Chapter 5 - The Man Who Arranged the Funeral

The first thing I did after leaving Pier Six was not call Gideon.

It was call the medical examiner.

Julian’s autopsy report had been signed by Dr. Malcolm Reyes, a county pathologist I remembered only because he had stood beside me after the identification and spoken with the careful gentleness of a man used to delivering terrible facts.

Reyes no longer worked for the county.

Daniel found him living two states away.

“Retired?” I asked.

“Resigned nine months after Julian died.”

“Reason?”

“Family.”

“That means nothing.”

“I know.”

“Find a number.”

He did.

Reyes answered on the fourth ring.

“Hello?”

“Dr. Reyes, this is Adrian Caruso.”

Silence.

Then a slow exhale.

“I wondered when you would call.”

That was not the response of a man surprised to hear from me.

“Why?”

“I was told you never would.”

“By whom?”

“I’m not discussing this by phone.”

“Then tell me where.”

Vincent watched me from the opposite seat of the SUV.

Reyes named a roadside restaurant four hours away.

Daniel shook his head.

“Could be a setup.”

“Everything could be a setup.”

“That is not an argument.”

“It’s the only schedule I have.”

We went.

Before leaving, I made Hannah promise she would remain with Grace and Nora under federal protection.

She did not promise easily.

“Bring me something true,” she said.

“I will.”

“No speeches. No maybes.”

“I heard you.”

Mara Keene joined us without invitation.

“You’re welcome,” she said when she got into our car.

“For what?”

“For preventing three wealthy men from turning a witness interview into a felony.”

Vincent looked offended.

“I am not wealthy.”

Mara glanced at his watch.

“Sure.”

The restaurant sat off an interstate between a truck stop and a shuttered motel.

Reyes was already inside.

He looked older than I remembered.

Smaller.

He stared at me for a long moment before standing.

“You look like your father.”

“People keep saying that when they want me to trust them.”

He sat again.

Mara showed her badge.

Reyes’s face tightened.

“I said private.”

“You called a man connected to an open kidnapping case,” she replied. “Privacy was ambitious.”

He looked at me.

“What did you find?”

“Tell me what you changed in Julian’s autopsy.”

His eyes lowered.

Vincent shifted beside me.

Reyes whispered, “Not the autopsy.”

“What?”

“The timeline.”

Mara leaned forward.

“Explain.”

Reyes rubbed both hands together.

“When your brother arrived at the county facility, the transport documentation listed time of death at 1:18 a.m.”

“That sounds familiar.”

“It was false.”

Every sound in the restaurant seemed to move farther away.

“What was the real time?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then how do you know it was false?”

“Because Julian was not dead when the first ambulance reached him.”

I stared at him.

“No.”

Reyes’s eyes lifted.

“I’m sorry.”

“No.”

“Adrian—”

“No one told me that.”

“I know.”

“You told me he died on impact.”

“I told you what I was instructed to certify.”

Mara’s voice sharpened.

“By whom?”

Reyes shook his head.

“County administration.”

“Name.”

“I didn’t know the person.”

“Then who contacted you?”

“A deputy director.”

“Which one?”

“Samuel Pike.”

Mara wrote it down.

“Go on.”

Reyes took a breath.

“The first paramedic report said Julian was conscious at the scene. Disoriented, bleeding, but alive.”

My hands went numb.

“What did he say?”

“Nothing in the report.”

“Was he talking?”

“It said verbal response present.”

I thought of Julian alone in the wrecked car, alive after the crash, waiting.

“How long?”

Reyes closed his eyes briefly.

“Twenty-two minutes.”

Vincent swore under his breath.

“Twenty-two minutes until what?” I asked.

“Until the second ambulance arrived.”

“What happened to the first?”

“Redirected.”

“Why?”

“Dispatch said there had been a hazardous fuel spill.”

Mara frowned.

“Was there?”

“No significant spill.”

“Who issued the warning?”

“I never found out.”

“And Julian?”

“By the time the second unit reached him, he had deteriorated.”

“Could he have lived?”

Reyes looked at me.

“That is impossible to answer.”

“Try.”

“His internal injuries were severe.”

“Could he have lived?”

A long pause.

“Yes.”

The word did not feel loud.

It felt permanent.

I stood and walked outside before I broke something.

Cold wind hit the parking lot.

Vincent followed.

For a few seconds, neither of us spoke.

Then I turned.

“You arranged the funeral.”

His face changed.

“Yes.”

“You handled the body release.”

“Yes.”

“You dealt with Gideon.”

“Yes.”

“Did you know?”

“No.”

“Did you see the report?”

“The final report.”

“The false one.”

“Yes.”

“Why did you accept it?”

He looked suddenly older.

“Because I was grieving too.”

That answer disarmed me more than a defense would have.

Vincent had loved Julian.

Not like a brother.

Like the nearest thing he had to a son.

“I should have questioned it,” he said.

“Yes.”

“I didn’t.”

“Yes.”

“I have regretted that for eighteen months.”

“Regret is cheap.”

“I know.”

Mara came outside.

“Reyes has copies.”

I turned.

“Of what?”

“He photographed the first paramedic report before it disappeared.”

“Why?”

“He knew someone was altering the record.”

“And waited eighteen months?”

“He was threatened.”

“By Pike?”

“By someone who knew where his daughter went to school.”

