Chapter 2
The next morning, Dr. Helen Marsh spoke with Poppy privately.
Thayer waited outside.
He disliked that.
He accepted it.
When Dr. Marsh finished, she joined him in the library.
“She describes repeated isolation during family gatherings.”
“How serious?”
“Emotionally serious.”
“Was she afraid?”
“Yes.”
“Of Corinne?”
“Yes.”
Thayer looked away.
Dr. Marsh continued.
“She also seems worried that telling you things will make adults fight.”
He knew exactly why.
“She saw me hit Corinne.”
“Yes.”
Thayer’s jaw tightened.
Dr. Marsh did not comfort him.
Good.
“She needs to understand that adults are responsible for their own reactions.”
“I’ll tell her.”
“More important, you’ll show her.”
That sentence stayed with him.
Meanwhile, Corinne had moved to a downtown hotel through her attorney.
No formal arrest had occurred.
The coatroom incident was being reviewed separately.
Child welfare interviewed staff.
Poppy stayed with Thayer under normal parental authority.
Corinne had no custody rights over her.
By noon, Thayer’s attorney, Miriam Vale, arrived.
She was fifty-four and almost impossible to intimidate.
Thayer had employed her for twelve years.
She looked at the key.
Then toward the west hallway.
“You haven’t opened the room?”
“No.”
“Good.”
He frowned.
“It’s my house.”
“It is also potentially an evidence location now.”
“My dead wife’s sitting room is evidence because Corinne walked into it?”
“Because Corinne walked into it without authorization and then panicked when Poppy revealed the key.”
Thayer hated when lawyers converted instincts into patience.
Miriam called an independent digital-forensics specialist and documented the door before they opened it.
The key fit.
Thayer stood motionless for several seconds.
Then turned it.
Elise’s room smelled faintly of cedar and old perfume.
The curtains remained closed.
Her books were still lined across the shelves.
A cardigan hung over the back of a chair exactly where Thayer remembered leaving it after bringing her home from one of her final hospital appointments.
For a moment, everything else disappeared.
Miriam said nothing.
Then Thayer noticed something Elise had never owned.
A portable document scanner.
It sat beneath the desk.
New.
Black plastic.
Modern cable.
Next to it was a packet of empty archival sleeves.
Miriam crouched.
“Don’t touch.”
Thayer looked toward the desk.
One drawer was partly open.
Dust had been disturbed around it.
Inside were copies of old Knox family records.
Property settlements.
Company minutes.
Private correspondence from Thayer’s father.
Some of it decades old.
Some embarrassing.
Some potentially damaging if taken out of context.
None belonged to Corinne.
Miriam looked around the room.
“She was working in here.”
Thayer’s face hardened.
“On what?”
“That is what we find out.”
The forensic specialist photographed everything.
Then Poppy’s comment became more significant.
May you like
She had not merely opened Mommy’s room and found something strange.
She had found Corinne actively using it.
