Chapter 8: The First Will
Deb picked up on the first ring.
"I got the same message," she said.
"Twenty minutes ago."
"Unknown number?"
"Burner, probably.
I'm having it traced but I'm not expecting much." A pause.
"Did you ask Radley yet?"
"I'm calling you first."
"Ask him tonight," she said.
"If there's a prior will — one that predates the document Garrett presented — that changes the entire shape of the case.
We wouldn't need to prove undue influence.
We'd just need to prove the earlier document existed and was valid."
"And if Garrett knew about it?"
"Then we're not just talking about a probate dispute." Her voice was careful.
"We're talking about something else."
I drove back to the house at seven that evening.
The porch light was on — the first time I'd seen it lit.
Through the front window, faint and warm, was the glow of the cracked lamp.
Radley answered the door before I knocked.
He'd eaten something.
I could tell by the small difference in his color.
"I know why you're here," he said.
I stepped inside.
Brenna was at the table again, this time with a library book open in front of her.
She looked up, then back down.
"The second will," I said.
Radley moved to the kitchen.
He filled two glasses with water and set one in front of me.
"My parents made two wills," he said.
"The first one when I was seventeen.
That one left everything equally between me and Garrett.
The second one — the real second one, the one they made together ten years later — left the house to me.
Garrett got the savings account and the car.
He was already doing well by then.
They wanted to make sure I had somewhere stable."
"Where is that document?"
"It was in a lockbox in this house.
Under the floorboards in the master bedroom." He looked at the hallway.
"Garrett's bedroom now, technically, since he claims ownership."
"Is it still there?"
"I don't know.
When Garrett came to collect things after Mom died, he spent a long time in that room.
I assumed he was going through her personal belongings." He paused.
"I didn't know about the floorboard then.
I found out later — from a letter Mom had left with her sister.
My Aunt Vera."
"Where is Vera?"
"Medford.
She's eighty-one.
She has the letter." He looked at his water glass.
"I called her after you left this afternoon.
She's been waiting for someone to ask."
I set my glass down.
"Radley.
Why didn't you tell me about Vera before?"
He was quiet for a moment.
"Because the last time I trusted someone with all of it," he said, "it went nowhere.
And I didn't want to use up Vera.
She's old.
She gets upset easily.
If I brought her into this and nothing happened again—" He stopped.
"I didn't want to put her through it for nothing."
Brenna turned a page in her library book.
She didn't look up, but she was listening.
"She's not going to go through it for nothing," I said.
"You don't know that."
"No," I said.
"But Deb does.
And Deb says if that prior will exists and can be authenticated, the case changes completely."
Radley looked at his daughter.
She raised her eyes from the book.
"Call Vera," Brenna said.
He looked at her for a moment.
Then he picked up his phone.
Vera answered quickly, as if she'd been expecting it.
Her voice was thin but clear, and she spoke without preamble.
"I have the letter," she said, when Radley put her on speaker.
"Margaret wrote it herself, by hand, eight months before she got sick.
She told me where the lockbox was and what was in it.
She said if anything ever happened to the will, I should speak up."
"Vera," I said.
"This is Officer Lionel.
I'm with Radley.
Can you tell me — did Margaret say anything about Garrett in the letter?"
A pause.
"She said she loved both her boys.
But she said Garrett had always wanted more than his share.
She said she'd made sure the house went to Radley because Radley was the one who stayed." Her voice steadied.
"She said: *The house belongs to the one who never left.*"
The kitchen was very quiet.
"Will you speak to a lawyer?" I asked.
"A woman named Deb Paulson.
She's working to help Radley."
"I've been waiting five years for someone to call me," Vera said.
"I'll speak to whoever needs to hear it."
After we hung up, Radley sat with his hands flat on the table.
Brenna closed her book.
"The lockbox," I said.
"If Garrett found it and took what was inside—"
"Then the original will is gone," Radley said.
"But Vera's letter describes it.
And your mother's own words describe where it was kept." I looked at him.
"We may not need the document itself.
We may need the letter, the voicemail, the photographs, and a judge who's willing to look at all of it together."
Radley nodded slowly.
"There's one more thing," he said.
He reached under the bed frame and pulled out a thin envelope.
He set it on the table between us.
"Mom gave this to me directly.
Two weeks before she died, on one of her clearer days.
She said keep it somewhere Garrett would never look." He touched the edge of the envelope.
"I kept it under the mattress.
The mattress on the floor.
The one Garrett walked past twice and never looked at because it wasn't worth looking at."
I opened the envelope carefully.
Inside was a single handwritten page.
At the top, in shaky but legible script: *To my son Radley.
May you like
I want you to know what is true.*
And below that, in Margaret Marsh's own hand, was everything.
