As soon as the elevator doors shut, Ziya exclaimed, “Penthouse?” as if Amie might have had trouble reading her lips fifteen seconds prior. “So he’srichrich.”
“I’m sure a penthouse in South Jersey runs less than a penthouse in an actual city,” Amie pointed out.
“Sure, but living in a penthouse is inherentlyrichrich-person shit,” Ziya countered. “Normal rich people buy, like, a house.”
“I think he has some of those, too,” Amie said, having done some more research on the man the night before.
“Whoa.”
The elevator fell silent. Then Ziya said, “I think I’d prefer a house. Penthouse is too high up. What if the elevator breaks?”
Amie hummed a laugh in response while suppressing a concerned frown. Ziya’s tone had shifted. It was too bright, almost forced. It was as if she was just trying to fill the silence. They’d never had a problem with silence before.
She didn’t have time to overthink any more than she likely already was. The screen above the elevator doors flashed the letterP, and the doors opened with a cheerfulding.
The two women stepped out into a foyer that, if it was an escape room, would be themed “sensory overload.” The wood floor was carpeted by two Persian rugs. A chandelier that looked like an explosion of glass frozen in time hung from the ceiling. The walls were covered with paintings and tapestries of varying size and styles, almost completely swallowing the patterned wallpaper underneath. Among them were little shelves holding a variety of knickknacks, vases, masks, musical instruments—
“Hey!” Ziya exclaimed with recognition. She pointed at a hanging tapestry of a woman in a saree standing underneath a tree. “My aunt and uncle have that in their house.”
“Likely a copy,” came a voice from the doorway. “Either that, or my art dealer cheated me out of a significant sum of money.”
Jonathan Oakland looked to be in his late sixties or early seventies. His white hair was neatly trimmed, with thinning gray eyebrows that were raised with amusement over dark-blue eyes. His blue polo shirt was tucked neatly into an ironed pair of khaki pants.
“Mr. Oakland, hi, I’m Amie,” said Amie, crossing the foyer to shake the man’s hand. “This is my friend, Ziya.” She’d practiced the introduction in her head on the bus ride over, primarily to avoid any stammering over the second half.
“Amie, Ziya, pleasure to meet you.” He returned the handshake, shaking Ziya’s hand as well. “And just ‘Oakland’ is fine. I’d say Mr. Oakland is my father, but the son of a bitch died when I was four, so I can’t say for sure what people are calling him these days.”
Amie and Ziya both chuckled politely as Oakland let out a belly laugh.
“Come, join me in the sitting room.” The man led them down a short hall to a room that was somehow even more decorated than the foyer. Amie sat down delicately on a dark red fainting couch, utilizing her experience from David’s apartment to avoid knocking over a small statue of a rabbit that sat on a wooden table to her left. Ziya sat beside her, gazing around the room.
“Your place is …” Ziya began, then paused, starting again. “You have a lot of beautiful things.”
“Thank you!” Oakland sat down on a leather lounge chair, which had a name that escaped Amie but did, she knew, cost thousands of dollars.
The man gestured to a ceramic teapot that sat on a low table between them. “Can I offer you some tea or other refreshment?”
“We’re good, thanks,” Amie said. She didn’t think Ziya would have accepted the tea anyway, but she figured it was better to err on the side of caution while speaking to a murder suspect.
“So …” Oakland sat back in his chair. “You said you wanted to talk about Savannah Harlow?”
“Yes,” Amie said, giving him a tight smile. “I heard you talking about her on a podcast. Or, about Susannah.”
Oakland chuckled. “Wasn’t very subtle with that name change, was I? It was more to avoid legal trouble than a genuine attempt at obfuscation.”
“So SusannahwasSavannah.”
“Of course! You seem like smart girls; I’m not going to insult your intelligence by pretending she wasn’t. If that was my intention, I could have just as easily ignored your email.”
“Why didn’t you?” Ziya asked. She’d crossed her legs, folding her hands on one knee. “A stranger emailed you about a woman you have no public connection to. Why the interest?”
“For exactly that reason,” Oakland said, looking at Amie. “Clearly you had some reason, some knowledge that connected me to Savannah Harlow. I was curious to know what you’d heard.”
Amie now knew what Madeline had meant when she described Oakland’s intense energy and excess of eye contact. She moved her gaze to the table in front of her to avoid his piercing stare.
“You’d been interested in buying Savannah’s bookstore,” Amie said to the ceramic teapot. “She turned you down. Then, according to your story, she tried to get free business advice from you.”
“And instead of turningherdown,” Ziya jumped in, “you fed her bad business tips and shared the story to promote your entrepreneurship course.”
