Chapter 11: Dale's Recording

Dale pressed play, and Delaney's voice came out of the little speaker, bright and bored.

"The old man will fold in a month. You saw him last night. He cried when I said the word deed."

"He signs anything if you cry first," Jarrett said.

"Then we put him in a care home. Sunnyside, outside Dayton. They'll have him sedated by Christmas."

"And the house?"

"Gone. The developer pays four million for the whole parcel. The east field first, it's the flat part."

"What about the grave?" Jarrett asked.

"What grave?"

"The wife. Under the oak."

Delaney laughed, a short sharp sound I knew.

"Then they dig her up and move her to the church lot. Honestly, Jarrett, I don't care. She has been dead almost twenty years."

Dale stopped the recording.

I did not move.

The shed was so quiet I could hear the cooler humming.

Joanna had her hand pressed hard over her mouth.

"Where did you get this?" I asked.

"Last night." Dale's voice was rough. "I went back to the house at ten o'clock to get Dad's heart pills. They didn't hear me come in."

"And you recorded them."

"I stood in the hall for twenty minutes, Mason."

He wiped his face with the heel of his hand.

His beard was wet.

"I laughed at you in front of the whole town," he said. "I let them put you in the pond. I'm the one who carried you."

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