Chapter 7 - The Interrogation Room
The fluorescent lights of the Nebraska State Police sub-station in Lancaster County buzzed with a low, irritating hum. I sat on the hard metal chair in the observation room, watching through the one-way glass as Dennis sat slumped at the stainless-steel interrogation table across the room.
His tie was gone. His hair was disheveled. The golden-boy accountant of our county looked like a man who had just realized his entire life was built on sand.
Across from him sat Captain Vance and a junior investigator.
“Let’s go over the timeline again, Mr. Hawthorne,” Vance’s voice filtered clearly through the wall speaker in the observation room. “According to the medical intake at County General, your daughter sustained a displaced clavicular fracture and a moderate concussion at approximately 1:45 this afternoon. Yet emergency services weren't called until 2:17. What were you and Ms. Lane doing during those thirty-two minutes?”
Dennis swallowed hard, his eyes darting nervously toward the camera lens embedded in the wall. He knew I was watching. “We were... we were trying to calm her down. She was hysterical. We didn't realize the extent of the injury immediately.”
“Hysterical because she caught you and her aunt in her mother’s bed,” Vance interjected smoothly, sliding an enlarged crime scene photograph across the table. It was a close-up of the scuff marks on the baseboard of the second-floor landing, right where Meadow's small body had impacted the wall. “Forensic dusting of the staircase revealed child-sized handprints sliding down the wall, smeared with skin tissue and cotton fibers matching your daughter's pajamas, Mr. Hawthorne. Coupled with the audio logs from your neighbor’s ring camera that recorded a child screaming ‘Daddy, stop’ at 1:47 p.m., your story about an accidental fall off the swing set is falling apart.”
Dennis put his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking with ragged, defeated breaths. “She... she walked in on us. Serena panicked. Meadow started crying that she was going to tell Tori. I just... I tried to push her back so she wouldn't make a scene. I didn't mean to throw her down the stairs.”
In the observation room, my fingers curled into tight fists against my knees. I didn't mean to. The universal anthem of every coward who ever inflicted violence on someone smaller than themselves.
The door behind me clicked open. My assistant from the veterinary clinic, young Chloe, stepped inside, holding a manila envelope.
May you like
“Tori,” Chloe whispered, looking pale. “You need to see this. The state troopers just dropped it off from your house. They found it in Dennis’s home office safe while executing the search warrant.”
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