Chapter 7 - THE MAN WHO BOUGHT THE SCREWS
The receipt led to Nathan Briggs.
Fifty-seven.
Carpenter.
Twenty-three years maintaining Morgan family properties.
Nathan had repaired nursery windows when Lucas was a child, rebuilt Evelyn’s kitchen after a pipe burst, and attended Harold Morgan’s funeral.
When Daniel first interviewed him, Nathan claimed he hadn’t been at the Rowayton house in months.
The hardware-store cashier changed that.
Confronted with the receipt and store records showing the card transaction, Nathan admitted Evelyn had given him her card and asked him to buy “better-looking fasteners.”
“Did you install them?”
Nathan said no.
Daniel did not believe him.
Neither did Rachel.
Nathan’s truck had entered the Morgan property through the service gate two days before the fall. The old estate manager’s handwritten visitor log proved it.
Nathan changed his story again.
He said Evelyn wanted the visible bolts replaced with decorative screws.
He warned her they were too short.
According to Nathan, Evelyn answered, “Nobody leans on that thing anyway.”
He swapped two fasteners.
He claimed he intended to return with proper concealed hardware the following morning.
Evelyn told him not to.
“Why?”
Nathan looked down during the recorded interview.
“She said Mrs. Morgan was making the family sell the house.”
Rachel wasn’t making anyone sell anything.
But she had recommended the estate consider selling the Rowayton property because maintenance costs were draining the trust.
Evelyn had heard that recommendation as eviction.
Nathan insisted he never believed the railing would collapse.
Investigators did not let him turn that into innocence.
He had knowingly removed structural bolts.
What nobody could yet prove was whether Evelyn expected an accident.
Then Daniel asked Nathan who knew Rachel used that balcony.
Nathan’s answer was immediate.
“Mrs. Evelyn.”
Every night Rachel stayed at the Rowayton house, she stepped onto the library balcony before bed to call Natalie.
Evelyn had mocked the habit more than once.
Your little sunset ritual.
The pattern was becoming difficult to dismiss.
Rachel made another decision.
She authorized Hannah to share Daniel’s findings with the detectives investigating the hospital assault and the balcony incident.
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It meant losing control of where the evidence went next.
It also meant she was done protecting the Morgan name.
