Chapter 5 - Duluth
Karen had never told Dad she went to Duluth with Mom.
At least, that was what Dad claimed.
Grandma believed him.
Barely.
Detective Bell asked the obvious question.
“Why would Ms. Pike accompany your wife to a medical appointment?”
Dad rubbed both hands over his face.
“She told me our office coordinator went.”
“Name?”
“Rachel.”
Within an hour, investigators reached Rachel Morris, who now lived in Arizona.
Rachel remembered the day immediately.
“I didn’t go to Duluth.”
Dad closed his eyes.
“Did Karen?”
“I think so.”
“Why do you think so?”
“Because Emily asked me where Karen was the next morning.”
Detective Bell leaned toward the phone.
“What did you tell her?”
“That Karen had blocked the entire previous day on her work calendar as personal leave.”
“And Emily’s reaction?”
“She said, ‘That makes sense.’”
Rachel paused.
“Then she asked me to print six months of vendor payments.”
Dad looked toward the financial documents.
Rachel continued.
“She specifically wanted North Star Restoration, Pike Strategic, and Lakeview Consulting.”
Detective Bell wrote the names down.
“Lakeview hasn’t appeared before,” he said.
Dad looked up.
“I know Lakeview.”
“What do they do?”
“Property consulting.”
“Who brought them in?”
Dad didn’t answer.
Nobody needed him to.
Karen.
Detective Bell asked Rachel another question.
“Did Emily tell you why?”
“No. But she looked frightened.”
Grandma’s hand tightened around her coffee cup.
“Emily didn’t frighten easily.”
Rachel lowered her voice.
“There’s one more thing.”
Everyone waited.
“Three days later, Karen asked me whether Emily had requested documents.”
Dad stared.
“What did you say?”
“I lied. I said no.”
“Why?”
“Because Emily had specifically told me not to mention it.”
Detective Bell asked, “Do you still have any records?”
“I might.”
Rachel explained that when she left Hale Residential Partners, she had downloaded personal employment files for a wage dispute that never happened.
Some old emails might still exist.
Detective Bell gave her official contact information.
When the call ended, Dad walked outside.
I watched through Grandma’s window.
He stood alone beside the snow-covered garden.
Grandma came beside me.
“He feels guilty.”
“Should he?”
She took a long time to answer.
“Yes.”
I looked at her.
Grandma never lied to children to make adults look better.
That was one reason I trusted her.
“But guilt and responsibility aren’t exactly the same thing,” she continued. “Your father trusted someone he shouldn’t have. He also ignored things he should have seen.”
“Is Karen bad?”
Grandma looked at me.
“People are more complicated than one word.”
I frowned.
“She locked me outside.”
“Yes.”
“That was bad.”
“Yes.”
“She stole money.”
“We don’t know everything yet.”
“Mom knew.”
Grandma looked toward the evidence bag.
“I think your mother knew enough to be afraid.”
Dad came back inside.
His eyes were red.
“I called Claire Benton.”
The retired trust attorney.
Grandma looked surprised.
“She answered?”
“She wants to meet tomorrow.”
“Good.”
Dad hesitated.
“She said Emily made changes to the trust three months before she died.”
Grandma stared.
“What changes?”
“She wouldn’t tell me over the phone.”
The next morning we met Claire at her office.
She was seventy-one, with silver hair and an expression that made everyone sit straighter.
Claire hugged me.
“You look like your mother.”
Karen had always told me I looked like Dad.
I decided I liked Claire immediately.
Dad placed the trust documents on her desk.
“I didn’t understand these.”
Claire corrected him.
“You didn’t read them.”
Dad looked down.
“Yes.”
Claire opened the file.
“Emily’s ownership interest in the family residence was transferred into Noah’s testamentary trust.”
She turned another page.
“Her thirty-two-percent ownership interest in Hale Residential Partners was also transferred.”
Dad froze.
“What?”
Grandma seemed surprised too.
“Thirty-two percent?”
Claire nodded.
Dad leaned forward.
“Emily told me she gave the shares back to the company.”
“No.”
“But Karen showed me the transfer.”
Claire stopped.
“What transfer?”
Dad described a document he had signed shortly after the funeral.
Claire asked him to pull up company records.
He found a PDF.
Claire read it.
Then her face hardened.
“This isn’t a transfer from Emily.”
Dad frowned.
“It says stock redemption.”
“It says proposed stock redemption.”
She tapped the bottom.
“There’s no signature from Emily.”
Dad looked sick.
“Karen told me—”
Claire interrupted.
“Stop saying what Karen told you.”
The sentence landed hard.
Claire found another document.
“Here is Emily’s actual trust instrument.”
She pointed to the beneficiary.
Noah Hale.
Dad stared.
“So Noah owns thirty-two percent?”
“The trust does, for his benefit.”
“And I’m trustee?”
“You were co-trustee with me.”
“Were?”
Claire folded her hands.
“Emily instructed that I resign after eighteen months.”
“Why?”
“To trigger appointment of another independent trustee.”
“Who?”
Claire looked at Grandma.
“Margaret.”
Grandma stared.
“I never received anything.”
“I sent certified notice.”
“When?”
Claire checked.
“April eighteenth.”
Grandma shook her head.
“Nothing came.”
Dad looked at Claire.
“Where was it mailed?”
She read the address.
It was correct.
“Who signed?”
Claire pulled up the delivery confirmation.
A signature appeared.
Grandma leaned forward.
“That isn’t mine.”
The name written beside the signature was Margaret Lawson.
But the handwriting looked familiar to me.
I had seen it every day.
On notes by the refrigerator.
On lunch bags.
On Karen’s incident journal.
I pointed.
“Karen writes her G like that.”
Dad stared at me.
Claire slowly turned the paper.
Someone had intercepted the document that would have given Grandma control over Mom’s trust.
And for almost a year, nobody had noticed.
Claire immediately called her firm’s legal department.
Dad stood by the window.
“Karen knew.”
Grandma looked at him.
“She didn’t just know.”
Claire nodded.
“She needed me gone.”
Then her assistant entered carrying an envelope.
“This was delivered by courier ten minutes ago.”
There was no return address.
Claire opened it carefully.
Inside was the missing photograph from Mom’s album.
The one connected to Duluth.
It showed Mom outside a bank.
Karen stood beside her.
So did Evan Pike.
On the back, Mom had written:
They think I don’t know whose account it is.
Below that was an account number.
Detective Bell would later discover the account contained more than six hundred thousand dollars.
But that wasn’t what frightened Dad.
Under the account number, Mom had written one final sentence.
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Daniel must never sign anything Karen gives him if I’m gone.
Dad had spent two years doing exactly that.
