Chapter 7 - THE SECOND RECORDER
Paige did not remember where Arthur hid the silver recorder immediately. He had turned the process into a game during the last month of his life, leaving small clues in books, drawers and places he knew she visited daily. June resisted the temptation to question her intensely. Paige was twelve, grieving and already carrying the burden of having brought the first recorder into a murder trial.
Instead, Rebecca asked her to describe the game.
Paige said Arthur called it “three safe places.” The first was the music cabinet. The second was the family library. The third was somewhere outside the house.
That was enough.
Investigators searched the library under a new warrant and found a hollowed book in Arthur’s private collection. Inside was a handwritten list of dates and initials, not the silver recorder. The dates corresponded to meetings between Arthur and Charles during the weeks before the death.
One entry read:
C.B. — 9:30 — MEDICAL REVIEW.
Another:
N.W. — 10:15 — WILL.
A third:
A.B. — KEEP SAFE.
Charles Bennett.
Nicole Whitcomb.
Anita Bell.
Arthur had been tracking separate conversations with each of them.
The entry concerning Anita included a small drawing of a bird.
Paige recognized it. Arthur had bought her a ceramic bluebird at a charity auction and placed it in the garden greenhouse because Paige said it looked lonely indoors.
Investigators searched the greenhouse.
The bird was still there.
Inside its hollow base was the silver recorder.
Arthur had hidden it in a place nobody would consider part of his legal or financial archive. The device contained six recordings, each shorter than the long file played in court.
The first was a conversation between Arthur and Anita.
Arthur asked whether she had noticed anything unusual after Nicole brought tea into his study. Anita described his confusion, drowsiness and episodes of difficulty standing. Arthur asked her to keep a written log and contact June if he became unable to communicate clearly.
The second recording contained Charles’s voice.
He told Arthur the Meridian transaction could not be unwound without triggering defaults and harming Paige’s inheritance. Arthur answered that Paige’s inheritance had already been endangered by using it as security without informed authorization.
Charles said, “You signed.”
Arthur replied, “You know what condition I was in when those papers came.”
The next recording showed how the conspiracy expanded. Charles did not merely know Nicole was giving Arthur medication. He discussed Arthur’s impairment as a legal opportunity.
“If you’re having memory problems,” Charles said, “we need to reconsider whether you should sign new estate documents.”
Arthur asked whether Charles intended to have him declared incompetent.
Charles denied it.
But the question had already been asked.
The fifth recording was the most disturbing. Nicole and Charles spoke outside Arthur’s study while he apparently remained behind the closed door. Nicole said Arthur had become suspicious and planned to contact an independent physician. Charles responded that the original plan was no longer sufficient.
“What original plan?” Ortiz asked Rebecca after playback.
Rebecca shook her head.
They did not know yet.
Then the final recording answered part of it.
Charles said, “We only needed him unable to sign until Friday.”
Nicole replied, “And after Friday?”
Charles’s answer came after a long pause.
“Then the trust stays where it belongs.”
The original plan had not necessarily been murder.
It had been to keep Arthur impaired until his estate changes missed the critical financial deadline.
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But Arthur died Thursday night.
Someone escalated the plan.
