He knew I’d ask the right questions.”
Paulson nodded slowly.
“He trusted you to finish it.”
Gerald was brought in for formal questioning four days later.
I wasn’t in the room.
Paulson called me afterward.
“He lawyered up immediately,” Paulson said.
“But before his attorney arrived, he made a statement.
He said Catherine’s death was an accident.
That he had only meant to — and I’m quoting — ‘make her uncomfortable enough to leave Frank.’ He said he hadn’t intended for her to d*e.”
The word *accident* sat in my chest like a stone.
“He admitted it.”
“Enough of it.
His attorney is already working damage control, but the statement is on record.
Combined with the nurse’s testimony and the medication discrepancy in Frank’s chart, the DA’s office is moving forward.”
Two weeks later, Gerald Marsh was formally charged.
The charges included negligent homicide for Catherine Reyes’s death — the statute of limitations had not expired due to the concealment — and a second charge related to Frank’s death, pending the toxicology results.
I read the charging document at Miriam’s kitchen table.
She sat across from me with her hands around a cup of tea, and when I looked up she was already watching me.
“Frank would have wanted to be here for this,” I said.
“He is,” she said simply.
I folded the document and set it down.
Outside, the afternoon light was coming through the window at a low angle, the kind of light that makes ordinary rooms look briefly like something more.
I thought about Frank at twenty-three, falling in love with a woman named Catherine.
I thought about him standing at the hospital window after she was gone, holding a daughter he hadn’t known how to protect.
I thought about him making apple pancakes on a Saturday morning for a four-year-old who didn’t know any of this yet.
I thought about thirty years of questions he had carried alone.
“He should have told me sooner,” I said.
“Yes,” Miriam agreed.
