Chapter 21 - THE BOY BESIDE WILLIAM
Rosa did not call me again until the following morning.
By then, Lily had eaten breakfast, argued about wearing a sweater, and left for school carrying nothing more dangerous than a library book and a permission slip for the spring play.
I was grateful for the ordinary delay.
Rosa asked me to meet her at the federal building in Arlington. The silver key and photograph waited inside separate evidence bags on the conference table.
A records analyst had enlarged the writing on the back.
Before Grant, there was another Mercer son. He knows where the first ledger is buried.
The boy appeared twelve or thirteen. William’s hand rested on his shoulder, but the gesture looked possessive rather than affectionate.
My mother stood on the other side of him.
“His name is Thomas Vale,” Rosa said.
The name came from an archived visitor sheet at St. Catherine’s Children’s Hospital. Thomas had been treated there repeatedly during the late 1980s and early 1990s for respiratory complications.
William Mercer was listed as a financial guarantor.
Not father.
Not guardian.
Guarantor.
Thomas’s mother was Marlene Vale, a respiratory therapist who briefly worked with the hospital’s home-equipment program. She died fifteen years earlier.
“What happened to Thomas?” I asked.
“He changed addresses often. Most recently, he worked as a medical-equipment technician near Hagerstown.”
“Worked?”
“He was placed on leave last week.”
“Why?”
Rosa slid a second document toward me.
Thomas had reported that pediatric breathing monitors serviced by his employer contained refurbished Mercer components that should have been destroyed years ago.
His employer accused him of taking confidential serial-number records.
The company was Northstar Pediatric Repair.
It had purchased Mercer’s service division after the family company was sold.
The Mercer name was gone.
Some of its equipment was not.
Rosa asked whether Grant had ever mentioned Thomas.
“No.”
She arranged a recorded call through Grant’s attorney.
Grant appeared on the screen from his supervised-release office. He looked at the photograph for eleven seconds before speaking.
“Tommy.”
The childhood name came too naturally.
“You know him,” I said.
Grant lowered his eyes.
“My father took me to see him once.”
“You told investigators you had no other brother.”
“I didn’t know he was my brother then.”
“When did you learn?”
Grant rubbed his jaw.
“After my father died.”
“And you still said nothing.”
“My mother told me Thomas had died years earlier.”
“You just recognized an adult man from a childhood photograph.”
“I recognized your mother first.”
I leaned toward the screen.
“How did you know my mother?”
Grant’s face changed.
“I saw her with Thomas at the hospital.”
“You were there?”
“My father brought me.”
Rosa interrupted before I could ask more.
“Mr. Mercer, did William ever tell you where records were hidden?”
“No.”
“Did Thomas?”
Grant looked at the photograph again.
“He gave me something that day.”
“What?”
“A red toy ambulance.”
“Where is it?”
“My mother took it away before we got home.”
Rosa ended the call after instructing Grant not to contact Thomas.
That evening, my phone rang from a number blocked by the carrier.
A man spoke before I could answer.
“Your mother told me you would become an accountant.”
I stood in my kitchen, watching Lily’s yellow backpack hanging beside the door.
“Thomas?”
“She said you counted things when you were scared.”
My throat tightened.
“Where are you?”
“That depends on whether Rosa Bennett is listening.”
“She isn’t.”
“You should’ve said yes.”
A faint mechanical sound came through the call, followed by a breath drawn too carefully.
“I’ll speak to the investigators,” he said. “But I won’t sit in a room with Grant.”
“Why?”
“Because the last time a Mercer brother asked me to trust him, I spent twenty-two years waiting for the police to find a grave that didn’t exist.”
The call ended.
On my screen, one text appeared.
May you like
TELL ROSA THE KEY IS NOT FOR THE LEDGER.
IT IS FOR WHAT WILLIAM TOOK FROM IT.
