Chapter 2 - The Footage and the Fountain Pen
The mention of yesterday afternoon hit the room like a cold blast of arctic air. Diane’s posture, previously rigid with self-righteous anger, stiffened in an entirely different way. Her left hand drifted unconsciously toward the designer leather handbag resting on the empty chair beside her.
""I don't know what kind of games you think you're playing, Evelyn,"" Diane stammered, attempting to recover her haughty cadence. ""Robert and I went to the farmhouse out of filial duty. We went to pay our respects, to preserve the family heritage, and to ensure that his affairs were handled with dignity. If Cora has been telling you lies—""
""Cora hasn't spoken a single word of gossip, Mrs. Sterling,"" Evelyn interrupted. She didn't raise her voice; she didn't need to. Her legal training carried every syllable with lethal precision. ""Walter’s farmhouse was not merely an old rural residence. For the past five years, following a series of regional agricultural thefts, Walter contracted a private security and archival firm to install high-definition, motion-activated surveillance throughout the interior of the main house. Every feed was backed up to an encrypted remote server maintained by our legal practice.""
Aunt Susan gasped again, her hand flying to her throat. She looked at Robert, her voice rising an octave. ""Robert? What is she talking about? You said the old man didn't even have reliable Wi-Fi out there!""
""He didn't!"" Robert snapped, though his forehead had suddenly broken out into a sheen of greasy sweat. He tugged at his collar, his blazer suddenly appearing far too tight for him. ""The farmhouse is a dump! The electrical system was practically ancient!""
""Walter was seventy-eight, Mr. Sterling, not technologically illiterate,"" Evelyn remarked coolly. From her briefcase, she withdrew a sleek metallic tablet and connected it to a portable high-lumen projector she had quietly assembled on the side sideboard. With a tap of her finger, the white wall behind her illuminated.
A high-definition video frame flickered to life. The timestamp read 2:14 PM, yesterday.
The dining room fell so silent that the hum of the overhead ventilation sounded like a jet engine.
On the wall, projected in crystalline detail, was the interior of Walter’s beloved study. The screen showed Robert Sterling violently ripping open mahogany desk drawers, dumping historical ledgers, family letters, and land surveys onto the hardwood floor with reckless abandon. On the audio track, his voice boomed through the portable speakers with terrifying clarity: ""Where did the stubborn old bastard hide the deeds? If he gave them to that little charity case, I'll tear the place down board by board!""
Robert’s face drained of color. He looked as if all the oxygen had been vacuumed from his lungs.
""Turn that off,"" Robert croaked, his hands trembling as he gripped the edge of the mahogany table. ""That's an invasion of privacy! That's illegal surveillance inside a private family home!""
""It was Walter's home, Robert,"" Evelyn countered, her tone sharp as a surgical scalpel. ""And you were an uninvited trespasser who gained access by prying a utility window lock while his body had barely arrived at the county morgue.""
She tapped the screen again. The feed cut to the living room camera, angled down toward the antique display cabinet.
There was Diane. Her designer sunglasses were perched on top of her bleached-blonde hair. On the projection, the family watched as she carefully inspected Walter's solid gold pocket watch—the one his own father had given him when he returned from the merchant marine. She checked over her left shoulder, checked over her right shoulder, and deliberately opened the zipper of her designer purse, sliding the watch deep into the interior pocket.
The footage didn't stop there. The camera tracked her moving to the mantelpiece, wrapping two heavy sterling silver candlesticks in Walter’s favorite wool throw blanket before stashing them behind the foyer settee to be loaded into her car later. Finally, the video zoomed in on Walter's antique desk, where she pocketed a limited-edition Montblanc fountain pen that Walter had used to sign every meaningful document in his adult life.
""Diane,"" Aunt Susan murmured, her voice laced with sudden horror. ""You told us... you told us Walter gave you that watch years ago for Robert’s promotion.""
""It was an heirloom!"" Diane shrieked, jumping to her feet so violently that her dining chair tipped backward, crashing onto the carpet. Her face was mottled with red and white blotches of pure hysteria. ""It belonged to my husband's family! I was preserving it! That girl would have pawned it for grocery money! She's a nobody! She works as a glorified file clerk!""
""Actually,"" Evelyn Hayes said, sliding a new sheet of paper across the table toward Robert, ""the items you removed from the premises yesterday afternoon possess a certified appraised value of thirty-seven thousand dollars. Under state statute, the unauthorized removal of property from a deceased individual's estate prior to probate certification is classified as grand larceny.""
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Evelyn looked Diane dead in the eye.
""And I have already taken the liberty of drafting the criminal complaint. Two detectives from the county sheriff's department are currently parked downstairs in the restaurant's valet lot, awaiting my telephone confirmation regarding whether these heirlooms have been surrendered or if formal grand theft charges are to be executed before you leave this building.""
