Part 7
Then he took the skiff.
“Why?” Mara asked.
“He said he was going to find her.”
“Did you believe him?”
“At first.”
“What changed?”
“He returned dry.”
Mara stopped writing.
Lydia described the next three days. Julian claimed Margaret had taken another boat and gone to the mainland. He said she needed time. He removed the papers from the boathouse. He told Lydia to go home and answer no calls.
The next night, he drove Margaret’s car to the ferry terminal. Lydia followed in her own vehicle and brought him back.
On the third day, he reported Margaret missing.
“Where was her purse?” Mara asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Phone?”
“I don’t know.”
“Coat?”
“I don’t know.”
“Boots?”
“I don’t know.”
“What happened to the skiff?”
“Julian said it drifted loose.”
“It was found tied at the south dock.”
Lydia stared at her.
“When?”
“The morning after Margaret disappeared.”
“Julian told me—”
“I know what Julian told you.”
Mara closed the folder.
“Why are you speaking now?”
Lydia looked at the recorder on the table between them.
“Because Clara broke the chest.”
“That is what happened. It is not why.”
Lydia rubbed the pale indentation where she had removed her engagement ring before entering the station.
“Margaret reached for me,” she said. “I let him pull me away.”
Julian was arrested the following morning on charges related to financial fraud, obstruction, evidence tampering, and endangering Margaret during the disappearance. Prosecutors did not immediately charge him with homicide. Lydia’s account was significant, but no body had been found, and the exact circumstances of Margaret’s death remained uncertain.
News vans arrived outside Briarwood before breakfast.
Clara saw the footage on Sarah’s television. Julian emerged from the estate in the same black overcoat he wore to board meetings. His hands were cuffed in front of him. He kept his face turned from the cameras.
Sarah switched off the screen.
“I was watching.”
“You were staring.”
“That’s how watching works.”
Sarah sat beside her. “You don’t have to see every part.”
“What if they lie about a part I don’t see?”
“They can lie whether you see it or not.”
Clara pulled her knees against her chest. She had not slept through the night since reading Margaret’s letter. Each time she closed her eyes, she heard her mother say she was going to the boathouse.
“Did Lydia kill her?”
“I don’t know.”
“She did nothing.”
“That is what she told the police.”
“Doing nothing can kill someone.”
Sarah looked at her hands.
“Yes,” she said.
Clara expected an adult correction. Sarah did not provide one.
The estate trust paid Julian’s initial legal fees until a judge froze the accounts. Staff members received notices that payroll might be delayed. Two tenant families on Vale-owned property called Sarah because they did not know whether their leases remained valid. The chapel caretaker resigned after reporters photographed him carrying trash to his truck.
Consequences spread through Briarwood in ordinary, inconvenient ways.
The florist wanted payment for the memorial arrangements. The catering company had not been paid. Margaret’s portrait remained in the chapel because no one agreed on where it should go. The walnut chest was held in evidence, leaving a clean rectangle on the floor beneath the painting.
At school, a boy asked Clara whether her uncle had drowned her mother for money.
She hit him with a library book.
The book was a hardcover history of Massachusetts and bruised his shoulder. Clara received a two-day suspension.
Sarah picked her up without speaking until they reached the car.
“He said it like it was funny,” Clara said.
“I know.”
“He said my mother was stupid for going to the boathouse.”
“I know.”
“She wasn’t.”
“No.”
Clara watched the school disappear in the side mirror. “Are you going to tell me hitting is wrong?”
“You already know.”
“Then why are you quiet?”
“I’m deciding whether I would have used a heavier book.”
Clara turned toward her.
Sarah started the car. “That was not permission to do it again.”
For the first time since the memorial, Clara laughed.
It lasted only a second. She covered her mouth afterward, ashamed of the sound.
Sarah pretended not to notice.
Julian was released on bond after surrendering his passport and agreeing to stay away from Clara, Lydia, and the estate’s financial records. He moved into a waterfront condominium owned by a friend.
Three days later, Clara received a letter.
It had been sent through Julian’s attorney and reviewed by Sarah’s lawyer. The first page contained careful sentences about grief, misunderstanding, and family loyalty. Julian wrote that Margaret’s death had been an accident. He denied preventing a rescue. He accused Lydia of changing her account to reduce her own punishment.
On the second page, he wrote:
Your mother was not as certain as she sounded on that recording. She was frightened by financial decisions she did not understand. I made mistakes in trying to protect what generations of our family built. One day you may understand that adults sometimes choose between harms, not between right and wrong.
Clara stopped reading.
At the bottom, Julian had added one handwritten line.
I know where she left something for you.
Sarah wanted to give the letter to Mara. Clara said no.
“It’s mine.”
“He may be trying to manipulate you.”
“He is.”
“Then why keep it?”
“Because he wants something.”
Sarah studied her. “What?”
“The recorder.”
“The police have it.”
“He wants me to say Mom was confused.”
That afternoon, Clara asked to speak with Detective Keene.
Mara arrived after dinner carrying a paper bag of doughnuts she had forgotten in her car since morning. The glaze had melted into the bag. Sarah put them on a plate anyway.
Clara gave Mara the letter.
“He says he knows where Mom left something.”
“He may be lying.”
“I know.”
“He may want contact with you.”
“I know.”
“He is not allowed contact.”
Clara pushed the plate of doughnuts away. “Can I call him?”
May you like
Sarah sat up. “No.”
Mara did not answer immediately.
