Chương 5
Nolan waited.
“Marta sharpened a knife in the kitchen,” Elena continued. “She said if the cord came first, she would know what to do.”
Hayes shifted near the door.
“Did she threaten to use the knife on you?”
“She didn’t have to.”
“What did she say?”
“She said hospitals cut women open because women are lazy.”
“What changed?”
“Daniel went outside.”
“Why?”
“He heard a truck.”
“What truck?”
“The garbage truck.”
Elena opened her eyes. The detail felt ridiculous and therefore true. Thursday was collection day. Daniel always moved his pickup from the curb before seven because the sanitation driver had once left a warning sticker on it.
“When he went outside, I pulled my left hand until the rope loosened,” she said. “The chair tipped. I fell.”
“Did you strike your abdomen?”
“Yes.”
“Then what?”
“I crawled to the kitchen. The old phone was charging behind the flour bin.”
“Why there?”
“Daniel didn’t know I had the charger.”
She called 911. The dispatcher heard Marta return and tell her to hang up. Elena dropped the phone under the table. Marta kicked it toward the wall, but the call remained connected long enough for the dispatcher to trace the address.
Daniel came back inside before the ambulance arrived. He untied Elena, changed her dress, and told her to say she had fallen in the shower.
“Did you agree?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he said he would tell them I tried to kill the baby.”
Nolan leaned back slightly. “Did you believe they would believe him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he was calm.”
The interview lasted two hours and twenty-three minutes. Elena asked for one break. During it, Lucia returned with coffee and accidentally spilled sugar packets across the windowsill. She began stacking them by color without noticing she was doing it.
When Nolan finished, he switched off the recorder.
“I need to tell you something difficult,” he said.
Elena braced herself.
“The hospital findings and recordings are significant. So is the 911 call. But criminal cases move slower than people expect. Defense attorneys will challenge the recordings, your memory, the medical causation, and the context. They may say the fetal death resulted from the fall rather than the restraint or delayed care.”
“It was all the same morning.”
“I know.”
“No. You know the order. That isn’t the same.”
Nolan accepted the correction with a small nod.
“What are they charged with?” Lucia asked from the doorway.
He looked at her, then at Elena. “Daniel is being booked on domestic assault, unlawful restraint, evidence tampering related to his attempt to seize the phone, and interfering with an emergency call. Marta is being booked on unlawful restraint and domestic assault. Additional charges may follow after review by the district attorney.”
“And the baby?” Lucia said.
“That requires medical and legal review.”
Lucia’s expression turned hard. “A baby died.”
“Yes.”
“Because they waited.”
“That is what we are investigating.”
“You heard them.”
“I heard a recording. I need the complete files, authentication, medical opinion, and evidence from the house.”
Lucia took a step toward him.
Elena said her name.
Lucia stopped.
Nolan left his card on the tray, though the tray had been replaced. The new one was beige plastic and did not rattle.
That night, Elena woke every forty minutes.
Sometimes she woke because of pain. Sometimes because a cart rolled past. Once because a man in another room shouted for someone named Tommy. Each time, Elena reached toward the place where the cracked phone had been.
The empty tray frightened her.
At three in the morning, the nurse found her trying to lower the bed rail.
“Where are you going?”
“To get it.”
“Get what?”
“My phone.”
“The police have it.”
“I know.”
The nurse raised the rail again. Her badge said JENNA in blue letters. “Do you want me to call the advocate?”
“No.”
“Your sister?”
“No.”
Jenna tucked the blanket around Elena’s feet. “Then I’m going to stand here for a minute.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
She stood beside the bed, arms folded loosely, while the monitor made its quiet sounds.
After a while, she said, “The vending machine ate three dollars from me tonight.”
Elena looked at her.
“I hit B-six for crackers. It gave me nothing. Then I hit B-seven and got two granola bars.”
“Maybe it felt guilty.”
“That machine does not experience guilt.”
Elena smiled.
Jenna smiled back, then adjusted the IV line. “Try to rest.”
In the morning, the district attorney’s office requested that Elena remain available for a forensic interview. The hospital wanted to discharge her the following day if her blood count improved. Renee arranged emergency placement in a confidential shelter two counties away.
Lucia objected.
“She needs family,” she said.
“She needs an address Daniel does not know,” Renee replied.
“He’s in jail.”
“He may not remain there.”
Lucia looked at Elena. “You want to go with strangers?”
Elena did not know.
At Lucia’s apartment, there would be her nieces, eight and eleven, who knew Elena mostly as the aunt who stopped coming. There would be cartoons in the morning, damp towels on the bathroom floor, and Lucia leaving for night shifts at the nursing home. There would also be the parking lot Daniel had visited twice during their separation four years earlier, sitting in his truck until Lucia called police.
At the shelter, there would be rules, locked doors, shared kitchens, women with stories Elena did not want to hear because they might resemble her own.
“I’ll go to the shelter,” she said.
Lucia looked away.
“It isn’t because I don’t want you.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Lucia picked up her coffee. It had gone cold. “You still do that.”
“Do what?”
“Answer things I haven’t said.”
Elena almost apologized, stopped herself, and watched Lucia drink the cold coffee anyway.
May you like
Daniel’s bond hearing occurred by video that afternoon. Elena did not watch, but Nolan called afterward.
The judge set a high bond and ordered Daniel to have no contact with Elena. Marta received a lower bond because she had no prior record, was nearly sixty, and had lived in the county for thirty-one years. She was released that evening to stay with a cousin.
