Chapter 13
We slept somewhere Deputy Ruiz said was safe. Alessandro didn't tell anyone at the community center where it was, and he kept the curtains closed after we arrived.
In the morning, Ms. Bell called.
“They identified the woman from the security still,” Alessandro told me.
I sat at a small kitchen table with Rabbit in my lap. My breakfast was sealed cereal, a banana I peeled myself, and milk from a little carton. I hadn't touched any of it.
“Who is she?”
“Her name is Celia Ward. She handled household vendors and deliveries.”
I knew the name from envelopes near the side door. I didn't know her face belonged with it until Alessandro showed me the printed still Ms. Bell had sent. The picture was gray and fuzzy, but I recognized the way Celia held her chin and the smooth bend of her mouth.
“That’s her.”
Alessandro set the paper down immediately.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t have to keep looking.”
I turned the picture facedown. Only then did I peel one piece from the banana.
Later, Deputy Ruiz met us in a plain county office with beige walls and a clock that ticked too loudly. She didn't ask me to sit in the interview room. Ms. Bell stayed with me in a waiting area while Alessandro went through a locked door.
Through the narrow window, I saw Celia arrive with a man carrying a leather folder. She wore ordinary clothes. That surprised me. I had expected her to look different now that everyone knew.
She glanced toward the waiting area.
Her eyes stopped on Rabbit.
Ms. Bell moved her chair between us.
Celia kept walking.
A long time passed before Deputy Ruiz came out. She crouched far enough away that I didn't have to pull back.
“Celia says the substance was her prescription,” she said. “She says she dropped a tablet near the breakfast table by accident.”
“It wasn't a tablet,” I said. “She put something in the butter.”
Deputy Ruiz didn't tell me I was right or wrong. “That is what the laboratory evidence indicates.”
She explained that residue had been found across the butter where a dropped pill couldn't have put it. The same residue was on the blade of the butter knife. Celia had also said she had never entered my room, but the photograph of Rabbit had been taken there. The time information in the picture placed her inside before breakfast.
“What about the money?” I asked.
“The bills came from a cash withdrawal made with a household expense card assigned to her.”
Ms. Bell opened her folder. Inside was the diner receipt folded twice and the sealed record of the money from Rabbit's ear. The numbers on the papers made a line adults could follow without asking me to say everything again.
Celia changed her explanation after that.
She said the money had been a gift. She said I had misunderstood her. She said the message about remembering too much had referred to a game. Then Deputy Ruiz played the saved call.
“He'll eat it if she obeys.”
Even through the office wall, the recording made my stomach tighten.
Celia's lawyer asked for the audio to stop.
Alessandro came out near lunchtime. He looked tired, and the stubble along his jaw seemed darker than before. He sat beside me without reaching for my hand.
“She said it wasn't meant to hurt me,” he said.
“What was it meant to do?”
He looked toward Ms. Bell before answering. “Make me sleepy and confused long enough for her to put papers in front of me.”
Celia had prepared changes to vendor payments. Some sent money to a company connected to her. She had planned to tell people I was confused if I spoke. If Alessandro noticed the papers later, she would say he had approved them while tired.
“She thought people would believe her,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Because she was a grown-up?”
“Because she controlled the records, and because she believed her position would protect her.”
A door opened down the hall. Celia spoke loudly from inside the interview room.
“This family will regret making this public.”
Deputy Ruiz answered in a voice too low for me to hear. The door shut again.
By late afternoon, Celia had been formally barred from the house, from contacting me, and from using any household account or vendor system. Her keys and access code had been surrendered. The records from the side door, the dark car, the laboratory, and the community center were all attached to the official case.
No one asked me to stand in front of Celia.
No one asked me to make her admit it.
Before we left, Deputy Ruiz showed me a paper with Celia's name printed at the top.
“You don't have to read this,” she said. “I only want you to know that the order says she cannot come near you.”
“Even if she says Alessandro sent her?”
“Even then.”
Outside, the same parking lot light clicked on above us. Alessandro opened the car door, but I waited before climbing in.
“Can she come back to the house?”
“No.”
“Can she call?”
“She may try. We won't answer.”
May you like
I pressed Rabbit's left ear flat, then let it rise again.
For the first time, the woman had a name. More important, her name was written on papers she didn't control.
