Mark exhaled, his shoulders dropping as if a weight had been removed. “Exactly. That’s what they said. It’s a tragedy. A random, senseless tragedy. We just have to… we have to move on.”
He walked over to me, placing a hand on my shoulder. His grip was heavy, possessive.
“Mom, you’re in shock,” he said, his voice lowering into a soothing, patronizing tone. “You should sit down. I’ll make you some tea. We need to stick together now. Sarah would want us to take care of each other.”
“I found him,” I said.
Mark froze. “What?”
“The killer,” I said. “I found him.”
Mark took a step back. His eyes darted around the room, to the window, as if expecting a police officer to jump out from behind the curtains.
“What are you talking about?” he laughed nervously. “Did you see someone outside? Did you see a car?”
“No,” I said.
I reached into my purse and pulled out the plastic evidence bag. Inside, the smashed iPhone glinted under the living room lights.
“The nurse gave me this,” I said. “Sarah’s phone.”
Mark stared at it. He looked like he had seen a ghost. His complexion turned a sickly shade of gray.
“I thought…” he started, then stopped himself.
“You thought what?” I asked. “You thought you broke it enough? You thought throwing it in the neighbor’s bushes would hide it? Or did you leave it by the body?”
“I didn’t touch her phone!” Mark shouted. “The mugger must have dropped it! He probably smashed it so she couldn’t call for help!”
“If the mugger wanted valuables,” I said calmly, “why is the phone still here? Why was her diamond ring still on her finger at the morgue? Why were her earrings untouched?”
Mark licked his lips. His sweat was visible now, beading on his upper lip.
“Maybe he got spooked,” Mark said. “Maybe he heard a car. Criminals are irrational!”
“Or maybe,” I said, stepping closer to him, backing him toward the fireplace, “the attacker didn’t care about money. Maybe the attacker just wanted to hurt her. Maybe the attacker hated her.”
“I loved her!” Mark screamed. He punched the wall next to my head. Dust fell from the ceiling.
I didn’t flinch. I stared into his eyes.
“You loved to control her,” I said. “I saw the way you looked at her when she talked to other men. I saw the way you checked her receipts. I saw the bruises she tried to hide with makeup last Thanksgiving. She told me she fell biking. Sarah hasn’t owned a bike since college.”
“She was clumsy!” Mark yelled. “She fell down the stairs!”
“She didn’t fall down the stairs tonight, Mark,” I said. “She was beaten to death.”
I held up the bag.
“Do you know what cloud backup is, Mark?”
Mark went still. His breathing became shallow, rapid.
“Sarah was smart,” I said. “She knew you. She knew what you were capable of. She set her phone to auto-upload voice memos to the cloud. Whenever the storage got full, or whenever a new recording was made.”
Mark’s face drained of all color. He looked at the phone in my hand, then at me. The grief was gone completely now. In its place was a naked, terrifying desperation. A cornered animal.
“Give me that phone,” he said, his voice low and dangerous.
“Why?” I asked. “It’s just a broken phone. Unless there’s something on it you don’t want me to hear.”
“It’s my wife’s property!” Mark lunged for me.
I sidestepped him. He stumbled, catching himself on the sofa. He was drunker than he looked.
“It’s evidence, Mark,” I said, moving behind the kitchen island. “And it’s not the only copy. I already downloaded the file to my own phone.”
“You’re lying,” he hissed. “You’re a crazy old witch.”
“Am I?” I pulled out my own phone. I unlocked it. “Do you want to hear it? Recording number fourteen. Twelve minutes long. Do you want to hear the last twelve minutes of my daughter’s life?”
Mark stopped moving. He stood in the center of the living room, his chest heaving. The silence stretched between us, thick and suffocating. The rain drummed against the roof like a thousand fingers tapping.
“Play it,” he challenged. “Go ahead. Whatever it is, it’s out of context. We were arguing. Couples argue. Yelling isn’t a crime.”
I pressed play.
I turned the volume all the way up.
Static. Then, a door slamming.
MARK (Recording): “Where do you think you’re going?”
SARAH: “I’m leaving, Mark. I can’t do this anymore. Let go of my arm.”
MARK: “You’re not going anywhere! You belong to me! I paid for this house, I paid for your car!”
SARAH: “I am not your property! I filed for divorce this morning! My lawyer has the papers!”
A loud crash. The sound of glass breaking. Sarah screaming—a raw, terrified sound.
SARAH: “Get away from me! Put the bat down!”
Mark flinched in the living room. He looked at his hands, as if surprised they weren’t holding a weapon. He looked at the fireplace poker.
MARK (Recording): “You think you can leave? I’ll kill you! If I can’t have you, no one can!”
Thud. Thud. Thud.
