Day Five - February 5th 1998
I can’t get to sleep, I lay on my back looking at the ceiling once again. Eyes traversing the cracks. I’m tempted to get up and look through the safe but I need to take a break from all of this. My mind keeps running in circles. I’ll talk to Maida in the morning, that’ll help.
I feel like I should tell her to go home, it seems selfish to keep her here, she has a life outside of this, she has something to lose. I keep staring at the ceiling, occasionally closing my eyes and trying to sleep. There’s a knock at the door, I turn to look at the alarm clock on the bedside table, 7:10am. I get up, pushing my body out of the bed. I unlock the door and pull it open, Maida stands on the other side.
“I couldn’t wait, I want you to tell me what you've found out.” She whispers, a look of anticipation on her face.
“I was just thinking about that.” I respond.
“Yeah?”
“I don’t think it’s safe for you here. I think you should go home.”
“I don’t want to go home.”
“I really think you should, I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“No way, I’m here to help you, that’s my job. And at this point, I want to find the jerk that did this to you and your family as much as you do. When you figure it out, I want to be here.”
I give up, there’s no convincing her right now. I let her into the room and walk over to the bookcase, opening the door, we step inside, when we get to the table she sits on the edge and I open the safe.
“These were in there,” I hand her the stack of papers, “and some jewellery.”
“Is that where the bracelet came from?”
I nod. Maida sifts through the papers. She gets to the end of the pile, the will. She holds it up in front of her and flicks through the pages.
“He left everything to me.”
“Is this how you found out about your brother?”
“Yeah.”
"You seemed out of it last night."
“I know. I thought maybe Michael might be the killer but he looked genuinely shocked when he found out.”
“That doesn’t mean he's not guilty. He still could've done it, whether he knew about that or not.”
“Why can’t I just remember? It would make this so much easier.”
"Did you ever use the safe in here?"
"No, I don't think I knew the combination."
"So, your Dad left the documents in there?"
"I think so, yeah."
“I think they were laundering the money through the businesses.”
“Why?”
“In the book, see the letters at the top of the pages. LC, that would be the Lake Cafe, right? RFM, Ridgemont Forest Motel, LVD is Lake View Diner? Then there's dates and money amounts.”
“Why would you think he’s laundering money through them though, maybe it's legit?”
“Well, look at how much money they’re making, $6000 in one night, and that's in off season, look at the amounts they all seem way too high.”
I look through the book at the red and black writing, if Maida's right does that mean my Dad was guilty? I don't want to believe that. We put all the papers away and leave the hidden room making our way back into the main house. I watch as Maida has breakfast, I feel like there’s an even greater sense of urgency now, every moment I sit still I feel like I’m wasting precious time.
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We decide to go into town to visit my brother, I feel really bad about last night. I’m not sure if I can trust him but he’s family and I should try to fix what I've done. We park outside his office, a white wooden building just off Main Street. As we walk inside, Chelsea looks up from behind her desk, in the middle of a waiting room that consists of three armchairs and a wooden magazine rack. “Hello Elena. Have you come by to bother my husband?”
“I want to apologise.” I answer.
“He’s busy with a patient.”
The door to a room at the back opens up and Michael peeks out. “Just the person I wanted to see.” He waves me into the room, no patient in sight.
“I’m sorry about last night. I didn’t mean to blurt that out.” I say.
“How long have you known?” My brother asks.
“I found out yesterday. It might not be true though.”
“Ma called last night and confirmed it.”
“Did she say who?
"No, unsurprisingly."
"I’m sorry you found out this way.”
“I’m glad I know, honestly. I always felt like something was off, Dad didn't treat me the way he treated you. You were always the favourite.”
“That’s not true.”
“It definitely is.”
“You’re our mother’s favourite though.”
“I can’t believe she’s lied to me all these years.”
“You know her, she wouldn’t let anyone find out something like that.” I look around at his tiny office, his degrees hung on the wall, next to postcards of foreign beaches and a poster telling me to get a flu shot.
“Why have you stayed here all these years? You’re a doctor, you could go anywhere.”
“After Dad died, I guess I felt obligated to stay. Our mother’s here, you were always planning on moving away. Someone needs to look after her.”
“I think she can look after herself, and she’s got Agnes.”
“I know, you're right. I've always wanted to live somewhere different."
"Maybe you should?"
"Hmm. Did you know Agnes used to look after Dad? When he was a kid.”
“No, I thought mother hired her.”
“She did, but way before we were born she worked there too.”
“I never knew that.”
“She told me one night, I was talking about Dad and she said he was a great kid.”
“He was a great Dad too. Do you really think he stole that money?”
“I think Edmond did, I don’t want to think Dad was involved.”
“Do you think he could have been laundering it through the businesses he owned?”
“The money our uncle stole? I don't think so, but it's too late to do anything about it all now. If we ever found that money, I wouldn’t want it.”
“Me either, I’d want to give it back.”
“Do you remember, before you left, you told me you wanted to figure out what really happened to Dad?”
“I told you that?”
“Yeah, it was maybe a week before you left. You said you felt like you were close to figuring it all out. You don’t remember?”
I shake my head.
“I said I’d help you in anyway I could. I still stand by that, you know.”
“Thanks.”
“I know I’ve given you a hard time in the past but we’re family. Dad’s gone, once Mum is too, it’ll just be us.”
“You do possibly have a whole new family.”
“I wonder what they're like?”
“You’ll have to find out from our mother.”
“That’ll be like extracting teeth.”
“You’re a doctor, you can handle it.”
“I’m not a dentist.”
We both leave the room, interrupting Maida and Chelsea who are engrossed in a game of Minesweeper on the computer. Maida and I say goodbye, Chelsea seems to have forgiven me.
When we're back on the street Maida turns to me. “So did he do it?” She asks.
“I don’t think so. He said I came to him before I left.” I say.
“He could be lying.”
“I think he's telling the truth. I didn’t cross him off the murder board though.”
“The murder board?”
“You know, that bit of paper.”
“Ohhh the psycho stalker thing.”
“Psycho stalker thing?” I decide to change the subject. “How did you wind up working for Ed?"
“I flunked out of med school and he gave me a job. I grew up nearby and wound up back home with my parents. They weren’t pleased about wasting all that money on nothing. At first I was just cleaning, doing paperwork. One night I walked in and here’s Ed talking to a guy that only an hour or so earlier had been a corpse. I thought I was seeing things. Then Ed tells me he’s one of the reawakened, as he calls them. I walked out of there, brushed it off as a practical joke, I thought maybe it was some kind of hazing ritual for new employees, Ed has a weird sense of humour. But then there was another one and another and I realised that the dead were actually coming back to life.”
“You didn’t want to quit?” I ask.
“When Ed explained the whole thing to me, it kind of seemed nice really. Trying to help people get some closure or to right a wrong. It seemed a lot more important than what I was currently doing with my life. If we have the power to help people go back and fix things, that seems amazing, it’s a really special thing.”
“Does Ed usually help them, like you are with me?”
“Yeah, not so much anymore though. He's told me some amazing stories about the people he's met over the years. He wants to retire and I'm the person who's meant to take over.”
"Do you want to do that?"
"Yeah, I've tried so many different jobs and hated them but I love this. I’m really glad I got to meet you, I feel like we’re friends already.”
“Me too."
Maida unlocks the car and we both get inside. “When did your dad buy the businesses, do you remember?”
“No, it'd be on some of those documents. Why?”
“Let's go back to your place, I want to check something.”