Chapter 89 - The Key to Lock 11
Before we left the grounds of the Maison Saint-Joseph, Clara insisted on leading Vance and me to a tiny, rotting boathouse situated at the edge of the Saint-Laurent marshes behind the convent grounds.
"They let me walk the shoreline once a week," Clara explained, her boots splashing through the freezing mud of the reed beds. "The old Quebec watchman had a sister who died of consumption; he felt pity for me. He thought I was just another mad girl from New England, but he didn't know I spent my childhood reading Arthur’s legal deeds in the study."
She led us inside the dark, drafty boathouse where an old cedar skiff lay upturned on sawbucks. Reaching into the hollow wooden beam beneath the roofline, her fingers felt around until they struck metal. She pulled out a small, flat brass key attached to a rusted fishing lure.
"Lock 11," Clara said, handing the key to Detective Vance. "On the Champlain Canal at Whitehall. When Arthur realized he was dying of pancreatic cancer in 1983, he knew Melissa was poisoning the family finances. He knew she had Greg forging property transfers. He didn't trust the banks in Albany, and he certainly didn't trust Evelyn."
"What’s in Lock 11?" Vance asked, turning the rusted key over in his palm.
"The original 1974 trust parchment," Clara said, her voice ringing clear against the lap of the river water outside. "With the blue seal of the New York State Surrogate Court. And the audio tapes. Arthur recorded every single telephone conversation between Melissa and the loan sharks in Boston who funded their timber speculation."
"Those tapes will destroy Melissa’s defense before her lawyers can even file an appearance," Vance said, his face hardening with professional satisfaction. "That establishes grand larceny, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit murder, and interstate kidnapping."
"And something else," Clara added, looking directly into my eyes. "The truth about our mother’s death."
I felt the ground shift beneath my feet again. "Mother died of heart failure when I was six, Clara."
"Mother died forty-eight hours after she discovered Arthur’s original will," Clara said coldly. "And the tea she drank on her veranda was prepared by the only woman who wanted to be the sole mistress of Oak Ridge."
The realization settled over us like a shroud of lead. Evelyn.
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"We go to Whitehall first," Vance decided, sliding the key into his pocket and pulling his radio from his belt. "We retrieve that lockbox before Greg’s legal team realizes what he left behind. Then we bring the hammer down on Oak Ridge."
***
