Chapter 9 - BEFORE THE FIRES
Fire investigators reopened three commercial-building cases.
Each fire had originally been classified as accidental or undetermined.
One started in damaged electrical wiring.
One in a utility room.
One near stored renovation chemicals.
No direct evidence connected Greg.
But Miller Property Recovery had been inside all three shortly beforehand.
Its cleanup contracts generated revenue.
The later property acquisitions generated much more.
Keith Nolan became visibly frightened when detectives asked about fire.
“I didn’t do fires.”
“Who did?”
“I don’t know that anyone did.”
“Did Greg ever discuss them?”
“He said some buildings solved themselves.”
“What does that mean?”
“I thought he meant owners gave up.”
The words were ambiguous.
No charges followed from that alone.
Paul Mercer denied knowledge of fires.
His corruption focused on condemnation.
Another Miller employee named Dale Foster had handled after-hours property access.
He disappeared before questioning.
His truck was found at a bus station.
He had purchased a ticket west.
Police found him in Colorado three days later.
Dale requested an attorney.
On his phone were photographs of electrical panels from two fire properties.
Taken before the fires.
One showed a handwritten note:
AFTER CLEAR.
Investigators asked what it meant.
Dale said:
“After clear-out. We were supposed to repair it.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Greg canceled.”
Again, negligence or planning?
Evidence needed more.
Emma’s notes linked the fire properties to shell companies.
The profits from purchase and resale exceeded nine million dollars.
The pest fraud alone was already serious.
The possible fire scheme could multiply the case.
Greg’s panic about the red toolbox made sense even if Emma’s death remained accidental.
Her files could destroy his business and expose years of fraud.
Then we learned why Leo had gone into the shed that day.
He was not playing.
Emma had left him a clue.
Rebecca found an old children’s book inside Leo’s backpack.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
On the title page, in Emma’s handwriting:
When Leo is old enough to ask where Mommy kept the red hammer, tell him the bugs were never his fault.
Rebecca had never seen it.
Greg apparently never read the inscription.
Leo remembered Emma calling the toolbox “the red hammer box.”
At six, he finally connected it.
He crawled beneath the shed shelf and found it.
Greg caught him with Emma’s note in his hand.
That was when he hit him.
The box did not make Leo brave.
It made him a child following the last puzzle his mother left.
Detective Ward located the county investigator Emma intended to meet.
Her name was Susan Blake.
She remembered Emma calling.
“She sounded terrified.”
“Why didn’t you meet?”
“She canceled by text.”
Susan produced the text.
Family emergency. I was wrong. Please destroy what I sent.
Emma’s phone records showed the message originated after the estimated time of her death.
Someone had used her phone.
That was the first evidence her death might be directly connected to concealment.
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The central reveal was one chapter away.
And this time, it would have to separate what we knew from what we still feared.
