CHAPTER NINE — THE MAN AT THE BACK DOOR
The next morning, Emily arrived at Larkin’s before opening time.
June unlocked the rear delivery door and let her wait near the staff lockers.
At seven twenty, a man in an old denim jacket approached the loading dock.
He carried a paper shopping bag in one hand.
“Are you Emily?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I’m Patrick Voss.”
Emily recognized the surname immediately.
Voss was the contractor Victor had used for the theater repairs.
Patrick saw the recognition on her face and lifted his empty hand.
“My father owned the business.”
“Is he alive?”
“He died last winter.”
“Why did you ask for me?”
Patrick looked at June, who stood beside the door with her arms crossed.
“Because I found something while cleaning his shop.
”
He set the bag on a metal cart and removed a battered film can.
A blue arrow crossed the lid.
Emily saw the half-moon scratch in the paint.
“Where did you get that?”
“From my father’s old equipment room.”
“How long was it there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did your father take it from the Beacon?”
Patrick swallowed.
“He said Victor gave it to him after closing night.”
Emily almost reached for the can, then stopped.
“Why did you wait until now?”
“I didn’t know what it was until I saw your picture in the neighborhood paper.”
“What picture?”
“The coalition posted about the city inspection.”
Emily looked at June, who nodded.
Malik had shared the preservation effort online overnight.
Patrick opened the can and showed Emily a small yellow triangle painted inside the lid.
“My father said the color coding was important,” he explained.
“He told me never to put this one in the projector.”
“Why?”
“He said the film would cause trouble.”
Emily felt an old anger move beneath her ribs.
“Can I have it?”
Patrick drew the can back.
“I need to know what happens if I give it to you.”
“It gets documented, preserved, and inspected.”
“Will my father’s name be in the story?”
“If he was involved, yes.”
“Even though he’s dead?”
“My mother’s name was in the story while she was alive,” Emily answered.
Patrick looked down.
“That’s fair.”
He handed over the can.
June brought archival paper from the stockroom so the lid would not scrape against the metal cart.
Emily called Anika and arranged to transfer the can to city custody in the presence of a witness.
Patrick agreed to make a statement about where he found it.
As they waited, he told Emily something he had never said publicly.
His father had maintained the theater’s equipment for no charge during its final season because the preservation fund had not paid its promised invoices.
He had been furious with Victor but too dependent on other city contracts to challenge him openly.
“My father never called Nora Carter a thief,” Patrick said.
“But he never corrected the story either.”
Emily met his eyes.
“Neither did a lot of people.”
Patrick nodded.
“I know.”
Anika arrived with a city evidence technician and received the can through a documented handoff.
She promised that Celeste would examine the contents before anyone attempted to screen them.
Emily watched the can disappear into a protective case.
For seventeen years, she had imagined the missing film as a treasure chest holding a single clean answer.
Now she understood that finding it might uncover people who were ashamed, frightened, dishonest, or simply wrong in ways that did not fit one tidy explanation.
She was willing to hear them.
But she would not let them rewrite her mother’s reputation again.
