ANSWER: Why should I?

QUESTION: Because I, too, have my doubts as to the so-called accidental death of Annabeth Grover.

Interviewee retakes seat.

ANSWER: You . . . you know about her?

QUESTION: I do. I know about Candace Howell, too. I know she was raised in a wealthy home and had considerable wealth of her own, bequeathed to her by her grandmother. I am fairly certain Martin Hocking married her to get to it. I know when he married you, he was still married to her.

ANSWER: I didn’t know Candace was still living when I married Martin. He told me she was dead. He told his own daughter she was dead. I didn’t know.

QUESTION: Mrs. Hocking, can you tell me please if you are also an heiress? Are you positioned to come into money? Do you have wealthy relatives back home in Ireland? Distant ones, perhaps?

ANSWER: No, I do not.

QUESTION: So you do not have wealth and you are not in line to inherit wealth or property?

ANSWER: No.

QUESTION: Do you see my problem, Mrs. Hocking? The man you unlawfully wedded is in the habit of marrying women for their wealth and then, in at least one case that we know of, perhaps disposing of them. But you are not like the others. These other women cared for the man they thought they were marrying. You do not. They had wealth. You do not. You know who he is. They did not. Do you see the predicament I am in?

ANSWER: I told you already. I am not like him. I wondered, too, why he married me. He said it was to appear to be a successful insurance man blessed with a wife and child. But I soon knew that couldn’t be true, because no one related to his business ever saw me. For a long time I didn’t know the true reason, either. But I figured it out when I took Kat to Candace. And you listen to me, sir, about that. I took Kat to her mother because it was the right thing to do. It was also the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, because I love that child. I love her as if she is my own flesh and blood. But I did it. I brought her to her real mother. Candace thought she would die without seeing her child again. I cried with Candace and I held her and I cared for her just like I did with Belinda, because that’s the kind of person I am.

QUESTION: One moment. You just said, for a time you didn’t know why Martin Hocking married you, but then you met Candace and it became clear, that you figured it out. Does that mean that now you do know why he married you?

ANSWER: Yes.

19

Oakland has become a teeming city of refuge, akin to Golden Gate Park on the first day of the fires. Boats of every shape and size have been ferrying people across the bay for the last three days. As we make our way from the landing to the street, I hear someone remark that hundreds upon hundreds of Chinese men and women and their children have flooded Oakland’s Chinatown. The place is swarmed; it can absorb no more. Other displaced San Franciscans have gone on to Berkeley, where the gymnasium at the university has been turned into a lodging house. Dozens of homeless slept on university grounds last night under the oaks.