The Bailiff with the Burned Hand
Chapter 04 - The Bailiff with the Burned Hand
Only four people entered the evidence room after the watch was logged.
The clerk.
A police photographer.
A court technician.
And senior bailiff Martin Hale.
Martin had worked for Hawthorne County for thirty-two years. He was also Charles Mercer’s childhood friend.
Investigators found him near the courthouse boiler room with a fresh burn across his palm.
He claimed he touched a hot pipe.
Ash from the boiler contained fragments of brass.
The watch had been destroyed.
But the audio had already been copied to three independent drives.
Charles’s attorney called the destruction proof that someone wanted to prevent proper examination.
The judge saw it differently.
“Whoever destroyed it feared what remained inside.”
Martin refused to answer questions until prosecutors showed him security footage.
He admitted Charles’s private secretary gave him ten thousand dollars to remove the watch.
He insisted Charles knew nothing.
Rose recognized the script.
Every Mercer crime stopped one employee below the family.
Martin also revealed something unexpected.
The watch contained two compartments.
He burned the recording reel.
A folded strip of paper fell out first.
He hid it inside his shoe.
Investigators recovered it.
It was a handwritten map of the Mercer estate’s old nursery wing.
One room was marked:
THE BLUE ROOM — ORIGINAL RECORDS.
The Blue Room had been sealed for eight years.
Charles claimed it contained asbestos.
Rose knew it once belonged to Daniel’s mother, Margaret Mercer, who died after opposing Charles’s control of the company.
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The judge issued a search warrant.
Charles’s face finally showed fear.
