Detective Davenport arrives at Hawthorn House at 10 AM, and she brings Officer Harding and a file folder thick enough to stop a bullet.
She sets up in the parlor — the room with the bay windows and the floral wallpaper and George’s desk in the corner. Agnes makes tea. I sit on the sofa with Clover in my lap, and the cat’s warmth against my thighs is the only steady thing in a room that feels like it’s about to shift under all of us.
“I have updates,” Davenport says, opening the file. “Several. I’m sharing them with you both because you’ve been cooperative and because, frankly, I need your help understanding some of what I’ve found.”
She confirms that the food results have not changed. “Walnut in the bitten biscuit. The other sampled biscuits were negative. We cannot trace a particular tree or kitchen from that finding.”
“I also need to document the notebook exactly where you found it. Please leave it in place until Harding has photographed and collected it.”
The parlor is very quiet. The clock on the mantel ticks. The fog outside the window is thinning, and a pale, uncertain sunlight is starting to filter through.
“Mrs. Hawthorn,” Davenport says. “I need to ask you about Thursday evening.”
Agnes is sitting in the armchair across from Davenport, her tea untouched on the side table, her hands folded in her lap. She is the picture of composure — or the picture of a woman holding herself together by force of will.
“I went to the garden shed at eight-fifty,” Agnes says. “I wrote that time in my diary. It’s my record, not independent proof. I came back a little after nine.”
Davenport’s pen pauses. “You were at the garden shed at eight-fifty.”
“Yes.”
“The garden shed is approximately twenty feet from the conservatory’s garden door.”
“Yes.”
“Did you see or hear anything unusual?”
“I heard the conservatory door open and close. I assumed it was the wind. The door doesn’t latch properly in damp weather.”
Davenport writes this down. Her face reveals nothing, but I can see the calculation in her eyes — the same calculation Agnes and I performed in the kitchen this morning. Twenty feet. A door that sticks. A woman who heard it and didn’t look.
“Mrs. Hawthorn, why didn’t you mention this earlier?”
“Because I was ashamed. I had been hiding George’s letter, and Victor was asking exactly the questions I didn’t want to answer. I knew how that would sound.”
“You gave us the letter on Tuesday,” Davenport says. “That was the right thing to do. It doesn’t make the earlier concealment disappear.”
“I understand.”
Harding returns from the study. He has photographed the notebook where it lay and packaged it separately. Agnes watches him carry it away. I wonder how many more things this house will have to surrender before it can become an ordinary house again.
Davenport opens a phone-record summary and asks Agnes whether she knew Dale had delayed calling Melissa until 9:25.
“No. He said he was leaving to speak to her.”
“That establishes a call, not his location. We’re checking the period after he left the house.”
I tell her I intend to ask Eugene about his walk, because Lily heard Captain barking. She says Harding has tried to reach him and asks me to pass on a request to call.
“I can do that.”
“Pass on the request,” she repeats. “Please don’t tell him what you hope he saw.”
She closes the file. “Mr. Musgrove’s attorney has agreed to a formal interview.”
“When?” I ask.
“Tomorrow. I’ll call him today and arrange it.” Davenport stands. She picks up her file folder. “Miss Daly. Don’t go looking for trouble.”
“I’m not looking for trouble. It keeps finding me.”
The faintest trace of something that might be a smile. “Stay out of Mr. Musgrove’s way. If he’s our suspect, the last thing I need is a civilian spooking him into doing something rash.”
She leaves. Agnes and I sit in the parlor with the empty teacups and the absence of the letter and the weight of what just happened settling around us like dust.
Agnes takes her diary back from the table. In the margin beside August eighth, she writes: corrected account given.
“I used to write things down so I wouldn’t forget them,” she says. “It never occurred to me that I could remember something and still tell it wrong.”
She carries the diary into the kitchen. I hear a cupboard open, then close.
I follow her into the kitchen. I tie on my apron. I pull out the flour and the butter and the last of the poppy seeds.
Agnes chops onions while I measure flour. Neither of us says Dale’s name. It is a small relief, doing work with an outcome we can see.
Clover sleeps on a chair. The soup simmers. The bread rises.
Somewhere in town, Dale is preparing to answer questions. And in an evidence bag, Victor’s notebook contains questions he never got to finish asking.