Wake Up, Lila

Chapter 04 - Who Was in the Kitchen

Detective Wren Castillo arrived at the hospital within the hour, having been assigned the case once Dr. Singh's formal report reached the precinct, and she brought with her the specific, methodical calm of an investigator who had learned, over fifteen years of exactly this kind of work, that the most important details were usually the ones people mentioned last.

She interviewed Adrian first, walking carefully through the timeline of the wedding reception, who had been present, what Lila had eaten and drunk, and whether anyone had access to her food or beverages without supervision.

"The reception was at the house," Adrian said. "About sixty guests. My mother handled most of the organization. The catering was professional, but the drinks for the bridal table were served by family and household staff."

"Who specifically," Castillo asked.

"Margaret, our housekeeper, brought most things to the table. My aunt Vivienne helped with the champagne. My mother supervised everything."

"The water glass beside the bed," Castillo said. "Who brought that upstairs."

"Margaret, I think," Adrian said. "She always prepares the guest rooms. She would have set out water, fresh towels, everything."

Castillo made careful notes. "I'll need to speak with Margaret directly. And with your aunt. And with your mother."

Eleanor's interview, conducted separately, proved considerably more revealing than Castillo had anticipated.

"I want to be completely honest with you," Eleanor said, sitting rigid in the hospital's consultation room, her composure partially reassembled but visibly fragile. "I have not been kind to Lila. I opposed this marriage from the beginning. I told Adrian she was too young, too inexperienced, that she came from a family without the means or the values I expected for my son's wife."

"Did you act on any of that opposition beyond verbal disapproval," Castillo asked carefully.

"I was cold to her," Eleanor said. "Consistently. I criticized her cooking, her housekeeping, her clothing. I made her feel unwelcome in a house she was supposed to consider her own home. I carried a wooden stick into her bedroom this morning because it makes me feel authoritative, and I wanted her to understand that sleeping until eleven o'clock was not acceptable in this family."

Castillo listened without interrupting, recognizing the specific, painful honesty of a woman who was, perhaps for the first time, hearing her own behavior described aloud and finding it considerably more damning than it had ever sounded inside her own head.

"But I didn't do this," Eleanor said, meeting Castillo's eyes directly. "Whatever was done to her, whatever substance was put in her system, that wasn't me. I'm many things I'm not proud of today, Detective. I am not, however, someone who would poison a pregnant woman."

"You didn't know she was pregnant before this morning," Castillo confirmed.

"I had no idea," Eleanor said. "If I had, I don't know whether it would have changed how I treated her. I'd like to believe it would have. I'm not certain enough to promise that honestly."

Castillo sat with that admission, noting its unusual candor. Most suspects, guilty or innocent, spent their interviews constructing the most favorable possible version of themselves. Eleanor appeared to be doing the opposite, dismantling her own character with a thoroughness that suggested she'd already begun the considerably more difficult process of actually examining it.

Margaret's interview, conducted that same afternoon at the Whitcomb house, added a detail that immediately sharpened the investigation's focus.

"I prepared the water glass myself," Margaret confirmed. "From the kitchen tap, the way I always do. But I left it on the counter for approximately ten minutes while I went to collect fresh towels from the linen closet upstairs."

"Was anyone else in the kitchen during those ten minutes," Castillo asked.