Chapter 6 - The Woman in the Photographs
The downtown branch of First National Bank in Spokane was a fortress of 1920s limestone and black granite, looming over Riverside Avenue like a monument to cold money.
It was 8:15 AM on the day after Thanksgiving. The city streets were nearly deserted, the holiday weekend keeping the usual commercial traffic away, leaving only the city salt trucks grinding through the gray slush.
I had left Rowan under the care of Dr. Vance and two armed private security guards stationed outside Room 12. My eyes were raw, burning with forty-eight hours of sleeplessness and the dry heat of the hospital hallways, but my mind was clearer than it had been in ten years. The green volunteer sweatshirt hung loose over my shoulders, and the brass key in my pocket felt as heavy as a lead sinker.
The bank’s commercial side didn't open until nine, but the vault operations manager—a thin, balding man named Arthur Pendergast, who had worked for the old Farmers & Merchants network for thirty-five years—had agreed to meet me at the side entrance after Sarah Cho flashed her state credentials and invoked an emergency administrative subpoena.
Pendergast led us down a spiral iron staircase into the sub-basement of the building, where the air was ten degrees cooler and smelled of heavy grease, dry paper, and sixty years of dead secrets.
“We don't usually pull regional master files on a holiday weekend, Ms. Callahan,” Pendergast muttered, his keys clinking against his belt as he unlocked the heavy brass-grilled gate that led to the regional records room. “Blackwood Creek was one of our last independent charter branches. When the buyout happened last summer, we digitized all the trust schedules and testamentary deposits, but the physical boxes are still held in the vault at the branch site.”
“I don't need the physical box this morning,” I said, my voice tight. “I need the digital scan of the deposit authorization and the inventory list. My father filed an addendum to Box 114 in August of 2018.”
Pendergast stopped at a long oak counter equipped with an old green-screen terminal and a modern flat-panel monitor. He typed in his eight-digit employee code, adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses, and pulled up the directory for Branch 04—Blackwood Creek.
“Box 114,” Pendergast murmured, his fingers clacking on the keyboard. “Registered to Edward Joseph Callahan. Authorized signatories: Edward J. Callahan, Greta Callahan-Smith, Piper Callahan. Lucille Callahan removed by notarized amendment August 14, 2018.”
Sarah Cho leaned over the counter, her eyes sharp. “Is there an inventory certification attached to the amendment?”
“Yes,” Pendergast said, his brow furrowing as a dense list of scanned PDF files populated the screen. “Mr. Callahan executed a formal testamentary inventory with our senior trust officer, Mr. Douglas, two weeks before his death. It’s marked ‘Restricted Testamentary Trust—In Possession of Original Instruments.’”
“Open it,” I said.
Pendergast clicked the file.
The screen filled with the high-resolution scan of a three-page document written in my father’s unmistakable scrawl—heavy, thick strokes of a carpenter’s pencil on lined legal paper, stamped with the blue seal of a Blackwood County notary public who wasn't on Clint’s payroll.
*‘I, Edward Joseph Callahan, being of sound mind and under no duress from my wife Lucille or my son Clinton, do hereby execute this final codicil to my last will and testament...’*
I stopped breathing.
*‘To my daughter, Piper Callahan, who has cared for me during these months of illness without asking what she was to receive, I leave sole title and ownership of the real property known as the North Mountain Timber Parcel, comprising 340 acres of red cedar and the mineral rights appurtenant thereto...’*
“The North Mountain parcel,” Cho whispered, glancing at me. “That’s the eighty acres Lucille just put up for Clint’s bail bond.”
“She didn't put up eighty acres,” I said, my heart pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears. “She put up the deed to the *whole parcel*. She used the old 1984 joint deed from before Dad split the acreage.”
“Keep reading,” Cho said, pointing a manicured finger at the middle of the second page.
