Chapter 7: The Weight of Evidence
By the end of the second week the formal pieces had settled into place.
The police report regarding the unauthorized entry and theft was filed and active. The security company produced a clean log showing the exact time the alarm had been disarmed and rearmed. My housekeeper gave a clear, consistent statement. The young waiter from the hotel provided a written account of Natalie’s comments about both the money and the shaved head. None of these records relied on my interpretation. They existed independently of whether Jackson chose to believe them.
Natalie responded the way I had expected. Through Jackson she claimed the note was a misunderstanding, that the dress had been damaged by accident during a late-night visit to collect something she had left behind, and that the jewelry would be “returned once things calmed down.” The explanations shifted slightly each time they were repeated. None of them addressed the security log or the housekeeper’s eyewitness account.
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Jackson called twice more. The first conversation was still thick with loyalty to his new wife. The second was quieter. He asked to see the security records and the housekeeper’s statement for himself. I had copies delivered to him through my attorney. I did not add commentary. The documents were capable of speaking without my assistance.
Judith remained with me through those days, not because I was fragile, but because the simple presence of someone who had known me before the fortune, before the grief, and before Natalie was a form of steadiness no legal filing could supply. We walked the garden in the late afternoons. We ate meals that required no performance. When the silver wig began to feel like a costume rather than a necessity, I set it aside in the evenings and allowed the bare skin of my head to exist without apology inside my own house.
