Chapter 7: What Margaret Knew
She was waiting in the hospital lobby.
I almost didn't recognize her at first — I'd only met her twice, at Diane's house, a small woman in her late sixties with silver hair and reading glasses she kept pushing up her nose.
She was sitting in one of the lobby chairs with her coat still on and her handbag clutched in both hands, and when she saw me she stood up so fast she nearly knocked the chair over.
"Thank you for coming down," she said.
"I didn't know who else to call."
"How did you get my number?"
"Diane's address book.
She keeps a paper one, old-fashioned." Margaret's voice was thin.
"I went to her house this morning to check on her — I didn't know about any of this until I saw the police cars.
They wouldn't let me in.
A neighbor told me what was happening." She looked at me with eyes that were frightened and ashamed in equal measure.
"I need to tell you something.
I should have said it a long time ago."
I sat down across from her.
"Tell me."
She pressed her lips together.
Then: "About eight months ago, I was at Diane's for our usual Wednesday cards.
Just the two of us.
We'd had a glass of wine.
She said something — I thought it was the wine talking, or a bad joke, I told myself it was a bad joke—"
"What did she say?"
Margaret looked at her hands.
"She said children were too soft these days.
That they needed to be toughened up.
That when she was young, adults understood that children needed to learn their place." She swallowed.
"And then she said — and I remember this exactly — she said, 'Lily's coming along nicely.'"
The lobby noise continued around us.
Someone called a name over the intercom.
A child somewhere laughed.
"Coming along," I repeated.
"I told myself she meant Lily was growing up.
Becoming more well-behaved.
I told myself that." Margaret's voice cracked.
"But I knew.
Somewhere I knew it wasn't that.
And I said nothing.
I poured another glass of wine and changed the subject and I said nothing."
"Did she ever mention Noah?"
Margaret flinched.
"Once.
She said the boy next door was a handful but that she was managing him." She looked up at me.
"I thought she meant he was difficult to babysit."
"Did you ever see the box?
A metal box, kept in the spare room?"
Her face changed.
"She showed it to me once.
Years ago.
She said it was old family photographs.
I never asked to look inside.
I didn't want to pry." She pressed a hand to her mouth.
"Oh God.
Oh, I should have—"
"Margaret." I kept my voice level.
"I need you to tell all of this to Detective Marsh.
Everything you just told me.
The exact words Diane used.
The box.
All of it."
"Will it help?"
"Yes."
She nodded.
She was shaking slightly.
"I kept telling myself I was wrong.
That I was reading too much into things.
That Diane was difficult but not—" She stopped.
"I was a coward."
I didn't tell her she wasn't.
Because she needed to carry that honestly into the detective's office and say every word of it clearly.
"I'll take you up to speak with her now," I said.
We rode the elevator in silence.
When the doors opened, Margaret stopped.
"The little girl," she said.
"Lily.
Is she going to be all right?"
"She's going to be better than all right," I said.
"But she needs every person who knows something to say it out loud."
Margaret straightened.
Pushed her glasses up.
Nodded once.
She walked into the family room where Marsh was waiting, sat down, and began to talk.
I stood in the hallway and listened to Diane's oldest friend dismantle every wall Diane had built, one careful sentence at a time.
When Marsh came out forty minutes later, her expression had shifted.
"Gerald Haynes was picked up an hour ago," she said.
"He lawyered up immediately."
"What does that tell you?"
"It tells me he knew exactly why we were coming." She looked at her notes.
"It also tells me we're going to need more time.
But Mrs.
Callahan — we have the box, we have the phone, we have Margaret's testimony, and we have Lily." She looked up.
"That's not nothing.
That's the beginning of everything."
Behind me, down the hall, I could hear Ryan's voice — low and steady — reading to Lily from a book she'd asked for.
May you like
I closed my eyes for just a second.
Then I went back to my daughter's room.
