Chapter 5 - Brothers
Martin Vale’s last name was not the one he had been born with.
Walter Puit’s had been.
Karen found the original admission forms.
Martin Puit had legally changed his surname in his twenties.
Walter was seventeen years older.
Half brother, technically.
Same father.
Different mothers.
“They hadn’t spoken in almost thirty years,” Karen said.
“Why?” Dileia asked.
Karen shook her head.
“Walter never told me.”
Dominic examined Walter’s emergency-contact page.
Martin’s name had once been listed.
It had been crossed out two years earlier.
In Walter’s shaky handwriting, one word had been written beside it.
NO.
Dileia looked at Dominic.
“He knew.”
“He knew something,” Dominic corrected.
The police began securing evidence from Room 214.
Wade’s vehicle was found abandoned near the employee parking lot.
He had not gone far.
A patrol officer found him forty minutes later at a gas station, soaked and shivering beneath the awning.
When they brought him back, his anger was gone.
He looked scared.
Dominic watched through the conference-room glass while an officer questioned him.
Eventually Wade asked to speak to Karen.
Dominic objected.
Karen did not.
“I want to hear him.”
They sat across from Wade.
Dileia remained near the door.
Wade looked at Karen.
“I didn’t take Walter.”
“Then who did?”
“Martin.”
“How?”
“He came through laundry.”
“Why?”
Wade swallowed.
“Walter started remembering things.”
Dileia leaned forward.
“He never stopped remembering.”
Wade glanced at her.
That seemed to bother him.
Residents with speech difficulties were often treated as though language and thought disappeared together.
Walter had apparently learned to use that assumption.
“What things?” Dominic asked.
Wade looked at him.
“You really don’t know, do you?”
“Tell me.”
Wade laughed softly.
“Martin always said you never looked at numbers smaller than seven figures.”
Dominic’s expression did not change.
But Karen saw the insult land.
Wade continued.
“The jewelry was mine.”
Karen stared at him.
“Yours?”
“I sold personal items. Martin didn’t care.”
“You robbed dying people.”
“I told myself families had forgotten the things anyway.”
His voice grew bitter.
“My mother spent four years in a nursing home. When she died, they handed me a plastic bag with three nightgowns and somebody else’s slippers.”
That did not excuse him.
But it made him human enough to be worse.
He understood what those objects meant.
He stole them anyway.
“Martin found out,” Wade said. “Instead of firing me, he gave me a job.”
“What job?”
“Disconnect cameras on Thursday nights.”
Dileia felt cold.
“For what?”
“Deliveries.”
“What kind?”
“Medication mostly. Sometimes supplies.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
Martin had been buying discounted products through Teresa House, billing them at full cost, then redirecting portions elsewhere.
A quiet siphon.
Small amounts.
Repeated for years.
Millions did not vanish at once.
They disappeared as sixteen dollars here, ninety-two dollars there, one employee position never filled, one repair never approved.
Dileia asked, “Walter discovered it?”
“Not at first.”
Wade rubbed his face.
“He noticed pills changing. Then Rose’s necklace disappeared. Then he started watching me.”
“And the ring?”
Wade looked down.
“I took it last night.”
“Why?”
“Martin told me to.”
“Why?”
“He wanted what was inside.”
Nobody spoke.
Dominic leaned forward.
“What was inside?”
“I don’t know. He never told me.”
“You gave it to him?”
“Yes.”
“Before or after Walter went outside?”
Wade hesitated.
“Before.”
That changed everything.
If Wade took the ring inside Teresa House before Walter vanished, then Dominic could never have stolen it.
Karen’s entire accusation collapsed.
Dileia looked furious.
“You knew that man was innocent.”
Wade whispered, “Yes.”
Dominic did not react.
Not visibly.
He asked one question.
“How did Walter get onto the road?”
Wade looked toward Karen.
“Martin took him out through laundry.”
“Why?”
“He wanted to scare him.”
Karen’s face twisted.
“In a nor’easter?”
“He said he’d drive Walter around, convince him he’d imagined everything, bring him back.”
“But he didn’t.”
Wade shook his head.
“Walter fought him.”
An eighty-four-year-old man who could barely speak had fought.
Wade continued.
“Martin stopped the car near the road. Walter opened the door. Martin said he ran.”
“He was barefoot,” Dileia said.
“I know.”
“And Martin left him?”
“I don’t know.”
Dominic stood.
Wade looked up.
“There’s something else.”
Dominic waited.
“Walter’s ring belonged to their father.”
“And?”
“The top opens.”
“We know.”
Wade swallowed.
“Martin said their father hid something inside it before he died.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. But Martin said if Walter ever gave it to the wrong person, everything would come apart.”
Dominic walked out.
Dileia followed.
In Walter’s room they searched carefully.
Not like thieves.
Like people trying to understand a man who was not there to explain himself.
Inside his nightstand they found a child’s drawing.
Crayon.
A crooked house.
Three stick figures.
One labeled GRANDPA WALTER.
One labeled ME.
One labeled MR. D.
Dileia frowned.
“Walter doesn’t have grandchildren.”
Karen, standing behind them, whispered, “Yes, he does.”
They turned.
“His daughter died twelve years ago. Her son was placed with another family.”
“Why?”
“Walter had just suffered his stroke. He couldn’t care for a child.”
Dominic looked at the drawing again.
“Who’s Mr. D?”
Karen shook her head.
Dileia turned it over.
On the back was an address.
A small apartment complex in Providence.
And below it, written recently in Walter’s shaky hand:
IF I GO MISSING, FIND DANIEL.
Dominic stared at the name.
Then his phone rang.
Not mysteriously.
One of the police officers standing ten feet away answered his own radio, listened, and immediately looked at them.
“They found the transport van.”
Dileia stood.
“Walter?”
The officer hesitated.
“No Walter.”
“Then what?”
The officer looked at Dominic.
“A blue coat.”
And inside the coat pocket, they found Walter’s open ring.
May you like
Empty.
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