Twenty-Nine
Chloe was in John’s room when we arrived. She started crying hysterically as Helen arrested her husband and read him his rights. I held her as she sobbed, her head buried in my shoulder, me patting her back. She didn’t see Helen handcuff him to the bed. She had a police officer placed outside his door. I’m not sure why, and I didn’t ask Helen.
I asked Chloe if there was anyone I could call for her. It took a while, but before I left with Helen she had pulled herself together and was on the phone with a lawyer—their family lawyer—and she was asking for a good criminal lawyer.
“I doubt he’ll do much serious time,” Helen said as we walked down the hospital corridor. “A good lawyer will have him plead down to manslaughter. He won’t spend the rest of his life in prison.”
“He
