Elaine held the photograph by its edges.
Her hands were shaking.
For the first time since I had met her, the control in her face disappeared completely.
“That could be anything under that blanket.”
“Yes,” I said.
“It could be equipment.”
“Yes.”
“A bag.”
“Yes.”
“A photograph doesn’t prove someone is dead.”
“No.”
She looked at me sharply.
I had not agreed because I believed her.
I agreed because I wanted her to hear how desperate each possibility sounded.
Russell remained seated, staring at the date on the back.
“1961,” he whispered.
I turned toward him.
“What?”
He rubbed his forehead.
“I’ve seen this before.”
“The photograph?”
“No. The car.”
Wayne’s car.
A dark Chevrolet with pale side panels.
I remembered it from childhood.
He had sold it before marrying Mama.
“Where?”
“At Daniel’s old hunting property.”
Elaine looked up.
“What hunting property?”
“Outside Millbrook.”
I knew the town. Forty minutes east.
“Why were you there?”
Russell hesitated.
“Wayne took me once.”
“How old were you?”
“Sixteen.”
That would have been before my accident.
“Why?”
“He needed help moving something.”
The air in the room seemed to compress.
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“Russell.”
“I didn’t.”
He looked at me.
“It was dark. There were boxes in the trunk.”
“Boxes.”
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
“Wooden.”
“Like Daniel’s cigar box?”
“No. Bigger.”
Elaine placed the photograph down.
“Did you see Edwin?”
“No.”
“Daniel?”
“Yes.”
“Wayne?”
“Of course.”
“Anyone else?”
Russell thought.
“There was another man.”
“Who?”
“I never saw his face.”
“Alive?”
He stared at me.
“Yes.”
That answer should have eased something.
It did not.
“What happened?”
“Wayne told me to stay near the car while they carried the boxes into an old shed.”
“What was in them?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did they sound like?”
“What?”
“When they moved them. Papers? Metal? Glass?”
Russell shut his eyes, replaying something sixty years old.
“One was heavy.”
“How heavy?”
“Two men carried it.”
“Did it make any sound?”
He paused.
“A clink.”
“Coins?”
“Maybe.”
Elaine walked toward the window.
“My father never hunted.”
Russell looked at her.
“Neither did Daniel.”
The statement hung there.
“Then why call it hunting property?” I asked.
Russell gave a faint shrug.
“That’s what Wayne called it.”
Mama’s photograph remained on the table between us.
Thomas Avery was never missing.
The words no longer felt like a clue.
They felt like an accusation.
I turned to Elaine.
“What did Thomas Avery do before he disappeared?”
“He handled estates, insurance claims, personal injury work.”
“Settlements.”
“Yes.”
“Did your father work with him?”
“Yes.”
“Did Daniel?”
“Not officially.”
“Wayne?”
“No.”
“Then how did Wayne know him?”
Elaine shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
I looked at Russell.
“Do you?”
“No.”
Mama’s box held answers somewhere.
We searched.
For the next twenty minutes, all three of us went through the records.
There were copies of checks, old newspaper clippings, fragments of correspondence, notes written in Mama’s hand, and several documents in Daniel Mercer’s.
One clipping concerned Thomas Avery.
LOCAL ATTORNEY REPORTED MISSING.
His wife had told police he left home one evening and never returned.
His car was later found at a bus station.
No note.
No confirmed sighting.
No body.
Elaine touched the clipping.
“I grew up hearing this story.”
“How did people explain it?”
“They said he ran.”
“Why?”
“Money was missing from client accounts.”
There it was.
Again.
“How much?”
“Thousands.”
“Did anyone prove he took it?”
“No.”
“Then maybe he didn’t.”
Elaine’s mouth tightened.
“My father defended him publicly for months.”
“Why?”
“He said Thomas wasn’t a thief.”
Russell leaned forward.
“Maybe he knew who was.”
Elaine looked at him.
I could see the thought forming before she admitted it.
“If Thomas discovered Daniel and Wayne taking money…”
“Then he may have confronted them,” I said.
“And my father.”
I looked at Mama’s photograph again.
Three men.
Wayne.
Daniel.
Edwin Hall.
Something beneath a blanket.
“What if Edwin wasn’t part of it?”
Elaine’s eyes turned toward me.
“Why would you say that?”
“Because Mama wrote that Wayne could never allow me to remember the road.”
“What does that have to do with Edwin?”
“I don’t know yet.”
I picked up the photo from my accident.
The road.
The ditch.
The same place.
“What if I saw something there before I was hit?”
Russell shook his head.
“You were seventeen.”
“So?”
“Thomas disappeared years earlier.”
“I’m not saying I saw Thomas.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know.”
I hated those words.
I had been hearing them all day.
Then an image surfaced.
Not clear enough to call memory.
A flash.
A shovel leaning against a fence.
Wayne’s shirt dark with sweat.
A patch of disturbed ground near the road.
I stood too quickly.
