Chương 8
Bell handcuffed Helena despite her visible injuries. He did not request medical care. Brooke asked whether Helena could be held until morning. Bell said that would depend on booking.
Near the end of the recording, Arthur followed Bell toward the patrol car and said, “There was a bat, but it’s gone.”
Bell answered, “Then don’t complicate it now.”
Clara closed her eyes.
Velez went silent.
“That is within the audit,” Clara said.
“Yes.”
“Mislabeled evidence. Supervisory direction. Failure to document an admission.”
“Yes.”
“Did Morgan know before we arrived?”
“The station phone log shows Brooke called the nonemergency line at 2:04. Morgan answered. The call recording is missing from the ordinary archive.”
“Missing?”
“Not deleted. Routed to an administrative folder.”
“By whom?”
“Landry’s credentials.”
Clara looked at the blank wall opposite her.
“What did the call contain?”
“We have not recovered audio yet.”
“Metadata?”
“Four minutes, seventeen seconds. Landry joined forty-six seconds into the call.”
Clara stood.
“Sit down,” Velez said.
“I am sitting.”
“No, you’re not. I can hear your chair.”
Clara sat again.
Velez’s voice softened. “Your mother’s case is no longer the only issue.”
“It was never the only issue.”
“Careful.”
Clara looked at her hands. They had begun to shake, so slightly that she might have denied it if anyone else had pointed it out.
“How many other files were routed that way?” she asked.
“We’re checking.”
The answer frightened her more than a number would have.
At six, dawn reached Westbridge as a gray dilution of the sky. The rain weakened to a mist.
Helena slept. Arthur remained at the state office. Brooke was not at home.
Her car was found in the parking lot of a twenty-four-hour grocery store two miles away, unlocked, her purse on the passenger seat. Her phone was gone.
Landry told the state bureau he had no idea where she was.
At 6:32, the Westbridge city attorney arrived at the hospital demanding to know whether Clara had exceeded federal authority. He was a thin man named Paul Rusk, wearing a suit over a golf shirt and carrying no umbrella. Water darkened the shoulders of his jacket.
Clara met him near the coffee kiosk.
“You initiated a system lockdown without municipal approval,” he said.
“I initiated a preservation hold under the conditions of an existing federal compliance audit.”
“Which was never intended for a private domestic incident.”
“The hold covers administrative manipulation of records, not the merits of the family case.”
“That distinction may be convenient to you.”
“It is also written in the order.”
Rusk took off his glasses and polished them with a napkin. “Captain Landry says you threatened officers.”
“Did he specify the threat?”
“He said you used your credentials to intimidate personnel.”
“I identified myself after he ordered me to stop documenting an injured detainee.”
“You are emotionally involved.”
“Yes.”
He paused, annoyed by the answer.
Clara took a cup of coffee from the kiosk clerk and realized after paying that it was decaffeinated. She drank it anyway.
Rusk put his glasses back on. “The city wants a cooperative review.”
“The city has had nine months of cooperative review.”
“And now?”
“Now the state bureau is investigating evidence suppression.”
“Alleged evidence suppression.”
“Yes.”
“You federal people arrive, pronounce everybody corrupt, then leave local taxpayers with legal bills.”
Clara looked at him over the rim of the cup. “My mother pays local taxes.”
“That is not responsive.”
“It is the most responsive thing I have said.”
Rusk lowered his voice. “You should step away entirely.”
“I have.”
“You are standing in front of me.”
“I am not investigating the assault.”
“You are influencing it.”
“My existence influences it. So does yours.”
For a moment he had no answer.
The kiosk clerk called a name. A nurse collected two muffins and walked away without looking at either of them.
Rusk folded the damp napkin into smaller and smaller squares.
“What do you actually want?” he asked.
Clara looked toward the elevators leading to Helena’s floor.
“For this department to stop deciding which facts are convenient before evidence is collected.”
“That is a slogan.”
“No. A slogan would be shorter.”
He almost smiled, then remembered his role.
“The mayor will request a meeting.”
“My supervisor can attend.”
“Not you?”
“Not unless I’m ordered.”
Rusk studied her. “You’re serious about stepping back.”
“I’m serious about not becoming Landry’s defense.”
That answer reached him. He slipped the folded napkin into his pocket.
“Captain Landry has served twenty-seven years,” he said.
“That makes the records easier to find.”
Rusk left.
Clara carried the useless coffee back upstairs.
Helena woke around seven and asked for toast. The hospital delivered scrambled eggs, oatmeal, a banana, and something described as a breakfast biscuit.
“I asked for toast,” Helena said.
“The biscuit is bread-adjacent.”
“It looks upholstered.”
Clara peeled the banana for her.
Helena watched. “I can do that.”
“I know.”
“You peeled it from the wrong end.”
“There is no wrong end.”
“There is if the banana breaks.”
The banana did not break.
Helena ate half of it and pushed the tray away.
“Where is Arthur?”
“With state investigators.”
“Arrested?”
“No.”
“Brooke?”
“Missing at the moment.”
Helena’s expression tightened. “Missing how?”
“Her car was found at a grocery store. Agents are looking for her.”
“Do they think she hurt herself?”
“I don’t know.”
“That means yes.”
“It means I don’t know.”
Helena pressed her lips together.
Clara recognized the beginning of guilt and disliked it instantly.
“Brooke chose to leave,” she said.
“You don’t know that.”
“No.”
“You say things as facts when you want them to be facts.”
“I’m trying to keep you from blaming yourself.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
The room fell quiet.
Outside the window, the hospital roof shone with rain. A maintenance worker in an orange vest cleared leaves from a drain, pausing every few minutes to stretch his back.
Helena said, “She wasn’t always like this.”
May you like
Clara sat beside the bed.
“When Arthur first brought her over, she washed every dish after dinner. Even the clean ones in the rack. I thought she was nervous. Later she told me her mother used to check plates for spots and make her start again.”
