Chapter 4 - THE BLUE DRAWER
Police obtained Tove’s consent to retrieve Mireya’s medication.
Surprisingly.
Maybe she believed cooperation helped her.
Maybe she had already removed the worst evidence.
I did not know.
Investigators went with me nowhere near the search.
Correct.
Tove’s attorney handled it.
They found three inhalers in a blue dresser drawer in her guest room.
Mireya had described a blue drawer.
One expired.
Two active enough to match prescriptions issued in the previous eight months.
Serial and pharmacy labels confirmed.
Mine.
Mireya’s.
Tove’s explanation:
Mireya left them behind.
All three?
Possible.
Unlikely.
Then one inhaler pouch.
The pouch missing from preschool.
Inside:
A sticker with Mireya’s name.
That mattered.
Could Tove have picked it up accidentally?
She said yes.
Why keep it in a drawer?
She said she intended to return it.
For five months.
The investigator did not argue.
Evidence works better without sarcasm.
Then they found a notebook.
Not hidden.
On Tove’s desk.
Title:
MIREYA CARE OBSERVATIONS.
Dates.
Symptoms.
My travel.
Medication incidents.
Behavior.
Comments:
4/12 — inhaler requested within fifteen minutes of Cullen leaving.
4/19 — no visible cyanosis; crying stopped when distracted.
5/03 — claims chest tightness; rescue medication not provided; symptoms resolved after twelve minutes.
That line.
Rescue medication not provided.
Tove documented it herself.
Then:
6/14 — purposeful coughing when discussing Daddy’s trip.
7/02 — inhaler unavailable; distress significant but likely anxiety.
There it was again.
Unavailable.
As though objects vanish autonomously.
The notebook could be interpreted two ways.
Concerned caregiver observing patterns.
Or adult manufacturing a record while withholding treatment.
Context would decide.
Then the police found photographs of the inhalers.
On Tove’s phone.
Taken after she supposedly found them abandoned.
One photograph date:
The morning before Mireya stayed overnight.
The inhaler was already in Tove’s drawer before Mireya arrived.
That destroyed the “she left it here” explanation for at least one.
Tove’s attorney stopped the interview.
Good choice.
Then another discovery.
Tove had purchased a child-sized pulse oximeter.
Not illegal.
Parents and caregivers buy them.
She logged readings.
Mostly normal.
She used normal oxygen saturation to claim asthma episodes were fake.
Dr. Brooks explained:
“Normal oxygen saturation does not mean a child is not experiencing bronchospasm.”
That became medically important.
Tove had confused one number with the entire disease.
Or pretended to.
Then we learned her family-law attorney had not only requested records.
He had hired an evaluator.
A private child-custody consultant.
Two months earlier.
Why?
Naomi finally obtained a letter.
Prospective kinship guardianship matter regarding Mireya.
Prospective.
Not filed.
Yet.
I read the line twice.
“Tove wants my daughter.”
Naomi answered:
“She appears to be preparing to ask a court for some form of custody or guardianship.”
“Why?”
“That is what Chapters Five through Nine are going to tell us.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“Nothing. I need coffee.”
Fair.
The first real legal threat existed now.
May you like
And the blue drawer proved Tove was not simply criticizing my parenting.
She had been collecting the medication she later cited as missing.
