I sat at the foot of my bed and looked at the floor. He stood over me, breathing so hard I thought he was going to have a heart attack. I was almost too frightened to speak, and I was still crying.
“Semantha,” he said.
“It all started when I told her to stop wearing Mother’s things.”
“What?”
“She was always acting more like my mother than my sister.”
“You’re not making any sense, Semantha. What’s that have to do with the stairway, the attic?”
“I made her change her clothes, and then she went to your office, and I went to her room and began gathering up Mother’s things. I thought I would put them in the attic, in that armoire you said belonged to Grandmother Heavenstone. I put all the clothes in there.”
We heard someone running up the stairway and turned toward the doorway.
Uncle Perry appeared.
“What happened, Teddy?” he asked, and looked down the hall where the paramedics remained beside Cassie’s body. We could hear one on his cell phone talking to the police.
“I’m trying to find out.”
I began crying harder.
Daddy grabbed my shoulders and shook me hard. “Stop this and talk. Talk!”
“Take it easy with her. This is a huge shock for her, too, Teddy,” Uncle Perry said.
Daddy took his hands away. “You said you put your mother’s clothing into Grandmother Heavenstone’s armoire in the attic. So?”
“Then I went back to Cassie’s room and got all of Mother’s jewelry to put in there as well. I opened the first drawer and I found this,” I said, opening my fist.
Daddy hadn’t noticed that my fist had been closed the whole time.
Uncle Perry moved closer to look.
Daddy took the pill bottle out of my hand, looked at it and then at me.“What is this?”
“That’s Mother’s sleeping pills,” I said.
“So?”
“Why were they up there?” Uncle Perry asked.
Daddy looked at him. “Yes, what is this?”
I took the pill bottle from him and opened it.“Hold your hand out, Daddy,” I said, and he did. I emptied some of the capsules into his palm.
He looked them and then examined one.
“They’re empty,” Uncle Perry said.
Daddy nodded. “Well?”
“Cassie … Cassie emptied them into Mother’s drink.”
“What?” Daddy grabbed the pill bottle and emptied all of the capsules into his palm. Some fell off.
“They’re all empty,” Uncle Perry said.