Chapter 8 - Isolde Had Seen Lenora Switch The Pill Bottles
Isolde came to me voluntarily.
She was twenty-eight.
Had worked in our house for four years.
Quiet.
Observant.
And terrified of becoming involved.
“I should have said something sooner.”
Those words seemed to belong to everyone in this story.
“What did you see?”
She described an afternoon during my father’s final month.
Alistair was resting in the library.
Maris had gone to the doctor herself.
Lenora entered the kitchen carrying two prescription bottles.
She removed pills from one.
Placed them into another container.
Then threw the first bottle into a trash bag.
Isolde asked whether she should save the bottle for recycling.
Lenora snapped:
“No. Leave it.”
That night, Isolde later saw Lenora take the trash bag out personally.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She looked down.
“She said it was medication he wasn’t supposed to use anymore.”
That was plausible.
At the time.
Then Isolde added:
“She also told me not to discuss Mr. Alistair’s medicine with Mrs. Maris because it made her anxious.”
My mother had been deliberately cut out of medication conversations.
Again, that still did not prove Lenora intended to kill him.
But it weakened the idea of a simple accidental mix-up.
Because accidental mistakes are usually accompanied by confusion.
Lenora’s behavior looked more like concealment.
The police became involved formally after our attorneys provided the toxicology review and pharmacy records.
I hated that moment.
Not because I wanted to protect Lenora.
Because once detectives entered, there was no private family explanation waiting at the end.
May you like
Whatever happened to my father would become evidence.
Not memory.
