Chương 6
“Before police arrived?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Brooke tell him to?”
“No. She said, ‘We can’t have that here.’”
Clara leaned back in the chair.
There it was: not a full truth, not yet, but the shape of one. Brooke’s quick glance at Morgan. Morgan’s certainty that no weapon existed. Arthur’s red palm. The empty evidence tray.
“Why were you arrested?”
“The officer kept asking whether I had dementia.”
“Do you?”
Helena opened her good eye. “I forget why I enter rooms. I do not forget being hit with a baseball bat.”
“What did Arthur tell him?”
“That I picked it up first.”
“Did he say Brooke struck you?”
“No.”
“Did he see your injuries?”
“He was holding a towel against my eyebrow.”
Clara lowered her head.
For a while the only sound between them was the monitor and Helena’s shallow breathing.
At last Helena said, “He was scared.”
Clara looked up. “So were you.”
“He has never been good when people are angry.”
“That doesn’t excuse him.”
“I didn’t say it did.”
“You’re already protecting him.”
“I’m telling you who he is.”
“And I’m telling you what he did.”
Helena’s mouth twisted. “You always think naming a thing is the same as understanding it.”
Clara almost answered. Instead, she looked at the paper cup of water on the tray.
“Would you like a drink?”
“Yes.”
Clara held the cup while Helena used the straw. It was an awkward task because Clara tilted too quickly at first and Helena had to pull back.
“Slower,” Helena said.
“I know.”
“You clearly don’t.”
Clara adjusted.
Afterward, Helena settled into the pillow.
“Agent Chen needs your statement,” Clara said. “You can refuse until you’ve rested.”
“I won’t refuse.”
“You don’t have to decide now.”
“I decided while your brother carried the bat out of my kitchen.”
Clara studied her face.
“What do you want to happen?”
“I want my phone back.”
“Beyond that.”
“I want my house to be mine.”
“And Arthur?”
Helena watched the curtain move slightly in the air from the vent.
“I don’t know yet.”
Clara nodded.
It was not the answer she wanted. It was Helena’s answer.
Agent Chen entered a few minutes later, accompanied by a victim advocate. Clara stood.
Helena caught the edge of her sleeve.
“Don’t go far.”
“I’ll be outside.”
“As my daughter.”
Clara placed her hand over Helena’s.
“Yes.”
In the hallway, she found Arthur sitting alone against the wall.
He had come without calling again. His olive shirt was wrinkled now, and he held two vending-machine coffees. He offered one to Clara.
She did not take it.
“Brooke went home,” he said.
“You told Agent Chen?”
“She already knew.”
“How?”
“Captain Landry gave her the address.”
“That was generous.”
Arthur lowered the cup. “Everything you say sounds like an accusation.”
“Not everything.”
“Give me an example.”
Clara looked through the small window in Helena’s door. “Mom is alive.”
Arthur flinched.
She regretted that, too, but less.
He placed one coffee on the floor beside him. “I didn’t know Brooke was going to hit her.”
“You carried the bat outside.”
His face went still.
“Mom told you?”
“She told the state investigator.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No. It isn’t.”
Arthur stared into his cup. “I panicked.”
“Where is it?”
“I threw it in the trash.”
“Which trash?”
“The dumpster behind Carlson’s Pharmacy.”
Clara felt a pulse begin behind her right eye. “Why there?”
“I drove around.”
“You left Mom bleeding to drive around with the weapon.”
“Brooke was calling the police. I thought if they saw the bat, they’d arrest everybody.”
“They arrested Mom.”
“I didn’t know they would.”
“You helped them.”
His coffee cup bent slightly under his grip.
“I told them she picked it up first.”
“You omitted the part where Brooke hit her.”
“I was trying to keep Brooke from going to jail.”
“And Mom?”
“I thought they’d see she was hurt.”
“They did.”
Arthur looked at her then. His eyes were red, but he was not crying. “You think I wanted this?”
“I don’t care what you wanted.”
“That’s convenient.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you get to arrive after everything happens and be perfect about it.”
Clara stared at him.
Arthur stood, leaving both cups on the floor. “You weren’t there when Dad got sick. Not really. You came for appointments, asked the doctors questions, made spreadsheets, and left. You weren’t there when Mom couldn’t drive after surgery. You weren’t there when the basement flooded. You weren’t there when she started calling me three times because she forgot she’d called.”
“She does not have dementia.”
“I didn’t say she did.”
“You implied it to police.”
“I said she forgets things.”
“You used ordinary aging to discredit her after your wife assaulted her.”
Arthur’s mouth opened and closed.
Clara stepped closer. “How much money did you take?”
His face drained.
“That’s what this was about,” she said. “The credit line.”
“I didn’t take a hundred and eighty thousand.”
“How much?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“How much?”
“We used forty-two.”
“We.”
“For the restaurant deposit, equipment, legal fees. Then the deal fell apart.”
“And the rest?”
“We haven’t drawn it.”
“You forged Mom’s signature.”
“Brooke handled the application.”
“That isn’t a denial.”
Arthur turned away. “Mom said she’d help us.”
“Twenty thousand.”
“She said we could come to her if we needed more.”
“Did she say you could put her house at risk?”
“We were going to pay it back.”
“With what restaurant?”
He rubbed the red mark on his palm.
Clara noticed and forced herself not to look toward it again.
Arthur said, “You don’t know what the last year has been like.”
“No. I know what tonight was like.”
A hospital custodian approached with a mop bucket. He paused beside the abandoned coffee cups.
“Those yours?”
Arthur picked them up.
“Sorry.”
The custodian nodded and moved on.
May you like
The interruption left the siblings standing in fluorescent quiet, their anger briefly embarrassed by ordinary manners.
Arthur placed the cups in a trash bin. “Brooke found the loan. She thought the restaurant would fix everything.”
