I asked whether Bernard had reported the problem.
He said he had written a note to the manager and believed that was enough.
I asked why he had not come forward after the accident.
He looked at his notebook.
He said he had assumed investigators would find the wiring themselves.
When the report blamed Daniel, Bernard thought perhaps the system had been repaired correctly after he left.
He had not wanted to accuse another tradesman without proof.
Priya met Bernard at the arena and compared his sketches with the surviving assembly.
Several details matched exactly, including the position of a replacement terminal block.
She said his testimony helped explain how the system had become vulnerable, but it still did not establish who made the final connection.
Bernard accepted that limitation.
He asked whether his silence had hurt the children.
Priya told him she could not answer a question about what might have happened.
I could see he wanted forgiveness, but none of us possessed the authority to give it on behalf of everyone who had suffered.
Chapter Twenty-Three: The Seat Nobody Counted
The first warning came from a woman who had not attended a single public meeting.
Her name was Esther Velez, and she called the library at nine on Wednesday morning.
She asked the archivist whether the investigation had counted the children who entered the arena without buying tickets.
The archivist gave her my number because Esther refused to leave a message with city hall.
I answered while standing in the grocery store beside a freezer full of melting ice cream.
Esther told me she had worked the carnival entrance on the night Daniel died.
She said the official attendance number had been wrong before the accident even happened.
I asked whether she had kept a list.
She said the problem was that there had never been a list.
We met at a laundromat on the east side of town because Esther did not want reporters outside her apartment.
She was seventy-one and carried a canvas bag that held three folded sweaters and a pair of children’s mittens.
She watched the washing machines turn before she spoke.
The carnival committee had given her a metal clicker to count each admission.
When the line grew long, a supervisor ordered her to let families with donated passes enter through a side door.
Those families did not pass the clicker.
Esther estimated that at least forty children entered that way.
She had protested because the fire capacity signs were posted beside the main entrance.
The supervisor told her donated tickets did not count against paid attendance.
Esther knew that explanation made no sense.
She continued working because she needed the money.
