day. Not after I went back to work.” She smirked at Miranda and Knight. “I told you that. There was a letter telling us to get out. So we got out.”
“Come on, you don’t just pack up your family and move and change everyone’s basic identities, erase their very existences, over an argument with your mother. Did you argue over Luke that afternoon?”
“No! I never argued with her, other than on my lunch break. Not after I stopped by the house to check on the kids.” Pauline’s hands clenched and unclenched, sweat beaded on her lip. But her eyes remained on Miranda. Almost fixed.
“Pauline, once we speak to Mon—Diane, it’ll be hard for me to remember that name. Wasn’t it her middle name? No. That was Daphne. She always loved the fact that she had the same initials as my sisters, cousins, and me. Said she wished my grandmother would take her in, too.” Monica had always made a big deal—sometimes embarrassingly so—about how Miranda’s grandmother hadn’t had to take her and her sisters—or her cousins—in after their mother had died. That they were just living on her good graces.
Miranda had never understood it. Not back then.
Now she had an inkling why. No doubt that same sentiment had been pounded into her head from the time she was a small child. “Did your mother routinely hit your children?”
They knew she had. Both Luke and Lesley had made that very clear.
Luke had the scars to prove it.
He had freely admitted to shoving his grandmother down. Miranda had called Nate Masterson and confirmed with him, and with Dr. Stephenson back at PAVAD, that the injury to Helen’s forehead could have occurred in the manner Luke had described.
Both agreed it was possible. And that it wasn’t fatal. Nowhere near.
The first injury to her forehead hadn’t caused her death. Technically, neither had the second blow. Being buried alive had.
“Pauline, we know you were there. We know you argued with your mother. Tell us what happened next. Or we’re going to charge you with murdering your mother. It’s just a matter of time until we get the story from everyone else. If you know more than you are saying, now’s the time to spill, before it gets really bad for you.”
“It wasn’t me! I argued with her, yes. Told her never to put one of her filthy hands on my kids again. What would you have done if she’d gone after your little boy with a piece of stainless steel? Beating him because he was sick, ridiculing him for puking. Kids puke when their sick. But she didn’t care. I think she wanted to kill him that day. Probably would have, too.”
“What stopped her? Luke knocking her down? We know he’s responsible for the first head injury, but who wrapped your mother in a half-sewn quilt so tightly thread sliced through her arms as she fought to escape the soil heaped on top of her? Who? Did you kill your mother?”
The lawyer refused to let her answer after that. Miranda mentally shrugged. They’d find the answers they sought, one way or another. But one thing was absolutely certain—Pauline knew exactly what had happened to Helen.
Miranda had other ways to get the answers she needed.
58
Miranda knew what they were doing was a major gamble. But with the fourteen years that had passed since Helen’s death, memories had grown convoluted and incomplete. Especially when the ages of the younger children were considered.
She was ninety-nine percent certain the people in the room now were innocent of Helen’s death. They just had to tie up all the loose ends.
It bugged her that they hadn’t been able to find Monica. Miranda liked details, liked things tied up. She didn’t like these kinds of loose ends.
Miranda took the seat at the head of the conference table. It was a position of power, and she understood the psychology behind it. Knight stood at her immediate left. She almost smiled at the enforcer position.
Max took up a position by the door, along with Joel. Clint stood by the window, taking the position next to Jac, who had taken the seat on Miranda’s left. He’d attached himself to Jac, almost, since the attack on his home. No wonder. Jac and Maggie Tyler not only favored each other physically but had similar personalities. Jac was doing what she could to help him through this, too. She had a soft heart and was very empathetic for those she knew were hurting.
They had Luke, Olivia, Marnie and