Finn stands. It’s time to leave and do what he is being paid for—walking the dog.
As he leads Muffinhead through the house to the mudroom, he pauses at the small desk he saw when he first visited, drawn by the curated organization. He glances up at the portrait of the four Allards, all of them frozen in smiles that don’t quite reach their eyes. Then his gaze drops to the mail in a wicker basket. Catalogues, a flyer for a local roofing company, the usual. But then—an envelope. Heavier than the rest. Thick, expensive paper. Cream-colored, with a logo stamped on the back: a bold bloodred rendering of a fountain pen and the wordsCRIMSON EDGEbeneath it. In the top corner is a Potomac return address.
He’s seen a similar envelope before. Not here. Somewhere else—another Eastbrook house. The details are foggy, but the recognition is instant and visceral.
He turns the envelope over in his hand and registers its heft, but he doesn’t dare open it. He is reminded of Detective Aziz’s warning not to do anything illegal, and opening someone else’s mail certainly falls into that category.
Muffinhead whimpers.
“Right, sorry, buddy. Let’s go.” Finn snaps a photo of the back of the envelope and stuffs his phone in his pocket. He knows the answer will come to him when he least expects it.
On his way home from work, Finn is still hung up on the envelope he found at the Allards’ and its nagging familiarity. The sight of one of his flyers, ripped in half and hanging from a telephone pole, yanks him out of his thoughts.
Torn down again.
As he watches the remaining edges of the flyer flutter inthe breeze, Finn’s stomach knots with a familiar ache of sorrow and a bone-deep exhaustion. There was a time when this would have sent him into a rage. The idea that someone, maybe even her killer, was trying to erase Autumn. In his less charitable moments, he wished his neighbors would put half as much effort into finding out who killed Autumn as they did in perfecting the curb appeal of their houses.
But now he just accepts that this is the ethic of the suburbs—anything that disturbs the tranquility is taboo.
He reaches into his bag for his staple gun and freezes. It isn’t there. Then it hits him. He took everything out that morning to make room for his lunch and forgot to put the staple gun back in.
Ever since Autumn died, he hasn’t missed a single day of putting up flyers. He turns on his heel, walking faster now.
Back at home, he finds Paula crouching in the garden beside the small painted sign that reads:THE ONLY GOOD HOE IS A DIRTY HOE. The first time he saw it, he knew he was in the right place.
“How was work?” she asks, wiping sweat from her brow with a gloved hand.
“Hold on, I need to grab something I forgot,” he says, heading inside.
There, beside the red retro toaster, sits his staple gun. He grabs it, tucks it into his messenger bag, and is halfway down the walkway when her voice stops him.
“Any luck?”
He halts and turns. “Yeah. Found it.”
“No,” she says, straightening up into a kneeling position. “I meant in yourinvestigation. The dog-sitting gig, did it turn up anything?”
Finn lets out a little choking laugh. “I—I don’t know what you mean.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Don’t you?” A slow smile spreads across her face. “The Allards. I recommended you to them. Just be careful. If either of them is involved, you don’t want to tip them off.”
Finn stares at her in shock. “How did you—”
She lifts her chin. “I’m not as doddering as I look. Don’t let the silver hair fool you.”
Finn takes a good hard look at his landlady. She’s in her late seventies, in robust health, but what does he really know about her? The house is decorated with art and photographs from her travels around the world. He figured her for retired State Department, or maybe she used to work for some international organization like the World Bank. The Washington suburbs were filled with such people. But for the first time, he realizes he doesn’t actually know anything about her. “How long have you known about, how did you put it—‘my investigation’?”
“Oh, I can’t say exactly.” She waves her trowel in the air. “But watching you take dog-walking jobs that orbit that awful cement house where that poor girl was killed… it was only a matter of time before I figured it out. Especially once I found out about your hobby.”
Finn frowns.
“Your posters, my dear. I’m speaking of your posters.”
Finn lets out a long breath, shoulders sagging. “Do you think anyone else in the neighborhood has any idea?”
“Absolutely not,” she says with a snort. “These people are too self-involved. They wouldn’t notice if a retired CIA agentmoved in among them, as long as she appeared a silly old fool obsessed with her butterfly garden.”
For the first time in months, a real smile pulls at Finn’s face. Maybe even the beginning of a laugh.
