Chapter 7: The Notebook
The hospital in Poughkeepsie had a family waiting area on the second floor with chairs the colour of old mustard and a vending machine that hummed too loud.
Marcus sat in one of the chairs with the four folders on his knees and his father's handwritten letter in his hand and did not read either of them.
He had read them twice in the car.
He did not need to read them again.
Eli was inside with Arthur.
A nurse had said forty-five minutes, then come back out at thirty and said his grandfather was asking for him, and Eli had gone in without hesitation, the way children go through doors when they are not afraid of what is on the other side.
Marcus called his attorney at nine forty-seven.
David Marsh, who had handled Marcus's divorce four years ago and knew the Carrow family well enough to ask the right questions without being told to.
"I need to know what I'm looking at," Marcus said.
"Criminal exposure.
Civil.
Both."
"Tell me what happened."
He told him.
All of it, in order, from the drive up to the headlights in the driveway.
Marsh listened without interrupting.
When Marcus finished, there was a pause.
"The pre-written death certificate," Marsh said.
"That's the piece that changes everything.
That moves this from financial fraud into something else."
"I know."
"Do you have it?"
"I have all four folders."
"Don't let them out of your sight.
Don't give them to anyone tonight except law enforcement, and only with me present." A pause.
"Marcus, your sister needs her own attorney.
Not yours.
Her own."
"I know that too."
"The bank manager — Deller — if what she said is accurate, he's looking at his own exposure.
He'll cooperate.
That's going to move fast once the investigators start pulling account records."
"There's a notebook," Marcus said.
"In the study at Calder House.
My father kept records from June onward.
Dates, amounts, names."
"Is the house secured?"
Marcus looked at the wall across from him.
He had not thought about the house.
He had driven to the hospital and not thought about the house.
"I don't know," he said.
"I'll make a call.
We can request that it be treated as a scene until—"
"Do that." Marcus stood up.
"Do that now."
He ended the call.
He stood in the waiting area for a moment, the folders under his arm, the vending machine humming.
Then he called the number the officer at Calder House had given him before he left — a Detective Okafor, who had arrived in the second car and had spoken to Marcus briefly in the driveway with a calm, unhurried manner that Marcus had found steadying at the time and found steadying again now when Okafor answered on the second ring.
"Mr.
Carrow.
How is your father?"
"Stable.
They're treating him now." Marcus sat back down.
"There's a notebook in the study.
Top drawer of the desk, under the insurance files.
My father kept records.
I need someone to secure it before—"
"We're still at the property," Okafor said.
"I'll go to the study now.
Can you describe the desk?"
"Dark wood.
Against the north wall.
The drawer sticks — you have to lift the handle slightly before you pull."
A pause.
The sound of footsteps on a wooden floor, then the creak Marcus recognised as the study door.
"I have the drawer," Okafor said.
"Insurance files." A rustling.
"I have a notebook.
Green cover, spiral bound."
"That's it."
"I'll log it into evidence tonight." Another pause.
"Mr.
Carrow.
Your sister and her husband are cooperating.
I want you to know that."
Marcus looked at the floor.
"Is she all right?"
A brief silence.
"She's answering questions."
He thanked Okafor and ended the call.
The waiting area was empty except for an older man asleep in the corner with a paper cup of coffee tilted in his hand.
Marcus looked at him for a moment.
Then he opened the top folder and looked at the transfer document again — Arthur James Carrow, signature line, blank, August 31st — and thought about the fact that his father had been sitting in that shaft writing things down in a green notebook, carefully, in the dark, because he had known that if he ever got out, someone was going to need to know.
The door at the end of the corridor opened.
Eli came out.
He walked the length of the corridor and sat down in the chair next to Marcus and leaned his head back against the wall.
"He's okay," Eli said.
"They gave him fluids.
He ate something.
He wants to know if you called the police."
"I did."
"He said good." Eli looked at the ceiling.
"He also said to tell you he's sorry he didn't call you sooner.
In the summer.
When he first noticed the money."
Marcus looked at his son.
"He said he kept thinking he was wrong about her," Eli said.
"He said he didn't want to be right."
Marcus set the folders down on the chair beside him.
He put his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands, and he stayed like that for a while.
Eli did not say anything.
He sat next to his father in the mustard-coloured chair and let the vending machine hum and did not try to fill the silence.
After a few minutes, Marcus sat up.
"Your grandfather wants to see me?"
"Yeah."
"Okay." He picked up the folders.
Then he set them back down.
"Eli."
"Yeah."
"You heard those knocks."
Eli looked at him.
"I counted them."
"I know." Marcus looked at his son.
"I'm glad you didn't go somewhere else."
Eli nodded once.
May you like
It was not a child's nod.
They walked down the corridor together.
