Travis kept his hands at his sides. His face had gone stiff in the way I knew too well. I had seen it once at our wedding when he dropped the ring and blamed the minister.
“I’m not answering questions without a lawyer.”
“That’s your choice,” Detective Brennan said. “You are not under arrest yet.”
Yet.
They drove us back to the house with Mom in my car. Travis followed in his sedan. He had not tried to stop us, which bothered me more than if he had.
The recorder was still beneath the kitchen island.
I plugged it into my laptop while Mom sat at the table with a cup of tea. Her hands were shaking now. The acting was over.
At 10:04 the previous night, Travis had called someone named Mark.
I knew Mark. Mark was the attorney who handled our real estate closing. He had been Travis’s college roommate.
“She’ll sign tomorrow,” Travis said on the recording. “Garrison just needs to say she’s incapable.”
A man’s voice answered, too muffled to make out.
Travis laughed.
“No one will trust that old woman. Her own daughter just got back from deployment. She’ll look unstable if she starts making accusations.”
Mom closed her eyes.
The recording continued.
“Once the house is in my name, I can refinance it. I’ll put her in the place in New Haven. It’s not bad. The staff keeps the doors locked.”
I stopped the audio.
Mom stared at the laptop.
“The place in New Haven,” she said.
“Do you know it?”
“I volunteered there in 2009.”
“Is it bad?”
“People screamed at night.”
I played the rest.
Travis spoke about selling Mom’s car. He spoke about cutting off her bank card. He spoke about telling the neighbors I had become aggressive after deployment.
Then Mark said something clear enough to hear.
“Don’t rush the signature. If she dies before the transfer, the money gets tied up.”
The recording ended with Travis opening a drawer.
In the kitchen, Mom pushed her tea away.
“He said if I died.”
“I heard him.”
“Maybe he was talking about the house.”
“Maybe.”
She looked at me.
“You’re doing that thing.”
“What thing?”
“Making your voice flat because you’re about to break something.”
I stood up and walked to the sink.
The faucet dripped. Once. Then again.
Detective Brennan listened to the recording on headphones. When he finished, he took them off and looked at me.
“Where is the tablet?”
“At the house.”
“Where is he?”
I looked through the window.
Travis was standing beside his car, staring up at Mom’s bedroom.
Then he opened the trunk.
He Had One More Story Ready
“Mom, stay here.”
I moved toward the front door.
Detective Brennan caught my arm.
“Don’t go outside.”
“I’m not going to touch him.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about.”
Travis came in without knocking. He had a black duffel bag in one hand.
“I need my things,” he said.
“You can collect them with an officer present.”
“I live here.”
“So does my mother.”
He looked at Mom.
“Tell her.”
Mom kept her eyes on the tea.
Travis set the bag down.
“I know you’re upset, Corinne. I know you came home and found all this, but you weren’t here. You don’t know what it was like.”
“Tell me.”
“I changed her clothes. I cleaned up after her. I found her outside at two in the morning with no shoes.”
“Date?”
“What?”
“When did that happen?”
“I don’t know. February.”
“Which day?”
He rubbed his forehead.
“Why does that matter?”
“Because you wrote it happened on February 11 in your timeline. On February 11, you were in Boston.”
He stared at me.
I opened my laptop and turned it toward him. The hotel receipt was in the folder. So was the toll record from his company car.
“You left Mom alone for thirty-one hours.”
“I had to work.”
“You told the doctor she couldn’t be left alone.”
“I made arrangements.”
“With who?”
His mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Mom lifted her tea.
“His arrangements were a frozen pizza and a bucket.”
Travis’s eyes went to the recorder.
He understood.
The color drained from his face.
“You recorded me?”
“Yes.”
“That’s illegal.”
“Connecticut allows one-party consent when the person making the recording is part of the conversation.”
“You weren’t part of it.”
“I own the kitchen. I placed the recorder there. You were talking to Mark about my mother in my house.”
Detective Brennan stepped closer.
“Mr. Vance, put your hands where I can see them.”
Travis looked at him.
Then at me.
“She has been waiting for this.”
Mom finally raised her eyes.
“I’ve been waiting for my phone.”
The detective found it in the black duffel bag, beneath a pair of Travis’s shoes. Mom’s phone had been powered off since January.
There was also a small bottle of prescription sedatives.
