Chapter 5 - Why Margaret Came Back
Police asked Margaret to account for her movements on the day of the fire.
She claimed she had been home all afternoon.
Claire’s father repeated the story.
Then surveillance footage from the hardware store showed Margaret purchasing two duplicate keys six days earlier.
One matched the tag recovered from the apartment.
The second had not been found.
Margaret changed her explanation.
She said Claire asked her to make copies.
Text records showed no such request.
Traffic cameras later captured Margaret’s SUV entering Claire’s neighborhood ninety minutes before the first 911 call.
She remained there for forty-three minutes.
Margaret insisted she visited a friend.
The friend lived seven miles away and denied seeing her.
Then investigators searched Margaret’s vehicle.
In the trunk, beneath a reusable grocery bag, they found Claire’s fire-resistant document pouch.
Margaret had taken the will, estate letters, and bank statements before the fire spread.
She claimed she rescued them after noticing smoke.
But she never called 911.
She never warned Claire.
And the emergency call had been placed twenty-eight minutes after Margaret left the neighborhood.
The pouch contained something Claire had never seen before.
A draft insurance claim.
Margaret had prepared it two weeks earlier.
It listed several pieces of Evelyn’s jewelry as destroyed inside Claire’s apartment and named Margaret as the rightful owner seeking reimbursement.
The jewelry was not in the apartment.
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Investigators later found it inside Margaret’s home safe.
She had planned to destroy Claire’s evidence, blame her for the fire, and file an insurance claim for property that still existed.
