A horn honked in the driveway. “I’ve got to go,” Stacey said. “David’s a little on edge and he’s waiting in the car. He insisted on driving me to my deliveries. Says he doesn’t want me walking alone in the neighborhood after dark with some unknown killer on the loose. I mean, for all we know it could be one of the other neighbors! Can you imagine?” She waggled her fingers in farewell. “You two ladies be safe, and keep that handsome detective of yours close, Finlay. If you change your mind about placing an order, you know where to find me.” With a wink, she was gone.
I closed the door and locked the dead bolt, feeling a little creeped out.
“I need a drink,” Vero said, carrying her brown bag with her to the kitchen.
I gathered up the take-out menus and put them back in the drawer. On second thought, chocolate and booze didn’t sound like such a terrible idea. I poured a glass of bourbon for each of us and broke open a package of Oreos while Vero rummaged in the freezer and came back with a tub of Cool Whip. We carried it all to the living room. Vero turned on the TV and changed the channel to the evening news.
“Look,” she said, “there she is.”
The ticker scrolled across the bottom of the screen:Suspect in Loudoun County homicide case released from custody.
The news camera panned to a reporter, the Loudoun County Police Department building forming the backdrop behind her.“According to the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office, all charges against the suspect have been dismissed in light of new evidence, which was discovered by investigators over the last twenty-four hours. Eighty-one-year-old Margaret Haggerty, the owner of the home where the body of Gilford Dupree was discovered a week ago, was released from jail earlier this evening after police confirmed she had no known connection to the victim. A spokesperson for the Loudoun County Police Department says investigators are already pursuing a promising new lead…”
The camera cut away to a prerecorded clip of my elderly neighbor being escorted from the police station under the arm of her grandson, Brendan. A reporter thrust a microphone in his face. Brendan’s smile was polite but tight as he shuffled his grandmother to his waiting car. “My grandmother has been through a terrible ordeal,” he said. “We’re grateful to put this injustice behind us, and we wish the Commonwealth’s Attorney and the investigators a speedy resolution to this complicated case. Thank you. No further questions.”
Vero frowned and turned the TV off. “They found a dead guy buried in her backyard, and they’re just letting her go?”
“Whatever new evidence they have must be pretty compelling.”
“Do you think she’ll come home?”
“Would you?” The woman was an eighty-one-year-old widow who lived alone and she’d just spent a week in jail because someone had buried a body in her rose garden. “I wouldn’t blame her if she never wanted to come back.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and she won’t,” Vero grumbled. “Living across the street from that woman creeps me out. She’s seen too much. I don’t trust her.”
I had harbored a strong dislike for Mrs. Haggerty since she blew the whistle on my ex-husband, after documenting his extramarital relationships with our real estate agent more than a year ago, but it was what my neighbor might have witnessed in the last five months that disturbed me most of all. Vero and I couldn’t be sure how much Mrs. Haggerty had seen the night Harris Mickler was murdered in my garage. I’d never intended to get involved when his wife tried to hire me to kill him, but when someone else left me holding the body, Vero and I had panicked. We’d buried Harris on my ex-husband’s farm and pinned the whole thing on the Russian mob, but that hadn’t been the end of it. Harris Mickler’s murder had set off a chain reaction of unthinkable events. Vero and I had spent the last five months finding bodies, hiding bodies, and trying to figure out who had murdered those bodies. Somehow, the two of us had survived it all unscathed, but I wasn’t foolish enough to assume we were in the clear for good.
Vero dunked an Oreo in the Cool Whip. “What if Stacey’s husband is right and the killer is someone who lives here in South Riding?”
I sucked crumbs from my teeth as I considered some of myneighbors. “The Patels don’t exactly give off serial-killer vibes. What about Frank Dwyer, the computer analyst? He’s a little weird.”
Vero shook her head. “All computer analysts are weird. My money’s on that big, muscle-y guy who’s always picking fights at the homeowners association meetings.”
“Don Weber? The car salesman?”
“Stacey thinks he’s a little crazy from all the steroids.”
“Stacey would know,” I said drily. She’d probably heard it at the bus stop from the other gossipy moms. “Sounds like the police already have a suspect in mind. I’m sure we’ll all hear who it is soon enough.” If the TV reporters didn’t tell us, the rumor mill would.
The doorbell rang. We both paused our chewing.
“You expecting someone else?” Vero asked around her cookie.
I shook my head. “Nick’s working late again tonight.” My boyfriend had been working late nearly every night since we’d returned from Atlantic City a week ago. I was pretty sure Commander Ortega was punishing him, reminding him that Fairfax County cops who sneak off on renegade investigations outside their jurisdiction wouldn’t do so without repercussions—in Nick’s case, a mountain of paperwork. But a niggling doubt had taken root in my mind that he was pulling away, putting distance between us. That he couldn’t keep turning a blind eye to the secrets I’d been keeping from him. I had texted him a few hours ago to remind him the children would be staying with their father this weekend. I also let him know I’d leave a key under the downspout beside my front stoop. His reply had been quick but short, promising he would try to come by on his way home from work on Friday nightifhe made it home at all.
“Maybe it’s your husband,” I teased.
Vero flipped me off. She and Javi weren’t actually married. Their tequila-induced trip to a neon-lit Atlantic City chapel last weekhadn’t been legally binding, but there was no use trying to convince Javi of that. Vero’s childhood crush was hopelessly in love with her, and he’d taken it as a personal challenge to win back her affections after they’d spent the last three years apart. “You’ve got Oreos in your teeth. You should probably go brush them just in case.”
She called me a name under her breath as she sprinted to the bathroom. I took the liberty of finishing her drink for her on my way to answer the door.
I opened it, expecting to see a long-haired, tattooed Latino hunk on the other side.
Instead, I blinked at the conservatively dressed white man standing on my stoop. Mrs. Haggerty’s grandson smiled uncertainly and adjusted his tie. His sour-faced grandmother stood beside him. She glowered at me over the handle of her purple American Tourister carry-on bag.
“Mrs. Haggerty! This is… a surprise,” I said, fumbling over my greeting. Was there a polite way to greet your neighbor after she’d been released from custody on murder charges?
She pushed her way past me into my foyer, her bony elbow catching me in my bladder as the wheel of her luggage ran over my toe. Brendan gave me an apologetic smile, shifting the huge suitcase he held to his opposite hand so he could reach to shake mine. “It’s good to see you again, Ms. Donovan. Brendan. Brendan Haggerty?” His smile grew pained as he waited for me to respond.
