Chương 6
Rose knew twelve people well enough to provide full names.
She knew six more by first name and some combination of workplace, boyfriend, neighborhood, or Instagram handle.
The rest became descriptions.
Tall guy with beard, came with Melissa.
Blonde woman, maybe named Paige.
Two men from Kyle’s gym.
A couple from Austin’s office.
By the time she finished, the receipt looked like evidence from a crime committed by idiots.
“Who invited the people you didn’t know?” I asked.
“A bunch of people invited other people.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“I don’t have one.”
Her breathing sounded shallow through the phone.
I could hear a car horn somewhere near her.
“Where are you?”
“Outside work.”
“You should go inside.”
“Claire.”
“What?”
“I really didn’t know anybody stole anything.”
I looked at my mother’s empty jewelry dish.
“I believe you.”
The words surprised both of us.
Rose did not answer immediately.
Then she said, “You do?”
“I believe you didn’t plan for somebody to steal.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
Her voice hardened a little.
“You always do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make everything sound like a courtroom.”
I almost laughed.
“You brought strangers into my mother’s house after stealing the key.”
“I borrowed it.”
“No.”
“Okay.”
She swallowed the next argument.
That was new.
I called the county sheriff’s nonemergency line and explained what I had found.
A deputy arrived a little over an hour later.
His name was Martin Hale, and he had the tired, polite manner of someone who had already spent the morning mediating disputes involving dogs, property lines, and people who considered volume a substitute for proof.
He photographed the damaged window, the empty dish, the bedroom, and the exterior roofline.
Then he asked me to describe the missing jewelry.
I did my best.
The college ring was gold with a green stone and my mother’s graduation year engraved inside.
The signet ring was heavier, plain except for a worn initial.
The gold band had a small nick near one edge from the time my mother caught it on a garden gate.
“Approximate values?” he asked.
“Not much.”
He looked up from his notebook.
“To you or financially?”
“Financially.”
“That helps.”
I hated the question even though it was reasonable.
I found old photographs on my phone.
In one, my mother was holding a Christmas pie while wearing the gold band.
In another, the college ring was visible on her hand wrapped around a coffee mug.
Deputy Hale zoomed in carefully.
“Send these to the email on my card.”
I did.
Then he asked about the party.
I gave him Rose’s name.
His pen stopped for half a second.
“Did she have permission to be here?”
“No.”
“Did she know that?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell her directly?”
“Yes.”
“Any messages?”
“The conversation was in person.”
“Anybody else hear it?”
“My husband.”
He wrote that down.
“Did your sister-in-law take the key herself?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said she stole it.”
“I said she took it.”
He studied me for a moment.
I appreciated that he noticed the distinction.
“Where was the key kept?”
“At my house.”
“Who had access?”
“My husband and me.”
“Anybody else have regular access?”
I almost said no.
Then I thought about Rose walking into our house without knocking.
“Rose.”
He nodded.
“When did you last see the key before it went missing?”
I could not remember.
That irritated me.
I had been so certain of the story in my own head that I had not examined the edges.
“Probably a week earlier.”
“Could your husband have given it to her?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Deputy Hale did not challenge it.
He simply wrote something down.
I felt defensive on Daniel’s behalf and immediately disliked that feeling.
“Does it matter how she got it if she knew she didn’t have permission?”
“It can.”
He closed his notebook.
“But right now, the burglary is the more serious issue.”
I looked at the torn screen.
“Burglary?”
“If someone entered through that window intending to steal property, potentially.”
The word changed the room.
Rose’s party had felt invasive, reckless, disrespectful.
Burglary belonged to a colder category.
“Will you question everyone?”
“We’ll start with the people we can identify.”
“That’s thirty people.”
“Maybe.”
He gave me a look that gently lowered my expectations.
“Party cases are messy.”
I folded my arms.
“How messy?”
“People don’t remember who came with whom.”
“People delete posts.”
“People cover for friends.”
“People also genuinely don’t notice things.”
He nodded toward the window.
“Somebody could have come through here while twenty people were downstairs and nobody would know.”
“But somebody knows who they are.”
“Probably.”
Probably was not a comforting word.
Before leaving, he asked me not to repair the window until someone from their office confirmed they had everything they needed.
Then he told me to make a complete inventory of anything else missing.
“I already looked.”
“Look again.”
His tone was not patronizing.
It sounded like experience.
“People notice the sentimental things first.”
He was right.
After he left, I searched the house slowly.
At first, I felt ridiculous.
I opened drawers.
Checked closets.
Counted electronics.
Looked behind doors.
The television was there.
The old laptop I kept in the desk was there.
My mother’s camera was still inside a cabinet.
Then I opened the downstairs buffet.
The silver serving set was gone.
Not expensive silver.
Not even real silver, probably.
A platter, a gravy boat, and six little dessert forks my mother used only at Thanksgiving.
Gone.
So was a bottle of bourbon Daniel had given me the previous Christmas.
Upstairs, one of the guest bedroom closets was missing a small lockbox.
That stopped me.
I had forgotten it existed.
I stood staring at the empty shelf.
The box had belonged to my mother.
After her death, I had put paperwork inside it because I could not decide what else to do with it.
Nothing valuable.
Old insurance documents.
May you like
Her marriage certificate.
A copy of my birth certificate.
