Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WHO KNEW WHERE EVERY BODY WAS BURIED
The maintenance worker’s name was Douglas Pike.
He had worked nights at the estate for nine months.
According to the payroll system, he made twenty-three dollars an hour.
According to the fourteen thousand dollars in cash Matteo found inside his truck twenty minutes later, Douglas had discovered a more profitable line of work.
He refused to speak.
That lasted eleven minutes.
Then Matteo placed the black bag of documents on the security office table.
Douglas stared at it.
His face collapsed.
“I only moved paperwork.”
“Where?” I asked.
He looked at Evelyn through the glass wall.
She sat in the adjacent office with one of my attorneys.
She had requested counsel immediately.
Smart.
Unfortunately for her, smart people can still panic.
“The basement records room,” Douglas said.
“Why?”
“She told me to.”
“What exactly did she tell you to remove?”
“Employee complaints. Vendor copies. Old bids.”
“Why?”
“She said they were duplicates.”
“And the cash?”
Douglas looked down.
“I don’t know anything about that.”
I let the silence stretch.
He changed his mind.
“She paid me.”
“For destroying records?”
“For moving them.”
“Where?”
“A storage locker in Yonkers.”
I leaned back.
“Whose name?”
“Mine.”
Of course.
People committing small crimes frequently imagine fake distance is the same as protection.
“How much did she pay you?”
“Five hundred a month.”
“To store paper?”
“And sometimes take boxes out.”
“Take them where?”
He swallowed.
“To the incinerator.”
Matteo shifted beside me.
There were moments when I remembered why ordinary people feared men like us.
Then I remembered a four-year-old rubbing marble with her sleeve and decided fear could wait.
“What was in the boxes?”
“I never looked.”
“Wrong answer.”
“I didn’t!”
His voice cracked.
“I swear. Evelyn said they were old employment records.”
“Did she ever mention Anna Harper?”
Douglas’s eyes flickered.
There.
A fraction of a second.
Enough.
“What did she say?”
He shook his head.
“She was angry.”
“About what?”
“The kid.”
My fingers tightened around the edge of the table.
“What about Lily?”
“She said the mother kept causing problems.”
“What problems?”
“Accommodation. Scheduling. Insurance. I don’t know.”
“Try harder.”
Douglas rubbed both hands over his face.
“She said if she gave Harper special treatment, every employee would start demanding exceptions.”
“Did she say anything else?”
He looked through the glass at Evelyn.
“She said the child was expensive.”
I became very still.
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just said she was expensive.”
“She said the house had already paid enough because of her.”
That sentence changed the room.
Anna had told us she received health insurance through my household benefits program.
Lily’s brace, physical therapy and specialist visits were partially covered.
I had never thought about the details.
That was the problem with money.
Enough of it separates you from the consequences of your own systems.
I stood.
“Bring Anna.”
She arrived ten minutes later without Lily.
My doctor had taken the child to a sitting room upstairs to examine the irritation beneath her brace.
Anna looked uncomfortable sitting in my security office.
I gestured toward the chair.
“Tell me about Lily’s medical coverage.”
Her posture stiffened.
“Why?”
“Because Evelyn told another employee your daughter was costing the household money.”
Anna stared at me.
“That’s not possible.”
“What isn’t?”
“The estate doesn’t pay for Lily’s therapy.”
I frowned.
“It’s covered through our plan.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“It was denied last year.”
Now I understood the feeling I had been experiencing since sunrise.
It wasn’t anger anymore.
It was the cold intellectual pleasure that came when separate lies began touching each other.
“What was denied?”
“Physical therapy. The brace. Her orthopedic appointments.”
“Who told you?”
“Human resources.”
“Which person?”
“Norah.”
I looked through the window.
Norah Bell had vanished.
The clipboard was still in the kitchen.
The woman was not.
I called Matteo.
“Find Norah.”
He was already moving.
Anna continued.
“I pay for Lily’s care myself.”
“How?”
She looked embarrassed.
“Payment plans.”
“How much?”
“That isn’t your responsibility.”
“How much?”
“About eleven hundred a month.”
