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“Probably because I threatened to make a public stink about it and file for them myself. Like I said, they’re a family of means in New Orleans. She doesn’t want that kind of publicity. Daddy’s a lawyer and he refuses to help me with this.”
Something about this made my eye twitch. Why didn’t her family want to give Lisa peace about her birth parents? Why would they even try to prevent her from getting it? “I’m sorry you’ve had to go out on your own with no support. What about your husband? You said he’s not big on you doing this either?”
“He’s not big on me being away from home for so long and spending money on it. He’s not a bad guy, just busy and thinks I’m going to get hurt.”
Double whammy. Shitty parents and a possibly shitty husband. “Sorry.”
*
We were backin the office. I needed to do something productive while we waited to hear from Alan Litrell, so I was going through the prospective clients and prioritizing them as to which cases might be quick and easy. There were a couple estate disputes within families. Those could drag out and be super messy, so I put those in the long-haulers’ list. When money was involved, it was always messy, which made me think about my own recent family situation. As I got distracted by this, Tanner flew down the hallway to the front door of the office.
What on earth?Curious, I followed, but not as hurried, noticing that Tanner had gone outside but hadn’t come in yet. I glanced over at Imogene, who was wearing earbuds while she entered data. She shrugged her obliviousness, same as me, so I stepped outside to see what was up.
Tanner was down the street, past the printer next door and near the corner. Had he followed someone? I walked toward where he was, trying to get some idea of what was going on, but his back was to me. “Tanner?” I called out.
“He’s gone.” Tanner appeared out of breath and a little red in the face.
“Who?”
“The guy who left this on our front door.” He held up a small piece of paper with some writing scrawled on it. I was too far away to see what it said.
“What’s that?”
Tanner looked all around him again and dropped his shoulders in defeat. “I couldn’t catch up with him. No idea which way he went.”
“Wait. What does the note say?” We walked together back toward the office.
He handed it to me. In a heavy black scrawl, it said,Don’t go digging up the dead. Or you might end up like them.
“What on earth—” I couldn’t even finish the sentence. I was so shocked at the threatening tone of the note. Not just the tone. It was an actual threat. “This is a death threat, Tanner.”
“Yeah. I got that.”
We re-entered the office and Imogene looked up from her computer. “Everything okay?”
Tanner showed her the note.
“Oh my. Did you get the person on camera?”
“I need to check. I saw the notification that there was movement at the front door and went to see what was happening. It takes a minute or two to load the video, so I haven’t had a chance to pull it up yet. When I opened the door and saw the note, I went racing down the street one way and then the other, hoping to figure out who left it.”
“Did you see anybody?” I was trying to piece it all together in my mind.
“No. I’ll have a look at what the camera captured now.”
We moved into the conference room and waited for Tanner to pull up the security app on the larger screen of his laptop. My heart rate had kicked up and it was the first time since the drug dealers in Leesfield had threatened us that I’d experienced such distress. Actual fear.Don’t go digging up the dead. Or you might end up like them.
“Here we go.” We gathered around behind Tanner to view the video.
The deliverer was a lanky young man, from what I could see. He wore a black hoodie, but his face was distorted by the poor video quality, and he’d kept his head down. “Can you sharpen the image?” I wanted badly to see more definition.
“I can’t, but maybe the security company can.” We watched the video several times. Pretty much all that was visible was the guy’s nose as it was closest to the camera when he attached the note to the door.
The note had a regular piece of clear tape attached to it. Nothing special there. “Maybe there are fingerprints,” Tanner said.
“Who should we go to with this to get it analyzed? I mean, youjustspoke with the district attorney and this happened.”
Tanner shook his head. “I don’t think he’s got anything to do with this.”
