Page 2

C HAPTER 2

I ’d never been in an interrogation room before, but I suddenly found myself sitting in one across from a detective.

The police had arrived promptly on the scene, surely having a lack of other calls to tend to on a quiet Saturday in paradise. I wasn’t even sure who summoned them, seeing I was too busy losing my mind in the hall. Before I knew it, Libby was dragging me in one hand, Max in the other, and somehow still pushing the stroller out the back door of the house. The estate sale ended, crime scene tape was unspooled into a yellow barrier like a scar on the pristine neighborhood, and we were asked to come down to the police station to give a statement.

Now I sat across from Detective Daryl Warner, a man I’d seen at a handful of holiday barbeques and once very drunk in an ugly sweater at a Christmas party. In a community where everyone knew everyone, it was only suitable that the detective was my sister’s best friend’s husband. He was Libby’s age, late thirties, with dark skin and a face like he could be your best friend or break you in half with his bare hands, depending on his mood. The mood and the face were, thankfully, friendly at the moment.

We’d left Libby in the lobby with the kids, partly because Ada was asleep, but mostly because Warner said he wanted to talk to me first. Alone.

He pulled out a pen and clicked it before resting his hand atop the yellow notepad, ready and waiting with a fresh page. He started off casual. “How are you, Penny?”

I snorted, unsure if he was sincerely asking or trying to break the tension. “Well, I mean, I just saw a dead body fall out of a closet, so you know.”

He kindly smiled at me. He had young kids of his own and lived a few streets over from Libby. His wife, Nicole, founder of an extremely lucrative online skincare company, spent a fair amount of time poolside with us in Libby’s backyard. She made a mean strawberry margarita and always had the best book recommendations. “You’re only here for the day?”

“That was the plan. I come down most weekends in the summer to swim with the kids, but Libby invited me to the estate sale today.”

“You’re still up in the city?”

“Yes.”

Although there were several to choose from in the Bay Area, the city most commonly referred to San Francisco. The seven square miles where people piled on top of each other and paid eye-watering prices to climb the wind-whipped hills and live in the fog. My apartment in the Outer Richmond was a solid seventy-five-minute drive to Libby’s house in a peninsula suburb.

“You’re still teaching at the school?” Detective Warner continued with his line of questioning, which felt more like a catch-up at a backyard barbeque than anything to do with discovering a dead body.

“Yes. Finalizing my tenure case this summer.”

“Hey, congrats. Still computer sciences?”

“Uh-huh. Are we going to talk about the body, or what?”

He gently laughed. “Getting there, don’t worry. I wanted to know what you’re up to these days. I haven’t been around to any gatherings this summer to find out.”

“Well, we’re only a few days in. There’s hardly been a chance yet.”

Classes had recently ended, and I’d submitted final grades before diving headfirst into my tenure case, which had to be completed by the end of August. I had three papers to finish, a grant to write, and a book chapter to revise—all in a three-month window. Weekend escapes to my sister’s pool were about the only thing I had to look forward to this summer. I had no time for adventures, especially the amorous kind Libby wanted me to have.

Detective Warner smiled again. “Well, let’s hope today’s incident doesn’t derail any normal summer activity.”

I blinked at him, unable to imagine how that could be possible. As if dead bodies fell out of closets in this neighborhood all the time.

He clicked his pen again and pulled the pad closer, ready to get started. Something notably shifted in his voice. “How well do you know Anthony Pierce?”

“His last name’s not Griotti?” I asked in surprise.

He flipped a page of his notes, scanned something, and looked back at me. “No. Lou Griotti was his mother’s brother, so different last name.”

“Huh.” The name Anthony Griotti had been spiraling around my head like a marble in a jar since we’d left the house. As had the theory that he’d murdered his own uncle to inherit his house and stuffed him in the closet, though I knew that couldn’t be true. The man in the closet was about twenty years too young to be Mr. Griotti, and he certainly had not been dead for a week, like Mr. Griotti had been.

“Tell me what you know about him,” Warner said.

I shrugged. “Honestly, hardly anything. I met him this morning at the estate sale.”

“Really?” His brows lifted in dubious arches.

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

“A few witnesses mentioned they noticed what they referred to as chemistry between the two of you.”

“What?” I cried, glad my sister was not present to pounce on his statement. “ Multiple people mentioned that?”

He referenced his notes. “Yes. In fact, one referred to you as his girlfriend. They said they ‘saw him arguing with his girlfriend over the price of candlesticks,’” he quoted from his notepad and looked up at me for an explanation.

