Chapter 12 - The Sixth Person
The photograph had been taken at Greyhaven’s summer picnic three months before Peter died.
Peter Lane had attended every annual picnic for fifteen years.
Arthur remembered him standing beside the grill.
Evelyn remembered him arguing with Nathan about baseball.
Nathan remembered Rachel teasing Peter because he refused to pose for photographs.
“That’s why he isn’t in it,” Lena said.
Arthur shook his head.
“No. Rachel wouldn’t build a clue around someone merely outside the frame.”
Lena examined the picture again.
A silver serving tray sat on a table behind the family.
Its polished surface reflected part of the lawn.
There.
A distorted figure.
Peter.
And beside him, something blue.
A truck.
Nathan leaned closer.
“The blue truck.”
The vehicle he had seen the night of the explosion.
They enlarged the photograph.
The truck door displayed a small circular emblem.
Nathan recognized it.
“County assessor.”
Arthur frowned.
“Why would a county truck be here?”
Evelyn whispered, “Walter Briggs.”
The name meant nothing to Lena.
It meant everything to the others.
Walter Briggs had been the county property assessor eleven years earlier.
He had approved several controversial valuations connected to Whitmore Marine acquisitions.
He had also died four years ago.
Natural causes.
“He was at the picnic?” Nathan asked.
“I invited him,” Arthur admitted.
“Why?”
“I wanted him to explain why Harbor 17 had been revalued.”
Nathan laughed bitterly.
“Another detail you forgot to mention.”
Arthur ignored it.
The photograph suggested Peter and Briggs had spoken privately at Greyhaven.
Rachel’s clue might not mean Peter alone.
It might mean the missing conversation.
Lena searched her mother’s notebook for Briggs.
Two entries.
W.B. took boxes after fire.
Blue county truck.
Nathan sat down.
“So Briggs moved something from Harbor 17 before it burned.”
Arthur’s eyes sharpened.
“The records.”
Malcolm had not moved them.
Briggs had.
That explained Sam’s note.
M moved it before the fire had been an assumption.
Maybe Malcolm ordered it.
Maybe not.
They searched county archive inventories online.
Walter Briggs’s official files had been donated after his death to the Cumberland Historical Center.
Lena called.
A volunteer archivist confirmed forty-three boxes existed.
Public inspection by appointment.
The next morning Lena and Nathan arrived when the archive opened.
They spent four hours examining tax maps, valuation reports and correspondence.
Box 31 contained Harbor 17.
Mostly routine documents.
Then Lena found a photograph of the warehouse interior.
Shelves.
Pallets.
A concrete floor.
And a floor drain.
Rachel’s words returned.
If the building is gone, find out what was underneath it.
Not beneath the property.
Beneath the warehouse.
Nathan found an old environmental report.
During construction in the 1940s, Harbor 17 had incorporated a wartime fuel-storage tunnel.
The entrance had later been sealed.
“Still there?” Lena asked.
“Maybe.”
They drove directly to the site.
The warehouse was gone, replaced by gravel and weeds.
Malcolm Vale’s company owned the parcel.
A chain-link fence surrounded it.
They did not trespass.
Instead Lena photographed from the road.
Near the rear boundary stood a concrete ventilation structure half-hidden by brush.
The tunnel remained.
Nathan called Arthur.
Before Arthur could answer, another vehicle pulled up.
A Vale Coastal Development security SUV.
The guard was polite.
“This is private property.”
“We’re on the public shoulder,” Lena said.
“You are.”
The guard looked at Nathan.
“Mr. Vale asked me to tell you the property isn’t for sale.”
Nathan’s jaw tightened.
“We didn’t ask.”
“He thought you might be curious.”
They left.
That evening, Arthur contacted an attorney he trusted from years earlier, Rebecca Shaw.
Rebecca listened to the entire story without interrupting.
Then she said what no one in the family had wanted to hear.
“You stop investigating this yourselves.”
Arthur frowned.
“Rebecca—”
“No.”
She pointed at him.
“You are a legally dead man who concealed your survival for eleven years.”
Then Nathan.
“You withheld material information from a death investigation.”
Then Evelyn.
“You assisted both.”
Finally Lena.
“And you are the only person in this room who has not already created credibility problems.”
Lena almost smiled.
Rebecca did not.
“If you have evidence of homicide, financial fraud and current intimidation, you need law enforcement.”
Arthur said, “We tried that eleven years ago.”
“Then try better now.”
Rebecca had a former colleague at the Maine Attorney General’s office.
Special investigator Dana Ruiz.
She arranged a confidential meeting for the next morning.
Before leaving, Rebecca looked at Lena.
“Do you still have Rachel’s photograph?”
“Yes.”
“Keep it somewhere else.”
“Why?”
“Because if Malcolm believes it points toward the missing evidence, he will come for it.”
That night Lena placed the photograph inside a plain envelope and gave it to Rebecca.
At 2:13 a.m., Greyhaven’s alarm sounded.
Lena woke to footsteps outside her room.
She opened the door.
A masked figure ran toward the hidden passage.
Nathan came from the opposite hallway.
The intruder disappeared through the panel before either could catch him.
Police arrived within minutes.
Nothing seemed missing.
Until Arthur entered the study.
The antique mirror had been smashed.
Every piece of wood had been torn from its frame.
Whoever entered the house had searched only one thing.
Rachel’s hiding place.
On the broken glass, a message had been written in black marker.
May you like
WHERE IS THE PICTURE?
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