Chương 5 - What My Father Kept
We left through the back door.
The driver moved the car into the alley after I explained.
My mother gripped her sewing tin until her knuckles whitened.
Nora met us at a twenty-four-hour diner near the expressway.
She was in her sixties, with short gray hair and a coat thrown over pajamas.
She didn’t order food.
She slid into the booth and looked at the tag.
“Daniel kept it,” she whispered.
My father’s name sounded different coming from someone who knew what had happened.
“What does the number mean?”
“An insurance file.
Not a suit.”
Nora had investigated a warehouse fire eleven years earlier.
A property company connected to Victor Bellini owned the building.
Several small businesses rented space inside.
One employee had died.
The insurance payout had been enormous.
“My father delivered there?”
“He delivered documents from the alterations shop to a tenant.
He saw people removing equipment before the fire.”
“Did he tell the police?”
“He tried.”
Nora spread copies of old paperwork across the table.
Statements.
A claim report.
A photograph of my father standing beside his van.
“He recorded a conversation afterward,” she said.
“Someone approached him outside the shop.”
“With the device from the suit?”
“He used its local recording function.
He wanted proof of the threat.”
“Where’s that recording?”
“That’s what I never found.”
My mother touched the receipt.
“He told me to ask you.”
“He was supposed to bring it to me the following morning.”
The morning he died.
I stared at the report until the words blurred.
There was a signature at the bottom.
Adrian Shaw.
Counsel for the property owner.
Luca’s attorney had represented Victor long before he represented Luca.
Nora explained that she had questioned the warehouse claim.
Her supervisor reassigned her.
Copies vanished.
She kept what she could.
“I should have done more,” she said.
My mother shook her head.
“So should I.”
“No,” I said.
“The people who threatened him should have done less.”
My phone rang.
Luca.
“Adrian emptied an office safe before leaving,” he said.
“He had access to a property transfer scheduled for tomorrow morning.”
“What property?”
“A redevelopment portfolio.”
I looked down at Nora’s papers.
The same company name appeared on the old warehouse report.
“Does Bellini Holdings own part of it?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“And a building on West Palmer?”
Another pause.
“That address is on the schedule.”
My mother’s shop.
I looked at her.
This hadn’t started with a chair.
The chair was simply where I had finally noticed.
Nora turned over the final page.
A recent inquiry had been stapled to the old claim.
Dated eight months earlier.
May you like
The week I started working for Luca.
Adrian Shaw had requested my father’s entire file.