My mind went blank and spun at the same time. “How could I be his girlfriend? I met him this morning for five minutes.”

“I’m only reporting what people were saying.”

“Well, they’re wrong.”

“Hmm,” Warner hummed, and scribbled on his pad. I got the acute sense he didn’t believe me, and that fact made for an uncomfortable realization.

“Wait, am I being accused of something?” I replayed his earlier questions about my job and what I was up to this summer, and the fact that he’d wanted to question me alone, without Libby, who’d witnessed everything I had—and was the mother of the child who instigated the whole situation. “Do you think I’m somehow part of this? An accomplice or something?”

Warner didn’t answer, but instead moved on. “Describe your argument over the candlesticks.”

My skin prickled in annoyance at the memory of the interaction, but also in concern that Warner was already using the other witnesses’ description of it being an argument. The latter did not bode well for extracting myself from whatever this tangle was. “Well, I offered to buy some candlesticks because I overheard this couple discussing how they were going to swindle him by offering way below their value, and he sold to them despite me offering much more. I thought I was being helpful and that it was a nice thing to do for someone new to the neighborhood—a person, mind you, I’ve never met before. ” I emphasized the end of my statement.

He made another note on his pad. “Anything else?”

My annoyance bubbled again. “Truthfully, he was pretty rude through the whole thing. I confronted him about why he didn’t take my offer, and he said he didn’t care what anyone paid for anything. He only wanted to sell it all so he could sell the house and get out of town.”

“He said those words? ‘Get out of town’?”

“Um . . .” I paused, hesitating and unable to recall exactly what he’d said. “I’m not sure, but that’s what he implied.”

He continued scribbling on his pad in loops and curls, which I couldn’t make out, upside down, from across the table. “Okay. Did you notice anything that seemed off about him during your interaction?”

I snorted with another comment about his manners spring-loaded on my tongue, when I remembered there was something that had been off. A few pieces clicked together in my head. “Yeah, actually. He was sweaty.”

He paused writing and looked up. “Sweaty?”

I thought back to that little, curled J pressed against his damp temple. He had been wearing black, so the sweat wasn’t readily evident elsewhere, but I had definitely seen signs of it. “Yes. Around his face, as if he’d been exerting himself. He was carrying a box of books when I first saw him, but not one big enough to really make anyone sweat with the effort.”

Detective Warner held my gaze. From the look in his eye, I got the sense we were thinking the same thing.

Not sweaty enough for carrying books, but sweaty enough to have shoved a body into a closet.

“Describe finding the body. How did that play out?”

The dull thud of it hitting the floor echoed in my mind. The term deadweight would never be the same again.

“There wasn’t much to it. Max pulled open the closet door, despite all of us telling him not to, and the body fell out. It was wrapped in a sheet, but not very well, as I’m sure you saw.”

“You were telling him not to open the door?”

“Yes. Anthony was the first to tell him to stop; he was really concerned about it. I thought he didn’t want a little kid opening random doors in his house, but then he charged down the hall to stop him. He obviously knew the body was in there, because why would he have cared so much otherwise?”

The detective subtly nodded, as if he didn’t want to commit fully to agreeing with a statement that would have been called speculation in court. “Did he say anything to you after the body was exposed?”

I swept my memory for an answer, but shock had mostly blanked out that section of the story. “I don’t think so.”

“Okay. Anything else you can think of that might be important?”

There was something that jumped out, but I was still struggling to make sense of it.

The thing was, I swore I recognized the man in the closet.

Since we’d left the estate sale, I’d been racking my brain, scaling the chutes and ladders of my memory, only to come up empty. I taught hundreds of university students each year and worked with dozens of faculty members and had spent plenty of time in Libby’s neighborhood, but the man in the closet wasn’t a match for anyone I could think of.

I hadn’t even told my sister yet, and with Warner’s suspicion that I might have somehow been an accomplice, sharing with him didn’t seem like the greatest idea.

“No. I can’t think of anything else important.” I paused before asking, “Do you know who the body is?”

Warner let out a tight breath and tapped his pen on his pad, studying me. “We haven’t made a positive ID yet. Are you sure you didn’t know Anthony Pierce before today?”

“A thousand percent positive. Why? Did he say we’ve met before?”

I could feel the cogs of his brain working in the silence, which spanned what felt like an eternity. “We haven’t had much chance to talk to him yet. We took a brief statement at the house, but he requested a lawyer before saying anything more. We’re waiting on them to come down to the station now.”

