"S" is for Silence by Sue Grafton

in a position to believe or disbelieve. I’m gathering information.”
    â€œAnd I’m telling you what I know.”
    â€œWhat about the fifty thousand dollars she was said to have?”
    â€œThat was after Daisy’s birth. I don’t know the details except the labor went on for hours. Her water broke at nine o’clock on a Friday night, but nothing much went on. She was having contractions now and then, but she wasn’t in much pain. She thought it might not be as bad as she’d heard. I don’t know why but the minute any woman finds out she’s pregnant, other women haul out some terrible tale about how hard it was, how somebody’s cousin ended up hemorrhaging to death, about babies born deformed. She was scared to death and she wanted to hold off going to the hospital as long as she could. We stayed up all night playing cards—gin rummy—and she played me for a penny a point. I think she took something like fifteen dollars off me. After a while, the pains started coming harder and she got so she couldn’t concentrate. I told her we ought to go and she finally gave in. We got to the hospital and they took her off to the labor room. That was at six A.M. The nurse came out and said she was only four centimeters dilated, so they took me in the back and let me sit with her. She was suffering something awful, but the doctor didn’t want give her anything for pain for fear it’d slow her down. Noon, I went out to get something to eat. I got back to the waiting room as the doctor arrived. The nurse had called him because she didn’t think Violet’s labor was progressing like it ought. I don’t know the particulars about what happened next. I know something went wrong and Dr. Rawlings was at fault. Daisy was okay. She was finally born around seven that night by forceps. There were female complications and the upshot was that he removed Violet’s womb. There she was, sixteen years old, and she could never have another child. I don’t think she gave a hoot about that, but she saw the opportunity to get some cash. I think she sued him for half a million dollars and got considerably less. She was tight-lipped about that and never would tell me the amount. She said the money was hers and it was none of my affair. Said she earned it the hard way and she wanted to make sure I never got my hands on it. She wouldn’t put it in a regular savings account because she was afraid of community property laws. She got a safe-deposit box and kept the cash in there. I told her it was foolish. I said she ought to invest, but she was adamant. I think the money made her feel powerful.”
    We sat and stared at each other while I digested the information. Finally, I said, “I appreciate your candor. At the moment, I can’t think what other ground we need to cover. I may have questions for you later on.”
    â€œI understand,” he said. “All I ask is you’ll keep an open mind.”
    â€œI’ll do that,” I said. “And if further questions come up, I hope I can talk to you again.”
    â€œOf course.”

8
    After I left the church parking lot, I found a quiet side street and pulled over to the curb. I shut off the engine and took out a handful of index cards, jotting down what I remembered about the conversation. During interviews early in my career, I tried using a tape recorder, but the process was awkward. It made some people self-conscious, and both of us tended to watch the tape reel going around and around, assuring each other the device was working. Sometimes a reel came to an end and clicked off while the interviewee was in the middle of a sentence. I’d have to turn the tape over and then backtrack, which was off-putting to say the least. Transcribing a tape afterward was a pain in the rear because the sound quality was often poor and the ambient noise made some of it impossible to hear. Taking notes in longhand