My chair scraped backward.
Russell looked up.
“What?”
“I remember a shovel.”
“When?”
“The day I was hit.”
His face changed.
“You never told me that.”
“I didn’t remember it.”
“Anything else?”
I closed my eyes.
Heat.
Crickets.
Dust.
Wayne’s voice.
Don’t go down there.
Then another voice.
My own.
Why is the ground dug up?
I opened my eyes.
“He was burying something.”
Russell stood.
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where?”
“Near the ditch.”
Elaine picked up the old photograph.
“The same ditch?”
I looked carefully.
The curve of the road was distinctive.
A crooked fence post appeared in both photographs.
“Yes.”
Nobody spoke.
The room felt colder despite the summer heat outside.
I sat again and pressed my palms to the table.
“My accident happened because I found him there.”
Russell’s eyes lowered.
“I heard you arguing.”
“What did I say?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Try.”
He shut his eyes.
“You asked why he was digging.”
The memory clicked into place.
Not fully.
Enough.
Wayne had been angry before the truck appeared.
He had grabbed my arm.
I had pulled away.
“What did he say?”
Russell’s face tightened.
“He said it was none of your business.”
“And then?”
“You said you were telling Mom.”
My breath caught.
Russell opened his eyes.
“That’s when he grabbed you.”
Elaine whispered, “My God.”
I could feel the moment approaching inside my memory.
Not the impact.
The choice before it.
Wayne looking toward the road.
The sound of an engine coming.
His hand on my shoulder.
I heard myself say, very quietly, “He saw the truck.”
Russell nodded.
“Yes.”
“He knew it was coming.”
“Yes.”
“Did he look at it before he pushed me?”
Russell hesitated.
Then nodded again.
The room blurred.
For sixty years, part of me had wondered whether the push had been anger followed by catastrophe.
Now I knew better.
Wayne had looked.
He had calculated.
Perhaps only for a second.
Perhaps without planning it in advance.
But he had seen the truck.
And he had pushed anyway.
I gripped the table until my fingers hurt.
“What was buried there?”
Russell looked toward Mama’s notebook.
“I think we need the storage unit.”
“We need the road.”
Elaine shook her head.
“If something happened there in 1961, sixty-five years have passed.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Linda—”
“Mama preserved records for decades because it mattered.”
Elaine stopped.
I took the old photograph and the accident photo.
“The fence line is still visible.”
“You want to go there now?”
“Yes.”
Russell looked uneasy.
“We need to get to Memphis.”
“The auction is tomorrow.”
“We’re losing time.”
“And if the unit contains evidence connected to whatever Wayne buried, then understanding this comes first.”
He did not argue again.
We left Elaine’s office with the banker’s box, Mama’s notebook, and copies of everything Carol had provided.
Elaine insisted on coming.
“I’m not waiting here while you go looking for something that may involve my father.”
We took my car.
Russell sat beside me.
Elaine sat in back with the box.
The road lay outside town, farther from development than I expected. Fields had changed hands, trees had grown taller, and several houses had disappeared.
But the curve remained.
I slowed.
My pulse quickened before I recognized anything consciously.
“There.”
Russell followed my gaze.
A broken fence post stood beside the drainage ditch.
Still crooked.
Still leaning.
I pulled onto the shoulder.
For several seconds I could not open the door.
The heat outside shimmered above the pavement.
Traffic was lighter than it had been sixty years ago.
Still, the sound of tires passing made my chest tighten.
Russell noticed.
“You don’t have to get out.”
“Yes, I do.”
I stepped onto the gravel.
My left leg ached immediately, though I knew that was memory as much as weather.
I walked toward the ditch.
The terrain had changed.
Grass covered everything.
A line of young trees grew farther back.
I compared the photographs.
Elaine pointed.
“The fence.”
Russell moved ten feet beyond it.
Then stopped.
“What?”
He crouched.
“There used to be an old marker here.”
“What kind?”
“Stone.”
“For property?”
“No.”
He brushed dirt from the ground with his hand.
“Something smaller.”
I joined him.
A rectangular shape lay just beneath the grass.
We pulled weeds away.
The object was concrete.
Not a grave marker.
A foundation block.
Maybe part of an old structure.
Russell frowned.
“This wasn’t here.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
We walked along the ditch.
I tried to follow memory instead of sight.
Wayne near the road.
Shovel.
Disturbed soil.
His voice telling me to stay away.
Then I saw the tree.
An old oak stood beyond the fence.
Scarred along one side.
I remembered scratching initials into its bark as a teenager.
I limped toward it.
The letters were still faintly visible.
L.M.
I touched them.
My seventeen-year-old hand had been here.
The ditch was thirty feet behind me.
The road twenty feet beyond that.
I turned slowly.
Memory aligned with geography.
“He was there.”
I pointed toward a patch of ground near the oak.
Russell’s face changed.
“Yes.”
“You remember?”
“Now I do.”
Elaine walked closer.
