Chapter 6 - THE SEVEN PETALS
I walked over to the wooden bench, kneeling on the carpet beside my granddaughter. The pine was smooth under my fingertips, polished by years of love and use. I traced the painted sunflowers across the seat.
“He told you to show me the sunflowers?” I asked gently.
Abby nodded. “When I found the photograph, I pressed the flower with six petals. That’s the mistake flower. Dad always said the mistake was the key.”
“But there are five other sunflowers,” I observed, counting the brightly painted yellow heads. “And they all have seven petals.”
“Dad told me the bench had two secrets,” Abby said, her voice dropping to a whisper as if Robert were still in the house listening. “One secret was for you. To tell you he loved you and that he didn't take the money. That was the photograph and the note.”
“And the second secret?” Claire asked, standing up and moving closer, wiping the tears from her face.
Abby looked at the row of flowers. “He said the second secret was for the police. Just in case the bad man ever tried to hurt us again.”
My heart hammered in my chest. For the police. Ben knew. He knew Robert wouldn't stop. He knew Robert was a parasite who would eventually bleed me dry and come for Claire and Abby.
“How do we open it, Abby?” I asked.
Abby reached out with her small fingers. She placed one finger on the first sunflower on the far left, and her other hand on the last sunflower on the far right. Both flowers had seven petals.
“You have to push them at the exact same time,” she explained, pressing down hard on the painted wood.
There was a faint, mechanical click.
It wasn't a loose panel this time. The entire side of the thick, curved wooden backrest shifted outward by a fraction of an inch.
Claire gasped. She reached down and pulled the wooden slat. It slid completely out, revealing a hollowed-out cavity running the entire length of the bench’s backrest. Ben was a master carpenter; the seam was invisible to the naked eye.
Inside the cavity was a long, sealed plastic document sleeve. And resting on top of it was a small, silver digital audio recorder.
I reached in with shaking hands and pulled out the recorder. It was an older model, the kind used for dictation in offices. I pressed the power button. A small red light blinked to life.
I hit Play.
The audio was slightly muffled at first, the sound of a car engine running, windshield wipers swishing back and forth in the rain. Then, the heavy thud of a car door opening and closing.
“You’re late,” Robert’s voice snapped through the tiny speaker, sounding younger but just as cruel.
“I had to wait for Claire to fall asleep,” Ben’s voice replied. Hearing his voice—my son’s voice, after seventeen years—was like a physical blow to my chest. I closed my eyes, drinking in the sound of him.
“Do you have the ten grand?” Robert demanded on the tape.
“I have it. But this is the last time, Robert. I swear to God, this is it. You have bled me dry.”
Robert laughed on the recording. A cold, arrogant sound. “You don’t dictate terms to me, kid. You pay what I tell you to pay. Or do you want me to mail those old loan papers to the DA? I’m sure your mother will love spending her golden years in a federal penitentiary for fraud. I forged Arthur's name perfectly, but she was a co-signer on the shop’s account. The feds will eat her alive.”
“You’re a monster,” Ben’s voice shook with suppressed rage. “You stole twelve thousand dollars to pay your bookie, you framed me, you exiled me from my own mother, and now you’re extorting me for the life insurance money I was saving for my daughter.”
“I’m a survivor, Benny boy,” Robert sneered on the tape. “And you’re a mark. Your dad was a mark, too. Too trusting. Too stupid. Just like your mother.”
“Here’s the cash,” Ben said, the sound of rustling paper filling the audio. “Now give me the original forged deed. The one you’ve been holding over my head.”
“Here,” Robert said dismissively. “I don't need it anymore anyway. I’ve got bigger fish to fry. Margaret's arthritis is getting bad. I’m having my buddy down at the notary office draft up a quitclaim deed for the house. Give it a few years, I’ll own the whole estate free and clear, and she’ll never even know she signed it away.”
The recording clicked off, plunging the hallway back into silence.
I stared at the small silver device in my hand.
Robert hadn't just confessed to the extortion and the original fraud. He had confessed on tape, clearly and unequivocally, to premeditated real estate fraud regarding the quitclaim deed to my house.
“He recorded him,” Claire whispered, her hand over her mouth. “Ben wore a wire. He recorded the drop.”
“And he got the original forged document,” I said, looking down at the plastic sleeve still resting in the hidden compartment of the bench.
I pulled it out. Inside the sleeve were the original loan papers for the cabinet shop, complete with Robert’s sloppy forgery of Arthur’s name, and the withdrawal slips proving Robert took the initial twelve thousand dollars.
Ben had gathered all the ammunition needed to destroy Robert. But he had died on that scaffold before he could deliver it to the police.
I looked at Abby. She had brought her father’s final gift to me. She had delivered the justice he had died trying to secure.
“Margaret,” Denise said, looking at the grandfather clock in the hallway. It was nearly 7:00 PM. “What do we do now? He gave us until morning to leave.”
I slipped the audio recorder into my pocket and held the plastic sleeve of documents tightly against my chest.
“We aren't leaving,” I said, looking at the three women who were now my entire world. “Robert thinks he’s playing a game with an old, defeated woman. But he forgot one very important thing about Arthur and me.”
“What’s that?” Claire asked.
“We built things to last,” I said, looking at Ben’s bench. “And we don't let anyone tear down our house.”
I walked over to the telephone table in the hallway, picked up the receiver, and dialed a number I knew by heart.
May you like
“Who are you calling?” Denise asked nervously.
“Sheriff Miller,” I replied as the line began to ring. “His father was the notary Arthur used for all his legitimate business. The sheriff is a good, honest man. And he’s going to be very interested in hearing this tape.”
