The Letter

The envelope had a return address from a nursing home in Delaware.

Liza held it in her hands and read the return label twice before she opened it. P. Voss, Room 214, Meadowbrook Care Center, Wilmington, DE. The handwriting was shaky but legible — the hand of someone who'd had to relearn how to write after something had gone wrong.

The letter inside was from Peter Voss.

Not the same letter — not the one about the fire, about Raymond Drake, about the insurance claim. That letter had been written thirty years ago by a man who worked at a hardware store and had seen something he shouldn't have seen. That man had been dead for years, according to everything she'd found. Died in 2009. Lung disease. No forwarding address.

This letter was different.

Ms. Marsh, it began. I am writing to you because I have something to tell you that I should have told someone a long time ago. I did write a letter, many years ago, about the fire at Marsh & Drake. But that letter was not complete. There are things I did not say because I was afraid, and there are things I have learned since that I did not know when I first wrote.

Your father-in-law, Raymond Drake, did not act alone. There were two others. One is dead. The other is still living. His name is Martin Calloway. He lives in the same town where you live now. He is the reason I am writing to you now, because I have learned that he has been watching you, and I know what that means.

Raymond Drake and Martin Calloway burned that building together. Martin handled the other end — the inventory records, the falsified receipts, the second set of books. Raymond handled the fire. They split the insurance money three ways. I know because I was there, and because Martin told me, years later, when he thought I was too sick to remember.

I am writing this from a nursing home in Delaware, where I have been for six years. I had a stroke in 2019. For three months I could not speak at all. I have been learning to write again since then. This letter has taken me two months to complete.

I am sorry I did not come forward when I was younger. I am sorry it has taken me this long to find you. But I found your name in a court document from the restraining order case — my daughter showed it to me, said there was a woman in the papers whose husband was in trouble for the same kind of thing — and I knew I had to tell you.

Martin Calloway is dangerous. He was dangerous then and he is dangerous now. Be careful.

Peter Voss

Liza set the letter down on the kitchen table. She looked at it for a long time.

Peter Voss was alive.

Peter Voss was alive, and he had written her a letter, and the letter said Martin Calloway — a name she'd never heard — was living in her town, had been watching her, and was dangerous.

She picked up the phone. She called Detective Reeves.