Chapter 8: What the Transfer Paid For
The tox screen came back the following morning.
Detective Soares called me at seven forty-five.
I was already awake, sitting up in bed with the second cup of bad hospital coffee, watching the parking lot fill.
"Chloral hydrate," she said.
"A significant dose.
Enough to produce deep unconsciousness for eight to twelve hours in an average adult.
Enough to slow respiration and heart rate to the point where a cursory examination might miss signs of life."
I set the coffee down.
"The doctor who signed the d3@th certificate," I said.
"Did you find him?"
"Her.
Dr.
Pamela Voss.
She's a general practitioner in Brookfield.
She's been Christopher's personal physician for six years." A pause.
"She's also the named beneficiary on a 30,000-dollar payment made from a joint account belonging to you and Christopher Cross — three weeks ago."
The 42,000-dollar transfer.
Thirty to Voss.
Twelve somewhere else.
"The remaining twelve thousand," I said.
"Chloe's credit card debt.
Paid in full on the same day."
I sat with that for a moment.
The math was so clean it was almost elegant.
Everyone bought.
Everyone paid.
Everyone waiting for the same morning.
"Is Voss in custody?"
"She was brought in for questioning last night.
She's cooperating." Soares's voice stayed level.
"She says Christopher told her you had been found unresponsive and that the family wanted to avoid an autopsy for religious reasons.
She says she believed him."
"Do you believe her?"
"I believe she made a choice she knew was wrong and is now trying to minimize it.
That's a different thing." A brief pause.
"Christopher's attorney arrived yesterday evening.
He's no longer speaking to us voluntarily."
"What about Rowan Fitch?"
"Fitch was picked up at Mitchell Airport at eleven last night.
He had a one-way ticket to Cancún." She said it without drama, but I felt the weight of it.
"He's in custody.
His attorney is already arguing he had no knowledge of what was in the milk — that he was only involved in the property transaction."
"The property transaction that required my d3@th."
"Yes.
That argument is not going well for him."
I almost laughed.
I didn't, but it was close.
After I hung up, I sat for a long time without moving.
The morning light came through the window at a low angle and lay across the blanket in a pale stripe.
I thought about the house — my grandmother's house, the one she had left specifically to me, the one with the oak tree in the backyard that I had climbed as a child.
I thought about Christopher standing in its kitchen every morning for four years, knowing what he was planning.
I thought about Chloe clasping my grandmother's necklace around her own neck.
My mother arrived at nine with real coffee and a change of clothes.
She sat down, handed me the cup, and looked at me the way she had looked at me when I was a child and something had gone wrong that she couldn't fix — steady and present and not pretending it was smaller than it was.
"How are you?" she asked.
"I don't know yet," I said honestly.
She nodded.
"That's fair."
"Mom.
When Christopher asked you about the insurance policy eight months ago.
What did you think?"
She wrapped both hands around her own cup.
"I thought it was strange.
A husband suggesting a large policy on his wife's life and presenting it as her idea.
That felt wrong to me."
"But you didn't say anything to me."
"I told him to talk to you directly.
I thought—" She stopped.
"I thought if something was wrong, you would tell me."
"I didn't know there was anything to tell."
"I know." She looked at the window.
"I should have called you that same day.
I've been sitting with that since yesterday morning."
"Mom."
She looked at me.
"You got Ruth.
You kept your face still for forty minutes while your daughter was lying in a coffin.
You got me out." I held her gaze.
"That's what I'm going to remember."
Her eyes filled.
She didn't let it spill over — she pressed her lips together and breathed through it, the way she had always done, the way I had watched her do my entire life.
"The necklace," she said finally.
"The police took it as evidence.
But it will come back to you."
"I know."
Outside, a car pulled into the parking lot.
An ordinary Tuesday.
People going to appointments, visiting relatives, living lives that had nothing to do with mine.
May you like
Detective Soares had said the charges would be filed by end of week.
I picked up my coffee and drank it while it was still warm.
