Chapter 8 - The Man Who Fixed the Gate
Cal Mercer came to the police station voluntarily. He sat beneath the buzzing fluorescent lights with his hands folded over his cane.
“I lied,” he told Rowan. “I lied for nine years.”
Andreas sat beside June in the interview room. Elena waited in a quiet office with Dr. Patel and Leah. She had insisted on coming but refused to sit near Cal.
“Tell us about the night Mara disappeared,” Rowan said.
Cal swallowed. “Victor called me at eleven. Said a section of fence had collapsed. When I arrived, the fence was fine. There was a hole dug along the inside.”
“What did you see?”
“A man on the ground.”
Andreas leaned forward. “Alive?”
“Barely.”
“Who was he?”
“Not Mara. A young man. Maybe twenty.”
Cal closed his eyes. “Denton Price stood over him. Victor was yelling. Marina was by the gate.”
“What happened to the young man?” Rowan asked.
“Denton put him in a truck.”
“And you?”
“I poured the concrete.”
Andreas stood so quickly his chair scraped the floor. “You helped bury someone.”
“I helped cover a hole. I didn’t know what was in the truck.”
“You saw blood.”
“I saw a threat. Denton put a pistol on the dashboard. He said my wife would be next if I talked.”
June reached for Andreas's sleeve. “Let him finish.”
Cal pulled a photograph from his pocket. “I took this years later. I wanted proof I hadn’t imagined it.”
The photograph showed the fence at night. A white truck stood near the gate. Its rear doors were open. Behind it, Marina held a small flashlight.
“Why show this now?” Rowan asked.
“Because Victor came to my garage two days before he died. He said he had found the man from the truck.”
Andreas's anger shifted. “Found him where?”
“In a county jail. Under another name.”
Cal handed over a second photograph: a newspaper clipping about a prisoner named Isaac Bell, convicted of armed robbery in Ohio. The photograph showed a young man with Marina's eyes.
“Mara’s brother?” Andreas asked.
“Her son,” Cal said. “Mara was the daughter. Isaac was her older brother.”
“Why would Victor bury him?”
“Victor didn’t. Denton brought him here after Isaac tried to expose Holt’s payroll scam. Victor wanted to get him medical help. Marina wanted him gone.”
Andreas stared at the photograph. “She abandoned her own son?”
“She thought he was dead.”
Rowan studied the image. “Where is Isaac Bell now?”
“Still in Ohio, unless he got out.”
He had. A records search found Isaac working under a different surname in a Cleveland machine shop.
The station phone rang before Rowan could call him. It was the county hospital.
Marina had been found unconscious in a parking garage, her car smashed against a concrete pillar. No one had seen the other vehicle leave.
On the driver's seat was a note written in black marker.
STOP DIGGING.
Cal looked at Andreas. “That warning wasn’t for me.”
In the quiet office, Elena suddenly seized Dr. Patel's hand. With her free hand, she spelled a name on the board.
I S A A C.
Then she pointed to the fence and shook her head.
May you like
Isaac was not the person buried there.
But someone else had been.
