Chapter 9: What Justice Looks Like
The DA filed formal charges six weeks after the arrest.
Margaret faced four counts: @ssault causing bodily harm, @ttempted r0bbery, conspiracy to commit fraud, and @ttempted fraud against an estate.
The fraudulent amendment, the fake notary stamp, the courier booking, the recorded phone call in which she offered me money to drop the charges — all of it went into the filing.
Carla cooperated fully.
Her charges were reduced in exchange for her testimony.
She pled to a single count of @ttempted r0bbery and received two years' probation and mandatory community service.
She also agreed to a full financial audit of the funds Margaret had told her were being held in her name.
The audit found almost nothing.
Margaret had spent or hidden nearly everything.
I was not in the courtroom the day Margaret entered her plea.
Daniel was there.
He called me afterward.
"She pled guilty to two counts," he said.
"Fraud and @ssault.
The other two were dropped as part of the agreement."
"What's the sentence?"
"Thirty months.
She'll likely serve eighteen with good behavior." A pause.
"She wanted me to tell you she's sorry."
I was standing in the kitchen of the house in Paradise Valley.
We had moved back a month earlier.
Rosa had helped Irene redecorate the bedroom — new furniture, different arrangement, different curtains.
It looked like a different room now.
That had been the point.
"Did she say it like she meant it?" I asked.
Daniel was quiet for a moment.
"She said it like she wanted something," he said.
"Then don't pass it on," I said.
"There's nothing for her here."
I ended the call and set the phone on the counter.
Irene came in from the hallway, one hand on her stomach.
She was seven months along now.
The baby moved constantly.
She said it felt like someone was rearranging furniture in a room that was already too small.
"Daniel?" she asked.
"She pled guilty.
Thirty months."
Irene nodded slowly.
She didn't look relieved exactly.
She looked like someone setting down a bag she had been carrying for a long time.
"And Carla?"
"Probation.
She cooperated."
Irene moved to the kitchen table and sat down.
She was quiet for a moment.
"I don't hate Carla," she said.
"I want you to know that.
What she did was wrong.
But I think she was just as trapped as I was, in a different way."
"I think so too."
"Have you spoken to her?"
"Once.
Last week.
She's staying with a friend in Phoenix.
She's looking for work." I sat down across from her.
"She asked about you.
About the baby."
Irene looked at the table.
"What did you tell her?"
"That you were well.
That the baby was healthy." I paused.
"I didn't tell her more than that.
I didn't think it was my place."
Irene nodded.
She was quiet for a long moment.
"Maybe someday," she said.
"Not now.
But maybe."
I didn't push it.
It wasn't my forgiveness to manage.
The civil case was still ongoing.
Daniel was pursuing recovery of the two million dollars Margaret had withdrawn from the discretionary fund.
Some of it was traceable.
Some of it was gone.
He said we would likely recover a portion.
The rest would be a loss we absorbed and moved past.
I had made my peace with that.
Money could be rebuilt.
Some things couldn't.
Patricia Holt — Irene's lawyer friend — had submitted Irene's photographed documents to the DA as supplementary evidence of premeditation.
The DA had used them to push for the fraud count.
Patricia had done it without billing a single hour.
I had sent her flowers and a letter.
She had sent back a card that said: *She never stopped fighting.
May you like
She just needed someone to fight with her.*
I kept the card.
