I asked whether Daniel had touched the motor controls.
Tomas shook his head.
He said my brother had never entered the control room that night.
He could not explain why the official report claimed Daniel had interfered with the mechanism.
Then he told me the part of the story that had kept him away from Westbridge.
After the accident, Pike had taken Tomas into an office and demanded that he sign a statement.
The statement said Daniel had ignored instructions and attempted to force open a restricted gate.
Tomas refused.
Pike threatened to tell the municipal garage that Tomas’s father had stolen tools from the arena.
Tomas signed because he believed his family would lose its only steady income.
He looked at the window while he finished.
I wanted to tell him he should have been braver.
I thought of my own silence during the years when the town repeated the accusation against Daniel.
I asked whether he still had a copy of the statement.
He said he had burned it after leaving town.
Then he reached into his pocket and placed a small brass key on the table.
He said it opened the locker where he had kept his work clothes.
The locker had been removed when the arena closed, but the key reminded him of the decision he had made.
He pushed it toward me.
I told him to keep it.
He had carried enough punishment for a frightened boy’s mistake.
Chapter Nineteen: The Price of a Statement
Tomas agreed to give a recorded account to Priya and the town investigator.
He insisted that his statement be read in full, including the part about signing the false report.
I returned to Westbridge with his phone number and permission to share it.
The next morning, a local reporter called to ask whether I was trying to reopen a criminal investigation.
I said I wanted the town to stop repeating an accusation it had never proved.
She asked whether I believed Vivian had committed a crime.
I told her Vivian had damaged my house and threatened me, and those facts were already being handled separately.
I refused to turn every question about the arena into a question about my neighbor.
That afternoon a city maintenance crew arrived at the arena with a work order to board up the second gate.
Owen saw them from the sidewalk and called Priya.
She reached the site before the workers began.
The crew supervisor showed her the order.
It described the work as routine protection against trespassing.
Priya pointed out that the gate was under examination.
The supervisor said he had received no notice.
Owen offered to stand beside the gate until the city clarified the order.
The supervisor laughed and told him not to interfere.
