Chapter 2: The Last Place He Was Seen
My name is Nora Mercer, and I returned to Bellhaven, Pennsylvania, after my father died in March.
He left me the cedar-sided house on Wren Court, a pile of medical bills, and a garage full of tools he had cleaned every Sunday while refusing to clean his own kitchen.
My father had been a school bus mechanic, and he believed any machine could be understood if a person listened long enough.
I was thirty-eight, divorced, and working remotely for a regional medical supply company when I moved back.
For years, I had avoided Bellhaven because every street contained a version of the same question.
What happened to Eli Mercer?
He had been seventeen when he vanished after a summer party at a house beside the old railway cutting.
People said he ran away to Philadelphia, joined a band, or caught a bus toward the ocean.
Nobody could explain why he left his guitar, his wallet, and the little dog he had adored.
My father spent a decade collecting rumors until grief made him suspicious of every stranger.
I hated how his searching consumed him, but I never believed Eli left voluntarily.
The morning Vivian broke the camera, I had no idea how close my father had come to learning the truth.
I only knew that the initials on my door were fresh.
I photographed the damage and called Bellhaven police.
Officer Daniel Reed arrived fifteen minutes later and examined the broken camera beside the garage.
He was younger than me, with careful eyes and a habit of repeating dates before writing them down.
Vivian came out of her house as soon as she saw the patrol car.
“This is an association matter,” she announced from her porch.
Reed asked her to come closer without bringing the hammer.
She gave him a look that suggested she had never been told where to stand by anyone in uniform.
“It was filming private activity,” she said.
“What private activity?” Reed asked.
Vivian glanced at me and adjusted the sleeve of her shirt.
“People have the right to enjoy their homes.”
Reed examined the surviving camera bracket and asked where its recordings were stored.
“In an online account,” I said.
“Do you still have the recording?”
I had not checked because the camera had gone offline during the attack.
Reed suggested that I preserve everything available before anyone changed the device settings.
Vivian stepped forward so sharply that he moved one hand toward his belt.
“That recording is illegal,” she said.
Reed told her the question of legality would not be settled by breaking equipment.
He took statements, photographed the ladder leaning against her fence, and issued her a notice concerning criminal mischief.
Vivian did not argue about the hammer again.
She wanted to know whether he would take my recording as evidence.
Reed said he might.
For the first time that morning, Vivian looked afraid.
