Condemned by My Sister novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Statement

Marianne turned to look at him.

"I know," she said. "I'm not asking them to believe me."

Corbin's smile slipped for the first time since the funeral.

"Then what are you doing?"

"Giving a statement," she said, and she went down the steps and got into her car.

I got in beside her, and the porch was empty behind us.

The detective's office was a gray room on the second floor with a window onto a parking lot.

The detective wore the same plain blazer.

She put a recorder on the desk between them and said the date and the time.

Dr. Ellerker sat in a chair by the wall with his box on his knees.

He had not gone home, as she'd told him.

"Start with the night," the detective said.

"I was in my study," Marianne said. "I heard a thump, and I came out."

"Corbin was on the floor. Eli was in the hall with his coat on."

"Did you see Eli touch him?"

"No."

"Did anyone tell you Eli touched him?"

"Nobody told me anything. Corbin pointed, and I said it."

The detective wrote it down.

"I said, 'My brother pushed him.' I said it to a uniformed officer before I knew one thing."

"I never asked Eli. I never asked the housekeeper. When she tried to tell me, I fired her."

I stood behind Marianne's chair and listened to her do the one thing she had never done for me.

She gave the detective the date she closed my account, and the hour.

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