Chapter 5 - THE MAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
The unknown man was Eric Shaw.
Not Laura’s lover.
For twenty-two hours, I believed he might be.
I am not proud of how relieved I felt when I learned the secret was financial crime instead of infidelity.
Human beings rank pain strangely.
Eric had worked as an estimator for North Valley.
He left ten months before the traffic stop after a fight with Caleb.
According to Caleb, Eric was disgruntled.
According to Eric, Caleb had asked him to recreate photographs from old job sites to support claims for equipment that had not remained on location as long as billed.
Eric refused.
Then discovered more.
He contacted an insurance carrier.
The carrier contacted investigators.
That started the formal inquiry.
Surveillance began eight months before the stop.
Laura entered the picture almost immediately because investigators saw Eric meet her twice.
At first they assumed he was feeding her information so North Valley could identify the leak.
Then Laura began doing things that pointed the other direction.
Copying old claim boxes.
Visiting a commercial storage facility North Valley no longer used.
Meeting Eric away from work.
Photographing records.
But she never contacted investigators directly.
That made everybody suspicious.
At my first interview, Dana placed the surveillance photograph on the table.
“This was October third.”
I stared at Laura’s face.
“What was she giving him?”
“A flash drive.”
“What was on it?”
“We believe vendor exports.”
“Believe?”
“Eric turned over a copy.”
I looked at Dana.
“So she was helping you.”
“No.”
“You just said—”
“She was helping Eric.”
“What’s the difference?”
“A significant legal one.”
Eric was cooperating.
Laura was not.
She was secretly gathering company records and giving some to a former employee who had already contacted investigators.
She was also withholding others.
“She was trying to control the flow,” Dana said.
“Why?”
“We hoped you could tell us.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Apparently I can’t tell you anything about my wife.”
Dana did not react.
She showed me another photograph.
Laura entering her mother’s garage with file boxes.
Another.
Laura meeting Caleb at a diner.
Another.
Laura at a bank.
Eight months of ordinary actions made sinister by sequence.
I hated the photographs.
A photograph removes everything people say around an action.
It leaves the action standing alone.
Dana slid one more item toward me.
A photocopy of a vendor registration.
MJR Property Services.
Our home address.
My initials.
“I did not create this.”
“We know the bank account isn’t yours.”
“Then why am I here?”
“Because we need to know whether Laura told you.”
“No.”
“Did Caleb ever ask to use your address?”
“No.”
“Did Laura?”
“No.”
“Did you receive mail for MJR?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer humiliated me.
“You don’t know?”
“Laura handles most mail.”
Dana nodded.
Not judgmentally.
That made it worse.
I had spent eleven years congratulating myself for having a marriage built on trust.
Now I could not answer who opened envelopes at my own house.
Then she asked:
“Do you and Laura discuss money?”
“Of course.”
“How often?”
I started to answer.
Stopped.
We discussed budgets.
Vacations.
Mortgage.
Retirement.
What we did not discuss was her mother’s money.
North Valley’s finances.
Caleb.
Anything Laura classified as work.
Dana saw something on my face.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Mr. Rhodes.”
I looked at her.
“I thought not asking was respectful.”
She waited.
I hated that everybody had learned the value of silence except me.
“It turns out,” I said, “I may have confused respecting privacy with being relieved nobody asked me to deal with anything uncomfortable.”
That was not Laura’s defense.
It was mine.
I needed to keep those separate.
She had hidden things.
I had made hiding easy.
May you like
Those were not equal acts.
But both were true.
