Where'd You Go, Bernadette(65)
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Report by Tonya Woods, forensic document examiner
Dear Mr. Branch,
Using an Electro-Static Detection Apparatus (ESDA), we analyzed the second-page writing present on several sheets of stationery with the HARMSEN & HEATH ALLEGRA letterhead. Due to the three distinct depths of indented writing, it is highly probable that a three-page letter was written. It is signed, “Love, Mom.” This strongly indicates to us that it is a letter written from a mother to a child. The most frequently repeated words are “Audrey Griffin,” which appear to have been written at least six times. While we are unable to piece together the whole letter, we are somewhat confident that the letter contains the following phrases: “Audrey Griffin is the devil.”
“Audrey Griffin is an angel.”
“Romeo, Romeo.”
“I am a Christian.”
“Audrey knows.”
Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.
Sincerely,
Tonya Woods
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Fax from Audrey Griffin to her husband
Warren,
I need you to immediately go home and check the answering machine, my mail, and email. I’m urgently looking for anything from Bernadette Fox.
Yes, Bernadette Fox.
For months, you’ve wanted to know what transpired during those days before Christmas that caused me to capitulate. I have been trying to find the courage to tell you one of these weekends in family therapy. But God has decided he wants me to tell you now.
Those days leading up to Christmas were a nightmare. I was furious at Bernadette Fox. I was furious at Kyle for being such a stinker. I was furious at Soo-Lin for siding with Elgin Branch. I was furious at you for drinking and refusing to move to Soo-Lin’s with us. No matter how many gingerbread houses I made, it only increased my fury.
Then one evening I visited Soo-Lin at work. A woman came in and asked for Elgin Branch. I noticed an ID badge from Madrona Hill, the mental institution. I was intrigued, to put it mildly. My interest was further piqued when Soo-Lin lied to me about this woman’s identity.
Soo-Lin returned home late that night, and while she slept, I rifled through her bag. In it, I found a classified FBI dossier.
The contents were astonishing. Bernadette had unwittingly given her financial information to an identity-theft operation, and the FBI was conducting a sting. Even more shocking were Post-it notes stuck to the back of the file. They were handwritten, between Elgin and Soo-Lin, suggesting that he was meeting with Madrona Hill because Bernadette was a harm to herself and others. His evidence? That she had run over my foot and destroyed our home.
My sworn enemy was being sent away to a mental institution?! It should have been cause for celebration. Instead, I sat on the hall bench, my whole body quivering. Everything fell away but the truth: Bernadette never ran over my foot. I faked the whole thing. And the mudslide? Bernadette removed the blackberries exactly as I had asked her to do.
A full hour must have passed. I didn’t move. I just breathed and stared at the floor. I wish a camera had been trained on me, because it would show what it looks like for a woman to be awakened to the truth. The truth? My lies and exaggerations would be responsible for a mother being locked up.
I dropped to my knees. “Tell me, God,” I said. “Tell me what to do.”
A calm came over me. A calm that has protected me for the past month. I walked to the twenty-four-hour Safeway, made a copy of every document in that file, plus the Post-it notes, and tucked the originals back into Soo-Lin’s bag before anyone was up.
While everything in those documents was true, it was a partial truth. I was determined to fill in the story with my own documentation. The next morning, I ransacked our house for every email and note I could find about the mudslide and my “injury,” then spent the whole day assembling them chronologically with Bernadette’s emails from the FBI file. I knew that my more complete story would absolve Bernadette.
But from what? What had transpired in that meeting between Elgin and the psychiatrist? Was there a plan?
I returned to Soo-Lin’s at four in the afternoon. Lincoln and Alexandra were at swim team. Kyle, of course, was zombified, playing video games in the basement. I stepped in front of the TV. “Kyle,” I said, “if I needed to read Soo-Lin’s email, how would I go about it?” Kyle grunted and went upstairs to the linen closet. A dusty tower computer, giant keyboard, and boxy monitor were on the floor. Kyle set them up on the bed in the guest room and hooked the modem into the phone jack.
An ancient version of Windows loaded, with a turquoise screen, a strange blast from the past! Kyle turned to me. “I’m assuming you don’t want her knowing?” “That would be optimal.” Kyle went to a Microsoft website and downloaded a program that allows you to remotely take over another person’s computer. He had Soo-Lin’s password and ID sent to her email program on this computer. With that information, he entered a bunch of numbers separated by periods, and, within minutes, what Soo-Lin sees on her laptop at Microsoft appeared on the screen in front of us. “She’s away from her computer, it looks like,” Kyle told me, cracking his knuckles. He punched in a few more things. “She’s got a signature saying she’ll be out of the office for the night. You probably have time.”