He passed the note across the desk to me. I scanned a few sentences.
The pane is unbarable. You mene evrything to me. I just reched the point ware there is no way out ...
I knew someone who spelled this way. It was Forrest, of course. Forrest, who was barely literate. From someplace deep inside me that I didn’t even know existed, a wave of pure, hot protectiveness rose up in me.
“Regina took a lot of drugs sometimes,” I said. “Last night she probably took more than usual. Maybe that made it hard for her to write very well.”
Officer Reynolds nodded, but he looked dubious.
“We’ve obtained some examples of communication written by Mr. Emerson to members of the club the Emersons belonged to, as well as samples of his communications with others in the community,” the police officer said. “It appears Mr. Emerson is greatly challenged by writing the English language.”
“Forrest is a smart person,” I said. I didn’t see where he was going, but I sensed trouble. “He’s good at a lot of things. He’s just a really bad speller. There are kids like that at my school.”
“Nobody’s arguing this point, Frances,” Officer Reynolds said. “The Emersons’ cook also provided a few notes written to her by Mrs. Emerson’s husband. The kinds of errors displayed in the alleged suicide note appear virtually identical to the kinds of errors we’ve noted in Mr. Emerson’s writing.”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to say,” I said. But I did, actually.
“We have to wonder if somebody other than Mrs. Emerson might have written this alleged suicide note,” Officer Reynolds said. “Someone who wanted to leave the appearance that Mrs. Emerson had taken her own life.”
I could feel myself starting to get dizzy. We were seated at a desk as we spoke. I held on to the sides of it.
“Regina acted funny when she took her pills,” I repeated. “She probably took a lot of pills that day.”
Wasn’t this obvious? She took so many pills they killed her.
He nodded and wrote something down on his notepad.
“Do you know anything about a recent change to the Emersons’ life insurance?” he said. “We’ve learned that an insurance agent paid a visit to the family home recently to amend the family’s policy. When I spoke with Mrs. Emerson’s father this morning, he mentioned that it’s his understanding this revision came at the suggestion of Mr. Emerson. You may have been present for his visit?”
“Some man with a briefcase showed up one time. I don’t know about life insurance,” I said. “I’m fourteen.”
I was turning fifteen the next week. But suddenly I wanted to be younger. Young enough that nobody would ask me these questions.
I wanted to be gone, actually. Anywhere but in this room, at this police station, talking with Officer Reynolds.
There were more questions. Many of these.
Now I knew what it meant when girls in my class talked about cramps, and how weird they felt when they got their period. In all this time, there had been no opportunity to get to a drugstore and buy sanitary pads. For twenty-four hours now, I’d been stuffing wads of toilet paper into my underwear. I could feel the blood seeping into my pants.
“And how would you describe Mr. Emerson?”
Describe him? (Handsome? Funny? Wonderful? My favorite person in the universe?)
“Nice,” I told him. “You know. The usual.”
“Was he a good father?”
“Oh, yes.” I did not add here that I wished he had been mine.
When Officer Reynolds asked me to characterize Forrest’s relationship with Regina, I told him about how considerate he was to her all the time. How patient. “He was always keeping track of her pills,” I said. “Every time she needed some pills at the drugstore, he picked them up for her.”
Uh-huh.The officer gave me a look.
“And how would you characterize his relationship with you?”
“Good,” I told him. “Forrest always ... took an interest in me.”
“Took an interest?”
