“Detective Vega lives just over off of Maize Road,” my mother said. “Isn’t that funny, what a small world it is.”
I stood on the sidewalk in front of the porch. The world was a lot of things. At the moment, small did not feel like one of them. Or funny. But my mother didn’t look at it the same way I did, and that was probably a good thing. I nodded and said, “Indeed.”
“We just got back from the courthouse,” my mother said. “We rode together, since he’s so close by.”
“How did it go?”
“The document was still in the queue to be processed,” Vega said. “So we just took it right out of there and ripped it up. I know the guy’s in custody, with some very serious charges. But we don’t even have to file the quiet title motion or anything.” He turned to my mother and patted her hand.
“You know an awful lot about the litigation side of this.”
“My wife used to work for the county recorder.”
My gaze flicked to his ring finger, on the hand that had recently patted my mother’s. The gesture did not go unnoticed.
He added, “She passed away a couple years back.”
Then I just felt like a jerk. In an effort to make up for it, I said, “Well, I’m glad you’re here.” My voice didn’t exactly sound convincing. “And Mom, I know ‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t cut it, but truly, I am—”
“Nothing you could’ve done, Roxane,” Vega said a little quickly, shooting me a small wink. “Nobody gets to blame themselves here. Not you, not Genevieve, nobody. Some people are just born bad, ya know? The important thing to remember is that a lot of the time when this happens, nobody even finds out about it for months, and it takes twice that long to unravel the whole mess at the courthouse. This was a scare, but it isn’t going to amount to more than that.”
My mother smiled. “I’m lucky to have such good people around me,” she said. “Rafael, I’m just going to run in and check on the pie. Roxie, you want to stay for lunch?”
“No, I need to get my car and take off.”
“Okay, well, give me a hug then.…”
I hugged her with one arm, my eyes squeezed shut against a sudden, piercing sadness. So no one had told her about the mess I’d made, how this was, actually, my fault. Maybe Tom was right. Maybe I did punish people for caring about me—not intentionally, but maybe I did it all the same. And why? Because I didn’t care enough about them? No. That couldn’t be further from the truth. But maybe I didn’t care enough about me. The fact that I didn’t have to face the music right now with my mother somehow made me feel worse.
Meanwhile, she thought she was lucky. Not for the first time, I thought about how she deserved better than she’d gotten: a dead husband who could be a real asshole sometimes when he was alive, three borderline fuckup kids who drank too much and end up hurting the people they were supposed to care about.
I couldn’t do anything about most of that, but I could do something about me.
After she went into the house, I didn’t quite know what to say. But I was still there with Vega, so I figured I had to say something. “Pie?”
“She’s making something called nacho pie for lunch.” He stiffly pulled himself to his feet. “She already assured me it’s not racist, it’s just what she had in the fridge for lunch today.”
I laughed, and it took me by surprise. “She’s not a great cook, but she means well. But you’re probably not staying for the cuisine, are you?”
He raised a bushy eyebrow. “Meaning?”
I shook my head. If my mom wanted to make nacho pie for a friend of Tom’s, what was it to me? Instead I said, “I guess I owe you, for keeping my part in all this quiet.”
“If you want to tell her someday, go for it. But maybe after all of this settles down, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“I know it’s a long story. The time isn’t always right for long stories. And if the time is never right, that’s okay too. The secret’s safe with me.”
We looked at each other for a while. If my instincts about anything were to be believed, I’d say he had kind, trustworthy eyes. I said, “You probably think I’m an awful person.”
He chuckled. “No ma’am. I know we just met, but I also know that Tom thinks the world of you. I never knew your dad but Tom and I go way back. He’s as good as they come.”
“Yeah,” I said. I took a few steps toward my car, eager to get out of here. “Hey, after the dust settles with all this, there’s another family who could use your help figuring out the quiet title or whatever. Another one of Nate Harlow’s victims.”
“Anytime, Roxie.”
