Chapter 5 - WHAT FENELLA TOLD THE NEIGHBORS
Our neighbor Mrs. Hale saw my car move.
Day One, around noon.
Fenella drove it.
She parked it in the visitor lot near a row of townhouses.
Then walked back.
Mrs. Hale assumed I had asked.
Why would she not?
Fenella had a key.
Family.
Then Day Two, Fenella told Mrs. Hale:
“Clotilde is staying with a friend. Marriage nerves.”
Mrs. Hale laughed politely.
Then:
“Pregnancy makes everything feel catastrophic.”
That phrase irritated Mrs. Hale enough that she remembered it.
Day Three, another neighbor heard scratching.
He thought:
Animal in shed.
He told Fenella.
She answered:
“Raccoon. I’m dealing with it.”
He did not investigate.
Why would he trespass?
Then Day Four, Fenella carried a grocery bag into our house.
Not shed.
She stayed thirty minutes.
No food came to me.
Security camera from a neighbor’s driveway captured her entering.
Then leaving with a white trash bag.
No direct view of backyard.
No smoking gun.
But it established she had been present while telling Auberon she was uninvolved.
Then the car.
She moved it again on Friday morning, closer to the house.
Why?
Notebook:
Return car before A home.
There.
She was reconstructing normality.
Then my purse.
Why place it in shed?
Maybe she meant to return it to me at release.
Maybe she wanted police, if involved, to believe I had possessed my own items throughout.
The prosecutor later argued the second.
Defense argued the first.
No need choose without evidence.
Then one detail.
My shoes were in the tote.
I had been barefoot inside the shed after the first day because one sandal strap broke while I kicked the door.
Fenella had retrieved the other shoe from the patio.
Placed both into the tote.
Why?
Again.
Reconstruction.
She was gathering a version of me.
Phone.
Purse.
Keys.
Shoes.
May you like
Clothes.
A person who could supposedly have left voluntarily.
