When Denny got home, a squad car was parked in his driveway. Same scene, different year. Denny had not seen or heard from the Hamilton Police Department in months. He had left messages inquiring about Anna’s laptop; those messages had gone unanswered. Once, Sticks had texted, saying that the laptop was “still being forensically analyzed.” That was last summer, six months ago. Denny had come to believe that the laptop, like the engagement ring, was another casualty, an item lost to the chaos of death.
Denny parked right next to the squad car and got out. He tapped his knuckle on the window and smiled, expecting to see Sticks looking back at him, but it wasn’t Sticks. Instead, an officer Denny had never seen before rolled down the window. A kid, Denny thought, no more than twenty-five.
“Mr. Plummer, Officer Malkin sent me over here. I’m sorry to bother you,” the officer said. He was nervous, Denny could tell. He didn’t make eye contact when he was speaking. Instead, he looked straight ahead through the windshield, facing the empty woods.
“What’s it you need?” Denny asked. “Here to follow up on a year-old crime that no one’s done anything about?”
The young officer cleared his throat. “I’m here to take a look inside, if that’s okay?”
“What did you say your name was?”
“I didn’t,” the officer said. “It’s Smith, though. Aaron Smith.”
“Sticks didn’t want to come over himself, I take it?”
“He got caught up on another case he’s been working on, you see. That’s why he asked me if I could just stop by.” The kid cleared his throat again. He really was a kid. Denny could see scars on his face from where there had once been acne, probably only recently cleared. Sticks had been invisible for the better part of a year, except the time Denny ran into him and Ellen at the Block Party in August. No follow-through. No interest in the case. So why was he sniffing around here now, sending his minions over to investigate, when the meat of the murder was so clearly elsewhere?
“I see,” said Denny. “And what was it he wanted you to take a look at, exactly?”
“He was just wondering.” The boy stopped and opened a bottle of water from the cup holder in the center console. Denny could see the boy’s hand—it looked like it was shaking. “He mentioned that Mrs. Plummer had an office?”
Well, wasn’t that a fucking coincidence, Denny thought. Nothing in this town was a secret.
“I’m afraid it’s all packed up, you see. I broke it all down just this morning.”
“Maybe you could pass along all the stuff that was in it to Officer Malkin? He’d be interested in seeing whatever it was you packed up. Sir.” The boy was trying. Denny had to give him that. He had obviously been given stern instructions from Sticks to come back with the contents of his wife’s office or not to come back at all.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
“You can’t?”
“On account of you not having a warrant, and all.”
“Oh. Yes. Well, I guess I can understand that.”
“You can tell Sticks that if he needs to talk to me about any of the things in my house, he can reach out to me directly,” Denny said.
“I’ll let him know,” Officer Smith said.
“One other thing,” Denny said, leaning into the frame of the squad car. He could feel his size compared to the boy’s. He felt sorry for the kid, who had been caught in between a bad boss and an angry widower, but what choice was there now? They were all in too deep. “Let Officer Malkin know that I’d like my wife’s laptop back. He’s had plenty of time to analyze its contents, or whatever he’s been doing with it over there. He can bring it over here or I can come get it. Private property and all that. I sure wouldn’t want to have to file a police report against the police.” Denny laughed a little, but the young officer didn’t seem to find the joke funny.
“I’ll relay the message.”
“Much obliged.”
Denny gave the car a loud pat with his flat, open palm and then turned to walk in to the house. Whatever was in the office was of interest to Sticks, and to whoever was in Sticks’s circle. Denny imagined a dinner party: Ellen, Di, Mimi, and Karen, with Sticks at the head. Spouses in attendance, candles burning down to pretty little beeswax nubs. Glasses of red wine; tiny filets mignon, rare; pommes purée; and the skinny little asparagus that used to make his wife insane.Who buys these stupid little things, anyway? They are insulting to actual asparagus.A demi-glace and, for dessert,tarte tatin,one perfect white tablecloth, maybe everyone at Di’s midcentury oval table, the one with the Kardiel Milla dining chairs, which he had always coveted, even though he made things out of wood, not leather.
He could picture this imaginary (or was it real?) dining scene,a bottle of Opus One opening up in Di’s Riedel swan decanter, everyone a little drunk, a conversation unfurling about Anna, nuisance that she was, and about how to fix a problem without creating a different one. Husbands off to the family room to watch football and nap, the unspooling of an idea, of a plan, a joke at first and then more serious. They could do it, couldn’t they?
At first, it was just an idea, and then it was an idea that became the seed that was planted, something growing, developing roots. Stopping a cancer like Anna had purpose. Hamilton was a place worth preserving. She was messy and they were tidy, clean people who believed in their tidy, clean town. Believing in the same things kept them together. Believing in the same things kept them whole.
A dinnertime conversation. A joke, even. The kind of story told among friends that gradually took on a distinct shape. When had their eyes become little pinpricks, when had the wine turned their tongues the color of blood, when had the color drained from the room, when had everything turned cold, when had someone stood up to draw the thick velvet curtains in the dining room, when had the loud voices in the room turned hushed, when had they realized that they had started to develop a plan?
Mimi. The kind of woman who would push a little girl into a pool. Oh, come on, they all knew it. Ruthless to a fault. She would do anything to maintain her social status, and no one doubted how far she would really go. It was true. She had come from nothing—few knew it, but she had grown up dirt-poor in some Podunk town in Maryland—and look at her now, look at everything she had become, clawing for freedom, clawing, clawing, clawing, unwilling to give up everything she had fought so hard to achieve.
Ellen. Just a second-rate field hockey star who had only made it as far as UMass. Not as pretty as the other girls, and sure, she had gotten out of Rowley, but who even looked twice at Ellen Wilson? Well, Mimi Mar did. Mimi put trust in Ellen, took her under her wing, fluffed her up and made her feel important, and that wasenough. It was enough to be part of something, to be part of the PTO, and it was enough to want to defend that something if it was under attack.
Karen. A blank canvas. Denny could barely even remember what Karen looked like when he wasn’t standing directly in front of her. Mimi’s careful stooge. She would do anything for the Queen Bee, Denny knew that and so did everyone else: Mimi and Ellen and probably even Anna.
