“It’s because he likes listening to you,” Principal Cruz teased. “Because you’re ‘hi-lar-i-ous.’”
“Stop that,” Nate said.
“Normally, I can’t shut him up,” Lucia continued. “But around you he’s too twitterpated to speak.”
“You need to stop right now,” Nate said. But he sounded more embarrassed than mad.
As my face flamed, I felt grateful it was dark in the car. “This is me right here,” I said, gesturing at my duplex, which looked cozy through the falling snow.
“It was fun to get to know you a little better,” Lucia said, her voice sparkling. I had the sense I could hang out with these two forever and never get tired of them.
“It was. Thanks for the ride,” I said, barely remembering to grab my bag of starchy underclothes.
Once I’d told Emmylou about my wild night, I listened to her (somewhat irritating) concerns that Alice’s Betty White face mask was an “oddtoy for a little girl” and that Phoebe’s biting was a sign of a deeper emotional ill. After I bid her good night, I took a hot shower to blast potato out of my nooks and crannies, then went to work on laundry mountain.
As I completed the mindless task of going through pockets before tossing clothes in the machine, I let the wordsDay of the Ropeand all they implied sink in for the first time since I’d heard the voice memo from Ralphie the Lizard. In three weeks, my furlough would be done and I’d be back at work. But even if I quit my job altogether, my coworkers would be there at the Capitol Grill serving sloppy joes to crusty old legislators and idealistic young staffers. I was currently tortured by the thought I might’ve had something to do with the murder of one slimeball who probably deserved to die. I certainly couldn’t live with the blood of countless innocents on my conscience.
I’d fished a purple marker out of Phoebe’s jeans and a tin of Crazy Aaron’s Thinking Putty from Alice’s hoodie. Now inside the pocket of my L.L.Bean puffer, my fingers closed around something with sharp edges.
A bottle cap. It had a tiny hole drilled through the middle andBuckSnortRoot Beerstamped on it. I’d always thought BuckSnort only came in cans. I turned it over, studying it. Had this bit of flotsam been in my jacket pocket for months? Or could it be a clue to my whereabouts during my blackout Sunday night?
With the washing machine running and the BuckSnort cap tucked into my purse, I put on my jammies and crept to the twins’ room. They lay conked out in Alice’s bottom bunk,Paddington 2still running on the iPad propped up against a pillow. The Brown kids huddled in a London phone booth where they played Joanna Lumley’s recorded voice into the phone receiver to trick Hugh Grant.
Gently lifting the tablet, I hit pause and studied my girls. Phoebe wore a red Little Mermaid wig and slept with one arm flung out as if trying to grab something just out of reach. Alice’s pajamas were on inside out, and she had her beloved Betty White face mask tucked into herelbow, as if she’d had an attack of narcolepsy right after robbing an armored car. Seeing them sleeping, so perfectly rumpled, always made me remember that sometimes life is joyful and beautiful. Sometimes even our wildest dreams come true (times two)! But the twins’ soft breathing also terrified me. It was my job to stay alive and well and out of prison so they’d have a shot at a reasonably trauma-free childhood. I wanted to give them that, more than I’d even wanted to have them in the first place. To that end—as soon as I’d gotten my twins onto the school bus tomorrow—I’d head to Connor’s house to see what I could discover.
Sixteen
Wednesday
The dead guy lived in a part of Boise called the Bench, because it sits on a plateau north of downtown. The Bench is being rapidly gentrified, but his street still could’ve been the establishing shot of a 1970s sitcom about a down-on-its-luck working-class family. After parking a few houses down, I slouched behind the wheel to stuff my hair under a beanie. Next I pulled on thin gloves to avoid leaving prints. I was on a three-pronged mission:
Nab any packages so they wouldn’t blare to the neighbors that Connor had gone missing.
Break into his house.
Find further clues (or better yet, proof!) as to who killed him and why.
Bonus points if I could find evidence re: a plan to attack the capitol.
I carefully avoided patches of black ice on the sidewalk. The last thing I needed was to have an ambulance on record rescuing me from Connor Johnson’s doorstep.
Connor’s house was so small it seemed impossible he’d have a roommate, but his sidewalk had been shoveled—hopefully a Good Samaritan neighbor had done it. His mailbox was a drop-through slot, but a couple UPS boxes sat stacked at the door. If anyone asked, I’d say I lived three streets over and my packages had been delivered here by accident.
As I scooped up the parcels, a dog’s panicked barking erupted. Someone was inside! With a dog! A 1990s John Travolta might as well have slammed a syringe full of adrenaline into my heart. I was bolting toward my car, stumbling on black ice, when a lightning bolt of understanding struck.
If Connor was dead—
And had no roommates—
Maybe the dog inside belonged to Connor. If so, it’d been alone for three days. I couldn’t in good conscience leave a hungry, thirsty, abandoned animal trapped all alone.
And maybe I could search the place after all. I dumped the packages in my trunk and headed back to the house.
To be safe, I knocked on the front door. The dog barked desperately but no one answered.
Despite the piled-up snow, a hard shove opened the back gate. After a couple of short yaps, the dog started whining pitifully. I couldn’t find a key under the mat or the snow-filled ceramic pot. But when I turned the knob, the back door swung right open. A sleek gray pit bull, barely out of puppyhood and smelling of potting soil, jumped on me.
“Hey there, buddy,” I said, squatting down to pet him. “What happened to your ear?”
