Chapter 4 - WHAT MY FATHER SOLD
Elsie drove directly to Hancock Street.
Walter was in the garage.
The old Parker Construction sign leaned against the wall behind him.
Blue letters.
White background.
PARKER CONSTRUCTION — BUILT TO LAST.
Elsie had grown up seeing that sign on trucks.
Now it looked like a joke someone had forgotten to remove.
She put the contract on his workbench.
Walter looked at it.
Then at her.
“Marissa gave you that.”
“Yes.”
He exhaled.
“I wanted to explain.”
“You had Tuesday.”
“I couldn’t.”
“You could speak.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
Elsie pointed to her name.
“What did you sell?”
His face hardened.
“I didn’t sell you.”
“Then tell me why my employment appears in your business agreement.”
“Adrien said you could help us understand Bellamy procedures.”
“Did I agree?”
“No.”
“Then what would you call promising my help to someone without asking me?”
Walter looked toward the open garage door.
“Everything sounds uglier when you say it like that.”
“Then say it prettier.”
He couldn’t.
For several seconds, all Elsie heard was a lawn mower somewhere down Hancock Street.
Walter picked up the contract.
“He told me it was research.”
“You knew Marissa was photographing my notebooks.”
He closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
The admission hurt more than expected.
“How long?”
“Not at first.”
“Dad.”
“After the second time.”
“You caught her?”
“She told me.”
“And you let her continue.”
Walter looked at her.
“I was three weeks from losing the house.”
“You should have called me.”
“And said what?”
His voice rose.
“Your mother died and left forty thousand dollars in medical bills. My company was gone. The bank wanted the house. You were twenty-four years old and barely making rent.”
“You should have called me.”
“I was your father.”
“That didn’t require you to be a liar.”
He looked as if she had slapped him.
Good.
Then he sat on an old paint bucket.
For the first time, he looked less like a guilty father than a tired man.
“I kept thinking I could fix one thing before you noticed the next.”
Elsie knew that kind of thinking.
It was how people built collapses.
One small support removed at a time.
“Why did Adrien want Bellamy information?”
Walter rubbed his hands.
“He said Roman’s father destroyed his family.”
“Marissa told me.”
“There’s more.”
Elsie waited.
“Adrien’s father and Roman’s father used to do business.”
That surprised her.
“What kind?”
“Waterfront contracts. Equipment. Warehousing.”
“Together?”
“Sometimes.”
“And?”
Walter looked toward the old sign.
“In 2019, I bid on a redevelopment job at the old Tremont freight yard.”
Elsie remembered.
That project was supposed to save Parker Construction.
Then Walter lost it.
Three months later, the company collapsed.
“I thought Bellamy underbid you.”
“So did I.”
“But?”
“Adrien came to me after your mother died.”
Walter opened an old metal cabinet.
He removed a brown envelope.
“He showed me this.”
Inside was a photocopy of an invoice.
Parker Construction.
The amount was $186,000.
Elsie frowned.
“Did you issue this?”
“No.”
“It has your logo.”
“Copied.”
“Your signature?”
“Forged.”
Her stomach tightened.
The vendor receiving payment was Manuso Industrial Services.
“What does this prove?”
“That somebody used my company to move money.”
“Who?”
Walter pulled out another page.
An internal authorization.
Two initials appeared near the bottom.
A.M.
R.B.
Elsie looked at him.
“Adrien Manuso?”
“His father. Anthony.”
“And R.B.?”
Walter did not answer.
He didn’t need to.
Roman Bellamy’s father had been Richard Bellamy.
Elsie’s mouth went dry.
“You think their fathers were stealing through your company.”
“I think Anthony Manuso used Parker Construction as a pass-through. I think Richard Bellamy signed off on it.”
“And when something went wrong?”
“I took the debt.”
“Why?”
“Because the invoices had my company name.”
“And Adrien knows this?”
“Yes.”
“Does Roman?”
Walter looked at her.
“I don’t know.”
Elsie thought about Roman sitting across from her.
The photographs.
The open door.
You’ll never know what you did.
Had he known exactly who her father was?
Had this never been about Adrien alone?
Walter went inside.
He returned carrying a small wooden box.
Elsie recognized it.
Her mother kept court-reporting supplies inside it.
Pens.
Replacement machine ribbon.
Peppermints.
A rosary with dark wooden beads.
Walter opened the lid.
The rosary was still there.
So was a narrow red notebook.
Elsie had never seen it before.
“What is that?”
“Your mother’s.”
Elsie looked at him sharply.
“You said I had all her journals.”
“I said you had what she left for you.”
“That is not the same sentence.”
Walter’s face tightened.
“She told me to destroy this.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I couldn’t.”
Elsie picked up the notebook.
Diane Parker’s handwriting was smaller than hers.
Neater.
Dates filled the first pages.
March 2019.
April.
May.
Names appeared.
Anthony Manuso.
Richard Bellamy.
Walter.
Then a sentence underlined twice.
WALTER ISN’T THE TARGET. HE’S THE COVER.
Elsie looked up.
“What did Mom know?”
Walter’s eyes filled.
“She figured out somebody was using my company before I did.”
“Did she go to the police?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“She was afraid.”
Elsie had never heard those words connected to Diane Parker.
Her mother had been afraid of almost nothing.
“Of Anthony Manuso?”
Walter nodded.
“And Bellamy?”
Walter hesitated.
“That was different.”
“How?”
“She met with Richard.”
“When?”
“Three weeks before Parker Construction lost the Tremont job.”
“Why?”
“To warn him.”
“Did he listen?”
Walter’s face changed.
“He offered to buy my yard.”
Elsie frowned.
“What?”
“He said it was the only way to keep the property out of Manuso’s hands.”
“But Bellamy eventually bought the yard.”
“Yes.”
“After you collapsed.”
“Yes.”
The reversal landed slowly.
Richard Bellamy might have been involved in suspicious payments.
He also might have been trying to keep Adrien’s father from getting Walter’s property.
Both things could be true.
That was worse.
Clean villains were easy.
Complicated men required attention.
Elsie opened the notebook again.
A photograph slipped from the back.
She picked it up.
Her mother stood outside a restaurant.
Beside her was Richard Bellamy.
And beside him, much younger but unmistakable, was Roman.
Elsie turned it over.
Diane had written a date.
June 14, 2019.
Then one sentence.
ROMAN HEARD EVERYTHING.
Elsie stared at those words.
Roman had looked her in the face less than twenty-four hours ago and let her believe he was discovering this with her.
She closed the notebook.
Walter stood.
May you like
“Where are you going?”
“To ask my boss why my dead mother wrote his name in red ink.”
