Chapter 6 - THE GUN BELONGED TO DANTE
Ballistics confirmed the weapon had fired the bullet that killed Dad.
Then came the fact that nearly broke the case open in the wrong direction.
The gun belonged to Dante Moretti.
Legally.
Registered years earlier through a licensed security company he controlled.
Reported stolen eight weeks before Dad died.
Detective Chen had seen the theft report during the original investigation.
Without the gun, it meant little.
Now it meant everything.
I asked Dante directly.
“Did Dad know it was yours?”
“Yes.”
That was not the answer I expected.
“How?”
“I told him when it was stolen.”
“Why?”
“Because he called me paranoid.”
Esme almost smiled.
That sounded like Dad.
Dante had reported three firearms stolen from a secured vehicle at one of his companies.
Police investigated.
No recovery.
Then Dad was killed with one of them.
“Why didn't Mom turn it in?”
Dante looked at her.
“I'd like to know.”
Mom finally told us what happened after the shot.
She ran from the upstairs office.
Found Dad conscious but fading.
The gun lay near the doorway.
“I picked it up.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
That answer sounded more credible than a strategy.
Shock rarely produces elegant thinking.
Dad grabbed her sleeve.
“He said something.”
“What?”
Mom looked toward Dante.
“Not him.”
Dante's face changed.
“I asked who.”
Dad could not answer.
Then Mom heard us calling from the playroom.
Police sirens were already approaching because a neighbor had reported the sound.
She had Dante's gun in her hand.
Her husband had just said not him.
Someone had apparently used Dante's stolen weapon.
“I thought someone was framing him.”
“So you hid it?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Why not give it to police and tell them that?”
Mom looked ashamed.
“Because I didn't trust what would happen next.”
She feared Dante would retaliate against whoever framed him.
She feared police would treat the entire case as organized crime.
She feared Dad's company would collapse under scandal.
She feared us learning what kind of people surrounded our family.
Fear provided many explanations.
None returned the evidence.
“Why leave it there four years?”
Mom went silent.
That was the harder question.
Eventually:
“Because after the first day, every day made telling the truth more dangerous.”
I thought of the locked playroom.
The lies about wiring.
The birthdays.
All the years.
A twenty-minute decision had become a four-year structure.
Then Detective Chen received the first useful forensic result from the metal case.
Not fingerprints.
Those were too compromised.
A tiny fiber caught beneath the latch.
Dark red silk.
Mom stared at the photograph.
Dante said nothing.
I remembered one person who always wore red silk pocket squares at Voss Biotech events.
May you like
Victor Sloan.
Chairman of my mother's board.
