Chapter 6 - MY FATHER'S LAST LIE
My father had been dead for eleven years, but Arthur's accusation followed me through every room of the mansion.
I remembered the funeral, the closed coffin, and the doctor who had signed the certificate. I remembered how quickly my father had taken control of the family business after my mother's death.
He had insisted that grief made people irrational.
Now I wondered what else he'd insisted we forget.
Arthur refused to say more without legal protection. I had him transferred to a secure room and ordered Rocco to locate the original medical records.
By noon, the first piece of evidence arrived.
My mother's death certificate had been amended twice.
The first version listed complications following a fall.
The second listed a heart condition.
The final version, the one filed with the authorities, mentioned neither.
Someone had replaced the original report.
"Who signed the amendment?" I asked.
Rocco turned the page.
"Dr. Samuel Voss."
My father's personal physician.
He had retired to Florida and died four years later, but his daughter still practiced medicine in Manhattan.
I called her.
She listened without interruption, then asked a question that unsettled me.
"Did your mother leave you a silver music box?"
"Yes."
"Then you need to open it."
She explained that her father had confessed shortly before his death. He had been ordered to falsify a medical report, but he had hidden a copy of the original findings inside the music box.
I went straight to my mother's bedroom.
The box sat on the mantelpiece, untouched for years.
Inside, beneath the velvet lining, I found a folded report and a small cassette recording.
My mother's voice emerged through the old player, faint but unmistakable.
"If anything happens to me, Lorenzo, remember this: the person who smiles at your wedding will know why I died."
I stopped breathing.
The recording continued.
Then came another voice.
A man's voice.
May you like
My father's.
"Once the girl is gone, nobody can challenge the trust."
