Chapter 9 - The Photograph After the Funeral
Gabriel stared at the photograph until the numbers on the date stamp blurred. Walter was seated in what looked like a hospital garden, wearing the brown cardigan June had knitted for his last birthday. His face was turned away from the camera, but his left hand rested on the arm of a wheelchair. A distinctive scar crossed the knuckle of his index finger.
"That could be him," June said.
"Or someone wants me to think it is."
He handed the envelope to the detective and asked for the original medical and funeral records to be checked. Walter had been cremated after a private service. Evelyn had insisted that his final illness made an open viewing inappropriate, and Gabriel, overwhelmed by grief, had accepted it.
"I signed the papers," he said.
"You signed what they put in front of you," June answered. "Those aren't always the same thing."
Leah examined the garden photograph. She recognized the logo on a folded blanket beside the wheelchair: a rehabilitation center outside Albany. Nora contacted the center through appropriate channels, but privacy rules meant staff would not discuss a patient without authorization. The detective agreed to follow up on the provenance of the image.
Meanwhile, the company's independent audit uncovered invoices to a medical transportation service paid after Walter's death. The payments could have been administrative errors; they could also have supported the story suggested by the photograph. Gabriel refused to tell Rosie her grandfather might be alive on evidence this uncertain.
Evelyn asked to meet at the mansion, with lawyers present. She looked smaller in the enormous drawing room, where the tree had begun dropping needles onto the polished floor.
"You never understood what it cost to keep your father comfortable," she began.
"Tell me about the rehabilitation center."
Her fingers tightened around a tissue. "Walter had periods of confusion. He wanted to leave the house. We arranged private care."
"After you told us he died?"
"I did not say that."
"Then what are you saying?"
She looked toward her attorney, who advised her not to answer questions about disputed records without reviewing them. Gabriel respected the boundary, but he could not ignore what she had already admitted: there had been private care arrangements she never disclosed.
"Where is my father?" he asked.
"I don't know," she said, and for the first time he believed she might be telling a narrow truth.
Celeste, who had agreed to speak with investigators, supplied a new piece of information. On the night Walter was taken away from the mansion, she had seen Thomas's driver at the service entrance. Daniel had been instructed to keep Gabriel occupied with a company emergency. The family announcement of Walter's death came the next morning.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Gabriel asked.
"Because Evelyn said it was a private medical matter. And because every time I questioned her, she reminded me what Daniel owed."
"You still had a choice."
"I know."
Gabriel took Rosie to a community Christmas concert that evening. She wore warm boots and a new blue coat she'd chosen herself. When the choir sang about a traveler finding shelter, she slipped her hand into his.
"Are we going back to the big house?" she asked.
"Not unless you want to, and not until it's safe."
"Can Mrs. Alvarez come to our new house?"
"I'll ask her."
"Can Aunt June bring the ugly fruitcake?"
"I'll insist."
Rosie laughed, a quick surprised sound. Gabriel held onto it like a promise.
May you like
After the concert, Nora called. Investigators had confirmed that the rehabilitation center existed and that the photograph's garden matched its grounds. They had not confirmed the patient's identity. A second image, taken from a different angle, showed a man in Walter's cardigan speaking to someone whose face was hidden by a red scarf.
Gabriel recognized the scarf. It had belonged to Anna, his late wife. She had been buried with it three years earlier—or so he had been told.
