Chapter 7 - The Man Above Franklin
Police found Trevor Lane’s truck twelve miles outside Indianapolis.
Abandoned.
Driver’s door unlocked.
Wallet inside.
Phone gone.
No blood.
No sign of a struggle.
Rachel identified a sweatshirt on the passenger seat as his.
She also told police Trevor kept emergency cash beneath the spare tire.
The money was still there.
That made Detective Bell more worried, not less.
People planning to run usually took cash.
People who disappeared unexpectedly often didn’t.
By then I had been out of the hospital for two days.
Every step still pulled at my incision.
My lip was swollen.
But the physical pain had become background noise.
The real story was expanding faster than I could understand it.
Franklin assaulted me.
That was simple.
Then the forged trust documents appeared.
Then Dad’s evidence.
Then Victor Sloane.
Now Trevor was missing.
The following morning, Officer Ruiz called.
“Franklin wants to speak to you.”
“No.”
“He requested it through his attorney.”
“Still no.”
Mom sat across from me at the kitchen table.
She looked like she hadn’t slept.
“Why?”
Ruiz hesitated.
“He says he has information about Trevor.”
That changed things.
Not enough.
“I’m not meeting him alone.”
“You won’t. It would be at the station. Attorneys present.”
Samuel advised against it.
The prosecutor advised against it.
Mom begged me not to go.
I agreed with everyone.
Then Franklin sent a message through his lawyer.
Ask Caleb whether Michael ever told him why Dean Mercer died.
I went.
The police interview room had one table.
Franklin sat on the opposite side wearing a navy jail-issued jumpsuit.
He had violated the temporary order by appearing outside the hospital, and prosecutors successfully requested that his bail be revoked pending another hearing.
He looked smaller without his expensive work boots and leather belt.
But his eyes were the same.
“You look terrible,” he said.
Officer Ruiz immediately warned him.
“Mr. Mercer.”
I leaned back.
“He looks worse.”
Franklin smiled slightly.
That smile had ruined dinners for two years.
Now it didn’t have the same power.
His attorney, a nervous man named Charles Henley, spoke first.
“My client wishes to provide information relevant to an ongoing investigation in exchange for consideration.”
Ruiz said, “That conversation belongs with the prosecutor.”
Franklin ignored her.
“Trevor’s alive.”
Rachel, who was not in the room, would have cried from relief.
I didn’t trust anything yet.
“How do you know?”
“Because Sloane doesn’t kill people unless he has to.”
Officer Ruiz’s eyes sharpened.
“That sounded unusually specific.”
Franklin shrugged.
“He scares them.”
“Where is Trevor?”
“I don’t know.”
I stared at him.
“Then you brought me here for nothing.”
I started to stand.
Pain pulled my abdomen.
Franklin watched.
“You know, your father used to make that same face when he was angry.”
I stopped.
“How well did you know him?”
“Better than Dana thinks.”
I sat again.
Officer Ruiz turned toward his attorney.
“Your client is approaching dangerous territory.”
Franklin laughed.
“Dangerous territory is the only territory my family ever owned.”
Then he told me.
Dad and Dean Mercer had worked together secretly.
Dean wasn’t simply a frightened participant.
He was the accountant behind Mercer Logistics.
He had helped create some shell invoices before realizing Victor Sloane was moving far more money than he claimed.
Not thousands.
Millions.
Dean wanted out.
Dad agreed to help him cooperate with investigators.
“What happened to Dean?”
Franklin’s jaw tightened.
“He drove off an overpass.”
“Accident?”
“No.”
The room became silent.
“Are you saying Victor killed your brother?”
“I’m saying Dean wasn’t suicidal, wasn’t drunk, and wasn’t stupid enough to drive through a guardrail on a clear road.”
“Did you report that?”
“To who? Victor owned half the cops in our part of the county back then.”
Officer Ruiz’s face hardened.
“Careful.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, I know what you’re accusing.”
Franklin leaned toward me.
“After Dean died, Michael got scared.”
“So he kept evidence.”
“Yes.”
“Did you threaten my father?”
“No.”
“Did you steal documents from Samuel’s office?”
Franklin’s expression changed just enough.
Officer Ruiz noticed too.
“You did.”
“I took copies.”
“Why?”
“To protect myself.”
I laughed.
“Everything you do protects yourself.”
“Yes.”
The honesty shocked me.
Franklin continued.
“Your father had my name in those files. Victor wanted everything destroyed. I stole what I could.”
“Did you forge Dad’s beneficiary papers?”
“No.”
“Did you steal from Mom?”
Silence.
“Did you take eighty thousand dollars?”
His attorney touched his arm.
Franklin ignored him.
“I borrowed it.”
Mom wasn’t there.
Good.
Because if she had heard him call theft borrowing, I think she might have hit him herself.
“You forged a mortgage.”
“I needed cash.”
“You forged my trust papers.”
“I never got the money.”
“That’s your defense?”
His attorney whispered, “Franklin.”
Franklin stared at me.
“I was trying to pay Victor.”
“Why do you owe him?”
Another pause.
“Because I stole from him.”
That I hadn’t expected.
Officer Ruiz leaned forward.
“How much?”
“Years ago? Maybe one-fifty.”
“Rachel said three hundred.”
“Interest.”
I almost laughed again.
“You stole money from a criminal, then married my mother and planned to pay him with her house and my trust?”
“When you say it like that—”
“How else would I say it?”
Franklin’s face twisted.
For one second, the old temper appeared.
Then vanished.
“Victor found me again two years ago.”
Two years.
When Franklin married Mom.
My stomach turned.
“Did you marry her for money?”
He looked away.
That was worse than yes.
“You did.”
“It wasn’t only that.”
“Only?”
“I cared about Dana.”
“You beat her.”
“I lost control.”
“You hit me in a hospital.”
“You challenged me.”
Officer Ruiz stood.
“We’re done.”
But Franklin suddenly said:
“Your father didn’t die from a heart attack.”
No one moved.
His attorney whispered, “Do not continue.”
Franklin leaned forward.
“Michael was poisoned.”
I heard the words.
But my brain refused to accept them.
“With what?”
“I don’t know.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Victor told me.”
Officer Ruiz immediately called Detective Bell.
Franklin’s attorney demanded a prosecutor.
Within an hour, everything became formal.
Franklin offered to cooperate.
He wanted reduced charges.
Protection.
Relocation if necessary.
In return, he would testify about Victor Sloane, Redstone Holdings, fraud, intimidation, and my father’s death.
But there was a problem.
Franklin had lied for years.
Nobody could build a murder case on his word.
They needed evidence.
And according to Franklin, Dad had once recorded Victor making a threat.
“Where?” Bell asked.
Franklin looked at me.
“Michael hid it.”
“The safe-deposit box?”
“No.”
“Where?”
Franklin smiled bitterly.
“Somewhere nobody would ever look unless they knew him.”
I knew Dad.
Or I had thought I did.
Then Franklin said:
“Check the truck.”
Dad’s old Ford.
The one still sitting beside our garage.
The vehicle in the photograph someone had sent us.
Police searched it that afternoon.
Under the rear bench, behind a panel Dad had repaired himself, they found a sealed plastic pouch.
Inside was an old flip phone.
A charger.
And a microSD card.
Detective Bell copied the contents.
There were photographs.
Documents.
And one audio file.
Dad’s voice.
Victor Sloane’s voice.
Then a sentence that made every officer in the room stop moving.
May you like
Victor said:
“If Dean talks, he dies. If you talk, Michael, your son grows up without a father.”
