In her letter, she wrote about her suspicions regarding Theodore’s death, about the pattern of accidents that plagued my childhood, about her growing certainty that her daughter-in-law was capable of murder. She had hired the investigator not to build a criminal case. She knew the evidence was too circumstantial for prosecution, but to document everything so that I would understand the truth.
after she was gone. “I have failed to protect you in life,” she wrote. “But perhaps this record will protect you after my death. Know that I loved you, that I saw you clearly, that I tried in the only way I could. I sat in that coffee shop and cried for an hour.” Margaret sat with me, silent and patient, offering tissues when I needed them.
When the tears finally subsided, she told me the rest of what she had discovered. The file included information about the man in the photographs, a private contractor named Vincent Doyle, who had been investigated multiple times for insurance fraud and suspicious accidents. He had died in prison four years ago, serving time for an unrelated case.
But before his death, he had written a memoir of sorts, a collection of notes and recollections intended for his own legal defense. In those notes, he mentioned a woman matching my mother’s description who had approached him in the early 2000s about arranging for a child to have an accident that looked natural. He had turned her down.