“What was there?”
“A metal barrel.”
The answer came from Russell.
I looked at him.
“You didn’t mention a barrel.”
“I forgot.”
“No. You didn’t.”
His eyes met mine.
“I remembered it when we pulled up.”
“What was in it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Russell.”
“Papers.”
Elaine went still.
“What papers?”
“Wayne was burning them.”
My pulse jumped.
“The day I was hit?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you say that?”
“Because I didn’t understand what they were.”
“What did they look like?”
“Folders. Documents.”
Elaine stepped toward him.
“Legal files?”
“Some had letterhead.”
“Whose?”
He closed his eyes.
“Mercer and Hall.”
Elaine looked toward the ground.
“My father’s files.”
“Maybe.”
A truck passed behind us.
The roar of the engine cut through me.
For one terrible second I was seventeen again.
I stepped backward instinctively.
Russell caught my arm.
I jerked away.
He released me at once.
“Sorry.”
I looked toward the road.
Something flashed in my memory.
A page blowing from the barrel.
Landing near the ditch.
Me bending to pick it up.
Wayne shouting.
I whispered, “I found something.”
Russell stared.
“What?”
“A paper.”
The memory sharpened.
A name at the top.
Thomas.
I closed my eyes.
“Thomas Avery.”
Elaine inhaled sharply.
“You saw his name?”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
“There was a check.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“Payable to whom?”
I tried.
Nothing.
Then one word surfaced.
Bearer.
“It was made out to bearer.”
Elaine’s face tightened.
Old financial instruments.
Easy to move.
Hard to trace.
“What did Wayne do?”
“I asked him why he had it.”
“And?”
“He told me to give it back.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
Russell whispered, “That’s why.”
I turned.
“What?”
“That’s why he chased you toward the road.”
Another piece dropped into place.
I had not simply discovered Wayne destroying evidence.
I had taken some.
“Where did I put it?”
Russell shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“Did they find it after the accident?”
“I don’t know.”
A new possibility opened.
If Wayne had pushed me before retrieving the paper, perhaps someone else had.
Mama.
Russell.
A police officer.
Or perhaps it still existed.
Elaine searched Mama’s box while standing beside the road.
“Nothing labeled Thomas except the photograph.”
I walked farther from the ditch.
My younger self had run somewhere before Wayne caught me.
Toward the oak.
Toward the fence.
I looked at the tree again.
There was a hollow near the base.
Too obvious.
I knelt anyway.
Inside were leaves, insects, and dirt.
No paper.
Russell wandered toward the old foundation block.
Then stopped.
“Linda.”
His voice was different.
I turned.
He pointed at the concrete.
One side had crumbled.
Something metallic protruded beneath it.
We cleared away dirt.
A rusted corner emerged.
A box.
Small.
Tin.
Elaine crouched beside us.
“That didn’t get there recently.”
Russell used the tire iron from my trunk to pry around it.
The earth resisted.
After several minutes, the tin came free.
Its lid had nearly rusted through.
I opened it carefully.
Inside, wrapped in waxed cloth, were papers.
Not many.
Five or six.
The top document was stained but readable.
Thomas Avery’s name appeared across the letterhead.
Beneath it was a handwritten note.
If anything happens to me, Edwin knows why.
Elaine covered her mouth.
The second page was a list of client accounts.
The third contained Daniel Mercer’s name.
The fourth contained Wayne’s.
Then we reached the final sheet.
A photocopy of a bank draft.
Pay to bearer.
$41,000.
Dated three days before Thomas Avery disappeared.
On the back, someone had written one sentence in pencil.
Wayne took this tonight. Daniel helped. Edwin saw them.
Elaine stared at her father’s name.
“He witnessed it.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Then why did he never go to police?”
Nobody answered.
A shadow moved across the page.
Russell had stood.
He was looking toward the road.
A black sedan had slowed fifty yards behind us.
It did not pass.
It stopped.
I followed his gaze.
The driver remained inside.
Elaine whispered, “Do either of you know that car?”
“No.”
Russell stepped toward us.
“Put the papers away.”
“Why?”
“Because whoever that is has been behind us since town.”
I looked at him.
“You noticed?”
“Yes.”
“And said nothing?”
“I thought I was imagining it.”
The sedan began moving again.
Slowly.
It rolled past us.
The driver turned his head.
An older man.
Gray hair.
Dark glasses.
I did not recognize him.
Elaine did.
She grabbed my wrist.
“Get in the car.”
“Who is he?”
She kept staring after the sedan.
“Elaine.”
“That man used to work for Daniel.”
“What kind of work?”
Her grip tightened.
“The kind nobody wrote down.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 7: The Man Following Us Had Worked for Daniel Mercer, and Elaine Knew Why Mama Had Hidden the Evidence Instead of Calling Police
Two Days After Mama’s Funeral, My Brother Reached for the Flour Tin She Had Forbidden Anyone to Touch
Part 6 of 35
