Dad did not move for several seconds after the sheriff finished speaking.
Daniel had been shot.
Three words rearranged everything we had learned.
The fall into the trench might have been an accident. Refusing to call for help could have been panic, cowardice, or an attempt to conceal the illegal dumping. But a bullet did not happen because somebody lost his footing in the dark.
Someone had made another choice.
Dad turned toward Richard.
“What kind of gun did your father carry?”
Richard's face tightened. “Why are you asking me?”
“Because he lied about Daniel's death.”
“That doesn't mean he shot him.”
“I didn't say it did.”
Richard studied Dad for a moment before answering.
“A revolver.”
“What caliber?”
“I don't know.”
Dad looked at the sheriff.
“Can they tell from the fragments?”
“Not yet with certainty. They'll recover what they can.”
Dad rubbed both hands over his face. The afternoon light had begun fading from the windows, leaving the rooms gray around us.
Then Harold spoke.
“Edward.”
Dad looked at him.
“Your father had a gun too.”
I turned.
Dad's expression changed.
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
“A .38.”
The sheriff's attention sharpened. “Where is it?”
Dad stared toward the hallway.
“I don't know.”
“You inherited his belongings?”
“Most of them.”
“Was the gun among them?”
Dad shook his head slowly.
“I haven't thought about that revolver in thirty years.”
Harold removed his glasses.
“I remember it.”
Dad nodded. “Wood grip. Short barrel. Dad kept it in the glove compartment of his work truck.”
Richard leaned forward. “The hauling truck?”
Dad looked at him.
“Yes.”
The connection settled heavily over the room.
Granddad had been at the trench.
Granddad owned a gun.
Granddad had lied about Daniel leaving town.
And Daniel had been shot.
Dad seemed to understand exactly where everyone's thoughts were going.
“My father could have done terrible things,” he said. “Apparently he did. But we're not deciding he murdered Daniel because he owned a revolver.”
The sheriff nodded. “Nobody is.”
Richard looked unconvinced.
Dad saw it.
“Say it.”
Richard hesitated.
“My father said your father became violent that night.”
Dad stepped closer. “Your father also said Daniel died from falling.”
“Yes.”
“So his version is already false.”
“Parts of it.”
“All the important parts.”
Richard looked away.
Vanessa had remained near the dining room doorway, silent since hearing about the gunshot. Now she spoke.
“What about Mom's letter?”
Dad turned.
“She said Grandpa tried to help Daniel.”
“Yes.”
“And she was there.”
Richard answered before Dad could.
“She also hid the truth for thirty-one years.”
Vanessa flinched.
Dad's voice hardened. “Don't use my wife's guilt to make your father's story more credible.”
“I didn't.”
“You did.”
Richard held up his hands.
“I am trying to understand this too.”
Dad gave him a long look.
“That would be easier to believe if you hadn't stolen Daniel's cassette.”
Richard's jaw tightened.
The sheriff intervened.
“We need that tape.”
Richard looked at him.
“I understand.”
“Where is it?”
“At my office.”
Dad laughed bitterly. “Finally.”
Richard shook his head. “Not here. My office in the city.”
“Address?”
Richard provided it.
The sheriff wrote it down.
“Anyone else have access?”
“My assistant.”
“Name?”
“Claire Jensen.”
“Does she know about the tape?”
“No.”
Dad said, “You hope.”
Richard ignored him.
The sheriff arranged for officers to secure the office and retrieve the cassette through proper legal process.
Dad paced.
I could see how badly he wanted to drive there himself.
Instead, he stopped beside the old family photographs lining the wall.
Granddad appeared in several.
A hard-faced man with enormous hands and a habit of standing slightly apart from everyone else.
I had known him only as a child.
He smelled of tobacco and machine oil.
He gave us quarters for candy.
He carved wooden animals badly and insisted they were horses even when they looked like dogs.
Now I tried to place a gun in those hands.
Dad caught me staring.
“You remember him?”
“A little.”
“He wasn't easy.”
“Like Daniel?”
Dad almost smiled.
“Daniel was difficult loudly. Dad was difficult quietly.”
He looked at the photograph.
“That made him harder.”
The sheriff received another call from the excavation team.
This time, he stepped outside to answer.
When he returned, his expression had changed again.
