Chapter 8 - THE SECOND PHONE
George drove away before we could speak to him. Vanessa refused to go with him.
“I’ll take a cab,” she said.
“Come with us,” Ethan offered.
She shook her head. “You don’t trust me. I get it.”
He didn’t deny it.
Nora advised us against entering the Mitchells’ house to search a desk. Vanessa had given Ethan a key, but her permission did not settle what we could legally take.
“If she wants to help,” Nora said, “she can bring us the phone herself. And she needs her own lawyer.”
Vanessa looked offended, then tired. “I’ll call one.”
By morning she had changed her mind about the phone. Her attorney contacted Nora instead. Vanessa was willing to give a statement, he said, but she wanted assurance that we wouldn’t use the garden video against her.
“I can’t promise that,” I told Nora.
“I already told him you wouldn’t.”
I thought of Luis losing his shifts, of the server scared to speak, of Vanessa’s hand gripping the hose. I also thought of the fear on her face in the garage. I could feel sorry for someone without pretending she had done nothing wrong.
Ethan took the key off his key ring and put it in a drawer.
“She almost had me,” he said.
“Maybe she was telling part of the truth.”
“That’s what she’s good at.”
The next useful thing came from a source George hadn’t planned for: the title company. Its compliance officer called Nora after reviewing the conflicting signatures. The alleged notarization had been submitted under the credentials of a notary named Marsha Bell.
Marsha said she had never met me and hadn’t notarized either document. She had worked for Calvin Pierce until the previous week. Her digital credentials, she said, should have been deactivated when she left.
Nora asked her to preserve everything she knew and speak with the investigator assigned to the forgery report. Marsha agreed.
That afternoon, I visited Luis at the catering company’s office. His supervisor had restored his shifts after watching the video, but he looked uneasy.
“Patricia called them twice,” he said. “She kept asking if I’d taken anything from the party.”
“Did you?”
“Only that seating chart.”
“Then tell them that.”
“I did.”
He pointed to a car across the street. “That man’s been parked there since I arrived.”
I called the nonemergency police line and reported the car. The driver left before an officer arrived. Luis photographed its plate.
I offered to drive him home. He accepted.
On the way, he told me he was studying accounting at night. He wanted to finish the year without having to pick up another job.
“You should be worrying about exams,” I said.
“I am,” he replied. “I’m also worried about people who can say I did something and have everybody believe them.”
I knew the feeling.
When I got home, an envelope sat on my porch. It contained a photograph of Ethan outside George’s office. On the back, someone had written:
He signed once. He’ll sign again.
May you like
My phone rang from an unknown number.
“Mrs. Carter?” a woman whispered. “My name is Marsha Bell. Please don’t let Calvin know I called. I still have the original file.”
