Records showed a private medical transport had departed from the warehouse area later that morning.
The transport company listed a patient whose name and date of birth differed from Strake’s.
Investigators had not yet established whether the patient was Strake or someone else.
The destination was a small hospital across the state line.
That hospital had since closed.
Its archives were held by a regional medical system under strict privacy rules.
Munroe said warrants and legal requests were underway.
He reminded me that the records might clarify a timeline without proving every allegation in the folder.
I thanked him and went home.
When I opened my door, Paige was sitting at the kitchen table with Erin.
They had agreed I could have my daughter for dinner because officers had not identified any current threat to her.
Paige ran to me so quickly that her backpack slid off the chair.
I held her for a long time.
She pulled back and inspected my face.
The bruise was fading.
She said it made me look like a character who had lost a fight in the second act of a movie.
I told her I hoped the movie had a quiet third act.
She laughed, but later she asked whether Lorraine was going to prison.
I said the court would consider the evidence and that I had asked for consequences appropriate to the offense.
Paige wanted to know whether Lorraine was a bad person.
I said she was someone who had done a bad thing, and that we should not pretend her reasons made the injury disappear.
Paige thought about that while slicing an apple.
Then she asked whether I would ever help Lorraine again if her porch light went out.
I answered that I would not go to her house alone right now.
I might still call an electrician if I learned she needed help.
Paige said that sounded fair.
I hoped she was right.
The preliminary hearing for Lorraine’s assault took place on a cold Monday morning.
I wore a plain jacket, and she wore a navy sweater that made her look older than she had the day she struck me.
Her lawyer approached me before the hearing and asked whether I wished to discuss a possible resolution through counsel.
I said I would listen but would not make an informal promise in a hallway.
She accepted that.
The court reviewed the video, witness statements, medical photographs, and Lorraine’s admission that she initiated the confrontation.