I looked toward the restaurant window.

“So he ran.”

“Yes.”

“Can we use the photographs?”

“They’re evidence.”

“Can we arrest Pike?”

“Not yet.”

I laughed bitterly.

“You federal people love those two words.”

“We love cases that survive arraignment.”

Vincent’s phone rang.

He looked at the number and went still.

“Who?”

“My bank.”

He answered.

The conversation lasted less than a minute.

Then he looked at me.

“My safe-deposit box was accessed yesterday.”

“By you.”

“Before me.”

“Who?”

“They won’t say without paperwork.”

Mara pulled out her phone.

“They’ll say.”

The box that had contained Julian’s envelope had been opened at 8:14 a.m.

Vincent arrived at 11:06.

Security logs showed the earlier entrant used a notarized power of attorney.

Signed by Vincent.

He had never signed one.

“Forgery,” Daniel said.

“Or copied signature.”

Mara asked, “What else was in the box?”

Vincent hesitated.

I looked at him.

“What else?”

“A phone.”

My anger returned instantly.

“Julian’s?”

“Yes.”

“You told me the phone was missing.”

“It was.”

“You had it.”

“I found it after the funeral.”

“Where?”

“In the pocket of a coat he left in one of the estate vehicles three days before he died.”

“You hid it in a bank box?”

“He told me never to turn it on.”

I stepped toward him.

“You had my dead brother’s phone for eighteen months.”

“Yes.”

“And said nothing.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I failed him once.”

“That is not an answer.”

“He called me the night before he died.”

Vincent’s voice cracked for the first time.

“He said, ‘If I don’t make it home, don’t give Adrian anything until the medal returns.’”

I stared at him.

“He knew.”

“He suspected.”

“You let me bury him believing he crashed in the rain.”

“I followed the last instruction he gave me.”

I wanted to hit him.

Maybe he saw it.

He did not move.

Mara stepped between us.

“Save the family therapy. The phone is gone.”

Daniel looked at Vincent.

“Was it charged?”

“No.”

“SIM?”

“Removed.”

“Could someone use it?”

“If they have it.”

“Encryption?”

“Julian’s.”

I laughed without humor.

“That means chaos.”

We returned to the city after midnight.

Priya had sent a new financial report.

The sixty-million Northstar transfer had been staged to break into twelve payments after closing, routed through Aster Crown and three foreign accounts.

The authorization chain relied on a dormant executive credential assigned to my father.

Gideon’s legal office had certified the credential as valid every year.

The money was not simply being stolen.

It was being made to appear as if the Caruso family itself had approved the movement.

“If regulators discovered it,” Priya said over encrypted video, “the company could face criminal exposure.”

“Who personally benefits?”

“I traced two endpoints. One reaches a trust in the Cayman Islands linked to Caleb Rusk’s sister.”

“And the other?”

“A private foundation.”

“Whose?”

She hesitated.

“Gideon Shaw is one of three trustees.”

There it was.

Not proof of murder.

Proof of motive.

At 1:37 a.m., Daniel received footage from the bank.

The person entering Vincent’s box wore a cap, glasses, and a medical mask.

Height approximately six feet.

Male.

He left carrying a narrow evidence pouch.

Julian’s phone.

The camera caught one clear image of his wrist.

A tattoo.

Three black bars.

Daniel zoomed in.

Vincent whispered, “Rusk.”

Same tattoo from his contractor days.

Caleb had kidnapped Nora.

Caleb had appeared with Gideon the night before Julian died.

Caleb had taken Julian’s phone.

“He knows we found the ledger,” I said.

Mara nodded.

“Or he knows the phone can hurt him.”

“Can we find him?”

“We are.”

I walked into my office.

The sixty-million closing binder still sat where I had left it.

I opened it.

Gideon had marked signature tabs in yellow.

I flipped to the final authorization page.

My name.

My title.

My signature line.

Beneath it was a certification paragraph stating that all legacy executive credentials used in the transaction had been reviewed and validated by legal.

Signed:

Gideon R. Shaw.

I photographed the page.

Then I called him.

He answered almost immediately.

“Adrian.”

“You told me grief creates patterns.”

“It can.”

“Did grief reroute the ambulance too?”

Silence.

Not long.

Enough.

“Where did you hear that?”

“You sound worried.”

“I sound confused.”

“No. You sound worried.”

“Adrian, listen to me carefully. There are things about Julian you do not understand.”

“That sentence is getting old.”

“He was not merely investigating Northstar.”

“What was he doing?”

Another pause.

“Come to my house tomorrow.”

“No.”

“Then my office.”

“No.”

“Where?”

I looked at Mara.

She shook her head.

I smiled.

“Somewhere public.”

Gideon exhaled.

“You’re making a mistake.”

“Probably.”

“You always did when angry.”

“So did Julian.”

His voice hardened.

“Julian got himself killed.”

The room went still.

I heard Mara stop breathing.

I said nothing.

Gideon realized what he had said.

Then he tried to repair it.

“He drove too fast. He took risks. You know what I mean.”

“Of course.”

I ended the call.

Mara stared at me.

“Was that recorded?”

Daniel lifted his phone.

“Yes.”

Not a confession.

Not even close.

But Gideon had known about the ambulance before I told him.

He had known there was something to explain.

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And now he had given us something even more valuable than anger.

Fear.