* * *
When I got home, my ancient landlord was on the sidewalk in front of the building with a stepladder, trapped in conversation with Bluebell or whatever her name was. “And on top of the power outage, there was blood all over the landing yesterday,” she was saying. “Blood. Actual blood. That is not normal. Are you trying to say it’s normal?”
“Lady, what’s normal? All I’m saying,” Glenn said, “is that I don’t see any blood.”
“Well, I can’t live here. It’s been one thing after another with this place.”
“Then move when your lease is up. In March.”
“I can’t wait till March!”
As I squeezed past them and up the steps, Bluebell touched my arm. “You saw the blood, right? Roz—Rose … anne?”
I looked at her. She was wearing a beaded headband across her forehead and a Slayer T-shirt, though I was willing to bet she didn’t know a single Slayer song. If she hadn’t already demonstrated herself to be a terrible neighbor, I might’ve offered an explanation—such as it was—for the blood. But she had, so I didn’t. I said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I went into the apartment and closed the door behind me and sighed, so overwhelmed with relief at being in my own space that I had to steady myself for a second with a palm against the wall.
Shelby stuck her head out of the guest room. “You’re back,” she said.
“I am. Sorry to disappoint. How was camping?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Not disappointed, obvz. Camping was okay. The cabin was cool, but the weather sucked. So we came back yesterday, just in time for the power outage.”
“Shit. Did you manage okay in the dark?”
“Why, because you have zero candles or flashlights anywhere in the house?”
I laughed. “Yes. That is exactly why.”
Shelby shrugged. “It wasn’t out for that long. I just went out onto the porch. People started playing music and stuff. It was kind of cool. Where were you?”
“Working,” I said.
“Well, next time the power goes out, you’ll be all set. I went to the dollar store in Whitehall this morning and got you three flashlights. And batteries.”
I took a few steps down the hallway and leaned against the wall. “You,” I said, “are too responsible for your own good. Your dad doesn’t know what he’s talking about. You have your head on better than most grown-ass adults I know.”
Then it hit me. “Hey, come out here for a second,” I said, heading back down the hall.
Outside, Bluebell was still whining about the epic unfairness of not being able to break her lease, while Glenn had possibly died standing up. I said, “How serious are you about moving out?”
Bluebell put her hands on her hips. “Oh, I’m moving. Tomorrow. The blood was the last straw.”
“Tomorrow? Dammit, I don’t have time to find a new tenant again. I already went on the internets once this week,” Glenn said, at the same time as Shelby whispered, “Blood?”
“Maybe you could find someone to take over your lease,” I said.
“Like who?”
“This is Shelby,” I said. “She is literally the most responsible person I know.”
Shelby was clearly still wondering about the blood. “What’s going on?”
“Shelby, you’re looking for an apartment. B—I’m sorry, I have
no idea what your name is either—you don’t want to break your lease. Glenn, you don’t want to have to go on the internets to find a new tenant. Discuss amongst yourselves. I am going inside and sleeping.”
I left them there on the sidewalk and went back into the apartment and lay down on my bed with my clothes still on. I was the keyed-up kind of tired now, my thoughts an incoherent jangle about Catherine and Tom and Marin and my mother and, somewhere in there, me and the spectacular mess I made. I stared up at the stars on the ceiling for a while, then got up and went into the office and parted the miniblinds to check on the progress outside. Glenn was smiling at Shelby, nodding. Shelby looked over her shoulder at my window, saw me standing there, and gave a thumbs-up. I smiled back.
I turned away from the window and went to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. While the water buzzed to a boil, I considered the bottle of whiskey on my counter. I couldn’t pinpoint any specific, poor choices that were made under the influence of alcohol during this case. But having a drink as my first meal of the day did not seem like a step in any right direction. I put the bottle away and stirred a teaspoon of sugar into my mug instead.
