PART 2: What Was in the Drawer
Tiffany dropped the margarita pitcher, and it shattered across the pool deck.
The sirens were growing louder.
“He’s confused,” Ray said, backing toward the house. “This is what I’ve been dealing with. He makes things up.”
“Then explain the padlock,” I said. “Explain the dog bowl.”
Ray had no answer.
The ambulance pulled up, followed by two Mesa police cars.
On the patio, the paramedics checked Dad’s core temperature. 105.1.
“Ma’am,” the paramedic said to me, “if you’d found him an hour later, he wouldn’t have made it.”
As they loaded him up, an officer asked Ray for his ID.
It didn’t take long to search the house.
In the kitchen drawer lay a death certificate, a fake one printed off the internet with Dad’s name on it. Beside it was a sympathy card from the American Legion with a check inside, along with Dad’s VA pension statements, which still arrived every month and were deposited into an account under Ray’s name.
And there was one more thing: a printout from a real estate website.
Dad’s house. Listed for sale at $489,000.
With an open house scheduled for the following Saturday.
