I Signed Away Eight Million To Leave Him Chapter 36
When it was time for the defense, my father insisted on testifying himself.
His lawyer argued with him for a long time but couldn’t stop him.
“I didn’t kill her.”
On the stand, he clung to the story that my mother had fallen while drunk.
The prosecutor asked, “If it was an accident, why did you lock the door?”
“That was a family matter.”
“Why didn’t you call an ambulance?”
“I didn’t think it was that serious.”
“Why did you take the bus money she had hidden and flee before the police arrived?”
Sweat began to bead on my father’s temples.
“Beatrice was trying to destroy me.”
“At the time, you didn’t even know Beatrice had returned from New York.”
The prosecutor stepped closer.
“What you were really afraid of was your wife taking your daughter and leaving you, wasn’t it?”
“What right did she have to take my daughter?”
My father slammed a hand on the table.
“I just wanted her to shut up! Who knew a few hits would—”
His attorney shot to his feet.
“Objection!”
But the rest of the sentence had already fallen into the courtroom.
My father sat there, mouth agape, as the blood slowly drained from his face.
He had run for decades.
In the end, he had still confessed, undone by that same uncontrollable rage.
When the jury returned a guilty verdict, I did not cry.
I took my mother’s repaired photograph from my bag and gently wiped the dust from the frame.
She hadn’t lived to hear the verdict.
But the night that had locked her behind that door had finally been answered.