“Making Ralphie the Lizard think Connor is alive, well, and planning to meet Baylee at Burgdorf,” I said, hitting send. We stared at the phone as ifitwas a grenade. A moment later, it buzzed with another voice memo.
“Hey there.”
The words came not from the phone, but from the darkness of the alley behind us. Layna and I both screamed. For a split second, I thought it was a phantom. But it was only Oat Willimena wearing a straw hat that gave her the silhouette of the Flying Dutchman fromSpongeBob.
“Oat Willimena!” I said. “You scared the bejeezus out of me.”
“I noticed earlier you didn’t put your recycling out,” she said. “Want me to grab it?”
“I’ll get it,” I said, my voice strained.
“All right,” Oat Willimena said. “Back to the garage. I’m going to listen toWomen Who Run with the Wolveson audiobook while I throw a few more Basque mugs. My bestsellers. You and the girls really should come see them.”
“We’ll do that,” I said, knowing we wouldn’t. “Night, Willimena.”
“Oat Willimena,” she corrected. “It’s a play on Oat Willie, a cult comic book character from Austin. He was mashing oats when—” She must’ve sensed my impatience. “Oh, never mind.” She disappeared through her gate, her walk defeated.
“Jesus, that old lady scared the shit out of me,” Layna whispered. “Do you think she heard anything?”
“I don’t think so. But I do think she has a crush on my babysitter-slash-duplex neighbor.”
“You should set them up,” Layna said.
“Do you think I have time for matchmaking right now?” I said.
“Maybe your pole name should be Buzzkill.” Layna snatched the dead guy’s phone from my hand and tapped at the screen to keep it from locking. “You ready?”
I nodded. We leaned together, our breath joining in one steaming cloud. She hit play.
“Let me hearyour voice, my brother,” Ralphie the Lizard said.
Layna let out a string of expletives that would’ve made Ali Wong blush. “They must only communicate in voice memos so they know it’s not a cop.” She got to work transforming her other pigtail into a side bun. As she finished the task, she said, “But you know, I actually think we can figure out who did this.”
What was this slightly unbalanced almost-divorcée doing in this alley with me anyway?
“Why are you helping me?” I asked. “Being bored is not a reason. Not for this.”
“I spent twenty years keeping my husband’s life in order. Maybe I want off the sidelines. My own chance to finally be an investigator—even if just an amateur one! And I don’t want you to take the fall for murdering this POS. Being married to a DA for so long, I’ve seen how this kind of thing can go. I like you. I don’t want it to go wrong for you.”
“Aren’t you worried if you help me it’ll go wrong foryou?”
Layna shrugged. “The douchebag hasn’t just been cheating. He’s been doing all kinds of shady shit. I’ve got dirt on him—serious dirt! Not just the usual DA party tricks. He turned a blind eye on some criminally shoddy construction work on some multimillion-dollar downtown condos. If I go down, he goes down with me, and he knows it. He’s the Ada County district attorney. I’d say that gives me a fair amount of wiggle room. Besides”—she shrugged—“everything I read about divorce is all: Self-care! Self-care! Self-care! But I don’t need self-care. I need an adventure.”
I nodded as I let this information soak in. “All right, then. How would you feel about helping me stash a mansicle?”
Fourteen
When I opened the door to the storage shed, I found it packed tighter than a box of Thin Mints. I cursed, remembering I’d agreed Emmylou’s granddaughter could store her furniture and clothes there while studying abroad.
A quick scan of the yard revealed the twins’ Victorian playhouse, an extravagant present from my mom. I couldn’t pry the girls out of it in the summer, but during this never-ending Boise winter they hadn’t set foot in the backyard, much less gone near the playhouse.
I kicked snow away from the wide faux French doors, dragged them open, and peered inside. A grown man certainly couldn’t lie flat in it. But it might be the exact right size for a crumpled corpse.
The twins’ large plastic sled leaned against the house. I carried it back out to the Impala, where Layna stood shivering, breath coming out in cartoon thought bubbles.
“I’ve got a spot for him,” I said, popping the trunk. “My kids’ playhouse.”
“Not the first place someone would look,” Layna agreed.
