Chapter 5: A Story With Missing Minutes

Mara did not ask Erin for a confession.

She asked for the missing minutes.

"You told us Arthur was upstairs and not moving," Mara said. "What happened before that?"

Erin's public defender held up a palm. "My client is done for today."

"That's her right," Mara said.

Erin looked at Hart with open resentment, then back at Mara. "He had my notebook."

"What notebook?"

"The black one. It proves who I am. He said he was going to throw it away."

Hart closed her eyes.

Mara waited.

"Where is it?" she asked.

"He hid it. He always hid things." Erin's voice went thin. "The freezer."

The notebook was found that night beneath a bag of frozen shrimp in Arthur's chest freezer. Its cover was black vinyl, its pages filled with drawings, bus routes, copied addresses, names underlined and crossed out. On several pages, Erin had written that a wealthy family in Michigan had stolen her identity and left messages for her in commercials.

There were no inheritance papers. No secret account numbers. No proof that Arthur had taken anything from her.

There were also drawings of the blue house. In one, the upstairs bedroom had been shaded black, with a small yellow lantern in the hall.

The fire marshal's final preliminary report arrived the next morning. Arthur had sustained the head injury and knife wounds before the fire. Smoke damage in his lungs indicated he had been alive when the laundry bag ignited outside his room.

Mara read the report in silence, then called Daniel Bell back to the station.

His worksite GPS placed him at a bridge-repair project until 3:12 a.m. His supervisor had spoken to him by phone at 3:18. The drive to Harbor Street took twelve minutes in clear traffic. The neighbor's camera caught him at 3:31, exactly when the records said it should.

Daniel had lied about the will because he wanted Mara to suspect Erin's greed.

He had not killed his uncle.

"You made this harder," Mara told him.

"I thought she did it."

"You thought that gave you permission to invent evidence?"

Daniel's face collapsed. "He was all I had."

"Then tell the truth about him. Not the useful version."

That afternoon, Mara returned to the interview room with only the facts that mattered. The fire report. The notebook. The nail from the doorframe. Photographs of Erin's room and Arthur's workbench.

Erin sat with Hart beside her.

"Arthur had called a social worker," Mara said. "He was trying to find you another place to live."

Erin laughed once, without humor. "A place where they lock the doors."

"Maybe. But he wasn't taking your notebook. He put it in the freezer because you had threatened to burn it."

Erin's eyes snapped up. "He told you that?"

"No. The notebook smelled like smoke before the house did. It was protected."

For a moment, Erin looked like a child caught in a lie she had almost believed herself.

"We fought," she said.

Hart whispered, "Erin."

"We fought over it. He grabbed my arm. I grabbed the hammer." Her breath hitched. "I took it upstairs because I wanted him to listen."

"Did he?"

Erin folded forward, forehead almost touching the table.

"He fell," she said.

"After you hit him?"

She did not answer.

"What happened after Arthur fell?"

Erin lifted her head slowly. Her expression had gone blank again, a door closing from the inside.

"I don't remember," she said.

But Mara knew now that she did.