Arthur nodded slowly. "About five years ago, his company was struggling. He asked if he could park some of his heavy equipment trailers back there, near the old tree line. I told him he could. He's my son. He kept them there for a few months, mostly moving things at night. Then he took them away."
The cold weight in my stomach grew heavier. Moving things at night.
"Arthur, I think Robert buried something toxic on your land," I said softly. "I found a paper he dropped at the diner. He's trying to get you to sign the power of attorney so he can demolish the house this Saturday and pave over the soil before the state finds out."
Arthur stared at me. The color drained from his face, leaving his skin looking like parchment. He looked at the photo of Martha on the nightstand. His hands began to shake violently.
"He told me the house was falling apart," Arthur whispered, his voice cracking. "He told me it was a safety hazard. He promised me he would salvage the wood from the porch I built."
"I need your permission to go to the house," I said, leaning closer. "I have friends who can help. But we need to see what's there."
Arthur reached into the pocket of his cardigan. He pulled out a single, brass key attached to a faded leather strap.
"It's the back door key," Arthur said, his voice finding a sudden, hard edge. "He took my front door keys. But I hid this one. You go. You protect Martha's garden."
I took the key. It felt warm in my palm. "I'll be back, Arthur. I promise."
I drove straight to Elm Street. The neighborhood was filled with quiet, working-class homes, but Arthur's property sat at the very end of a dead-end road, bordering a thick line of woods. When I pulled up, Bear, Slim, and Tank were already parked on the street.
The house was heartbreaking. The white paint was peeling in long, sad strips. The gutters were choked with dead leaves, and the once-beautiful front garden was strangled by aggressive weeds. It looked abandoned. It looked like a place no one cared about.
I walked up the driveway to where Bear was standing. I held up the brass key.
We walked around to the back of the house. The backyard was massive, stretching far back toward the tree line. The grass was waist-high in places. We stepped onto the wooden back porch. I slid the key into the deadbolt. It turned with a heavy click.
I pushed the door open, and we stepped into the kitchen.
The air inside was stale and thick with dust. But that wasn't what stopped me in my tracks.
The house had been completely ransacked.
Drawers were pulled out and dumped on the floor. Cushions were sliced open. Bookshelves were cleared, the books thrown haphazardly across the living room carpet. Framed photos were knocked off the walls, the glass shattered.
"What the hell happened here?" Slim muttered, stepping carefully over a broken lamp.
"Robert," I said, feeling sick. "He was looking for something."
I walked into what used to be a home office. An old wooden desk had been torn apart. In the center of the room, amidst a pile of scattered papers, I saw a thick stack of documents bound by a heavy rubber band. I bent down and picked them up.
They were bank statements and legal notices. I flipped through them.
Robert’s construction company was completely bankrupt. But worse, there were notices of default on a massive commercial loan. Robert had used Arthur’s property as collateral for a high-interest loan from a private lending firm—a firm that looked dangerously unregulated.
"He's in massive debt," I said, showing the papers to Bear. "He leveraged this house to save his company, and he lost the money. If he doesn't sell this land by the end of the month, the creditors are going to foreclose, and Arthur will be thrown out onto the street with nothing."
Bear stared at the papers, his jaw tight. "So he poisons the land, hides it, and sells it fast to cover his tracks."
"We need to find out exactly where the contamination is," I said. "Before Saturday."
We went back outside. The afternoon sun was beginning to dip below the tree line. The four of us waded into the overgrown backyard. We searched for nearly an hour, looking for disturbed earth, sinkholes, or any sign of a dump site. The grass was too thick, the ground too uneven.