“Oh.”

The fact that Anthony had lawyered up so soon did not bode well for his innocence—though I would have called in help if someone had found a dead body in my closet too, even if I hadn’t put it there.

I couldn’t fathom why I was mentally trying to defend him. All evidence pointed to a situation to run far away from.

“Can I go now?” I asked, ready to leave the small room, which had me feeling jumpy.

Warner reached into his suit jacket pocket and pulled out a crisp white business card. “For now. Your sister has my number, but here’s my card anyway. Call me if you think of anything else.”

His tone left me unsure which side of the suspect-witness line I fell on. I took the card and uneasily poked its sharp edge into my fingertip. “Thank you.”

Warner led me down the hall and back into the main room where phones rang, and conversations bubbled. Back out in the lobby, we found Libby in a chair, with Max limply draped over her chest like a vest, sound asleep. Ada was still napping in her stroller. Libby looked up at Detective Warner with the threat of death in her eyes if he dared suggest she wake her sleeping children so that he could question her.

He got the message and stepped back, mouthing, We’ll do this later.

Libby nodded and rose from the chair without disturbing Max. I wrangled the stroller as we prepared to leave. Other neighbors from the area still lingered, waiting to be questioned, and I saw them in a new light, wondering which of them might accuse me of being Anthony’s girlfriend.

Speak of the devil, we ran into Anthony waiting near the entrance when we exited the building. He hadn’t changed out of his black uniform, but he now wore a flush in his tanned, olive-toned cheeks and a pair of sunglasses, which showed me my own reflection.

“Hey,” I said, and marched right up to him. Libby took the stroller and headed for the minivan parked in the front row. A few other people milled about the front of the building. News of what had happened was already grapevining its way through town.

Anthony flinched at my directness and the finger I pointed in his face.

“The cops think I’m your girlfriend and that I’m somehow involved in this, so you need to go in there and clear all that up right now.”

My statement clearly unsettled him. “What? How in the world would they get that idea?”

“I don’t know. I guess the other witnesses said they noticed chemistry between us when we were discussing the candlesticks.”

He stepped back like I’d hurled an insult at him. I stepped forward and, not seeing the edge of the curb, tripped.

For two belly-dropping seconds, I was weightless. The pavement quickly rose to greet me in a dirty gray rush, and I thought all was lost until Anthony threw out his arms to stop my fall.

“Easy,” he said as I landed in his grip, already wanting to die before I even came to a full stop.

I regained my footing, but not my dignity. I was not the most graceful creature. Tripping off a curb was not new to me, and I honestly would have preferred to land hands and knees on the bird-poop-stained police station parking lot than in Anthony Pierce’s arms, because not only did I now owe him thanks, but my nose was also an inch from his chest, which smelled positively divine.

“Thank you,” I said on a flustered breath when I stood up.

“No problem.” He sounded genuine and not as annoyed as I would have expected. The warmth of his large hands still lingered on my rib cage when I gathered myself enough to look up at him. Of course I saw my own reflection because of the sunglasses. I was flushed, with my lips parted and hair in my face. My cheeks burned deeper in embarrassment.

A deep voice interrupted from our left, putting an end to our awkward confrontation. “Anthony, good man. Always helping out a lady, just like your uncle.”

Anthony dropped his grip and pivoted to the newcomer. The man wore a slick suit and had even slicker hair. His outfit screamed lawyer and expensive with the enthusiasm of a bullhorn. I could see his gold watch winking from his wrist. I wondered if he’d somehow teleported in from New York, or if Anthony had local connections to get him here so quickly.

“Mr. Mitchell,” Anthony said. He stuck out his hand to shake the man’s. “Thank you for coming.”

“Of course. And who’s this?” He turned to me with a charming smile, which felt only a tad greasy.

“Oh, um. This is my uncle’s neighbor’s sister,” Anthony said. I noticed he put as many degrees of separation between us as possible when he could have simply said my name.

“Dr. Collins,” I said, and stuck out my hand, not because I particularly wanted to make this man’s acquaintance, but because I felt the need to label myself something other than the several-degrees-removed lady in distress who Anthony had helped.

I felt Anthony’s eyes bounce to me at my use of doctor.

“Pleasure to meet you, Dr. Collins,” Mr. Mitchell said. He turned back to Anthony, all business. “I assume they are expecting us inside?”

“Yes,” Anthony said right as Libby called to me.

