Chương 3
"Judith, tell them this is ridiculous."
I had spent six years translating her insults into misunderstandings and Leo's silences into fatigue.
My mouth opened from habit.
Nothing came out.
Freya's face hardened.
"Don't do this."
It was the first time anyone in the room had spoken as though I held power.
Leo noticed too.
"Jude."
He used the nickname softly.
He had not called me that in months.
"Come on."
Ruiz glanced at me.
I looked at Leo's clean blue polo and thought of the gray shirt that had smelled like smoke.
"What purchase record?"
I asked.
Ruiz did not answer immediately.
"This is an active investigation."
"You just told me someone tried to destroy it."
"Because that affects your safety."
Leo laughed once.
"What safety?"
Every head turned toward him.
He seemed to hear his own words after the rest of us did.
"What I mean is, she's in a hospital."
Ruiz's expression did not change.
"Take him."
The officers led him away.
Freya stayed rooted by the door.
One of the officers returned for her.
"I am not a suspect," she said.
"No one said you were."
"Then why are you separating me from my son?"
"Because Detective Ruiz asked us to."
Freya looked at me again.
This time she did not ask for help.
She placed the silver tea tin on the counter with exaggerated care before leaving.
Ruiz immediately told the officer not to touch it.
The room became quiet enough for me to hear the air-conditioning vent click on.
Dr. Patel had disappeared sometime during the exchange.
I was suddenly aware that I was still wearing a hospital gown that tied badly at the back.
A detective was standing beside my bed.
My husband was being questioned by police.
My mother-in-law had carried an object from my kitchen into a hospital as if she had been trying to save it.
And I could not scratch an itch on my left calf because I could not feel the calf.
"Why did she bring that?"
I asked.
Ruiz looked at the tea tin.
"She says she removed it from your kitchen because she was afraid police would mishandle a family heirloom."
"That's mine."
"I gathered that."
"She hates that tin."
Ruiz looked at me more carefully.
"What makes you say that?"
"It's old."
"Old bothers her?"
"Anything chipped bothers her."
The silver plating had worn thin along one corner years before I met Leo.
Freya had once suggested I replace it with a glass canister because the tin made our kitchen look like "a thrift store with plumbing."
I shifted against the pillow.
"She didn't take it to protect it."
"No."
Ruiz pulled the chair closer.
"What do you think she was protecting?"
I watched the doorway.
"I don't know."
That answer frightened me because it was true.
Ruiz sat.
"The compound was detected on residue taken from a container in your pantry."
"The tea?"
"We're waiting on confirmation from the lab."
"Then where did the purchase record come from?"
She rubbed one thumb along the edge of her notebook.
"A search of a household computer showed deleted browsing and transaction history connected to a chemical supplier."
My stomach tightened.
"Leo's computer?"
"A shared desktop."
We kept it on a small desk beside the laundry room because Leo said laptops made people lazy.
I used it mostly for printing shipping labels and checking tax documents.
He used it for bills.
Or said he did.
"What chemical supplier?"
"I can't give you all the details yet."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't know who used that computer."
"I barely use it."
"That's important."
"You don't believe me?"
"I'm not asking you to convince me."
The sentence was so different from the way Leo spoke that I almost missed its kindness.
Ruiz leaned back.
"I'm asking you to remember accurately."
I looked at the ceiling.
There was a tiny dead gnat trapped inside the light fixture.
"I don't know what's accurate anymore."
"Then start with boring things."
I looked at her.
"Boring things?"
"Routine."
She shrugged.
"People lie about motives better than routines."
So I told her about evenings.
Leo usually got home around six thirty unless traffic was bad.
He put his keys in the blue bowl by the door.
He complained if I had left mail on the kitchen counter.
We ate around seven.
After dinner, he cleaned because he disliked the way I loaded the dishwasher.
At eight thirty, almost exactly, he made tea.
Always chamomile for me.
Sometimes black tea for himself.
Sometimes nothing.
"Did he start making yours recently?"
"No."
"Always done it?"
"For years."
"When did the taste change?"
"February."
"Anything else change in February?"
I started to say no.
Then I remembered the mug.
"I stopped using my usual cup."
Ruiz's pen moved.
"Why?"
"It broke."
"How?"
"I dropped it."
"Because your hand was weak?"
My fingers curled against the blanket.
"I think so."
The mug had been blue ceramic with a crooked painted fox my sister bought me at a craft market.
I had dropped it while reaching for the sugar.
Leo had been furious about the shards.
Not worried.
Furious.
He told me to sit down and swept the pieces himself.
After that, he chose my cup each night.
Usually one of the heavy white mugs from a matching set Freya had given us.
"Does that matter?" I asked.
"Maybe."
Ruiz wrote for several seconds.
"Did anyone else regularly drink from your mug?"
"No."
"Did Leo ever drink your tea?"
"He hates chamomile."
"Did he prepare it in front of you?"
"Sometimes."
"Sometimes isn't always."
"No."
She waited.
I closed my eyes.
The kitchen came back in pieces.
The kettle.
The overhead light above the stove.
Leo with his back to me.
The small clink of a spoon against ceramic.
Me sitting at the breakfast table with swollen feet, complaining that my eyes were blurry.
Him saying, "Drink this and go lie down."
May you like
Another evening.
The kettle was already boiling when I came downstairs.
