Chapter 9 - The Boathouse
This time nobody panicked.
Nathan used his phone flashlight.
Arthur moved toward the shattered window while Lena stayed behind the brick fireplace as instructed.
A rock lay on the floor.
Wrapped around it was a sheet of paper.
Arthur opened it.
STOP DIGGING.
No signature.
Nathan photographed everything.
Then they drove directly to the boathouse.
The structure sat below Greyhaven’s cliff, reached by a narrow path through spruce trees.
Arthur had not entered it in eleven years.
The padlock was new.
Evelyn looked surprised.
“I didn’t replace that.”
Nathan cut it with bolt cutters from the maintenance shed.
Inside, the old wooden skiff remained upside down.
Ropes hung from hooks.
Arthur’s sailing trophies had rusted on a shelf.
Lena searched without knowing what she wanted.
Peter would have hidden evidence somewhere Arthur would never willingly look.
Why would Arthur avoid something in his own boathouse?
She looked at him.
“You said Peter hated sailing.”
“Yes.”
“What did you argue about here?”
Arthur smiled faintly despite himself.
“Everything.”
“Specific.”
“He thought sailing was an expensive way to get wet.”
Nathan almost smiled.
Arthur walked toward an old yellow life jacket hanging near the back wall.
Then he stopped.
“Peter once threw one of my navigation books into the water.”
“Why?”
“I told him anyone could learn to sail if they weren’t lazy.”
Lena winced.
“Charming.”
“I was not always charming.”
“You weren’t often charming,” Evelyn said.
Arthur looked at her.
It was the first almost-normal exchange between them.
Then Lena noticed a shelf of books.
All sailing manuals.
One had water damage.
Arthur stared.
“That one.”
The book was swollen from having been soaked and dried.
Lena opened it.
Nothing.
She shook it.
A small brass token fell onto the floor.
Stamped into it:
ST. BRIGID’S — 38.
Nathan frowned.
“Church?”
Evelyn shook her head.
“St. Brigid’s Credit Union.”
It had closed eight years earlier.
Arthur picked up the token.
“Safe deposit box.”
Lena looked at him.
“Wouldn’t the contents have been transferred when the bank closed?”
“Yes.”
“To where?”
Nathan searched on his phone.
The credit union’s accounts had been acquired by Pine Harbor Community Bank.
Arthur frowned.
“If Peter rented the box under his own name, police would have found it.”
“Maybe he didn’t.”
Lena turned the damaged book over.
Inside the back cover, faint pencil marks appeared.
M. COLE.
Miriam Cole.
The vanished accountant.
Arthur stared.
“Peter rented it under Miriam’s name.”
At Pine Harbor Bank, their first obstacle was immediate.
Safe deposit box information could not be released to them.
Miriam Cole was the registered renter.
Without her authorization or a court order, the conversation ended.
Arthur wanted to push.
Lena stopped him.
“We find Miriam.”
“I tried.”
“Years ago.”
“I used investigators.”
“Maybe she didn’t want Arthur Whitmore to find her.”
The words stung, but Arthur accepted them.
They returned to Greyhaven.
Lena searched Rachel’s notebook.
Her mother had written dozens of phone numbers and email fragments.
One name appeared beside an address in Halifax.
M. Caron.
Arthur stared.
“Miriam’s mother was French Canadian.”
Lena searched online.
No Miriam Cole.
But there was a Miriam Caron who served as treasurer for a small arts nonprofit in Nova Scotia.
A photograph showed a woman in her sixties with dark curly hair.
Arthur leaned toward the screen.
“That’s her.”
Nathan immediately said, “Don’t call from here.”
They drove to a public library forty minutes away.
Lena made the call.
A woman answered.
“Hello?”
“Miriam Caron?”
Silence.
“Who is this?”
“My name is Lena Whitmore.”
The line went quiet.
Then:
“Arthur’s granddaughter?”
Lena looked at him across the room.
“Yes.”
Miriam’s breathing changed.
“Is he alive?”
Lena hesitated.
Miriam laughed softly.
“That answers me.”
“Can we meet?”
“No.”
“It’s about Peter.”
Long silence.
Then Miriam said, “Peter should never have died.”
“I know.”
“No. You don’t.”
“Then tell me.”
Miriam lowered her voice.
“Your grandfather didn’t disappear because of Malcolm alone.”
Arthur heard through the speaker.
His expression changed.
Lena asked, “What does that mean?”
Miriam replied, “Ask Arthur who authorized the Harbor Seventeen transfer.”
Lena looked at her grandfather.
Arthur went rigid.
Miriam continued.
“And ask him why Peter was going to testify against both of them.”
The call ended.
Nobody spoke.
Lena slowly lowered the phone.
Arthur stared at the floor.
Nathan’s face hardened.
“You said Malcolm stole those funds.”
Arthur did not answer.
“Dad.”
Arthur looked up.
“I authorized the first transfer.”
“We know that.”
“No.”
His voice sounded older than before.
“You know about the bridge transfer.”
Lena felt something sink inside her.
Arthur continued.
“Harbor Seventeen was different.”
Evelyn whispered, “Arthur, no.”
He looked at Lena.
May you like
“I signed that one knowing exactly what it was.”
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