“Pen! Let’s go!” She stood on the runner outside the driver’s door and leaned on top of the minivan, keys dangling from one hand. I’d missed the circus of loading two small children into a vehicle: the collapsing of the stroller and then strapping, belting, and securing into car seats.

I nodded at her and turned back to Anthony and his lawyer. “Please make sure you clear up any confusion in there.”

Grinning, Mr. Mitchell clapped Anthony on the shoulder. “That’s what I’m here for.”

I watched them enter the building and was certain we were not talking about the same thing.

The crime scene tape still flapped in the breeze when we pulled the minivan back into Libby’s driveway. The kids miraculously stayed asleep through our station exit and journey back home. I helped Libby nestle them into their crib and bed, and then joined her in the kitchen for a drink.

“Well, that wasn’t how I expected this day to pan out,” she said, pouring a luscious stream of lemonade into matching acrylic glasses. She poked neon-pink straws into each and shoved one my way.

I sat on the opposite side of the titanic granite island in the middle of her kitchen. The house was an airy aviary compared to the wooden tomb next door. We sat in a white-on-white room with tiled floors, slick countertops, and shiny appliances, which openly spilled into the dining room on one end and the toy-littered family room on the other. A bouquet of fresh lilies stood in a slender vase at the island’s end, and I could see the backyard and pool through the dining-room windows, a slap of vibrant color against all the white. The space felt profoundly alive, perhaps because we’d spent the morning in a place marked by death.

“Indeed, it was not,” I said, and took a swig of lemonade. The way it pinched my throat was pure summertime bliss. We’d hardly spoken on the car ride home, since the kids were asleep. I hadn’t yet told Libby that the police thought I was involved with Anthony or that I thought I might have recognized the body. Admittedly, I was biding my time to figure out how to do both.

“You’re not saying something. What is it?” Libby asked, reading me like a book.

I huffed like she might have been wrong when we both knew she wasn’t. She was my big sister and had been fluent in my mannerisms since the day I was born.

I sipped my lemonade again and carefully set it on the island. “I have to tell you something, but I don’t want you to freak out.”

“Why would I freak out?” Her brow curved in an arch, which was at once curious and cautious.

I gave her a knowing stare back; I was fluent in all the subtle languages of sisterhood too. “Just don’t, okay?”

She shrugged with a bulge of her eyes in silent agreement.

I opted for what I thought was the more important of the two facts. “So I recognized the guy next door. The body in the closet.”

“What?!” she screeched, right on cue. “Why do you recognize the dead guy in the closet?”

“I don’t know!”

She glanced over her shoulder toward the house next door; it was plainly visible through her kitchen window. Her voice dropped a few decibels to a conspiratorial level. “Penny, this is serious. I thought it was some freak accident that we happened to be there, but you think you know who it was in there?”

Her question sent a hot rush barreling up my neck into my face like I’d done something wrong. At the same time, I mentally shook my brain for the memory like a piggy bank, trying to get the lone coin to fall out of the slot. “I don’t know, Lib. But I swear, I’ve seen him before. It’s like it’s on the tip of my tongue. Detective Warner said they don’t have a positive ID yet, so he couldn’t show me any photos to confirm.”

She leaned back on the island, crossing her arms. “Well, I’ve never seen him before, so he’s not from around here. Maybe you know him from your school?”

“Maybe, but that narrows it down to a few thousand options.”

Libby’s lips twisted and she went quiet in the way she did when she was thinking.

I sipped my lemonade for courage before continuing. “There’s more.”

“Oh?” she asked, wide-eyed.

“Yes. The police somehow have the impression that I’m Anthony’s girlfriend. Warner was questioning me like I might be involved.”

“What?!” she screeched again. Her face paled in shock and then flushed red in anger. “You told him you’re not, right?”

“Of course I did!”

“Good!”

Both of our voices had risen to howler monkey levels. Libby took a breath and fished her phone out of her legging pocket. “This is absurd. I’m going to text Nicole and tell her to tell her husband that he’s way off base.”

“I already told him.”

“Well, he needs to hear it from multiple sources.” She angrily tapped her phone like it had thrown a punch at her.

“Lib, relax. I told Anthony to clear it up when he talked to them. That’s what we were talking about in the parking lot at the station.”

She scoffed. “And you trust him?”

It was my turn to scoff. “Need I remind you that you were trying to set me up with him mere hours ago?”

“Yes, but that was before I knew he was a serial killer!”

“He’s not a serial killer!” I said, surprised to hear myself defending him. “I don’t think . . .”

