Chương 5
Renata was moved to the small sitting room beside the kitchen with a guard outside. Lorenzo refused to let anyone search her apartment until Heller arranged written consent or another lawful basis. The restraint surprised Elena. Perhaps it belonged to Heller, not Lorenzo.
At seven ten, the foundation’s registrar called the mansion. She had received an automated alert from the clock’s display sensor indicating an impact and humidity exposure. The device was hidden inside the base for insurance monitoring. Heller put the call on speaker.
“Is the object secure?” the registrar asked.
“It has been recovered,” Heller said.
“Recovered from what?”
“A household incident.”
“What kind of incident?”
“We are determining that.”
“I need photographs, environmental readings, and an incident report tonight. The insurer will need notification. If there was theft or attempted theft, the board chair has to be informed.”
Lorenzo took the phone. “Celia, you’ll have the facts when I have them.”
“That is not how custody agreements work, Lorenzo.”
“It is how incomplete facts work.”
“The object is not yours.”
His fingers tightened around the phone.
“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
Celia promised to arrive within the hour with a conservator. The call ended without either of them pretending to be pleased.
That forced the next decision. Lorenzo could no longer contain the matter as household discipline. The clock belonged to an institution with reporting obligations. The people arriving would document what they saw, and their notes would outlive any private explanation he offered.
He told Heller to call the local police.
Renata heard from the sitting room. Her posture changed when the patrol car’s lights reflected blue against the wet kitchen windows. Until then she had seemed to believe the rules of the mansion would protect her because she had spent years enforcing them. The arrival of outsiders made those rules smaller.
Two officers entered through the service door, a woman named Sergeant Patel and a younger man named Collins. Neither appeared impressed by the house. Patel asked everyone except Heller and Lorenzo to leave the staff dining room, then changed her mind when she saw Mara refusing to release Elena’s skirt.
“She stays with her mother,” Patel said.
Lorenzo nodded.
Patel looked at him. “That wasn’t a request for permission.”
A nearly invisible smile touched Heller’s mouth.
The officers separated the interviews. Elena and Mara were taken to the breakfast room at the end of the hall. It had pale blue wallpaper and a clock shaped like a rooster. Mara disliked the rooster immediately.
“It looks mad,” she said.
“It’s a clock.”
“It has eyebrows.”
Sergeant Patel sat across from them and placed her body camera on the table so Mara could see the blinking light. She explained that it recorded sound and pictures. She did not use a baby voice.
“I need you to tell me what happened,” she said. “But first, did your mommy tell you what to say?”
“No.”
“Did Mr. Duca?”
“No.”
“Did anybody promise you something if you said Miss Renata took the clock?”
Mara glanced at the door. “I got cake.”
“Before or after you told them?”
“After.”
“Was the cake payment?”
Mara looked at Elena, confused.
Patel tried again. “Did they say, ‘Tell us about the clock and you can have cake’?”
“No. I said I was hungry.”
“Good. What color was the towel cart?”
“White.”
“What was on it?”
“Towels.”
“What color?”
“White.”
“Were all the towels white?”
Mara frowned. “One had a brown thing.”
“What kind of thing?”
“Coffee. Or poop.”
Collins coughed into his hand.
Patel remained serious. “Where were you when you saw Miss Renata?”
“Behind the big freezer.”
“Could she see you?”
“No. Bunny was peeking.”
“Did Bunny see it, or did you?”
“Both.”
“Was anyone else there?”
“Pino.”
“How do you know it was the jeweled clock?”
“It was gold and sparkly. Miss Renata said it was the jeweled clock when she said it was stupid.”
Mara’s account stayed mostly consistent. She confused the order of the gray door and the towel cart once, then corrected herself without help. She said Renata used the silver key to open the utility closet, went inside, and came out without the clock. She then pushed the towel cart toward the rear door. Pino followed, growling quietly. Outside, Renata lifted the clock from beneath the towels and placed it into the black bag.
“Why did she put it outside?” Patel asked.
“She said, ‘They’ll find it where she goes.’”
“Who was she talking to?”
“Her phone.”
This was new.
Elena stared at her daughter. “You didn’t tell us that.”
“You didn’t ask.”
Patel leaned forward slightly. “Did you hear another person’s voice?”
“No.”
“Did you see the phone?”
“It was in her ear.”
“What else did she say?”
Mara rubbed Bunny’s missing eye. “She said, ‘I did my part.’ Then Pino looked at me.”
“Did Renata see you?”
“Maybe.”
“What happened next?”
“She said, ‘Come out right now.’ I ran behind the bins.”
“Did she follow?”
“No. The men had Mommy.”
Patel asked Mara to draw where everything had been. The result looked like a cluster of boxes, a giant dog, and three figures with arms growing from their heads, but the locations matched the courtyard and utility corridor. The officer photographed it.
When the interview ended, Mara asked whether she could keep the drawing.
Patel said yes.
“Even though it has police on it?”
“It belongs to you.”
Mara folded it into four squares and put it in Bunny’s apron, which did not have a pocket. The paper fell out twice. Collins found a small evidence envelope and let her use it as a pouch after crossing out the printed label.
May you like
Elena watched the kindness with suspicion at first, then with exhaustion. She had spent so much of the evening measuring danger that kindness felt like another thing requiring proof.
Sergeant Patel asked to speak with Elena alone. Danny took Mara to the kitchen to watch him make frosting for the expensive bread. Pino followed, and Lorenzo sent one guard after them at a distance.
