CHAPTER THREE — THE WRONG DOOR
On Monday, Daniel met Ortiz and a postal investigator named Aaron Sethi at a small conference room downtown.
Ortiz explained that her team was investigating suspected interstate fraud involving memorial property, including personalized boxes, photo albums, carved objects, and religious keepsakes.
The objects had been collected from grieving families by several companies using different names.
Everlasting Passage was the largest.
Families paid substantial fees for careful restoration, long-term preservation, or secure shipment.
Many objects vanished after collection.
Some reappeared on resale sites stripped of their dedication plates.
Others were apparently being stored by people who had no professional connection to memorial services.
“Carol Mercer is one of those people?” Daniel asked.
“That is a question we’re working to answer,” Sethi said.
They showed Daniel a still photograph from a delivery vehicle captured two streets away.
Its license plate was obscured by a folding rack, but the side door bore a faint rectangle where a company decal had recently been removed.
Daniel recognized the dent beside the rear wheel.
He had seen the same van while taking out recycling on Thursday night.
He explained that Carol usually left her garage door open when gardening, but had kept it locked for the past month.
Ortiz listened without taking her eyes off Daniel.
“You might be contacted by people claiming they are entitled to anything we find,” she said.
“Do not move or accept packages on their behalf.”
Daniel nodded.
Sethi slid a photograph across the table.
It showed a ceramic tile painted with a bright orange fish.
“Have you seen anything like this?”
“No.”
“A child’s memorial mural was shipped in thirty-six numbered pieces,
” Sethi said.
“Twenty-three have vanished.”
Daniel looked at the fish again.
Someone had painted each scale individually.
The investigation was larger than a neighborhood disagreement, and its losses had faces attached to them.
On the way home Daniel stopped at a hardware store for a replacement camera mount.
His friend Ruth Calder worked behind the counter.
Ruth had been his sister’s roommate in college, and they had stayed friends through two marriages, three bad apartments, and Daniel’s move to Willow Creek Drive.
She listened as he described the scene without revealing anything the agents had asked him to keep private.
“Carol’s been receiving midnight freight,” Ruth said.
“Why would I know about that?”
“Because the hardware store has a loading dock,” Daniel answered.
Ruth leaned closer.
“Last Wednesday somebody came asking for moving blankets and foam corner protectors.”
“They paid cash and wanted a receipt without a name.”
“Who?”
“A man with a white van and an orange jacket.”
“He asked whether we sold a lock that could be opened from both sides.”
Daniel frowned.
“For a storage container?”
“He didn’t say.”
Ruth looked toward the entrance and lowered her voice.
“He also asked if a building’s alarm could mistake vibration for a break-in.”
“I told him to hire an electrician.”
She gave Daniel the camera mount at cost and told him to stop playing detective.
By the time he returned home, a message waited on his answering machine.
A woman’s voice said, “If you want to know what your neighbor is hiding, go to the old skating rink before midnight.”
There was no callback number.
Daniel played the message again.
The voice sounded young, strained, and deliberately low.
He called Ortiz immediately.
She took the information and told him not to visit the rink.
“Someone may be trying to draw you into the situation,” she warned.
Daniel promised to stay home.
He meant it until he looked across the street and saw Carol carrying a narrow wooden crate toward her car.
On the end was a faded sticker with an orange fish.