THIRTY
There was a small army of men—boys—loading Bridie’s eccentric furniture into the back of a cargo van when I left the house on Friday morning. She was drifting from one end of the yard to the other in some sort of kaftan, chatting on her cell about which shade of white she wanted her new walls painted. “Is this good-bye, then?” I said as I walked by.
“Hang on,” she said into the phone. Then she looked at me. “Yes, sadly, but I feel really good about leaving the place in your daughter’s hands.”
She held out an arm for a hug, but I gave her a hearty handshake instead and looked flatly at her. “It won’t be the same here without you.”
I drove up to Brighton Lake. The sky was clear and bright, the air warm but not hot. A perfect summer day that did not suit my mood, but when had the weather ever paid anyone the favor of matching a mood? A proper night’s sleep had restored my ability to think, but that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
Because what I kept thinking about was mostly how everyone came out of this worse off. How if I’d been following Marin that night, she might still be alive—and the chain of events that led to Tessa Pomp’s death might have been averted. Or at least postponed until I was out of Arthur’s employ altogether, meaning that Catherine and my mother wouldn’t have gotten involved at all. At the end of the day, that was what mattered. I could take the heat, but it wasn’t fair for other people in my life to have to put up with it as well.
And honestly, maybe I couldn’t take the heat as well as I thought I could.
I was meeting Suzy and Rafael Vega at Brighton Lake but I got there a few minutes early so I could go in and see Agnes. She was holding the same bible, running her fingers over the edges of its cover. She looked up when I entered the room, and she pointed at me. “You again. Strange stranger, but good listener.”
I smiled. “I’ll take that compliment.”
“Will you read this to me?” She thrust the book at me. “The words are loose. Again.”
“Sure, Agnes. What would you like to hear?”
She looked up at the ceiling and smiled faintly. “Psalms. Just pick.”
I flipped the bible open and looked for something suitable. The text ran together in front of my eyes. I read out loud, “‘Surely, I wait for the Lord; who bends down to me and hears my cry, draws me up from the pit of destruction, out of the muddy clay, sets my feet upon rock, steadies my steps, and puts a new song in my mouth, a hymn to our God…’”
When I was finished, I sat there quietly until Agnes turned over on her side and faced away from me. “Thank you, dear.”
“My pleasure,” I said.
A few minutes later, Suzy bustled into the room. “Sorry I’m late,” she said. “Sorry, sorry, sorry. Did I miss the detective?”
I stood up and took a step into the hall. “No, but he should be here any minute.”
She nodded and ran a hand through her short blond hair. “Thank you, by the way.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“And listen, I know I wasn’t the nicest to you, when you first came around. I apologize for that. I had—have, really—a lot of complicated, messed-up feelings about my mother.”
“Understandable.”
“I won’t let it go four months without seeing her again, is what I’m trying to say. This has been a wake-up call. So thank you for that too.”
“Of course,” I said. “Did Sam come with you?”
She shook her head. “He’s at home, helping with the garage sale.”
“It’s finally Molly’s big moment, huh?”
“Yes, high hopes.”
“Well, I hope it’s a smashing success. And tell your father I said hello, okay?”
“Will do.” She chuckled. “He’s so funny. This morning, we were eating breakfast and I was reading the paper. Marin’s obituary ran today, did you know that?”
“No.”
“Well, it says a bunch of crap like Marin loved interior design and traveling with her fiancé. Like she’s this totally normal person.”
I sighed. Good old Arthur, still not getting it. “Yeah.”
“So I read it out loud, and my dad said, we ought to go and wear matching sunglasses.” She laughed, but I didn’t. “Oh, come on, it’s a little bit funny, isn’t it? I know I told you that story.”
I nodded. “Your dad was there that day? At Bill’s funeral?”
“Yeah, of course. Bill was all Mom had left. Even though they’d been divorced for a long time by that point, Dad came for moral support.”
I stared at her, thinking. “For some reason I thought your dad didn’t know Marin.”
The reason was because he told me.
