Chapter 9 - What Happened in 2009
They spent the night in separate interview rooms.
Walter Price was detained for questioning, but Marisol warned Claire that the old man had lawyers waiting before the first agent finished reading him his rights.
Mark was taken to a hospital under guard.
Robert sat alone.
By morning, Claire was running on coffee and anger.
Marisol entered the room carrying two paper cups.
“Your father wants to talk to you.”
Claire did not reach for the coffee.
“Is he under arrest?”
“Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because the financial fraud is messy, the old case is messier, and we still need corroboration.”
Claire stood.
“What old case?”
Marisol looked at her carefully.
“Your grandfather’s death.”
Claire stopped.
Her grandfather, Samuel Bennett, had died in 2009 after his car left a rural road during a rainstorm.
Accident.
That was what everyone had said.
Marisol opened the door.
Robert sat in the next room with both hands on the table.
He looked twenty years older than he had at dinner.
Claire sat opposite him.
“You paid Walter to keep quiet about Grandpa?”
Robert shook his head.
“He paid me.”
“Why?”
Robert stared at his hands.
“Your grandfather discovered what Walter was doing.”
“Harbor Light?”
“It was smaller then. Shell companies. Inflated invoices. Fake properties. Dad confronted him.”
Claire’s chest tightened.
“And then he died.”
Robert nodded.
“I found out Walter’s company had serviced Dad’s brakes the week before the crash.”
Claire went still.
“You knew?”
“I suspected.”
“And you took money.”
Robert’s eyes filled.
“I was weak.”
“How much did he pay you?”
“Two hundred thousand.”
“To say nothing?”
“To stop asking questions.”
Claire stood so fast the chair tipped backward.
“You sold Grandpa.”
“No.”
“You sold the truth.”
Robert stood too.
“I had three kids. Debt. A failing business. Your mother didn’t know.”
“So you took blood money.”
“Yes.”
The word was barely audible.
Claire looked away because if she kept looking at him, she might say something she could never take back.
Robert continued.
“I told myself I’d use the money to protect the family. Then every year I hated myself more.”
“And when Mark found Walter’s operation?”
“I knew exactly what Walter was capable of.”
“So you helped Mark run.”
“Yes.”
“And forged our names.”
Robert nodded.
“I thought money could buy time.”
Claire laughed bitterly.
“That’s what started all of this.”
The door opened.
Marisol stood there.
“We found something in Walter’s warehouse.”
She placed a sealed evidence bag on the table.
Inside was an old handheld digital recorder.
A label on it read: SAMUEL BENNETT — OCT 2009.
Robert stopped breathing for a moment.
Claire stared at the recorder.
Marisol said, “There’s one audio file.”
She pressed play.
Claire’s grandfather’s voice crackled through the speaker.
“If anything happens to me, Walter Price did it.”
May you like
Then another voice entered the recording.
Robert’s.
