Chapter 2 - Nobody went home
Police separated everyone before we left the cemetery.
Richard was not immediately dragged away in handcuffs.
That frustrated half the family.
It was also correct.
An empty coffin was alarming.
Noah’s statement was serious.
Richard’s behavior was suspicious.
But suspicion and arrest are not identical.
Ortiz treated the cemetery as a potential crime scene.
The coffin was secured.
The funeral director’s records were requested.
Richard and Margaret were told not to leave.
Noah stayed with me.
A child-services specialist was called because nobody wanted a crowd of angry relatives interviewing him in the rain.
I kept the brass key.
Only until Ortiz photographed it.
Then she placed it into an evidence envelope.
I hated watching it disappear.
It felt as though I had given away the only object connecting us to Emily.
Ortiz said:
“If it opens something, we need to be able to prove what.”
I knew.
Still hated it.
Richard kept saying:
“This is grief.”
Nobody answered.
Then:
“Noah has been having nightmares.”
Still no answer.
Finally:
“Claire, tell them.”
I looked at him.
“Tell them what?”
“That Emily was sick.”
That sentence was true.
Emily had suffered severe anxiety after a break-in at their home six months earlier.
She had trouble sleeping.
Periods of panic.
She had also become suspicious of Richard’s finances.
Those facts had been merged by him into one convenient story:
May you like
Emily was unstable.
That story had shaped everything after she disappeared.
