Chapter 6 - The Neighborhood Remembers
I didn't go straight to the shed. I needed Derek to think I was merely sulking. Instead, I walked out the rear pedestrian gate into the alleyway and crossed the lane into the back garden of Mrs. Gable’s house.
Evelyn Gable was seventy-eight years old, a retired Savannah schoolteacher whose late husband had been Dad’s fishing buddy for forty years. When I walked up her porch steps, the kitchen curtain twitched, and the back door opened immediately.
"Get in here, Julian," Mrs. Gable whispered, pulling me inside by my sleeve. "I saw you go into that house twenty minutes ago. I was about to call my nephew on the force."
Her kitchen was warm, smelling of cinnamon tea and old books. She had a thick manila folder sitting on her breakfast table.
"Sit down," she commanded gently. "I’ve been waiting for you to come home for six months."
"Mrs. Gable, what do you know?" I asked.
The elderly woman’s eyes flashed with fierce, maternal anger. "I know that Derek Vance is a monster. And that little viper he married isn't any better."
She opened the folder. Inside were dozens of handwritten notes, dates, and time-stamped photographs taken from her second-story sewing room window, which had a clear, unobstructed view over my parents' backyard.
"Last November," Mrs. Gable said, tapping a photograph. "It was twenty-eight degrees outside—one of the coldest snaps we've had in ten years. Derek turned off the breaker to the workshop and the shed because Arthur asked him why the heating bill was so high. I saw your mother sitting on the shed steps wrapped in three coats, shivering so hard she couldn't hold a glass of water. I threw extension cords over the privacy fence so Arthur could plug in a space heater."
My stomach lurched. The physical cruelty wasn't just neglect; it was calculated psychological warfare designed to break their spirits.
"Why didn't you call Adult Protective Services?" I asked, my voice cracking.
"I did!" Mrs. Gable slammed her small fist onto the table. "Twice! A social worker came out in January. But Derek met her at the gate with a signed letter from a private physician stating Arthur had early-onset dementia and that Martha was his primary caregiver. Derek told the caseworker that Arthur was delusional, that he preferred staying in his workshop during his 'episodes,' and that they were preparing to transition him into a memory care facility."
"Dad doesn't have dementia," I said fiercely. "His memory is sharper than mine."
"Of course he doesn't!" she cried. "Arthur Vance can still calculate board-feet in his head faster than a computer! But Derek had papers, Julian. He had a letter signed by Dr. Robert Vance—his second cousin in Macon. The caseworker saw a big, beautiful historic house, a well-dressed young couple, and an old man who was too proud and too terrified to contradict his own son."
She slid another piece of paper across the table. It was a receipt from a local courier service.
"Three weeks ago," Mrs. Gable continued, "a young woman came to the house in tears. She left an envelope on the porch and ran. Arthur was out raking leaves, and he picked it up before Derek got home. He couldn't read the legal terms, so he brought it to me through the back fence. It was a formal complaint from Brenda Lawson."
I sat up straight. "Brenda? The notary?"
"The very same," Mrs. Gable said. "Brenda and Derek had a falling out over money. Apparently, Derek promised her twenty-five thousand dollars from that new hard-money loan closing on Wednesday to keep her mouth shut about the forged quitclaim deed. When she realized Derek was planning to wire the entire loan payout to an offshore account in the Caymans and leave town, she panicked. She wrote a full confession, detailing how Derek threatened to frame her for embezzlement from his old logistics company if she didn't stamp the transfer deed without Martha present."
"Where is that letter now?" I asked, my heart pounding like a war drum.
Mrs. Gable walked over to her antique bread box, reached inside, and pulled out a notarized affidavit sealed in a blue legal sleeve.
"Arthur gave it to me for safekeeping," she said, placing it firmly in my hands. "He told me, 'Evelyn, if anything happens to Martha and me, make sure Julian gets this. He’s the only one who can stop Derek from destroying what we built.'"
I held the document in my hands. The final nail in Derek’s coffin.
A confession of criminal forgery, extortion, and notary fraud, signed by the very conspirator Derek relied on to execute his $350,000 cash-out heist.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. It was Inez.
"Julian," Inez said, her voice crackling with high-voltage legal energy. "We just got a preliminary emergency injunction from Judge Harrison at the Chatham County Superior Court. The judge reviewed Croft's handwriting analysis and the tax payment records. He just signed an emergency order freezing the title of 412 East Gaston Street. Any attempt to encumber, sell, or transfer the property is now a felony contempt of court."
"It gets better, Inez," I said, looking at the blue legal sleeve in my hand. "I have Brenda Lawson's sworn confession."
There was a brief pause on the line, followed by Inez letting out a low whistle.
"Julian, that doesn't just stop the loan. That’s Grand Larceny, Elder Exploitation, and Scheme to Defraud. That carries ten to twenty years in Georgia state prison."
"Derek told me he’s hosting a private brunch with his title broker and hard-money lenders at the house on Wednesday morning to finalize the closing," I said, a grim satisfaction rising within me. "Let’s not cancel their party."
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"Oh, no," Inez replied with a wicked chuckle. "We wouldn't dream of it. I’ll make sure the Sheriff’s Department and the District Attorney’s Special Prosecutions Unit have front-row seats."
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