Chapter 6 - THE FARMHOUSEThe storage unit looked as though a storm had passed through it.
Boxes ripped open.
Old linens thrown across the concrete floor.
Photo albums scattered.
A wooden trunk stood open and empty near the back wall.
The manager, a nervous man named Ted, kept apologizing.
“We called police as soon as we noticed the damaged lock.”
“Why didn’t the alarm go off?” Samuel asked.
Ted looked miserable.
“It did. Whoever entered used the correct access code.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course Charles had Eleanor’s code.
He had probably watched her enter it years earlier.
Security footage clearly showed him arriving alone.
Hat.
Dark jacket.
Gloves.
He wasn’t even particularly subtle.
“What did he take?” I asked.
“We don’t know.”
I looked around.
Then remembered Eleanor’s letter.
Do not let Charles enter my storage unit.
She knew there was something specific here.
Not sentimental objects.
Evidence.
I began sorting.
Samuel tried to stop me.
“Police may want this preserved.”
“They photographed everything.”
“Mabel.”
“If I sit here doing nothing, I’ll lose my mind.”
He understood.
We found old tax files.
Furniture receipts.
Letters.
Arthur’s military records.
Daniel’s childhood drawings.
I sat on the floor holding one of them for nearly ten minutes.
A crayon house.
Four stick figures.
MOM DAD CHARLES DAN
Daniel had always drawn himself smaller.
I folded it carefully.
Then Olivia found a metal cash box wedged behind shelving.
Locked.
Ted produced bolt cutters.
Inside were property records.
A deed.
Old photographs.
And an envelope marked:
VERMONT
Samuel read the deed.
His eyebrows rose.
“The farmhouse was never sold.”
“Catherine was right.”
“Apparently.”
“Who owns it?”
He examined the transfer history.
“Eleanor.”
“How?”
“The deed remained in her maiden name, Eleanor Rose Callahan.”
That explained why ordinary searches under Whitmore missed it.
“Value?”
“We’ll need an appraisal.”
The property consisted of sixty-three acres near a small Vermont town.
An old farmhouse.
A barn.
Woodland.
It didn’t sound like millions.
Then Samuel read the legal description again.
“There’s frontage.”
“On what?”
“Lake Champlain.”
That got my attention.
Waterfront land.
Potentially valuable.
“What did Charles take?”
We searched for an inventory.
Nothing.
Then we found a photograph of the farmhouse.
Behind it, Eleanor had written:
Rose’s place. Never sell unless Catherine chooses.
I stared.
“This belonged to Rose?”
“Originally.”
“Then why is it Eleanor’s?”
“Possibly transferred before Rose went west.”
We needed records.
By afternoon, Samuel had located enough to reconstruct the history.
Their father bought the property in 1946.
Transferred it to Eleanor and Rose jointly in 1957.
When Rose left in 1963, she signed her interest to Eleanor for one dollar.
Probably to keep their father from controlling it.
Eleanor kept it ever since.
“Why would Charles want it?” I asked.
Samuel’s phone rang before he answered.
Olivia.
She had found something.
A development company had approached Eleanor six years earlier about purchasing the land.
Offer:
$4.8 million.
She refused.
Another offer two years later:
$6.1 million.
Refused again.
My jaw dropped.
“Why refuse that much?”
Samuel showed me Eleanor’s note.
Rose said never let them cut down the ridge.
Sentimental.
Stubborn.
Very Eleanor.
Then we discovered why Charles had been searching.
His company, Whitmore Development Group, had entered into an option agreement with a resort developer.
He had promised them access to approximately sixty acres near Lake Champlain.
The location matched Eleanor’s land.
“How can he option property he doesn’t own?”
“He can’t legally.”
“But he did.”
“Apparently.”
The agreement offered Charles a three-million-dollar development fee if the land transaction closed.
I stared at Samuel.
“So he needed Eleanor to sell.”
“Yes.”
“She refused.”
“Yes.”
“And now that she’s dead?”
“If he believed the land passed equally to the children, he may have intended to control enough heirs to force a sale.”
“But Eleanor left the bulk of the estate to a trust.”
Samuel nodded.
“And specifically instructed the trust not to sell the Vermont property for ten years unless Catherine and you both consent.”
I stared.
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“Why me?”
“Because Eleanor apparently considered you the person least likely to choose money over promises.”
That was flattering and infuriating.
“What did Charles steal from the storage unit?”
Samuel looked at the empty trunk.
“Possibly the original deed.”
