The box contained tax folders, property deeds, handwritten notes, and three hardbound notebooks.
One was blue.
Ryan’s heartbeat accelerated.
Ortiz photographed it before opening.
Thomas Mercer’s handwriting filled the first pages.
Dates.
Company names.
Numbers.
Initials.
Ryan recognized the vendor names immediately.
ARCHER.
BELLWEATHER.
NORTH VALE.
Beside several entries, Thomas had written two letters.
EC.
Ryan stopped breathing.
Caroline looked at him.
“Evan Cole.”
Ortiz said, “Initials aren’t proof.”
“No,” Ryan said.
But his voice sounded distant.
Thomas had written more beneath the final entry.
Ryan read it aloud.
“‘E.C. says discrepancies are software error. Don’t believe him. Meeting Friday. Bring Grant after.’”
The date was two years ago.
The day Thomas died.
Abigail whispered, “Your father was going to confront Evan.”
Ryan’s mind fought the conclusion.
“He could have meant somebody else.”
Caroline looked at him sadly.
“Who?”
He had no answer.
Ortiz flipped through the final pages.
One sheet had been torn out.
Another contained only a phone number and a handwritten note.
BENTON — ASK ABOUT T.M. ORDER.
Ortiz photographed it.
Ryan stared at the words.
His father had known about Benton Specialty Compounding.
Maybe he had ordered the vials himself.
Or maybe he had discovered someone else had used his name.
A sudden commotion came from the hallway.
An officer rushed into the study.
“Detective, we found the bartender.”
Ortiz turned. “Caleb Moss?”
“His real name is Caleb Moss, yes. State police picked him up at a gas station twenty miles south.”
Ryan stood.
“Did he say who hired him?”
The officer hesitated.
“He says he never met the person face-to-face.”
Ortiz frowned. “Then how was he paid?”
“Cash in advance. Instructions through a prepaid phone.”
“Do we have the phone?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
The officer looked toward Ryan.
“There’s a message on it that says, ‘Make sure Mercer gets the marked glass before the toast.’”
Ryan’s pulse quickened.
“Anything identifying the sender?”
“No name. But Caleb says the person called once.”
Ortiz asked, “Did he recognize the voice?”
The officer nodded.
“He heard that same voice again tonight.”
“Where?”
“At the wedding.”
Ryan felt the room shrink around him.
“Whose voice?”
The officer glanced down at his notes.
May you like
“He says it belonged to the best man.”
Evan Cole.