“No, he did. Mom and Dad were divorced by the time she came around, but Bill was still my uncle. So we’d still see them at holidays and all that. Sometimes with Mom, sometimes without. Dad and Marin got into a fight once, a big fight. Nate smeared chocolate pudding on this sofa that she’d just gotten, like three of us saw it happen. But Nate said it was Mom, and Marin flipped her shit about it. Yelling at Mom, over something she didn’t do, over a damn couch. Bill didn’t want to get into it, you could just tell. Dad put her in her place good about that, he said something like just because you say something, doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“Ha,” I said, but my voice sounded weird.
There was no way. Right? Maybe he misspoke when he told me he didn’t know Marin or her son. Had never met them. Maybe he was trying to protect his family; after all, I was a random stranger who just showed up and started asking questions.
But I hadn’t told him that Marin was dead, and he hadn’t asked.
I assumed that Suzy had filled him in.
Maybe she did. But maybe he already knew.
Why would he lie to me?
He wouldn’t. No.
This couldn’t happen.
Or could it? Marin’s death was still a weak spot. Tom didn’t think her killer was Nate, and I didn’t think it was Arthur. Sam was a sweet old guy, and he hadn’t known about any of this till Wednesday.
Unless he’d been lying about that too.
Molly Kinnaman’s garage sale was in full swing when I arrived at her house: four old ladies perusing the knickknack table and a crowd of young mothers pawing through the mountains of baby clothes, all to the soundtrack of Sam’s piano playing.
Molly, with her daughter on one hip, grinned at me. “The sale is finally open! So if you need any bowling equipment or costume jewelry, please, stock up.”
“I’ll take a look,” I heard myself say, my palms going sweaty. “Do you think I can chat with Sam a minute?”
Molly nodded and sent me into the house through the garage. My heart was hammering in my chest, not nerves exactly, but something worse. I went through the kitchen and around the corner to the living room, where he was sittin
g at a piano, a folio of sheet music in front of him. “Hi,” I said, and he turned and looked at me, and from the expression on his face and the way I felt, we both knew that I knew.
“You lied to me,” I whispered.
He turned back to the piano, his shoulders slumping.
“You said you didn’t know Marin. Never met her. That’s what you said.”
He dropped his head into his hands, elbows hitting the piano keys in a dissonant chord. “I know.”
I forced myself to cross the room and sat on the arm of the couch next to him. “Sam, why? What happened? Just—why?”
Sam straightened up and pushed his glasses to the top of his head and rubbed his face. Then he turned to look at me, his hand grabbing for mine. “I was just trying to talk to her, okay? Talk. Just talk. Then all of a sudden there’s a gun in her hand.”
“Start from the beginning, Sam.”
He told me that when he got back to town after Agnes’s accident, he went over to the house to get some of her books. “I still had a key. But I got there and this woman was out front, carrying off a box of Agnes’s good silver. Blond woman, good-looking, dressed all fancy. I didn’t recognize her at first. The last time I saw her was fifteen years ago, and she looked different. Obviously she’d had work done, you know. Facelift and whatnot. I asked her what the hell she thought she was doing,” he said.
“You just confronted her?”
“Hell yes I confronted her—she didn’t belong there.”
“What did she say?”
“Oh, it was rich. She acted like she didn’t know who I was. She claimed she was an antiques dealer, that Agnes hired her months ago to sell some of her antiques.”
I nodded and motioned for him to go on.
“So she put her box into this shiny SUV and drove away. If I’d had a car I would have followed her, but I didn’t. So I went up to the house and tried my key, but the locks were changed. Agnes is a mess, new locks on her house? Something wasn’t right. Not right at all. So I watched, and I waited. I watched that house for days from a bench next to the tennis courts right there, and I wrote everything down in a notebook. All the comings and goings. I didn’t see Marin again. But after a while somebody called the police on me. An officer showed up, wanted to know how come I was sitting there all day every day.”
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