214 Wills novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Loop in the C

I checked every smoke detector in the apartment before dinner.

I went room by room with the desk chair and a flashlight.

The kitchen, the hall and the living room had plain white covers with ordinary test buttons.

Only the one over our bed had a lens.

Callie watched from the couch with her cast on a pile of pillows.

"He only wanted the bedroom," she said.

"He only wanted the one room he thought he owned."

I came down off the chair and sat beside her.

I had taken photos of the Settlement and Release at the cafeteria table while she held the daughter's hand.

She spread two fingers on my phone to make the signature bigger.

"The C," she said. "Look at it."

It was a plain, straight C with no loop.

"It's the same C as on the Christmas cards," I said.

"The same hand. Somebody sat down once a year for ten years and signed my name." She put the phone on her knee. "And the stamp says one-forty. On the Saturday I buried my mother."

"Where were you at one-forty?"

"In a prison van, forty miles away, with a chain on my ankle. They log every minute you're out. That log is in a county building, and it doesn't care how many golf courses Bert owns."

I turned that over.

"Beth can ask for it Monday."

"Monday is too late. Saturday is the day." Her phone buzzed on the cushion, and she read the screen aloud. "Rob. For the slideshow. A short video please, saying what the Garlands mean to you. Dad's AV man needs it by nine tonight."

"He's asking you to make your own tribute."

"Then I'll make him one."

She began to smile, and it was not a nice smile.

"The ballroom podium has a cable for speakers. A presenter plugs in a phone. Tomorrow I'm a presenter."

"And tonight's video?"

"Tonight he gets exactly what he wants. Me, in a green cardigan, thanking everybody. He can watch it twenty times." She looked at me. "Saturday he gets the other one."

We did it in the living room, with the lamp behind her, and she said the words to my phone without a flicker.

She thanked the Garlands for ten years.

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