Chapter 4: The Name in the Letter
The officers took Karen's statement in the kitchen and my father's in the hallway.
I sat with Grandma on the sofa.
She kept one arm around me and didn't let go.
When my father came back, he had the letter folded in his inside jacket pocket.
He sat down across from the taller officer and placed his hands flat on his knees.
"I want to understand what you can do tonight," he said.
"And what requires more time."
"Tonight, we document the incident and the child's condition," the officer said.
"We can note the letter as a related item.
If the contents suggest a separate matter, that goes to a different department."
"What department?"
"Depends on what the records show.
Financial misconduct, if that's what your wife is suggesting, goes to—"
"She's not suggesting anything," Karen said from the doorway.
"A confused old woman is making accusations based on a letter from someone who isn't here to explain herself."
Grandma didn't turn around.
"Her name," Grandma said, "was Claire.
She was my daughter.
And she was not confused about anything in her life."
The room held still for a moment.
"The letter mentions a name," my father said.
He was looking at Karen.
"Someone my wife was in contact with before we were married.
Someone she continued to be in contact with after."
Karen's expression didn't change.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"A man named Rowan Hess."
Something moved across her face.
Fast.
Gone before it fully arrived.
"I don't know anyone by that name," she said.
My father reached into his jacket and unfolded the letter.
He didn't read from it.
He just held it.
"Claire wrote that she found wire transfers.
From a joint account she and I held before she became ill.
Small amounts at first.
Then larger ones.
Over eighteen months."
"Daniel, this is—"
"She wrote that she traced them.
That she kept the records.
And that the account receiving the transfers was registered to a holding company." He paused.
"Managed by Rowan Hess."
Karen took one step into the room.
"Your wife was sick.
She was on medication.
Whatever she thought she found—"
"She wasn't sick when she started looking," Grandma said.
"She was sick when she finished.
There is a difference."
Karen looked at the officers.
"Are you going to let this continue?
This is a private family matter.
You came here about a child on a balcony.
That's it."
The taller officer looked at my father.
"Sir, if you have documentation related to a separate financial matter, that needs to go through the appropriate channel.
That's not something we handle tonight."
"I understand," my father said.
"I'm not asking you to handle it tonight."
He folded the letter and put it back in his pocket.
"I'm asking you to note that it exists."
The officer wrote something down.
Karen watched the pen move across the page.
"You're making a mistake," she said to my father.
Her voice had changed.
Quieter now.
Careful.
"Whatever she told her mother, whatever she wrote down, she was frightened and she wasn't thinking clearly.
If you go down this road, you will regret it."
My father looked at her for a long time.
"Is that a warning?" he said.
Karen said nothing.
"Because it sounds like a warning."
She turned and walked back toward the hallway.
At the doorway she stopped, her back still to the room.
"I want to speak to a lawyer," she said.
"Before I say anything else."
The officer looked up from his notepad.
And my father looked at Grandma.
May you like
Grandma looked at me.
She pulled me a little closer.
