Chapter 8 - Bertha’s Death Was Not Murder
For several weeks, people whispered that Christopher must have killed her.
I hated those whispers.
Not because I wanted to protect him.
Because facts mattered.
The delayed autopsy was eventually performed after the chapel incident raised enough concern to justify a fuller review.
Christopher’s refusal could no longer control the process.
The result was heartbreaking and medically ordinary.
Bertha died from a massive pulmonary embolism.
A blood clot had traveled to her lungs.
She had risk factors nobody fully appreciated.
Recent long-haul travel.
A minor leg injury.
Several days of swelling she had dismissed as muscle strain.
Shortness of breath she attributed to stress.
There was no poison.
No traumatic injury.
No evidence Christopher caused the clot.
No hidden murder.
My daughter died from a medical emergency.
And her husband tried to use that completely unrelated tragedy to destroy evidence of his financial misconduct.
In some ways, that truth disgusted me more.
Christopher did not have to kill Bertha to exploit her death.
She collapsed unexpectedly.
He realized almost immediately that the person most capable of exposing him was gone.
Then he searched for the copies.
Could not find them.
Pushed for cremation.
Refused autopsy because any delay increased the chance someone would discover what remained with her belongings.
He turned his wife’s sudden death into an opportunity.
That was the moral crime I could never make smaller.
When Daniel—no, Christopher—was later asked under oath why he fought the autopsy so fiercely, he repeated that Bertha had wanted cremation.
That part was true.
Then the attorney asked:
“Why within forty-eight hours?”
He had no good answer.
May you like
Because speed had never been Bertha’s wish.
Speed was Christopher’s need.
