The Mourning Mail (final release candidate #7)

Chapter 59

The moment I arrived home, I ripped the manila envelope open. What I found in it immediately took me back over seven years—two pages of blank lined white paper and a USB flash drive.

I assumed the blank paper was not, in fact, empty, taking it as Margorie's homage of sorts to Brian Pierce's letters. But before I tried to scrounge up a black light, I wanted to see what was on the thumb drive.

Two high-definition video files were on the disk, both filmed in the green glow generated by a night vision movie camera. They revealed James Seaver killing both of the working girls, one in an alley and the other behind the tree line of a park. There were enough details in the videos that law enforcement could determine the locations accurately.

Years ago, I'd buried Dad's black light and scanning rig in a box deep in a storage unit. I did not know what shape they might be in, and I decided it made more sense to order just the black light overnight from Amazon. When it arrived, Paul helped me to hold it in the proper position to get readable camera images of the exposed pages of Margorie's letter.

Her letter started with an explanation of sorts for the invisible ink. "I thought you might appreciate the twist; ending this adventure as you started it." She followed that with the GPS coordinates where we could find the buried remains of the two sex workers and very detailed descriptions of the location. The authorities knew about the first hooker's body but not its connection to Seaver. After not finding any remains where Ricky Mason claimed he'd helped bury Theresa's body, they searched further. They'd found that other corpse while exploring the surrounding area.

If it existed, the second body, the woman allegedly killed and used as a stand-in for Theresa Seaver, could upset years of investigations. It would affect all the work that had gone into prosecuting and convicting Seaver and his cronies. But I wasn't about to open that can of worms until I knew remains existed that matched the story Margorie told me.

Complicating all this was that Sheryl Jansen, a key witness against Seaver and the only one present when he swung that golf club at Theresa, was dead. She had relapsed in her fight against addiction, finally succumbing to an overdose two years ago.

I had a pretty good idea of what we needed to do, but I would need Paul to chime in before it went any further. The first step was to copy the digital audio I recorded from my interview with Margorie onto a thumb drive. I added the camera images of the two pages she'd included in the manila envelope and the two night-vision videos she provided. The next day was a Saturday, and the kids were heading off to their first summer day camp. I hit Paul up after breakfast as I was getting them ready to go.

"Paul, I'm going to drop off Tommy and Sarah at the 'Y,' and then I've got to meet with Harry on the Edgerton story. I should be back in a couple of hours. But I need a serious favor. You know Thursday, when I met a source at the Hotel Del?"

"Sure... I thought maybe the chef served you some bad Romescada—you've been quiet since," Paul said with a hesitant smile, seeing the serious look on my face.

"Let's just say I ran into a ghost from the past, and I'm going to need your help; maybe your strong back, too," I said as I handed him the thumb drive. "Would you mind looking at this if you can find the time? It'll explain everything. Maybe we could talk about it later tonight?"

"It's a lazy day for me, so sure—drive safely and give my regards to Harry...," he said, and we kissed our goodbyes.

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"Wow," Paul said as he greeted me at the front door on my return home, "I didn't see that coming... if you're ready to have that conversation, I'm all yours."