4: 4
4
I shot to my feet, and the handcuffs cracked against the edge of the table.
"That's impossible!"
"I never let Nina touch any of that!"
The detective played the recording again.
Again and again.
It really was my voice.
Even the way the words trailed off at the end was exactly mine.
And still, all I felt was cold spreading through my whole body.
"Someone is framing me!"
"A voice can be faked!"
The detective across from me was quiet for a moment.
"There was no one else at the scene."
"The poison was poured into those cups by your daughter's own hands, and she believed the order came from her mother."
"Who but you could make her that obedient?"
They held me in custody.
Over the next two days, every piece of evidence pointed further toward me.
The same poison turned up in all six cups.
The recording on the kids' smartwatch showed no signs of deletion or editing.
The neighbors confirmed again that no stranger had come by before it happened.
Somehow the news got hold of the story.
Everyone was saying that a bad marriage had driven me mad enough to poison my entire family.
But before dawn on the third day, the technician handling the voice analysis found something wrong.
The recording itself hadn't been edited.
But the voice in it, the one that belonged to me, had not been spoken there in the room.
Under every single sentence lay the exact same electronic background hiss.
It was speech generated in advance, played through the speaker in the living room, and then picked up by the kids' smartwatch.
The police quickly went through the husband's computer.
In the recycle bin was a voice synthesis program that had been uninstalled.
In the program's cache were saved a large number of the voice messages I'd sent the husband before.
Someone had used those recordings to copy my voice.
The police then recovered the family group chat that had been deleted from the husband's phone.
I wasn't in it.
At 7:40 that evening, the husband had sent a message: *She's in the bathroom.*
The mother-in-law replied:
*Nina already remembers what to do.*
My father asked right after:
*Do we really have to count the child in too?*
A long time passed before the husband sent a single word.
*Yes.*
Then my mother replied:
*Then we go by the original plan. No one backs out at the last minute.*
A few minutes later, the group chat was deleted for good.
They all thought that would leave no trace.
But the data on the phone was recovered anyway.
And the recordings weren't only of Nina and that fake voice.
After the kids' smartwatch slid under the couch, it had gone on catching the sounds after that, in broken pieces.
After Nina poured the white powder into the fruit tea, she asked happily, "Daddy, did I do it right?"
The husband patted her head.
"Nina did very well."
Then came my mother's choked-back crying.
"The child is still so little."
"Maybe we should just drop it."
My father reminded her under his breath:
"There's no turning back now."
The mother-in-law pressed them:
"Drink, quickly."
"She'll be out as soon as she's done washing up."
On the recording came the sound of the cups being lifted one after another.
No argument, no force.
All five adults knew exactly what was in those cups.
And still they picked them up themselves and drank.
Nina didn't know what was happening.
She only thought the grown-ups were playing a game with her.
Seeing everyone drink, she picked up her own little cup and copied them, taking a sip.
On the fourth day the case turned completely around.
The police confirmed that the five adults had planned this mass death in advance.
The poison had been bought by the husband himself.
My voice had been faked by him using the software.
They had deliberately locked the doors and windows, deleted the records, and pointed every clue at me.
But no matter how the police investigated, they could not find any reason for them to do it.
My parents had cherished me for thirty years.
Even if the husband and my in-laws hated me, there was no need to throw away their own lives.
Still less any need to kill Nina, just to send me to prison.
The detective in charge of the case set the unlocked handcuffs on the table.
"The evidence we have proves you weren't part of this plan."
"You're free to go."
A ring of bruises had worn into my wrist.
I rubbed it and slowly got to my feet.
When I reached the door, he still couldn't stop himself from calling after me.
"Why would they do it?"
"Your parents gave you their whole lives."
"Even if your husband wanted revenge, he had countless other ways."
"Why did every one of them have to die together, and take the child with them?"
I stopped, my back still to him.
"I don't know."
Then I pushed open the doors of the police station.
Outside, the sunlight was harsh.
The reporters had been waiting across the street, and the moment they saw me come out they hauled their cameras up and rushed over.
Everyone was pressing to know why those six people had gone to their deaths together.
Everyone thought the whole thing was absurd beyond understanding.
But standing there on the steps, I felt the corners of my mouth curve up, little by little.
The truth was, I had lied.
Right now, only I knew what had really happened.
