Chapter 5 - THE DOCTOR WHO DISAPPEARED
Police reached Dr. Nolan Vale’s clinic at 2:13 in the morning.
It was empty.
His office computer was gone.
Two filing cabinets had been cleared.
His receptionist later told detectives that Vale had canceled every appointment for the following week without explanation.
His car was discovered at the airport.
But Vale had never boarded a flight.
Detective Ortiz believed he had changed vehicles.
By sunrise, his photograph was being circulated statewide.
Richard remained in custody.
His attorney arrived before dawn and immediately demanded that questioning stop.
Richard refused to explain the coffin.
He refused to explain the forged death certificate.
He refused to explain the gun.
But he made one claim repeatedly.
Claire was mentally unstable.
His lawyer told investigators that Claire had created an elaborate plan to destroy Richard because their marriage was failing.
The accusation was absurd.
It was also carefully prepared.
Richard had months of medical records signed by Dr. Vale describing Claire as paranoid, emotionally unstable, and confused.
Those records were now part of the case.
“That was the point,” Claire said when Ortiz told her.
Richard had not only planned her death.
He had prepared a story in case she survived.
If Claire accused him, he would call her delusional.
If she disappeared, he would grieve publicly.
If her body was buried, he would inherit quietly.
Every possible outcome had been considered.
Almost every outcome.
Nobody had considered Ethan.
Later that afternoon, investigators examined the funeral home.
The coffin had arrived sealed.
Employees had been instructed not to open it.
The funeral director, Harold Bishop, produced a signed authorization supposedly written by Claire weeks earlier requesting no embalming and no viewing.
Claire said she had never signed it.
Security footage from the loading area was missing.
The system showed that the cameras had stopped recording for exactly forty-seven minutes the previous evening.
“That doesn’t happen by accident,” Ortiz said.
Bishop looked terrified.
“I didn’t erase anything.”
“Who has access?”
“Me.”
“Anyone else?”
He hesitated.
“My assistant manager.”
“What’s his name?”
“Paul Mercer.”
Ortiz froze.
That name appeared in the blue folder.
One of the companies receiving money from Claire’s accounts had been registered to a man named Paul Mercer.
Officers raced to Mercer’s apartment.
He was gone.
Inside they found two prepaid phones, twenty thousand dollars in cash, and a photograph of Richard standing beside him at a fishing cabin.
On the back of the photograph were four handwritten words.
September 18.
Final transfer.
No witnesses.
Ortiz placed the photograph into evidence.
September 18 was the following week.
Whatever Richard had been planning did not end with Claire’s burial.
May you like
There was another step.
And somewhere outside the hospital, Paul Mercer and Dr. Vale were still free.
