Part 6
Nell carried those words into Courtroom 2A the next morning.
The little table and rug had been removed. Gus was not there, because Maisie was at Jo’s house planting marigold seeds in paper cups. The ordinary witness chair waited beneath the judge’s bench, and this time it belonged to Nell.
Wade sat between two attorneys in a suit she recognized from their father’s funeral. It pulled across his shoulders. Someone had cleaned the red chalk from his nails, but the cuts and roof tar remained. On his left wrist he wore their father’s old watch, its stainless-steel band one link too loose.
He looked at Nell only once before she was sworn. Leah began with the night of March 3. She asked when Wade arrived, what he wore, what condition he was in, and what he asked Nell to say. Her questions were short enough that there was nowhere to hide inside them.
“He arrived at 10:04 p.m.,” Nell said. “He asked me to tell anyone who called that he had been there since the basketball game started.”
“What did you tell Detective Sloan?”
“That Wade had been at my house since eight-thirty.”
“Was that true?”
“No.”
“Why did you say it?”
Nell could hear the court reporter’s keys. “Because he was my brother, and because I already believed Cal had attacked Laurel. I treated what I believed as permission to change a fact.”
Wade’s attorney, Seth Collier, objected to the last phrase as commentary. Judge Hart sustained him and told the court to consider only the factual portion. Nell was grateful; she had already spent too much of the case arranging facts into an argument.
She described the cut on Wade’s hand and the chalk in the sink. She repeated Laurel’s Friday phone call as closely as she could, including the part where Laurel said Wade had frightened Maisie. Then she testified to her own answer: You’re both tired. Don’t turn Dad’s estate into another family war.
Leah did not ask whether Nell regretted it. On cross-examination, Seth approached with a yellow pad folded lengthwise. He had a patient voice and the habit of letting silence suggest that a witness had more to confess.
“You disliked Cal Doran, correct?”
“I didn’t trust his temper.”
“You supplied police with examples that supported his arrest.”
“Yes.”
“And you left out examples that might have helped him.”
Nell thought of Thanksgiving, Cal standing alone in the dead grass until his breathing slowed. “Yes.”
“Now you hope the county will return Maisie to your home.”
“I hope she can go home to Laurel when Laurel is ready.”
“That was not my question.”
Nell gripped the edge of the witness chair. In the cafeteria, she used the same question when a child explained that everybody else had thrown peas; she had never considered how an accurate answer could still function as an escape.
“Yes,” she said. “I want her back in the green bedroom at my house. But I lied while she was living there. If the county decides she has to stay with Jo because of that, then she stays with Jo.”
Seth studied her. “You are willing to say whatever presents you now as responsible.”
“No. I already said the thing that presented me that way. It was false.”
He turned a page. “Your brother cared for your father for nearly four years, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“He bathed him, managed his medication, transported him to appointments, and missed work to keep him out of a nursing facility.”
“Yes.”
“And Laurel did not share that daily burden.”
“No. She lived two counties away.”
Wade looked up. For a moment his face held no defense, only exhaustion from those years.
“Would it be fair,” Seth asked, “to say Wade believed some of the money from your father’s account was reimbursement he had earned?”
“Yes.”
Leah shifted at counsel table. Nell kept her eyes on Seth.
“So he had reason to be angry when Laurel accused him of theft.”
“He had reason to argue about what he was owed.”
“But you want this court to believe he attacked her.”
“Maisie said what she saw. The truck record says where his truck went. I’m here to say what I did.”
Seth waited, perhaps hoping she would fill the space with a conclusion he could strike. Nell did not.
The remaining evidence took less than an hour. Detective Sloan explained the route log without claiming it identified the driver. A laboratory analyst described red construction chalk on a lamp fragment as consistent with the type in Wade’s truck but not unique to it. The estate lawyer authenticated the disputed withdrawals and Laurel’s notice requiring Wade to respond.
Judge Hart found probable cause to send the charges forward. She did not call Wade a monster or Nell courageous. She stated what had been established for that stage and what remained for another court to decide.
As deputies led Wade toward the side door, he stopped beside Nell’s row. “Nellie.”
Nobody else used the childhood name. She looked at him.
He touched their father’s watch. “You know I was the one who stayed.”
Nell saw the recliner, the heated towels, the soup Wade had spooned between their father’s clenched teeth. She also saw red water circling her kitchen drain.
“I know you stayed with Dad,” she said.
The deputy guided him on. Nell did not add anything that would soften one fact with the other.
That afternoon, Tasha confirmed that Jo’s placement would continue until Laurel could care for Maisie or the kinship review was complete. Nell signed the visitation schedule without bargaining for extra hours.
At Jo’s house, Maisie asked her to sit beside the bed until she fell asleep. Nell checked the printed schedule on the dresser.
“I can stay until seven-thirty,” she said. “Then Jo stays.”
Maisie frowned. “All night?” Nell almost promised. “Jo stays all night,” she said instead. “I come back Sunday.”
Maisie turned onto her side with Button beneath her chin. She did not say that Sunday was too far away. Nell sat beside the bed until the minute hand reached six, then kissed two fingers and touched them to the rabbit’s flattened ear because Maisie did not want a kiss on her face. When Nell left, Jo was already waiting in the hallway…
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