My father’s writing grew larger, angrier, the pencil cutting through the fiber of the yellow paper:
*‘The business known as Callahan Logging & Excavation shall not pass to my son Clinton. Said business was founded upon equipment purchased with the proceeds of the timber cleared from the Hanley property in 1994, which property was acquired under circumstances I have documented in the enclosed journals. Clinton has shown a character prone to violence, dishonesty, and the abuse of those who cannot defend themselves, in which traits he has been encouraged and protected by his mother, Lucille.’*
*‘I direct that all commercial assets, trucks, and heavy machinery be liquidated by my executor, Greta Callahan-Smith, and the proceeds placed in an educational trust for my grandson, Rowan Edward Callahan. Clinton shall receive the sum of one dollar ($1.00) and the brass kitchen timer he stole from his sister when he was twelve years old, that he may be reminded every minute of his life what he cost this family.’*
A sound escaped my lips—halfway between a sob and a wild, release of laughter.
Dad hadn't left Clint the company. He hadn't left Lucille the land.
He had cut them out completely, down to the last rusty skidder and the last acre of cedar on the ridge.
“Arthur,” Sarah Cho said, her voice dropping into an icy, professional register that brooked no argument. “Where is the original of this document?”
“The original is in the physical box in the vault at the Blackwood Creek branch,” Pendergast said, his face pale as he read the screen. “Along with... whatever else is listed here. There’s an evidence seal on the entry envelope. Mr. Douglas noted that the box contains two cassette tapes and three photographic envelopes marked ‘Brenda Hanley — September 2018.’”
The room went completely still.
“Brenda Hanley,” I whispered. “September 2018. That was two months before Dad died. That wasn't the incident in Idaho last year. That was *before*.”
“Clint didn't just hurt Brenda last year,” Cho said, her eyes darkening with a realization that made the hair on my arms stand up. “He hurt her four years ago, while your father was still alive. And your father documented it.”
Pendergast swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing over his collar. “Ms. Callahan... if this codicil is authentic and the original is intact in that vault, your brother has been operating that logging company fraudulently for five years. He had no legal authority to sign contracts, he had no authority to take loans against the timber, and your mother had no authority to execute a bail surety with the North Mountain deed.”
“Which means Clint’s bail bond is void,” Cho said, turning to me with a fierce, vindicating intensity. “He posted an illegal surety. The moment the county magistrate in Idaho receives this certified scan, Clint’s bond is revoked automatically. He’s a fugitive from the moment he fails to surrender a valid bond.”
My phone rang.
The screen didn't show a number. It showed: *UNKNOWN CALLER — BLACKWOOD CREEK.*
I answered it, pressing the phone hard against my ear. “Hello?”
“Piper?”
It wasn't Lucille. It was Greta.
Her voice was trembling so violently that the words were almost unintelligible, muffled by the sound of wind whipping through an open car window.
“Aunt Greta? Where are you?”
“I took my car, Piper,” the old woman wept, the words coming in ragged, terrified gasps. “I couldn't stay in that house. Clint came back from the cabin at dawn. He was... he was covered in mud, Piper. He’d been drinking that sour mash all night. He was looking for the strongbox in the fruit cellar, tearing the shelves down, throwing your grandmother’s canned peaches against the stone walls.”
“Where is Tony, Greta? Where is Bria?”
“He left them up there!” Greta cried. “He took the distributor cap off Tony’s station wagon so she can't drive down the mountain! He’s got the road blocked with the skidder at the four-mile marker! He told Lucille he’s gonna burn the cabin down before he lets the county troopers look in that basement!”
“What basement, Greta?” I yelled into the phone, Pendergast and Cho both freezing to look at me. “What is in that basement?”
“The old cabin, Piper!” Greta sobbed. “The one Dad built in seventy-four before you were born! Under the floorboards by the woodstove... that’s where Clint put the equipment from the Hanley job! That’s where the girl’s clothes were!”
The line crackled with a loud, mechanical pop—the sound of an old engine backfiring—and then Greta let out a shriek that pierced the receiver.
“Greta! Greta!”
“He’s behind me, Piper!” she screamed. “In the Dodge Ram! He’s riding my bumper on the switchbacks below the reservoir! He’s trying to push me off the shoulder!”
May you like
Then came the terrible, screeching roar of heavy steel crumpling thin sheet metal, the sound of safety glass imploding, and the long, horn-stuck wail of an old Buick tumbling down an embankment through the brush.
Then the call disconnected.
