Page 50 of The Fighter
Laura’s knee was bobbing up and down.“Do you think he killed Dina that day?”
Michael looked down. “Right when it happened, I would have said a hundred percent that he didn’t, but to be honest, Henry had a temper and could be volatile in nature. I just never thought he would harm a woman.”
“Can you show us the apartment they lived in and the attic she fell from?”
Michael nodded and took us outside to show us where Dina had landed. “It was the end of March and the ground was still frozen. Not that I think she would have survived if the ground had been softer. The window was too high up for that.” He leaned his head back and pointed up to the roof of the building. “She fell from that middle window.”
“Who found her?”
“I did.”
“How? What were you doing in the back of the house on a cold winter day?” Laura’s question sounded a bit accusatory and it made Michael frown.
“You have to understand that there was nowhere for Dina to go without protection. When Henry was working, she stayed inside the apartment. Henry and I were her only friends here, so I made sure to always swing by after work and talk to her. I liked Dina.”
“Okay.”
Michael licked his chapped lips. “But that day she didn’t come to the door when I knocked. That’s why I figured that maybe she had gone outside to get some fresh air.”
I looked around the closed-off back yard. “And you figured she would have come here?”
“There weren’t many options for her to choose from, so yes, that was my initial thought. I went down to check and… well…” Michael pointed to the ground. “That’s when I found her lying here with blood around her head.”
“How long do you think she had been dead for?”
“It’s hard to say, but she was stiff and pale with her lips all blue. I once read that stiffness in a body starts after around three hours, but I could be wrong. It was cold that day so maybe she was just frozen.”
“How did you know she had fallen from the attic?”
“I didn’t. At first, I thought someone had hurt her because of all the blood, but then I saw a few pieces from the roof had fallen down too and it made me look up to see that the attic window was open. That’s when I knew.”
Next, Michael took us up to the third floor to see what used to be Henry’s and his apartment thirty-three years ago. When no one answered his knock on the door, he typed in a code on the wall and walked in anyway. “I know the guy who lives here and I’m sure he won’t mind us taking a quick look around.”
The apartment was just as small as the other one that Michael lived in now.
“Is this the only bedroom?” Laura stood in the doorway of a room so small it could only fit one bed and a side table.
“Yes. But we managed.”
“Yeah, but how did you manage? Did one of you sleep on the couch then?”
Michael was quick to change the subject. “Did you want to see the attic?”
“Yes.”
Both Laura and I followed him up the two flights of stairs to a door that looked scratched and had dents in it. When Michael pushed it open, we walked into a dusty storage room with a beam of light coming from the window. “Not much to see, but it’s where Dina spent her last minutes.”
There was a heaviness in my chest from the sadness of a fifteen-year-old girl losing her life way too soon.
I walked to the window. “I wonder if she jumped or she was pushed.”
Michael nodded. “I think she was pushed. I know she was stressed about the money, but she was still a happy girl. I could never imagine she would take her own life.”
Opening the window, I stuck my head out. It would be possible to climb onto the rooftop, but even with dry conditions and a good balance, it would be very unsafe. “How did Henry react when he found out that she was dead?”
Michael scratched his neck. “Not well. He was on his way home from work when I called him, and he came running down like a crazy man, roaring out his grief. That’s why I would have sworn he didn’t do it. His reaction seemed very real, and there was such sorrow when he took her from me and caressed her hair while calling for Dina to come back to him.”
“Do you think Henry loved Dina?”