“They recovered a second metal object near Daniel.”
Dad braced himself.
“A cartridge casing.”
Richard frowned. “From a revolver?”
The sheriff looked at him.
“No.”
That mattered immediately.
Revolvers generally retained their spent casings.
“What kind?” Harold asked.
“Preliminary assessment suggests a semiautomatic pistol.”
Dad's eyes widened.
“My father's gun was a revolver.”
The sheriff nodded.
Richard sat back.
“So was my father's.”
Everyone looked at him.
Dad's voice dropped. “You said he carried a revolver.”
“He did.”
“What kind?”
Richard thought.
“Smith & Wesson, I think.”
“Then neither known gun explains the casing.”
“Not necessarily,” the sheriff cautioned. “People own more than one weapon. We also don't yet know whether that casing fired the bullet recovered from Daniel.”
But the discovery opened the room again.
A third gun.
Possibly a third shooter.
Possibly another person at the trench.
Dad returned to Mom's letter.
“She wrote Robert, my father, Daniel, and herself.”
Harold nodded.
“She may not have seen everyone.”
Richard looked toward the window.
“My father said three people were there when Daniel fell, then Margaret arrived.”
“Your father lied.”
“Yes.”
Richard no longer resisted that fact.
The sheriff asked him, “Did Thomas Vale own a handgun?”
Richard went still.
Dad noticed.
“What?”
Richard looked toward the sheriff.
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
“I don't know.”
“You knew him?”
“Of course. He was my father's business partner.”
“How well?”
“He was around constantly when I was young.”
Dad leaned closer.
“And he carried a semiautomatic?”
Richard hesitated.
“I remember a pistol.”
The sheriff asked, “Where?”
“In a shoulder holster.”
“What caliber?”
“I was a child.”
“Make?”
“I don't know.”
Dad's face hardened.
“Thomas was at the property.”
Richard shook his head.
“I don't remember that.”
“You didn't remember being here either.”
“That doesn't make every missing memory evidence.”
Dad stopped.
Richard was right.
Dad disliked it, but he knew it.
Harold changed direction.
“What happened to Thomas after Robert Bell left the state?”
Richard answered slowly.
“He ran parts of the business.”
“Bell Industrial Transport?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Several years.”
“What happened to it?”
“It dissolved.”
“Why?”
“My father said environmental liabilities.”
Dad laughed without humor.
“That phrase has covered a lot of sins today.”
Richard continued.
“Thomas later started consulting under another name.”
“Vale Environmental.”
“Yes.”
Harold frowned.
“So the same man connected to the original hauling operation eventually ran an environmental consulting company.”
Richard nodded.
“That's not as strange as it sounds. He knew the industry.”
Dad stared at him.
“He knew where the bodies were buried.”
Nobody responded.
Dad regretted the words immediately.
He looked toward the back field.
“One body, anyway.”
The sheriff's phone rang again.
He answered, listened, then walked toward the kitchen counter where his notes were spread.
“We found something on Thomas Vale.”
Richard stood.
“What?”
“Death certificate exists.”
Dad's expression fell.
“So he's dead.”
“Maybe.”
The sheriff turned the screen toward them.
“Thomas Vale supposedly died in Nevada twenty years ago.”
Richard nodded. “That's what I was told.”
“Cause of death: automobile accident.”
“Yes.”
“Body?”
Richard hesitated.
“I assumed there was one.”
“There was a cremation.”
Dad gave a quiet, bitter laugh.
“Of course.”
The sheriff continued.
“The identification appears to have been based partly on documents found in the vehicle.”
Richard's face tightened.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning we're checking further.”
Dad looked toward Grant.
“You met someone fourteen months ago who looked like Thomas.”
Grant nodded.
“Older.”
“Could you identify him again?”
“I think so.”
The sheriff arranged to obtain historical photographs.
While we waited, darkness settled outside.
Portable work lights illuminated the excavation.
The north fence glowed against the field like a stage no one wanted to approach.
Vanessa quietly made coffee.
Dad watched her.
She noticed.
“I remember how.”
“I know.”
She poured him a cup.
This time he accepted it directly from her.
Nothing was repaired.
But something small had changed.
Grant watched them from across the room.
Vanessa did not offer him coffee.
