Chapter 9: What Jocelyn Said
Jocelyn came in without her husband.
Detective Reyes told me this afterward.
She said Jocelyn had arrived at the station alone, in the same practical clothes she wore to run errands, and had sat down across the table and folded her hands and said, "I want to tell you what I know.
All of it.
I should have done this a long time ago."
I was not in that room.
I was at Ruth's house, eating toast, when Detective Reyes called.
"She confirmed the account transfers," Detective Reyes said.
"She knew about the money from the beginning.
He told her it was a tax strategy.
She said she believed him."
"Did she?"
A pause.
"She believed the parts that were convenient to believe." Another pause.
"She also confirmed that he called her the night before your sister was found.
She said he told her Mara had been 'causing problems' and that he'd 'handled it.' She said she didn't ask what that meant."
I set the toast down.
"She didn't ask."
"She said she was afraid to."
I thought about Jocelyn moving her lawn chair two feet so the legs would stay out of the mud.
The careful distance.
The deliberate not-knowing.
"Is that enough?" I asked.
"For Mara?"
"It's not a confession," Detective Reyes said.
"But it corroborates the timeline.
Combined with the messages on the prepaid phone and the voicemail, the DA believes there's enough to bring a charge." A beat.
"It will take time.
These cases always do."
"I know."
"Nora." She stopped.
Started again.
"Your sister's neighbor — Mrs.
Aldrich.
She asked if she could write to you.
I told her I'd pass the question along."
"Yes," I said.
"Tell her yes."
Mrs.
Aldrich's letter arrived four days later.
Three pages, handwritten, in the careful script of someone who had learned penmanship in a different era.
She described Mara the way people describe someone they genuinely liked — specific details, small moments, the way Mara always knocked twice before she knocked a third time, the way she brought oranges when she visited because she'd heard Eleanor mention once that she liked them.
On the last page, Mrs.
Aldrich wrote: *She talked about you every time she came.
She said you were going to be all right.
She said you were stronger than you knew and that you just needed time to see it.
I hope you are seeing it now.*
I read the letter twice.
Then I folded it and put it in the same folder as the prenatal records — the ones Detective Reyes had returned to me after they were logged into evidence.
Mara's letter was in there too.
Behind the ultrasound printouts.
I kept them together.
Two weeks later, Carol called.
"He took the plea," she said.
I was standing in the doorway of what would be the baby's room.
Ruth had helped me paint it the weekend before — a soft yellow that looked different at different times of day.
"What did he get?" I asked.
"Seven years on the @buse and imprisonment charges.
The fraud adds eighteen months consecutive.
He'll serve the sentences together, with possibility of parole at five." She paused.
"The DA is still building the case related to your sister.
That charge, if it comes, would be separate and additional."
"And Jocelyn?"
"Two years probation.
Cooperation agreement.
She'll testify if the case goes to trial."
I looked at the yellow wall.
"Is it enough?" Carol asked.
Not pushing.
Just asking.
"For what he did to me?" I said.
"It's something.
For Mara—" I stopped.
"Ask me again when that case closes."
"Fair," she said.
"Nora — you did this.
The recordings, the folder, the call.
You did all of it while you were buried in the ground.
I want you to hear that."
I thanked her and hung up.
Ruth appeared in the hallway behind me with a cup of tea she hadn't announced.
"Well?" she said.
"He took the plea."
She handed me the tea.
She didn't say anything else.
May you like
She looked at the yellow room for a moment, then went back down the hallway.
That was enough.
