Chương 5
“I was quiet,” she murmured.
“I know.”
“No.”
Her eyes filled.
“I was supposed to stay quiet.”
She began crying again.
The monitor numbers climbed.
Dr. Patel asked everyone to give her space.
I stepped backward.
Chloe turned her face toward the wall.
Dana followed me into the hallway a few minutes later.
“Don’t take that personally.”
“I already did.”
“She’s terrified.”
“I know.”
“You’re terrified too.”
“I’m not interested in being analyzed.”
“Good, because I’m not your therapist.”
That almost made me laugh.
Almost.
She leaned against the wall beside me.
“We need to talk about where Chloe was living and who had regular access to her.”
“Julian and Victoria.”
“Anyone else?”
“A housekeeper comes twice a week.”
“Name?”
“Rosa.”
“Last name?”
“I didn’t know.”
Dana entered it anyway.
“School?”
“She hasn’t been attending.”
“For seven weeks?”
I looked at her.
“I thought she was doing remote assignments.”
“Through the school?”
“That’s what Julian told me.”
“You saw the assignments?”
“No.”
The same pattern.
I could hear it now before anyone pointed it out.
I had accepted statements instead of evidence because demanding evidence from my own son felt obscene.
Dana seemed to recognize the moment.
“People trust family.”
“Apparently I do it professionally.”
She did not smile.
My phone was still at Julian’s house.
I asked whether there was a hospital phone I could use.
Dana gave me one from the nurses’ station.
I called my younger sister, Margaret.
She answered on the fourth ring sounding half asleep and annoyed.
“Do you know what time it is?”
“Chloe’s alive.”
Silence.
Then a rustle of bedding.
“What?”
“She’s alive.”
“Eleanor, what are you saying?”
“I found her breathing in the casket.”
Margaret made a strange noise.
“Where are you?”
“The hospital.”
“Is this some kind of mistake?”
“No.”
“Where’s Julian?”
“With the police.”
This silence lasted longer.
“Oh, God.”
“I need you to come.”
“I’m getting dressed.”
“Margaret.”
“What?”
“Don’t call anyone.”
“Why would I—”
“Because I don’t know what’s happening yet.”
“You think Julian did something?”
I looked through the glass panel in Chloe’s door.
She had fallen asleep again.
“I think I spent too many years answering that question before anybody asked it.”
Margaret arrived forty minutes later wearing two different shoes.
She noticed only after she sat beside me and crossed one ankle over the other.
“Well,” she said, staring down at the brown loafer on her left foot and the black flat on her right, “that seems about right.”
I laughed once.
It came out sharp and wrong.
Margaret put her hand over mine.
Neither of us said anything for a while.
A floor buffer droned somewhere beyond the emergency department doors.
A man in green scrubs walked past carrying three coffees balanced against his chest.
The vending machine dropped a bag of chips for someone I never saw.
Life continued with an indecency I would later understand as mercy.
“What do they know?” Margaret asked.
“Not enough.”
“Is Chloe awake?”
“On and off.”
“Can I see her?”
“I don’t know.”
Margaret studied my face.
“You look terrible.”
“So do your shoes.”
She looked down again.
“I’m blaming trauma.”
“That seems medically sound.”
For another second, we were sisters again instead of women sitting outside a room where a child had nearly been buried alive.
Then Officer Morales returned.
He was carrying my handbag.
“We recovered this from the residence.”
I stood.
“My phone?”
“Inside.”
“Did you arrest Julian?”
Morales glanced toward Margaret.
“This is my sister.”
“Margaret Hale.”
He nodded.
“Your son is being questioned.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“He has not been formally charged yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because investigators are still establishing what happened.”
I heard my own voice rise.
“He put drugs in her juice.”
“Chloe made a statement that needs to be handled carefully.”
“She told me.”
“I understand.”
“You keep saying that.”
Margaret squeezed my elbow.
Morales did not react.
“We also need to determine who supplied the medication, what it was, and who arranged the death documentation.”
“Death documentation?”
He opened his notebook.
“There was paperwork at the house.”
“Real paperwork?”
“That’s part of what detectives are examining.”
My stomach tightened.
“What did it say?”
“I can’t go into all of it.”
“Then go into what you can.”
Morales looked tired now.
“According to the document, Chloe was pronounced deceased at 4:18 yesterday morning.”
“By whom?”
“A physician named Dr. Leonard Kaminski.”
The name made me cold.
“That’s the doctor Julian mentioned.”
“Yes.”
“Have you found him?”
Morales paused.
“We’re trying.”
Something in his face bothered me.
“What does that mean?”
“The address listed for his practice appears to be a vacant office suite.”
Margaret swore softly.
I gripped the strap of my handbag.
“Is he even a doctor?”
“We’re verifying credentials.”
“You mean you don’t know.”
“That’s correct.”
I sat again.
Margaret remained standing.
She had always become more still when frightened.
As children, I cried first and acted later.
Margaret went quiet enough to scare adults.
“Who called the funeral home?” she asked.
Morales looked at her.
“Victoria.”
“And they took a six-year-old body without checking?”
“We’re speaking with them.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No.”
He did not pretend otherwise.
“They received documentation indicating the death had been medically certified and that the family requested immediate preparation because of a reported infectious concern.”
I felt heat rise into my face.
“Infectious.”
“Yes.”
“That’s why no one touched her.”
Morales closed the notebook.
“It may have discouraged normal contact.”
The arrangement became visible in pieces.
The sealed casket.
The warnings about contagion.
The shortened visitation.
The way Victoria insisted flowers be delivered but discouraged relatives from coming inside.
The way Julian had asked me not to kiss Chloe goodbye because “the doctor said not to risk exposure.”
I had obeyed.
That fact would stay with me longer than almost anything else.
I had stood beside my granddaughter’s casket and obeyed instructions not to touch her.
“Eleanor.”
Margaret crouched in front of me.
May you like
I had started shaking.
“I should have opened it sooner.”
