Chương 5
“You thought she might kill my father but you were mostly worried about paperwork?”
“I did not say I thought she killed your father.”
“You let me think it.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Claire’s anger found somewhere new to go.
She stepped toward him.
“You had six months.”
“I know.”
“You had six months to call me.”
“Yes.”
“You attended his funeral.”
“I know.”
“You hugged me.”
Daniel’s face tightened.
“I know.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I had instructions.”
“Oh, apparently everybody had instructions.”
He absorbed that.
Claire looked away before she said something designed only to hurt him.
The study smelled like bourbon and dust.
She noticed for the first time that her right wrist hurt from swinging the sledgehammer. There was a thin cut near her thumb. Nothing serious. A bright line of blood had dried against the skin.
Daniel opened his briefcase and handed her a handkerchief.
She stared at it.
“You carry a handkerchief?”
“I’m seventy-one.”
“That isn’t an explanation.”
“It becomes one eventually.”
She took it.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then Daniel said, “Your father did not trust me completely either.”
Claire pressed the cloth against the cut.
“Good.”
“He made me promise not to contact you unless one of three things happened.”
“What were the other two?”
“Margaret attempted to transfer or mortgage the house as if she owned it.”
Claire looked up.
“She tried to sell it.”
“I know. The title company called me because I had recorded a notice connected to Arthur’s estate documents.”
“And the third?”
Daniel hesitated.
“If she tried to have you declared legally incompetent.”
Claire stared at him.
“What?”
“He was concerned she might.”
“Why would she?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“Arthur never gave me a coherent explanation.”
“That seems like information you should have led with.”
“It seemed more alarming than useful without evidence.”
Claire paced once around the desk.
“Did she?”
“Did she what?”
“Try to have me declared incompetent.”
“Not that I know of.”
“Then why would Dad think she might?”
Daniel rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Because your father had become suspicious of everyone.”
Margaret returned carrying three cups of coffee on a silver tray.
Claire almost laughed again.
The domestic normalcy of it was unbearable.
Margaret set the tray on the side table.
“I assumed Daniel still takes his black.”
He looked at the cup.
“I do.”
“Of course you do.”
She handed Claire hers.
Milk, no sugar.
Claire took it automatically.
That disturbed her more than anything else.
Margaret still knew how she drank coffee.
“You could have poisoned this,” Claire said.
The words escaped before she could stop them.
Margaret froze.
Daniel looked at Claire.
Claire wished immediately that she could take it back.
Margaret placed her own cup down.
“That is the first cruel thing you’ve said today.”
Claire gave a humorless laugh.
“I smashed a cabinet.”
“Furniture does not have feelings.”
“I’m sorry.”
Margaret looked surprised.
The apology sat awkwardly between them.
Claire looked into the coffee.
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No.”
“Doesn’t mean I trust you.”
“I gathered.”
Daniel took his coffee.
“What happened on Arthur’s final Tuesday?”
Margaret turned toward him.
“You know what happened.”
“I know what you told me.”
“I told you the truth.”
Claire looked at her.
“Tell me.”
Margaret sat at the far end of the leather sofa.
For the first time that morning, she looked sixty.
Not old.
Just sixty.
There was a difference.
“Your father woke at five,” she said. “He was uncomfortable. He couldn’t settle. He wanted the curtains open even though it was still dark. Then he wanted them closed. He asked for tea and didn’t drink it. Around six-thirty, he vomited.”
Claire sat across from her.
Margaret continued.
“The hospice nurse came shortly after seven. She checked him. His breathing had changed. She told me it might be hours, perhaps a day. Your father asked her to leave the room.”
“Why?”
“He wanted to speak to me.”
“What did he say?”
Margaret’s eyes moved toward the window.
“He said he was tired.”
Claire waited.
“He apologized.”
“For what?”
Margaret gave a small, brittle smile.
“Being married to him.”
Daniel looked down at his coffee.
Claire almost smiled too.
That sounded like Arthur.
“What else?”
“He asked me if I had called you.”
Claire’s fingers tightened around the cup.
“Did you?”
“No.”
The answer arrived without defense.
“Why?”
“He told me not to.”
Claire stared.
Margaret nodded slowly.
“Yes. That is the part you will hate.”
“What did he say exactly?”
“He said, ‘Don’t call Claire yet.’”
“Why?”
“He didn’t want you driving in panic.”
“That’s two hours from Boston.”
“I know.”
“He was dying.”
“I knew that.”
“And you listened?”
Margaret’s face changed.
“You think I haven’t asked myself that every day?”
Claire did not answer.
“He said there was time,” Margaret continued. “The nurse had said there might be time. He wanted a bath. He wanted clean pajamas. He wanted the room quiet. He said you would arrive and turn dying into a project.”
Claire flinched because it was exactly the kind of thing Arthur might have said.
Margaret saw it.
“I told him you deserved to be there. He said, ‘Claire deserves a thousand things I have failed to give her. Watching me choke is not one of them.’”
Claire looked down at her coffee.
Her father’s voice appeared in the words so clearly that she hated Margaret for being able to produce it.
“What happened after that?”
“He slept. Around ten, he woke frightened. He kept asking where his wallet was.”
“His wallet?”
“He hadn’t carried it for weeks.”
Claire rubbed her thumb against the cup rim.
Memory could be absurd at the edge of death. She knew that. Her mother had asked for grocery coupons while being taken into surgery.
Margaret continued.
“He became agitated. The nurse told me I could give the prescribed morphine and the sedative if needed. I did.”
“How much?”
May you like
“The prescribed amount.”
“What amount?”
