The words dropped between us.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then someone knocked at the front door.
The officers separated us to take our accounts. I spoke in the kitchen while my untouched tea developed a pale skin in its cup. Through the doorway, I could see Kenneth bent over his phone, searching his messages with an officer beside him.
Brenda asked whether she could leave.
Another officer asked her to wait while they established what had happened.
I answered questions about my signature, my property, my plans for tomorrow. Saying that I intended to buy milk nearly made me cry.
When we returned to the dining room, Kenneth had found the statement he signed.
He looked at me before handing over the phone.
“I need to tell you something.”
Brenda stood very still.
“The message wasn’t her using my account. I wrote it.”
“I know.”
“She said you’d been threatening us. That you wanted to remove me from the company. But I didn’t call you because…” He dragged his sleeve across his mouth. “Because I was angry you still got to decide. About the house. Everything.”
I could hear the refrigerator humming from the kitchen.
He continued.
“The statement said I had authority to deal with your assets. I knew you hadn’t given me that. I signed anyway.”
Brenda closed her eyes.
He had finally stopped offering her somewhere to hide.
“Did you know it said I was dead?”
“No.” He looked directly at me. “But that doesn’t make what I did all right.”
One officer asked him to explain the document in his own words.
He did.
He did not look at Brenda for help.
Her voice sharpened when the questions returned to her.
“He signed it. He wanted the money. Ask him about the car he wanted next.”
“I will,” the officer said.
That quiet answer took the room away from her.
She reached toward Kenneth’s sleeve.
“Tell them we were confused.”
