When the child shouted that his mother was still alive at her grave, no one took him seriously until the police arrived.
The child in the cemetery began to draw attention around the beginning of May. He was ten years old at most. Every day he went to the same grave. He would sit on the ground, pressed against the cold stone, and scream into the air:
— She’s not dead! She’s not here!
People looked at him pityingly. They all thought the same thing: despair. He simply could not cope with the loss. Eventually, he would come to terms with the fact that his mother was no longer with him.
But after a week and then another, the child kept showing up. irrespective of the weather.
The daily cries were too much for the cemetery custodian to handle. One day he finally called the police.
A young police officer arrived. He went over to the boy.
“Hello,” he said in a low voice.
The child flinched as he looked up. His face was gaunt and smeared with tears, and his eyes seemed mature.
“Can you tell whether people are breathing underground?” he asked.
The officer was taken aback.
No, a child shouldn’t be allowed to consider that.
My mother allegedly fell asleep while driving. But she never grew weary. “Never!” mumbled the boy. And they kept me from saying goodbye.
The officer inspected the gravesite. The earth had not yet settled and was fresh. One of the shovels was nearby.
— Who told you that?
The people she assisted. A man with a gold ring and a woman who never stops smiling. She smiles even when she’s sad.
— Do you know what their names are?
The boy uttered those things. The officer took note of them. Because of something in his tone, the young police officer recalled the conversation and told his superiors about it.
Soon an inquiry was underway. The boy’s mother, Anna, was found to be an accountant for a large pharmaceutical company.
She was said to have vanished from work a week before the “accident.” Her manager said she was “overworked” and then said she had “died.” The death certificate was signed by the company’s own doctor.
There was no viewing during the funeral; the casket was closed. No autopsy. The police insisted on the exhumation of the body. The coffin contained nothing.
The matter was the subject of a federal inquiry. It was revealed that Anna, the boy’s mother, was not merely an accountant.
She had put together a thorough file on the company’s executives that included paperwork, money transactions, audio recordings, and schemes. She was going to give everything to the prosecutor’s office. At work, though, someone found out.
Then, even the boy was unaware of what had transpired.
Anna had never been in a car accident before. Her “death” had been orchestrated by the police.
On the day she brought the evidence to the station, the police already had fragments of other cases involving the same firm.
Anna’s enrollment in the witness protection program was swiftly decided.
To keep the company’s executives from suspecting a leak, they staged her death. The casket had been empty from the beginning.
All of the evidence was given to the court. But the youngster was kept in the dark to safeguard the operation. He was only aware of his mother’s survival.
He was right.
Three months after the trial, when the case had been won and the guilty had been arrested, Anna appeared at their old house.
