Chapter 9 - What Was Buried With Margaret
The police called Gerald at 6:08 a.m.
By 6:40, we were standing in the cemetery.
Margaret Crawford’s headstone had been pulled partially from the ground.
Mud covered the grass.
The soil near the base had been ripped apart.
Gerald stood beside the grave without speaking.
His wife had died three years into his sentence.
The prison had denied his request to attend the funeral.
Now, two years later, his first visit to her grave looked like this.
I touched his arm.
“I’m sorry.”
He looked at her name carved into the stone.
MARGARET ELAINE CRAWFORD
BELOVED WIFE, MOTHER, GRANDMOTHER.
“She hated being cold,” he whispered.
I didn’t know what to say.
Aaron spoke with a deputy near the road.
Giselle paced beside her car.
Kenneth stood alone.
Finally, the officer approached.
“Nothing appears to have reached the coffin.”
Gerald closed his eyes briefly.
“Thank God.”
“But someone definitely dug around the headstone.”
Giselle wrapped both arms around herself.
“The box.”
“What box?” the deputy asked.
Everyone looked at one another.
Gerald answered.
“Family documents.”
“Valuable?”
“Possibly.”
The deputy nodded.
“Do you know exactly where they were buried?”
Giselle walked toward the rear side of the headstone.
“Mom told me there was a metal container beneath this corner.”
The officer crouched.
A small hole had been excavated there.
Empty.
Aaron cursed softly.
“They got it.”
“Not necessarily,” Giselle said.
He looked at her.
“What?”
She crouched beside the stone.
“Mom never trusted obvious hiding places.”
She pushed her fingers into the wet soil on the opposite side.
Then she stopped.
“Help me.”
Aaron knelt.
Together they removed dirt until metal appeared.
A rectangular tin box.
Still there.
Gerald inhaled sharply.
The intruder had dug exactly where Giselle expected them to dig.
Margaret had hidden it somewhere else.
Even in death, she had anticipated betrayal.
We took the box to the sheriff’s office before opening it.
Inside were old receipts.
Photographs.
Two cassette tapes.
A flash drive.
A sealed envelope addressed to Aaron.
Another addressed to Gerald.
And a small red notebook.
Aaron opened it.
Pages of numbers.
Dates.
Account codes.
Initials.
The original ledger.
Gerald sat down.
“There it is.”
Five years of prison.
Twenty-seven farmers ruined.
A family shattered.
All contained in a notebook small enough to fit inside a coat pocket.
Aaron turned pages carefully.
“K.C.”
Kenneth stiffened.
“Those are my initials.”
“R.C.”
Raymond.
“S.M.”
Samuel Mercer.
“E.C.”
Nobody spoke.
I asked, “Who is E.C.?”
Gerald looked confused.
“I don’t know.”
Aaron kept reading.
Then stopped.
“What?”
He rotated the notebook.
Beside several transfers, Margaret had written:
E.C. refuses to continue.
Another line:
E.C. threatened after meeting with R.
And one final entry:
If anything happens to Evelyn, Raymond did it.
The room went cold.
“Evelyn Carter,” I whispered.
Aaron nodded.
The woman whose company received the stolen money.
The woman who had disappeared.
Gerald opened his envelope.
Inside was a letter from Margaret.
He read silently.
His face crumpled halfway through.
Then he handed it to me.
Gerald,
If you are reading this, then either you came home or one of our children finally became brave enough to search for the truth.
I am sorry.
I believed you were protecting Kenneth, but I did not understand how much danger Raymond had created.
Evelyn Carter came to me six months after your sentencing.
She said Raymond used her company to move money. She wanted to confess.
Samuel Mercer knew.
She was frightened of both men.
I told her to go to the authorities.
Three days later, she vanished.
I began copying everything.
Gerald, I think Raymond knows I know.
I had to stop reading.
Gerald took the letter back.
His hands trembled.
“She knew.”
Aaron opened his envelope.
Inside was another letter.
Aaron,
If you are alive, forgive me.
I told you to leave because Raymond had started asking where you slept, who you met, and why you were searching company records.
I thought sending you away might save you.
Do not come back until Gerald is free.
Trust Melanie.
My breath stopped.
Everyone looked at me.
“Me?”
Aaron continued reading.
She sees people for what they do, not what the town says about them.
That is rarer than money.
I had to sit down.
Margaret had barely spoken to me during her final year.
I had assumed she blamed me, or perhaps simply withdrew because of grief.
I never knew she trusted me.
There was more.
Aaron’s expression changed.
He read aloud.
The original ledger is not enough.
The recording proves who ordered the transfers.
If the tape is damaged, the second copy is with the only person Raymond believes is dead.
Aaron looked up.
“Evelyn.”
Gerald stared.
“You think she’s alive?”
Before Aaron could answer, the sheriff entered.
“We got security footage from the cemetery road.”
He placed a tablet on the desk.
A vehicle had arrived at 2:13 a.m.
The footage was grainy.
But the license plate was readable.
It belonged to Samuel Mercer.
Olivia’s father.
Kenneth stared.
“Samuel dug up Mom’s grave?”
The sheriff shook his head.
“Vehicle is registered to him.”
“Who was driving?”
The officer zoomed in.
The driver stepped out.
Tall.
Older.
Male.
Uncle Raymond.
But another figure exited the passenger side.
A woman.
She turned briefly toward the camera.
Giselle gasped.
Kenneth whispered, “That’s impossible.”
Gerald stood so fast his chair fell backward.
I stared at the screen.
The woman looked older than I remembered.
Thinner.
Her hair almost completely gray.
But Gerald knew her instantly.
“Evelyn.”
May you like
The missing woman had never been dead.
And she had returned with the man she once claimed she feared.
