Part 3 — Love Letters In Drawer
Brent asked for the keys in a very quiet voice, and I did something I am proud of. I stepped between him and Lorraine, held the ring against my chest and said, Sir, I think this is a good time for you to sit down.
Lorraine had already picked up her phone. Her hands were shaking, but she dialed the sheriff herself. Brent took one look at her face, turned and walked out to his truck. I wrote down his plate number as the deputies pulled in.
Unit 114 turned out to hold exactly what a person might fear. It was packed floor to ceiling with Walts things, his coin collection, his tools, his guns and the contents of two safe deposit boxes. Brent had emptied them over four months, using Lorraines name and her signature.
The photographs through the window were his way of tracking her routine. He knew when she slept, when she went to the mailbox and when the house sat empty. He never meant to hurt her. He meant only to take what was hers, quietly, before she noticed.
Brent was arrested that afternoon on charges of theft, forgery and exploitation of a vulnerable adult. Lorraines daughter, who had trusted him, sat on the couch and cried, then gave the deputies a full statement.
The coins, the tools and the guns were returned. The bank reversed every transaction, and the judge later ordered Brent to repay what could not be recovered. He lost his license and his job in the same month.
I went to that house to open a drawer, and the first thing the drawer opened was the truth about who had a key to Lorraines life.
That evening I went back to the desk with Lorraine. There was a second drawer, deeper, that I had not touched. Inside was a shoebox tied with kitchen string, and in it, forty one envelopes, one for every year they were married, each addressed in Walts square print to his wife.
He had written her a letter every anniversary and never sent one. He kept them locked in that desk because, as the last note said, he was shy about saying such things out loud and was afraid she would tease him.
Lorraine read the first letter at the kitchen table, and I let myself out quietly. I changed her locks that week for free, with new keys that went onto her ring and nobody elses.
She sends me a Christmas card now. This year it said, I am on letter thirty eight. Walt is still talking to me.