Chapter 3 - The Shadow of the Past
Detective Marcus Vance had the tired, bloodshot eyes of a man who had spent too many years looking at the worst parts of humanity. He sat in the plastic chair beside Lucas’s hospital bed, a small black notebook open on his knee.
I had spent the last two hours detailing every trip I had taken, every interaction I had observed between Patricia and the kids, and finally, the horrific words she had whispered to me in the laundry room.
"She admitted to poisoning Emily," I said, my voice hoarse. "She said she put something in her tea. She said she knew exactly how much it took to make it look like idiopathic cardiomyopathy."
Vance tapped his pen against his notebook, his brow furrowed. "Mr. Miller, I looked up your late wife's autopsy report while you were with the doctor. Emily Miller's death was ruled natural. No toxicology screen was performed because there was no suspicion of foul play. She had a history of fatigue, and her heart simply stopped. To reopen a closed case and order an exhumation... we need more than a verbal confession made during a domestic dispute."
"She starved my children, Detective!" I slammed my hand onto the bedside table, making the plastic cups rattle. Lucas stirred in his sleep, and I instantly regretted the outburst, reaching over to smooth his hair. "Look at them! She locked them in a laundry room for three days without food. Is that not enough to prove she is a monster?"
"For child abuse and domestic neglect? Absolutely," Vance said, his voice calm but firm. "We have an active warrant out for Patricia Miller right now. Officers are at your house as we speak. But if she’s smart—and she sounds smart—she’s already gone. And if we arrest her for the children, her lawyers will argue that she was overwhelmed, that she has mental health issues, or that you are trying to frame her to get out of a difficult marriage. If we want to charge her with murder, we need physical evidence. We need to prove Emily was poisoned."
"How?" I asked, feeling a cold dread settle over me. "It’s been over a year. Emily was buried in the family plot in Oakridge."
"We need to find the substance," Vance said. "If she poisoned your wife over a period of months, she had to store it somewhere. She had to buy it. If she's still living in your house, she might have left traces of it behind. But we can't search the house without a warrant that specifically covers the murder investigation, and right now, my judge won't sign that based on a hearsay confession."
"I live there," I said, my chest tightening. "It’s my house. I can give you permission to search it."
Vance looked at me, a flicker of sympathy in his tired eyes. "Actually, Mr. Miller, you told me you signed the deed over to a trust managed by Patricia. Legally, until we challenge that in court, she is the primary occupant and trustee. If we enter without her consent or a highly specific warrant, any evidence we find will be thrown out in court."
I stared at him, the trap closing in around me. Patricia hadn't just taken my family; she had built a legal fortress around herself using my own grief-induced stupidity as the mortar.
"I have to go back there," I whispered.
May you like
"No," Vance said, standing up. "You stay here with your kids. Let us do our job. If she goes back to that house, we’ll catch her."
But I knew Patricia. She wasn't going to run. She was too arrogant. She believed she was untouchable because she had successfully murdered her best friend and stolen her life without anyone noticing.
