Chapter 5: The Lawyer Who Remembered
The law office had changed hands twice since Clara had walked through its doors.
The original partner, a man named Aldrich, had retired fourteen years ago to a small town three hours north.
It took Harlow two days to find a phone number.
She called him while Daniel and I sat at the kitchen table and listened to her side of the conversation.
"Mr.
Aldrich, my name is Harlow.
I'm a private investigator working on behalf of a client whose wife consulted your office approximately forty years ago…
Yes, I understand the time…
Her name was Clara…
Yes.
That's correct."
A pause.
Harlow's pen stopped moving.
"You remember her," Harlow said.
It wasn't a question.
Another pause, longer this time.
"I see." Harlow looked at me across the table.
"Would you be willing to meet in person?"
She drove up to see him the following day.
She came back with four pages of handwritten notes and sat down across from me without taking off her coat.
"He remembered Clara immediately," she said.
"He told me she came in alone, very calm on the surface but clearly frightened underneath.
She told him her sister had threatened her and that she wanted to make sure there was a legal record of the threat before anything happened."
"She went to a lawyer," I said.
"She documented it."
"She did more than that." Harlow turned to the second page of her notes.
"She gave Aldrich a sealed envelope and told him to hold it.
She said if she ever contacted him again, he should return it to her.
If she never contacted him — if he heard that something had happened to her — he was to send it to you."
The air went out of the room.
"He never heard from her again," Harlow said.
"He waited.
He tried to find you through the police records at the time, but the case was classified as an accident and your address had changed.
He held the envelope for years.
Then he retired and — he took it with him.
He said he couldn't bring himself to throw it away."
"He still has it?" Daniel said.
"He still has it." Harlow reached into her bag and placed a yellowed envelope on the table.
"He gave it to me yesterday."
My name was on the front.
Clara's handwriting.
My hands were steadier than I expected when I picked it up.
I don't know why.
Maybe forty years of grief had used up all the shaking.
I opened it.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
At the top, Clara had written a name and an address.
Below that, three sentences.
*This is the man Gwen hired.
His name is Roy Pell.
He approached me on the road the week before the trip and told me to convince you to sign the inheritance over to Gwen, or the children would not be safe.*
I read the name again.
Roy Pell.
"Harlow," I said.
"I already ran it," she said.
"He has a record.
Extortion, intimidation, one conviction for aggravated assault that was later reduced on appeal." She paused.
"He's seventy-one years old.
He lives in the same county as Gwen."
Daniel stood up so fast his chair scraped back.
"They're still connected," he said.
"That's what it looks like," Harlow said.
"But I need you to let me move carefully.
If we go at Gwen directly right now, she'll know someone has been digging.
She'll have time to prepare." She looked at me.
"Can you trust me to do this the right way?"
I thought about Clara writing that name on a piece of paper and sealing it in an envelope and handing it to a stranger, hoping it would reach me someday.
"Yes," I said.
"But I want to know everything as it happens."
"Agreed." Harlow stood and buttoned her coat.
"I'm going to find Roy Pell first.
People like him — they keep things.
Insurance.
In case the person who hired them ever stops being useful."
She was at the door when Daniel called after her.
"Harlow.
What do you think happened on that bridge?"
She stopped.
She didn't turn around right away.
"I think Clara was right to be afraid," she said.
May you like
"And I think Gwen has been living twenty minutes from this house for two years because she wanted to watch you leave it."
The door closed behind her.
