Chapter 9 - The utility-room door
Two days before Mom was hospitalized, she went into the utility room herself.
Normally the door remained locked because tools and electrical panels were inside.
Robert kept the key.
Mom found the door unlocked.
Inside, she noticed:
The municipal red correction tag was gone.
A section of venting had been altered.
The carbon monoxide detector that Robert claimed was defective was sitting on a shelf without its power cord attached.
Then she saw something on the floor near the furnace platform.
Robert’s gold ring.
The supposedly lost ring.
It had a distinctive narrow black enamel line around the center.
She picked it up.
Why did it matter?
Because Robert had told her repeatedly:
“I have not touched that equipment. I had somebody else handle it.”
The ring proved he had been in the utility area.
Not when.
Not what he did.
But enough to make Mom suspicious.
She put it into her pocket.
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Later, she hid it in her purse.
Then she called a lawyer.
