CHAPTER 5: THE HOUSE ON HAWTHORNE STREET
Detective Ortiz told me not to respond.
We returned to Portland while her team requested search warrants for the house and Dr. Vale’s property.
Claire was awake when I reached the hospital.
I told her about my father.
She listened without interrupting, one hand resting protectively over our baby.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“For what?”
“For opening the box.”
“You saved us.”
“It doesn’t feel like it.”
I showed her the photograph of Diane and Dr. Vale.
Claire’s eyes fixed on the psychiatrist.
“I’ve seen him.”
“Where?”
“At your mother’s house. The day she caught me in the attic.”
Dr. Vale had stood near the staircase while Diane searched Claire’s purse. He never introduced himself.
Before Claire left, he warned her that pregnancy sometimes caused paranoia.
“He knew she was hurting you,” I said.
“I think he gave her the pills.”
The medication results arrived that afternoon.
The tablets were clonazepam, prescribed under Claire’s name by Dr. Howard Vale.
Claire had never met him professionally.
The prescription had been filled three times.
Diane collected it each time.
That was enough for arrest warrants.
But both Diane and Vale had disappeared.
At sunset, police surrounded the Hawthorne Street house.
The building looked smaller than I remembered.
Paint peeled from the porch. Weeds covered the yard. The basement windows had been boarded shut.
Ortiz entered first.
No one was inside.
In the kitchen, however, two coffee cups were still warm.
Diane and Vale had left minutes earlier.
Thomas’s key opened a narrow cabinet behind the basement furnace.
Inside was a red metal box.
I remembered it.
Rachel once used it to store marbles and friendship bracelets.
Now it held photographs, bank statements and a small cassette recorder.
Ortiz placed the tape into an evidence player.
Rachel’s voice filled the basement.
She sounded nervous but determined.
“Mom, why did you sign Grandma’s name?”
Diane answered.
“Turn that thing off.”
“You took her money.”
“She doesn’t need it.”
“I’m telling Dad.”
A loud movement followed.
Then Diane’s voice became colder.
“If you destroy this family, Ethan will hate you forever.”
“No, he won’t.”
“You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
The recording ended.
It was not proof of murder.
But it proved motive.
We also found documents showing money transferred from my grandmother’s accounts into Red Finch Holdings.
The signatures were forged.
Dr. Vale had certified my grandmother mentally incompetent, allowing Diane to control her finances.
The fraud continued for years.
One file contained information about Claire.
Copies of her medical records.
Our marriage certificate.
Ultrasound images.
There were also pages describing how to establish that a pregnant woman was mentally unstable.
“They were planning to institutionalize her,” Ortiz said.
Just as they had done to my father.
Another folder contained a court petition requesting emergency guardianship over Claire and our unborn child.
The petitioner was Diane Walker.
The supporting physician was Dr. Howard Vale.
The documents had already been signed.
Only the filing date remained blank.
My mother had not simply wanted to frighten Claire.
She intended to take our baby.
A floorboard shifted upstairs.
Officers rushed toward the stairs.
A teenage boy was hiding in a bedroom closet.
He worked for a delivery service. Diane had paid him to wait inside the house and send her photographs when police arrived.
Ortiz took his phone.
The last message from Diane contained an address.
It belonged to an abandoned medical office outside the city.
Police prepared to move.
Then Claire called.
Her voice was barely audible.
“Ethan, someone is inside my room.”
I heard a door click behind her.
A man’s voice said, “Put down the phone.”
Claire screamed.
The call ended.
Dr. Vale had never planned to meet us at the house.
May you like
The house was a distraction.
His real target was still in the hospital.
