Chapter 6: What Ruth Knew
I looked at her through the gap in the window.
"Running an errand," I said.
"An errand." She glanced at the building behind me — the fourth floor, Mr.
Harding's office — and then back at me.
"This is a long way from home for an errand."
"It is." I kept my hands on the wheel.
"Is there something you need, Ruth?"
She tilted her head slightly.
The pleasantness in her expression thinned, just at the edges.
"I've been thinking about you," she said.
"About how hard this must be.
Walter gone, the estate the way it is — it's a lot to absorb at your age."
"I'm managing."
"I'm sure you are." She paused.
"I only want to make sure no one is taking advantage of you.
There are people who prey on widows, Eleanor.
Lawyers especially.
They see a grieving woman and they see an opportunity."
"That's very thoughtful."
"I mean it sincerely." She leaned slightly closer to the window.
"If you've been speaking to someone about the estate — someone Walter didn't use — I think the family should know about it.
For your protection."
There it was.
"The family," I said.
"You mean you."
Something moved behind her eyes.
Not quite anger.
Calculation.
"I mean your children," she said.
"Our family.
Walter would have wanted us to look after you."
"Walter left me a letter," I said.
"I think I know what he would have wanted."
The calculation sharpened.
"What kind of letter?"
"A personal one." I reached for the window control.
"I'll let you get on with your day, Ruth."
"Eleanor." Her voice dropped the pleasantness entirely.
"I know Walter had a sentimental streak.
Whatever he wrote in that letter — he was ill at the end.
He wasn't always thinking clearly."
I stopped with my finger on the button.
"He was thinking very clearly," I said.
"Right up until the last week.
You know that.
You visited him."
"I visited him because he was my brother."
"And what did you say to him, on that last visit?" I looked at her directly.
"He told me about it.
In the letter."
That was a guess.
But it landed.
Her chin lifted a fraction of an inch.
"I don't know what you think he told you—"
"He told me enough." I raised the window.
She stood on the pavement as I pulled out of the space.
I watched her in the mirror — still standing there, very still, her handbag gripped in both hands now instead of one.
I drove three blocks before I called Mr.
Harding.
"The recordings," I said when he answered.
"Walter mentioned them in the second letter.
He said you'd know what he meant."
A brief pause.
"Yes.
I was going to raise that at our next meeting, but — given the circumstances, perhaps sooner is better."
"Ruth just followed me from your building."
"I see." His voice didn't change.
"Can you come back up?"
"I'm already turning around."
Twenty minutes later I was back in the same chair across from his desk.
This time he didn't offer tea.
He opened a different drawer and placed a small external drive on the desk between us.
"Walter began keeping recordings approximately eight years ago," Mr.
Harding said.
"Audio only.
He used a small device — kept it in his shirt pocket during any conversation with Ruth that he felt might become significant."
I stared at the drive.
"He recorded her."
"Forty-one separate recordings.
Some are brief — a few minutes.
Several are quite long." He folded his hands.
"The most significant one is from fourteen months ago.
Ruth came to see him alone, here in the city.
Walter was already unwell.
She didn't know he had the device."
"What did she say?"
Mr.
Harding was quiet for a moment.
"She told him that if he didn't transfer the lake house property into her name before he d*ed, she would tell your children — and your grandchildren — the story about your alleged infidelity.
She said she would make sure the family never trusted you again." He paused.
"She also said that if he refused, she had already spoken to an attorney about grounds to have him declared mentally unfit to manage his own affairs."
The room was very quiet.
"She threatened to have him declared incompetent," I said.
"Yes."
"While he was dying."
"Yes."
I looked at the drive on the desk.
Forty-one recordings.
Eight years of Walter, quietly, carefully, building something Ruth would never see coming.
"What do we do with them?" I asked.
Mr.
Harding picked up a pen.
"That depends on what Ruth does next," he said.
"If she attempts to challenge the trust, or files any legal action against the estate, these recordings become evidence.
They establish a pattern of coercion and financial intimidation going back nearly a decade."
"And if she doesn't file anything?"
"Then you hold them." He set the pen down.
"And she spends the rest of her life not knowing whether you have them or not."
I thought about Ruth standing on the pavement.
Her handbag in both hands.
"She'll file something," I said.
"She's already too far in to walk away."
Mr.
Harding nodded slowly.
"Walter thought so too."
May you like
He slid the drive across the desk toward me.
"He wanted you to have the original."
