Chapter 3
The original police file was less useful than Raffaele hoped.
No dramatic missing confession.
No photograph showing murder.
Mostly statements.
Staff interviews.
Medical reports.
A diagram of where Beatrice fell.
Grace had told investigators Beatrice was emotionally unstable that evening.
Preston said his wife had been drinking heavily.
Two guests recalled an argument between them.
Nobody claimed to see the fall.
Sofia’s statement consisted mostly of:
I don’t remember.
Then Raffaele found a detail nobody had considered important.
Beatrice had not been scheduled to attend the fundraiser.
She added her name to the guest list that afternoon.
Sofia had been added at the same time.
Raffaele looked at his daughter.
“Did she invite you?”
Sofia slowly nodded.
Another fragment had returned.
A phone call.
Beatrice’s voice:
I need you to come tonight. Don't tell Preston I asked.
Sofia had been friends with Beatrice before Beatrice married Preston.
Not close friends.
But close enough that Beatrice occasionally called her when the Hale marriage became difficult.
Sofia had never told Raffaele how difficult.
“Why?”
“Because I thought it wasn’t my business.”
“What did she tell you?”
Sofia looked down.
“Preston controlled money. Her phone. Where she went.”
Raffaele’s face hardened.
“He hit her?”
“I never saw it.”
“That wasn't my question.”
Sofia swallowed.
“She never said the word.”
But she once arrived at lunch wearing long sleeves in July.
Once she canceled a weekend because Preston “didn't like her being around certain people.”
Once she asked Sofia whether Raffaele knew lawyers who handled separation privately.
Raffaele stood.
“She was trying to leave him.”
Sofia nodded.
The question changed immediately.
Maybe Beatrice had not simply fallen during a marital argument.
May you like
Maybe she had gone to the foundry because she intended to tell someone what Preston had been doing.
And she had chosen Sofia as the person she trusted enough to hear it.
