Chapter 9 - The Last PageMaisie slept through most of the following day.
Elias stayed at the hospital. Bishop lay on the floor beside her bed, lifting his head whenever a nurse entered. I went back to the rescue long enough to check on Trina and the dogs, then returned with a clean sweatshirt and Maisie’s favorite book.
Julian was still missing.
Moreno’s officers had searched his properties and interviewed the men from the freight yard. Colin had asked for a lawyer and said nothing further. Iris Kwan had handed over the shipping records she kept, and the state environmental investigators had begun testing the sites Celia marked.
The blue notebook stayed with the police. Moreno had copied the final page for Elias after Maisie spoke about it. Celia had written it the evening before her death.
Julian knows I asked the repair shop about the boat. The owner said someone requested a replacement part before I brought it in. I want Elias with me when I go back.
Below that, Celia had written a name and telephone number.
The repair-shop owner had since retired. Moreno’s team found him that afternoon.
He admitted Julian had paid for the work on Celia’s boat, but claimed he believed it was routine maintenance. He had told Celia about the replacement part because she called him, confused: she had not ordered any repairs. He denied knowing anything about what happened after she took the boat out.
His statement raised questions the original investigation had never answered. Moreno was careful when she spoke to us. The records gave her a reason to reopen it. They did not yet tell her exactly how Celia had died.
Elias accepted that with visible effort.
“I need the truth,” he said. “Whatever it is.”
Iris brought more records to the station that evening. She had copies of invoices Julian changed after Celia’s death and messages ordering her to shift sampling dates. In one exchange, Julian complained that Celia had spoken to the repair shop and that he needed to “deal with the boat problem before Elias hears about it.”
Iris had feared showing anyone. Then she saw Maisie’s photograph in the news.
“She was always nice to me when she came to the office,” Iris told Elias. “She remembered my son’s name.”
Elias thanked her. She looked close to tears.
The police found Julian shortly after dark. He was at an unused office above the old freight yard, trying to collect documents and leave by a rear stairwell. Officers arrested him there. He called Elias from the station, and Elias let the call go unanswered.
Later, while Maisie slept, Elias and I sat in the hospital hallway. Bishop stretched across the space between our chairs, one paw against each of us.
“I keep thinking about that night with Celia,” Elias said. “How many times she tried to make me listen.”
“You’re listening now.”
“That doesn’t give her another chance.”
“No,” I said.
He looked through the glass into Maisie’s room.
“I can give Maisie one.”
The next morning, Moreno came to the hospital with news from the boat investigation. A mechanic who had worked for the repair shop remembered Julian arriving before dawn on the day Celia died. He had been asked to say the boat had come in for a repair later that week. The mechanic had refused and left the job soon afterward. Moreno was arranging a formal statement and seeking the shop’s older records.
Elias asked whether Julian could speak to Maisie.
“Not without you and her advocate agreeing,” Moreno said. “And I don’t advise it.”
“You don’t have to worry about my agreement.”
Moreno also told us what Colin had begun to say through his lawyer. Julian had ordered him to take Maisie after she filmed the freight-yard shipment. Colin claimed Julian meant only to recover the recording and return her. He admitted using the sound device on Bishop because he feared the dog would lead people to the garden.
“You frightened my daughter for a memory card,” Elias said.
Moreno let the words stand. “We’re checking every part of his account.”
The wider investigation took weeks. The water and soil tests confirmed contamination at sites Julian had claimed were clear. His records showed repeated shipments made outside the approved cleanup plan. Several people who had trusted the public reports came forward with their own photographs and complaints.
Elias put the South Harbor project on hold. He gave investigators access to company files, brought in a separate team to review the work, and met with residents who had spent years asking to be heard. He did not try to explain away their anger.
At one meeting, a woman stood with a photograph of the street where her grandchildren played.
“We told your office,” she said. “Every year.”
Elias looked at the photograph before he answered.
“You did. I should have checked what happened to those reports.”
The room remained tense. She deserved more than one meeting, and he knew it.
Maisie came home from the hospital three days after the rescue. She had nightmares. Sudden sounds made her hide behind furniture. A counselor helped her put words to what had happened at her own pace.
One afternoon, I visited with a new book for the reading program. Maisie was sitting on the living-room rug beside Bishop, clipping a fresh yellow ribbon to her own wrist.
“Do you think he was scared?” she asked me.
“Very.”
“Even though he’s so big?”
“Especially when someone hurt his ears and took you away.”
She considered that. “He came back.”
“He had a lot of help. So did you.”
Maisie scratched the thick fur along his neck. “I think we were both brave.”
“I do, too.”
Elias stood in the doorway listening. He waited until Maisie had gone to find her place in the book before speaking.
“Moreno called,” he said quietly. “They’ve charged Julian for what he did to Maisie. They’re still investigating Celia’s death.”
I could see the strain of waiting in his face.
“Will you tell Maisie?”
“The part she needs to know. Celia tried to protect people. She wrote things down so someone would pay attention.”
May you like
Maisie called for us from the rug.
Elias went to sit beside her, and I took the chair opposite. Bishop lowered himself across both their feet. Maisie opened her book and began to read aloud.