About twenty minutes later, the sheriff received several photographs electronically.
He placed a tablet on the table.
Older business photographs.
Licensing records.
A newspaper clipping.
Thomas Vale appeared at different ages.
Grant leaned over them.
“That one.”
He pointed to a photograph taken twenty-three years earlier.
The man had a narrow face, deep-set eyes, and a scar beside his chin.
“You're sure?” the sheriff asked.
“Yes.”
Richard looked ill.
Dad studied the photograph.
Then frowned.
“What?”
Dad enlarged it.
“I've seen him.”
Richard looked up.
“When?”
Dad shook his head.
“Not thirty years ago.”
“Recently?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
Dad searched his memory.
Then his eyes widened.
“The diner.”
“What diner?”
“Marcy's. About a year ago.”
Harold frowned. “You talked to him?”
“No. He was sitting behind me.”
“Doing what?”
Dad's face hardened.
“Listening.”
A memory was returning.
“I was having breakfast with Grant.”
Grant stared.
Dad turned toward him.
“You remember.”
Grant shook his head too quickly.
“The morning we talked about selling the back acreage.”
Vanessa whispered, “You told Dad you were just asking whether he'd ever considered it.”
Grant looked trapped.
“I was.”
Dad pointed at Thomas's photograph.
“This man sat in the booth behind us.”
Grant said nothing.
“You knew him.”
“No.”
“You had already met him.”
Grant's face changed.
Dad stood.
“You brought me there so he could hear what I said.”
Grant finally snapped.
“He wanted to know whether you'd sell!”
Vanessa stared.
There it was.
Another layer.
Grant closed his eyes.
“I didn't know who he really was.”
Dad stepped toward him.
“But you knew he wanted my land.”
“Yes.”
“How much did he offer you?”
Grant looked away.
Vanessa whispered, “Offer?”
Dad did not blink.
“People don't spend fourteen months manipulating a family through a real estate agent without offering him something.”
Grant's shoulders dropped.
“Two percent.”
“Of what?”
“The eventual development sale.”
Dad laughed.
“How much?”
Grant did not answer.
Vanessa stepped forward.
“How much?”
“About nine million.”
Her face went white.
Dad calculated silently.
“You were going to make one hundred eighty thousand dollars.”
Grant said nothing.
“For selling land you didn't own.”
“I thought you'd agree eventually.”
Dad stared at him.
“No. You thought I'd die eventually.”
Grant's head snapped up.
“I never wanted you dead.”
“Maybe not.”
Dad's voice became quiet.
“But my death solved every problem in your deal.”
Grant could not answer.
The sheriff's phone rang again.
This time the call lasted longer.
He asked several questions.
Then he looked at Richard.
“We found something else about Thomas Vale's death.”
Richard waited.
“The vehicle identification number on the burned car belonged to a fleet vehicle registered to Bell Industrial Transport.”
Richard frowned.
“That company had been dissolved.”
“Exactly.”
Dad leaned forward.
“And the body?”
“Dental identification was never completed.”
“Then who signed off?”
The sheriff checked.
“A private investigator working for the family supplied supporting identification.”
Richard's face emptied.
“What investigator?”
The sheriff read the name.
“Robert Bell.”
Richard stopped breathing.
“My father?”
“Yes.”
Richard sank into the chair.
Dad stared at him.
Robert Bell had certified the death of his former business partner.
A man who, according to Grant, was alive decades later.
Dad whispered, “Your father helped Thomas disappear.”
Richard shook his head slowly.
“I didn't know.”
Dad believed him.
I could tell.
For the first time all day, Richard's shock looked too deep to perform.
Then a deputy entered from outside carrying a sealed evidence bag.
The sheriff turned.
“What is it?”
“Recovered near the fence.”
Inside was a badly corroded metal object.
A pistol magazine.
The sheriff looked at it.
Richard stood.
Dad moved closer.
On the base plate, beneath rust and dirt, someone had scratched two letters.
T.V.
Thomas Vale.
Click here to continue reading: PART 14: Daniel’s Cassette Finally Arrived, and the First Voice on the Tape Belonged to Someone Dad Had Trusted His Entire Life
My Sister Called Before Sunrise to Say Dad Was Gone, but Someone Was Already Moving Around His Kitchen
Part 13 of 46
