Part 8
“Not when I saw them.”
“Was she conscious?”
“Yes.”
Helena’s grip tightened around the phone.
“What did she say?”
“She said she couldn’t feel her hand. He knelt beside her. I went for my phone.”
“And?”
“He told me to wait.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“You told Mara twenty minutes.”
“I looked at the kitchen clock later. It may have been eighteen. It may have been twenty-five. I was frightened.”
“What was he doing?”
“Looking for her phone.”
The rainwater struck the hood in slow, hollow drops.
Mrs. Bell continued. “She was asking him to call. He said, ‘Tell me what you sent.’ She could not answer clearly. Then she stopped speaking. That was when he called.”
Helena put her free hand over her mouth.
“Why did you tell the police he called immediately?”
“He stood beside me while I gave the statement.”
“Why didn’t you correct it later?”
“I lived in his house. My pension comes through the family office. My husband’s medical bills—Judge Vale paid them years ago. He said a confused statement would hurt Noah and dishonor Mrs. Vale.”
“He let her lie on the floor.”
“I know.”
“Did he push her?”
“I did not see him push her.”
“But you think he did.”
“I have tried not to think anything for eleven months.”
Helena closed the settlement document.
“Would you testify?”
Mrs. Bell did not answer.
“Would you say this where he could hear you?”
“I don’t know.”
“That means no.”
“That means I don’t know.”
Helena rested her forehead against the steering wheel. She had wanted courage from the older woman because she was tired of needing her own.
Mrs. Bell said, “There is something else.”
“What?”
“After the ambulance left, he asked me to bring him the robe.”
“The judicial robe?”
“He had taken it off before the paramedics came. The chain was broken. One side of the clasp.”
Helena remembered Edmund placing the chain into its velvet box on the night of his arrest.
“It isn’t broken now.”
“He had it repaired.”
“Do you have proof?”
“No.”
“Did Margaret grab it?”
“I did not see.”
“Then why does it matter?”
Mrs. Bell’s breathing steadied.
“Because he told the police he was downstairs when she fell. But when I came out, the chain was on the floor beside her.”
The call ended when Mrs. Bell’s niece entered the room.
Helena remained in the car until the garage lights switched to their nighttime setting.
She sent Mara a message asking whether the chain had been examined.
Mara called immediately.
“Do not discuss evidence with witnesses,” she said.
“I asked her what happened.”
“You may unintentionally shape her memory.”
“I didn’t tell her about the chain.”
“Did she tell you?”
“Yes.”
Mara was silent for several seconds.
“We photographed it,” she said. “It has been repaired near the clasp. That proves it was repaired.”
“Can you find out when?”
“We are trying.”
“Edmund’s jeweler would have a record.”
“Perhaps.”
“He was on the stairs when Margaret fell.”
“It may support that.”
“You still sound as though none of this matters.”
“I sound as though each fact matters only as much as it can honestly carry.”
Helena gripped the steering wheel.
“I have a settlement offer.”
Mara’s voice softened. “I assumed one would come.”
“If I take it?”
“That is a question for your attorney.”
“I’m asking what happens to Margaret.”
“Margaret is dead whether you take the offer or not.”
Helena flinched.
Mara continued before she could respond.
“I don’t say that to be cruel. You are not responsible for saving her after the fact. You are responsible for deciding what you can live with now.”
“What can you prove without me?”
“The current restraint case includes my observation, your injury, your message, Mrs. Bell’s statement, the phone in his possession, and the hallway footage. Your testimony remains important. The death investigation includes documents, records, digital evidence, and witness accounts that are still being tested.”
“So you might prove nothing.”
“Yes.”
“At least you’re honest.”
“It is not always a useful quality.”
Helena met Noah the next morning at a diner halfway between the hotel and the apartment. The place served eggs all day and had laminated menus sticky at the corners.
Noah arrived early. He had shaved, though he had missed a narrow strip beneath his jaw. He ordered coffee for both of them and remembered that Helena took milk but no sugar.
She left the coffee untouched.
“My father sent me the same offer,” he said.
“What does he want from you?”
“A statement that I misinterpreted what I saw.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“What else?”
“He wants me to say my mother’s voicemail reflected confusion from the stroke.”
“You cannot know that.”
“I know.”
“And the suitcase?”
“He says it never existed.”
Helena looked at him.
Noah gave a short, exhausted smile. “That offended me more than it should have.”
“Because he isn’t even bothering to give you a better lie.”
“Maybe.”
A server refilled their cups and called them honey without looking at either face.
Noah stirred milk into Helena’s coffee although she had not asked him to. He stopped halfway through and set the spoon down.
“I used to think my father lied only when he had a reason,” he said. “That sounds stupid now.”
“It sounds like a child’s solution.”
“He could be cruel, but he was predictable. My mother could be warm and then disappear into her room for a day. He would explain her to me. Tired. Sensitive. Overwhelmed. He always had a word.”
“And you believed the words.”
“I needed somebody to make the house make sense.”
Helena looked through the window at traffic moving along the wet road.
“When we were dating,” she said, “you told me your mother slept through your college graduation because of medication.”
“That’s what he told me.”
“Did you ask her?”
May you like
“She apologized. I didn’t ask why.”
Helena turned back to him. “You keep saying that as if the absence of a question makes you innocent.”
