Chapter 13 - The Investigator
Dana Ruiz did not look impressed by the Whitmore name.
Lena liked her immediately.
Ruiz was forty-two, compact, direct and uninterested in family mythology.
She interviewed each person separately.
Lena went first.
Two hours.
No interruptions.
Ruiz asked about the photograph, Arthur’s return, South Harbor, Sam, Rachel’s notebook and Malcolm’s visit.
Then she asked something unexpected.
“Who benefits if you believe Malcolm Vale is responsible for everything?”
Lena frowned.
“Malcolm?”
“No. Who benefits from you believing it?”
Lena understood.
“Grandpa.”
“Anyone else?”
“My father. My grandmother.”
“Good.”
Ruiz closed her notebook.
“Never let the most obvious suspect erase everyone else’s motives.”
Lena left unsettled.
Nathan was interviewed next.
Then Evelyn.
Arthur’s interview lasted longest.
When he emerged, he looked furious.
“What?”
Ruiz followed him.
“I told Mr. Whitmore that returning from the dead does not place him in charge of my investigation.”
Arthur muttered something under his breath.
Ruiz ignored it.
The police processed the break-in.
A partial fingerprint from the hidden passage did not match Malcolm.
It matched Samuel Pike.
Evelyn reacted immediately.
“Impossible.”
Ruiz corrected her.
“Unexplained.”
Sam was still in hospital.
Ruiz questioned him.
He denied entering Greyhaven.
But then surveillance from a gas station placed Sam’s truck five miles from the estate shortly before the break-in.
“He could have loaned it,” Evelyn argued.
Ruiz gave her a look.
“You’ve spent eleven years explaining why evidence means something other than what it appears to mean. I recommend stopping.”
Sam was released from the hospital the following day.
Then he disappeared.
His phone was found in a trash bin.
Ruiz issued a statewide alert, not because Sam was formally a suspect, but because he might be in danger.
Meanwhile, she obtained enough historical documentation to approach the old Harbor 17 tunnel legally.
A warrant still required probable cause.
Rachel’s notebook alone was insufficient.
The attack on Sam, current break-ins and Vale’s ownership of the property helped, but Ruiz wanted more.
Miriam provided it.
She gave a sworn statement describing the fraudulent transfers and Peter’s plan to preserve evidence.
Then she produced something she had never shown Arthur.
An email Peter sent twelve hours before his death.
If I don’t make it tomorrow, the originals aren’t at work. Briggs knows where I moved the boxes.
Ruiz read it twice.
“Walter Briggs?”
Miriam nodded.
“I thought he meant Arthur’s records.”
Lena looked at the photograph again.
The blue county truck.
Peter and Briggs.
Ruiz obtained the warrant.
The Harbor 17 tunnel was opened under police supervision.
Arthur was forbidden from entering.
So was Lena.
They waited outside the perimeter for nearly three hours.
Finally Ruiz emerged.
Her expression gave nothing away.
“Did you find it?” Lena asked.
“We found records.”
Arthur stepped closer.
“What records?”
“Financial documents. Personnel files. Property valuations.”
“Peter’s copies?”
“Possibly.”
Ruiz looked at him.
“We also found human remains.”
Everything stopped.
Nathan gripped the fence.
“Who?”
“We don’t know yet.”
The remains were old.
Likely ten years or more.
Arthur stared toward the tunnel opening.
“Malcolm.”
Ruiz immediately said, “Don’t.”
Arthur looked at her.
“We know what he did.”
“No. You believe what he did.”
Ruiz continued.
“If you want this case solved, stop trying to turn suspicion into fact before the evidence gets there.”
That evening Malcolm Vale made a public statement through his attorney.
He denied knowledge of the remains.
He accused the Whitmore family of attempting to smear him during a property dispute.
Then he said Arthur Whitmore was alive.
News spread within minutes.
Television trucks arrived outside Greyhaven.
The dead patriarch had returned.
Arthur’s disappearance became national news before sunset.
The family could no longer hide.
Nathan watched reporters gathering at the gates.
“This is exactly what he wanted.”
Lena looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because now everything looks like a feud between two rich old men.”
Arthur stood near the fireplace, staring at coverage of his own face.
Ruiz called.
The remains had been identified through dental records.
Lena put the phone on speaker.
“Who is it?”
Ruiz paused.
“Walter Briggs.”
The county assessor from the blue truck.
Silence filled the room.
Ruiz continued.
“And he didn’t die four years ago.”
Evelyn frowned.
“What?”
“The body buried under Walter Briggs’s name four years ago is being exhumed.”
Arthur sat down.
Lena felt the old pattern return.
Another man.
Another grave.
Another false identity.
Ruiz’s final sentence made Evelyn drop her glass.
May you like
“We now have reason to believe someone else has been living as Walter Briggs for years.”
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