That explained why Luke had been so determined to get the easement delivered. It did not establish anything about the accident, and I wasn’t going to invent an answer to something the highway patrol had already investigated. What I knew was that Dale had taken the envelope afterward and concealed it from me.
Arlene stood to leave, then paused.
“There’s one more thing behind the papers.”
I reached into the envelope and found a smaller sealed one. My name was written across it in Luke’s familiar, uneven handwriting. Beneath it were four words:
Open when it’s done.
PART 5: THE HEARING DALE HADN’T EXPECTED
I placed Luke’s sealed letter in the drawer beside our bed. I wanted to read it, but he had written Open when it’s done, and the meadow remained tied up in Dale’s lawsuit.
The next morning, Arlene met Walt at his office and gave him a signed statement describing what she had seen Dale doing with Luke’s signature. I brought the original easement papers, the county address notice, and the towing-yard inventory. Walt copied everything and arranged to keep the originals secure.
He examined the letter Dale had submitted to the court.