Anna Harper cleaned my house for thirty-two dollars an hour and spent nearly half her take-home income on treatment my employee plan was supposed to cover.
“Did you appeal?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“I was told the insurer denied it again.”
“By Norah?”
“Yes.”
“Did you receive letters directly from the insurer?”
“One.”
“When?”
“Last November.”
“And after that?”
“Everything went through household administration.”
I closed my eyes for half a second.
When I reopened them, Matteo was standing in the doorway.
“Norah left twelve minutes ago.”
“Car?”
“Still here.”
“Phone?”
“Powered off.”
“Gate footage?”
“She didn’t use the gate.”
There were eighty-two acres around the estate.
Woods.
Service roads.
A greenhouse.
Three guest cottages.
And enough privacy to hide a person for days if that person knew the property.
Norah knew it almost as well as Evelyn.
“Lock the grounds,” I said.
Anna rose.
“Mr. Moretti.”
I looked at her.
She was pale.
“What?”
“My daughter.”
“She’s safe.”
“No.”
Her voice sharpened.
“You don’t understand.”
That was the first time she had spoken to me without caution.
Good.
Fear makes people polite when they need to be precise.
“Explain.”
“Norah has Lily’s records.”
“What records?”
“Medical forms. Emergency contacts. Preschool schedule. My sister’s address.”
Matteo swore under his breath.
Anna grabbed the edge of the chair.
“She knows where Lily goes every day.”
I pulled out my phone.
“Your sister’s name?”
“Rachel Harper.”
I gave Matteo the name.
“Send men.”
He began calling.
I asked Anna, “Who is with Lily now?”
“Dr. Rinaldi.”
“Inside my house.”
“Yes.”
“With security outside the room.”
“Yes.”
“Then breathe.”
She looked at me as though breathing was an unreasonable request.
Maybe it was.
My phone rang.
Accounting.
I answered.
“Speak.”
“We found the missing insurance reimbursements.”
“How much?”
There was a pause.
“Mr. Moretti, I think you should see this.”
“How much?”
“Over three years? One hundred eighty-six thousand dollars.”
Anna heard.
Her eyes widened.
“That can’t be Lily.”
“It isn’t,” I said.
Accounting continued.
“Claims were approved for eleven employees’ dependents. The reimbursements were diverted into a household medical reserve account.”
“Who authorized transfers?”
“Evelyn Crane and Norah Bell.”
“Where did the reserve money go?”
“We’re tracing it now.”
Anna sank back into the chair.
Eleven families.
Not one.
The theft was no longer eight thousand dollars.
That had only been the loose thread.
Someone had been stealing from my employees by intercepting benefits meant for their children and relatives.
Then charging the same employees for “exceptions,” “damage,” “insurance exposure,” and other invented penalties.
A perfect little economy of fear.
And it had happened beneath my roof.
My phone buzzed again.
Matteo checked his.
His face changed.
“What?”
He turned the screen toward me.
Security footage from the greenhouse.
Norah stood beside the rear service door.
She wasn’t alone.
A man in a raincoat waited beside her.
He carried a folder.
I recognized him.
Gerald Voss.
Owner of Voss Architectural Restoration.
The company listed on the fake ramp invoice.
The company that had billed me nearly two million dollars in estate renovations over five years.
They were heading toward the woods.
Matteo looked at me.
“Want them stopped?”
“Yes.”
He reached for his radio.
Then my phone rang again.
Rachel Harper.
Anna’s sister.
I answered and put it on speaker.
Her voice came fast and terrified.
“Anna? Somebody just broke into my apartment.”
Anna stood.
“Rachel?”
“I’m okay. I wasn’t home.”
“Where are you?”
“At work.”
“Did they take anything?”
Rachel started crying.
“I don’t know. My neighbor called me. Anna, they smashed Lily’s old bedroom window.”
Anna covered her mouth.
I asked, “Did your neighbor see anyone?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“A woman.”
My eyes moved toward the security still of Norah.
Rachel whispered the next words.
“She was looking for a purple folder.”
Anna went white.
I looked at her.
“What purple folder?”
For several seconds she couldn’t answer.
May you like
Then she said, “The one with copies of everything Evelyn told me never existed.”
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