Chapter 5 - The Date My Wife Died
I stared at the number until it blurred.
September 14.
Two years earlier.
The worst day of my life.
Grant looked over my shoulder.
“What does that date mean?”
“Elise.”
His expression changed.
“Oh God.”
I unfolded the paper completely.
There were three additional words.
ASK YOUR FATHER WHY.
For several seconds, I could not hear anything around me.
The police officer beside me asked whether I needed to sit down.
I did not answer.
I called Lena.
She arrived forty minutes later.
By then, the tracker and note had been placed into evidence bags.
Lena read the note without touching it.
“Could this be intimidation?”
“Yes.”
“Could someone be trying to manipulate you?”
“Yes.”
“Does your father have any connection to Elise’s death?”
“No.”
I answered too quickly.
Lena noticed.
“What are you remembering?”
I rubbed my face.
“The morning Elise died, Dad was at our house.”
Grant frowned.
“I thought you found her.”
“I did.”
“What was Orson doing there?”
“He came early.”
“Why?”
I tried to reconstruct that morning.
Elise had been in the kitchen.
Juniper had been upstairs.
Orson arrived around 8:00.
He and Elise argued quietly in the dining room.
I had been distracted preparing a lesson plan.
At the time, I had assumed the argument involved money.
Elise never trusted Orson with finances.
She thought he pushed too hard for access to her family trust.
I remembered one sentence clearly.
“You will never control what belongs to Juniper.”
Elise had said it.
I had asked her afterward what she meant.
She told me Orson was being Orson.
Controlling.
Nosy.
Convinced he knew better than everyone else.
Forty minutes later, Orson left.
Less than an hour after that, Elise collapsed.
The doctors found a ruptured cerebral aneurysm.
There had never been any suggestion of foul play.
There still wasn’t.
I knew that.
Lena made me say it aloud.
“Elise died from an aneurysm.”
“Yes.”
“Do not let an anonymous note rewrite medical fact.”
“I’m not.”
“Good.”
But something bothered me.
“Why that date?”
Lena nodded.
“That is a legitimate question.”
We went home with police approval after my locks were changed and exterior cameras installed.
Grant insisted on staying.
Meredith brought Juniper home later.
My daughter ran toward me carrying Bunny.
“Daddy!”
I picked her up.
“You’re safe.”
She pressed her face against my neck.
That night, I locked every window twice.
At 2:17 a.m., I woke to Juniper crying.
I ran into her room.
She was sitting upright.
No breathing trouble.
Just tears.
“Aunt Tabitha said Mommy left because of me.”
I stopped beside the bed.
“What?”
“She said Mommy got too tired.”
I sat down.
“When did she say that?”
“When you went to work.”
My stomach twisted.
“Which time?”
Juniper shrugged.
“A long time ago.”
I pulled her close.
“Mommy did not leave because of you.”
“I know.”
“She died because something inside her body suddenly became very sick.”
“I know.”
“Nothing you did caused it.”
Juniper nodded.
Then she whispered.
“Grandpa said you made Mommy sad.”
The rage came back.
Not explosive.
Cold.
Heavy.
Dangerous.
“What exactly did Grandpa say?”
“He said Mommy wanted me to have a better daddy.”
I closed my eyes.
These conversations had not started with the custody case.
They had been planting things in Juniper’s mind for months.
Maybe longer.
The next morning, Lena arranged for Juniper to speak with a child psychologist trained in forensic interviewing.
I was not in the room.
I hated that.
But I understood why.
When the interview ended, the psychologist looked disturbed.
Juniper had described several occasions when Tabitha hid or delayed access to her inhaler.
She described Orson photographing the house.
She described being told that I was “sick in my head.”
She described rehearsing answers.
That phrase made me stop.
“What do you mean, rehearsing?”
The psychologist consulted her notes.
“Juniper says Aunt Tabitha asked her questions and told her which answers were correct.”
“What questions?”
“Who makes your food?”
“Who gives you medicine?”
“Does Daddy sleep during the day?”
“Does Daddy yell?”
“Do you feel safe?”
Lena’s jaw tightened.
The psychologist continued.
“Juniper also said she was promised a puppy if she told a woman named Dana that she wanted to live with Aunt Tabitha.”
Dana.
The attorney.
My family’s attorney had spoken to my four-year-old without me knowing.
Lena immediately began making calls.
Then the psychologist said something else.
“Juniper mentioned a box.”
“What box?”
“She said Grandpa keeps papers about Mommy in a locked box.”
I looked at Lena.
“What papers?”
“She doesn’t know.”
“Where?”
“At Grandpa’s house.”
My phone rang.
Willa.
I answered.
Her voice was barely a whisper.
“Caleb, I found something.”
“What?”
“I went back to Uncle Orson’s.”
“You shouldn’t have.”
“I know.”
“What did you find?”
“A file cabinet in his study was open.”
My heart accelerated.
“There’s a folder with your name.”
“What’s in it?”
“Photographs.”
“Of what?”
“You.”
She swallowed.
“Juniper.”
Another pause.
“Elise.”
I gripped the phone.
“What about Elise?”
“Copies of her medical records.”
I stood.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It gets worse.”
“How?”
“There’s a handwritten note clipped to the front.”
I waited.
Willa’s voice shook.
“It says, ‘If Caleb ever asks about September 14, deny everything.’”
Then I heard a door slam through the phone.
Willa gasped.
A man’s voice sounded in the background.
Orson.
“Willa?”
May you like
The call ended.
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