“Would that help him?”
“Not enough to transfer ownership.”
“Then what?”
He thought.
“Correspondence. Survey. Maybe Rose’s original instructions.”
My phone rang.
Linda.
I answered cautiously.
“Mabel.”
She sounded different.
Not angry.
Scared.
“Charles came to my house.”
“When?”
“An hour ago.”
“What did he want?”
“He wanted me to sign something.”
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t.”
“What was it?”
“A family agreement giving him authority to negotiate Mother’s Vermont property.”
Of course.
“What did he say?”
“That if I didn’t cooperate, none of us would get anything.”
“Linda, your mother’s will already limits what you get.”
Her voice sharpened.
“That’s because of you.”
There it was.
Progress had limits.
I almost hung up.
Then she added:
“But Charles lied to me.”
“What about?”
“The safe-deposit box. Rose. Catherine. All of it.”
“Yes.”
“I think he knew about Mother’s money for years.”
“So do I.”
Silence.
Then:
“I found something.”
My attention sharpened.
“What?”
“An email.”
“From Charles?”
“To Dad.”
Arthur had been dead twenty-one years.
“How old?”
“1998.”
My heart jumped.
“Where?”
“Mother gave me Dad’s old computer when we cleaned the attic years ago. I kept the hard drive because it had family pictures.”
“What does the email say?”
Linda hesitated.
“Charles asked Dad whether he could borrow against Rose’s property.”
I sat down.
“In 1998?”
“Yes.”
“He knew that long ago.”
“Yes.”
“What did Arthur say?”
“No.”
Just no?
Linda continued.
“Dad wrote: ‘That property is Eleanor’s and Rose’s business. You will not use your mother’s assets to fix your mistakes.’”
“What mistakes?”
“I don’t know.”
Then Linda’s voice dropped.
“Mabel, Charles had financial trouble before.”
“How bad?”
“Very bad.”
She told me something Daniel had never mentioned.
In the late 1990s, Charles had invested in speculative construction projects.
He lost hundreds of thousands.
Arthur quietly helped him avoid bankruptcy once.
Then refused a second time.
“That explains why he wanted Rose’s property.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell Samuel earlier?”
“Because I didn’t know the emails mattered.”
“Send them.”
“I will.”
She hesitated.
“Mabel?”
“Yes?”
“I did take those checks.”
The confession came so softly I almost missed it.
“What?”
“The checks Mother wrote you.”
My chest tightened.
“I know.”
Silence.
“She told you?”
“She documented it.”
Linda began crying.
“I was desperate.”
“For a cruise?”
Her crying stopped.
“How did you know?”
“Eleanor knew.”
“She knew?”
“Yes.”
A long silence.
“Oh God.”
“You forged my name.”
“I told myself Mother intended the money for family.”
“She intended it for me.”
“I know that now.”
“You knew it then.”
Linda said nothing.
There it was.
The truth.
I was becoming less interested in excuses every day.
“I’m going to repay it,” she said.
“Talk to Samuel.”
“Mabel, please.”
“Talk to Samuel.”
I hung up.
Samuel nodded approvingly.
“I’m beginning to like this version of you.”
“Eleanor would say I’m becoming difficult.”
“She considered that a compliment.”
That evening, police interviewed Charles regarding the storage-unit entry.
He claimed Eleanor had given him permission months earlier.
The broken lock complicated that story.
He said he had lost the key.
Convenient.
He admitted taking one box.
“What was in it?” I asked the detective.
“He claims family photographs.”
I knew he was lying.
Two days later, we learned what he had actually taken.
A county clerk in Vermont called Samuel.
Someone had attempted to record a document involving Eleanor’s property.
A document dated eleven years earlier.
It purported to transfer the farmhouse and sixty-three acres from Eleanor to Charles for ten dollars.
The signature looked real.
The notary seal looked real.
But there was one problem.
On the date Eleanor supposedly signed it, she had been in my house recovering from hip surgery.
I knew because I had slept on a folding cot beside her bed.
The notary claimed she signed in Vermont.
Impossible.
The deed was forged.
And when Samuel told the county clerk to freeze the filing, she said:
“It may already be too late.”
“Why?”
“Because another document was recorded yesterday.”
“What document?”
“A sale contract.”
“To whom?”
She named a resort development company.
Charles had tried to sell his dead mother’s land less than a week after she died.
May you like
For $7.4 million.
And according to the contract, he had already received a nonrefundable $500,000 advance.
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