Libby glared at me. “Penelope, we found a body in his closet! Who has bodies in their closets? Serial killers. ”

“You watch too many true crime documentaries. And he’s a really bad serial killer if he stashed a body in his closet and then had an estate sale the same day. Most serial killers are smarter than that. And serial means many, not one.”

She narrowed her eyes in another glare. “How do you know serial killers are smart if you don’t watch true crime docs too?”

I let out an exasperated huff and rounded the island into the dining room to look out the wall of French doors. I could see the backyard next door. The crime scene tape circled the house’s whole perimeter like a big, loose rubber band. The back door Libby had dragged me and her children through, as if the house was on fire, still stood open. Police officials came in and out, snapping photos and placing little yellow markers on the ground. I wondered if the body had been removed yet. A detached garage sat back from the back porch. It shared the same jade green siding and faded white trim as the main house. The car, a boat of an old green Cadillac, always sat in the driveway, so I had to assume the garage was not used for parking.

Thoughts of what might be in there made me shudder.

Libby came up behind me and stood on her toes to rest her chin on my shoulder. She was older, but I’d been taller since a growth spurt in high school. “Will you stay here with me and the kids? Please? I don’t want to be alone with him next door.”

I had the feeling she was going to ask. I couldn’t blame her, what with her husband currently five thousand miles away. “Tonight?”

I felt her shrug against my back. “At least.”

She was being vague on purpose, and I knew one night could turn into all summer if she unleashed her expert persuasion skills on me.

“Anthony said he’s only staying until he sells the house,” I said.

She snorted. “Yeah, and who’s going to buy that house, now that everyone knows they found a body in it?”

It was a solid point. “Why don’t you ask Mom to come stay with you and the kids?”

Libby dramatically groaned. “Oh, God. Sign me up for an axe murderer neighbor before Mom.”

That was a fair comment. Libby was a bit of a black sheep in our family. Our mother was an English professor, and I could easily coexist in the same house with her, given we were both prone to long bouts of solitude and silence while engaged in reading or studying. Our father, a renowned mathematician, wasn’t much different. A man of very few words and a mind full of equations, he found opportunities to teach and to learn at every turn. A social creature, Libby thrived on conversation and constant company and stimulation. She and our parents exhausted each other in opposite ways.

“What else do you have going on anyway? It’s summer.”

I cast her a glower over my shoulder. “I’m trying to make tenure, remember?”

“Ah, right. Truly, our parents’ child. Well, you can do that remotely, can’t you?” The plea in her voice was almost a whine. I hated saying no to her, and she made it near impossible. She circled in front of me and gripped my shoulders. “Listen, it’s either you stay here, or I pack up the kids and haul all three of us up there to your apartment, and we all know the latter would be a disaster.”

She was right. I had one bathroom, a kitchen the size of a postage stamp compared to hers, and my spare room was a glorified nook I’d converted into an office by way of adding a fern and a desk to it.

The look on my face must have given me away. She saw me swaying and pounced.

“Yes! You’re going to say yes. I can see it in your eyes!”

I rolled my eyes and moved out of her grip to walk back to the kitchen. “I’ll stay tonight, but, Lib, he’s probably not even going to come back home. I mean, the house is a literal crime scene, and even if that lawyer looked fancy, I doubt they’re going to let him go so quick—”

My sentence stopped midbreath. At the proper angle, we could also see the neighbor’s driveway through the kitchen window. And at that moment, a shiny black sedan pulled up and parked. Anthony Pierce climbed out of the passenger side while the lawyer from the police station climbed out the driver’s side. They shook hands at the hood of the car, and then the lawyer turned around and waved at the police officers still on the scene. His gold watch glinted in the sun.

Two officers came over to talk to him, and after a brief discussion, they nodded and promptly removed the crime scene tape.

Anthony stood on the porch and watched it all happen like the director on a film set. Even from a distance, I could see a small smile playing at his lips. The sight of it, along with the police scurrying about like ants to erase evidence that something nefarious had taken place, put an unsettling weight in my gut—a stone dropped from afar and left to slowly sink.

“How is that possible?” Libby said what I was thinking, in the same stunned tone that I was thinking it.

“Must be a good lawyer,” I said, shocked that they hadn’t arrested him.

Something about the whole scene felt off. Like when putting a shoe on the wrong foot or missing the bottom step on a staircase. It didn’t fit, and watching it unfold made me feel like that stone in my belly had lifted only to fall even harder.

The unsettling feeling only grew when Anthony turned, looked right at us through the window, as if he knew we were watching, and waved like a friendly neighbor.