He had chosen cremation.
His instructions stated that his ashes should remain with the funeral
home until disputes involving his estate were resolved.
That was why Walter had never seen a burial.
It was also why there was no grave beside Mason’s mother.
Mason asked why no one told him.
Naomi did not pretend to know.
They requested lawful records instead of inventing an answer.
Prison correspondence logs later showed several letters from Arthur had
been returned because they contained an outdated inmate routing code.
Other letters Arthur claimed to have sent had no corresponding prison
record.
There was no reliable way to determine what happened to every missing
envelope.
Mason wanted to blame Victoria.
Naomi warned him not to turn missing information into proof.
“There is enough here that is real,” she said. “You don’t need imaginary
crimes.”
That sentence changed the way Mason approached everything afterward.
