Chapter 3 - THE FATHER MY MOTHER ERASED
I sat on the storage-unit floor.
For fifty-four years, I had believed Richard Hale was my father.
He raised me.
Taught me to ride a bicycle.
Built my first bookshelf.
Died from a heart attack when I was twenty-three.
And now a lab report told me another man had given me half my DNA.
“Did Richard know?” I asked.
Joe answered quietly.
“Yes.”
That hurt too.
“How many people knew?”
“Margaret. Richard. Peter. Me.”
“Everyone except me.”
Joe looked away.
Peter and Mom had been teenagers when their relationship began.
They separated before I was born.
Mom later met Richard.
Richard married her when I was two and legally adopted me.
Peter disappeared from our lives.
For decades.
Then, twenty-seven years ago, he returned.
“Why?” I asked.
Joe opened one of Peter’s ledgers.
Money.
Of course.
Peter had accumulated gambling debts.
He learned Mom’s business had become successful.
Then he discovered something more valuable than money.
Me.
He threatened to tell me that Richard wasn’t my biological father unless Mom paid him.
“He blackmailed her over my identity?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
Joe pointed to the cashier’s check.
Seventy-five thousand.
“First payment.”
“First?”
“He came back for more.”
The missing company money suddenly made sense.
Mom had not been secretly buying property.
She had been funneling business funds to Peter.
Illegal accounting.
Hidden withdrawals.
Fake consulting invoices.
When Peter later disappeared, Mom allowed everyone to assume he had stolen from her.
It solved two problems.
The missing money got blamed on him.
And nobody asked why she had been paying him.
“You helped her?”
Joe nodded.
“I helped clean up records after he disappeared.”
I stood.
“So you committed fraud.”
“No. I helped recover records and hide the paternity documents.”
“Better?”
“No.”
At least he knew.
Detective Mills inserted the cassette into the old recorder.
Static.
Then Mom’s younger voice.
“Peter, this is the last time.”
A man laughed.
“You said that last month.”
“You have enough money.”
“I decide what’s enough.”
Then:
“If Laura learns who her real father is, she’ll ask why Richard lied too.”
My eyes filled.
Peter continued.
“And maybe she’ll decide neither of you deserves her.”
Mom’s voice became cold.
“Stay away from my daughter.”
Then came a sound.
A chair scraping.
Mom shouting.
A crash.
And Joe’s voice:
“Get your hands off her.”
The recording ended.
Detective Mills turned toward Joe.
“That was the night Peter disappeared?”
“Yes.”
“What happened after the recording stopped?”
Joe looked at me.
“He attacked Margaret.”
“And you?”
“I stopped him.”
“How?”
Joe swallowed.
“I hit him.”
My heart started pounding.
“With what?”
“A fireplace poker.”
Silence filled the unit.
Then Joe said:
May you like
“There was blood.”
For the first time, I wondered whether the red maple had been hiding evidence of murder.
