“He sent me away before you arrived.
He wanted me safe.”
A long pause.
“Goodbye, Claire.” He opened the door.
“Call me when you’re thinking clearly.”
The door closed behind him.
I reached under the collar of my shirt and pressed the small button Paulson had shown me.
Three seconds later, my phone buzzed.
Paulson came to the house within the hour.
He sat across from me at the same table where Gerald had sat, and he played the recording back through his phone speaker, and we listened to Gerald’s voice fill Frank’s kitchen — *a frightened old woman’s memory, a dying man’s letter written on painkillers* — and when it ended Paulson set the phone face-down on the table.
“He never denied being in the room,” I said.
“No.
He didn’t.” Paulson looked at his notes.
“He said he may have looked in.
He said he didn’t remember every detail.
Those are not the words of someone who wasn’t there.” He paused.
“Combined with the nurse’s formal statement — she agreed to speak with us this morning, by the way — and the medical examiner’s preliminary review of your father’s chart, we have enough to open a formal investigation.”
“Into Catherine’s death.”
“Into both.” He met my eyes.
“The examiner found an anomaly in your father’s medication record from the afternoon of Gerald’s visit.
A dosage discrepancy.
It may have a routine explanation.
But it may not.”
I put my hands flat on the table.
“He k*lled them both,” I said.
“Catherine forty years ago.
And Frank last week.”
“I can’t confirm that yet.
But we are going to find out.” He gathered the documents carefully.
“I need to take these into evidence.
I’ll give you a full receipt for everything.”
“Take them.”
He paused before picking up Frank’s letter.
“Your father was meticulous.
Four pages, every detail sourced, the nurse’s contact information, the timeline.
He built a case, Claire.
He just needed someone to carry it forward.”
“He needed me to carry it forward,” I said.
“That’s why he sent me to Miriam.
He knew I’d find everything.
