“That’s actually Connor’s pit bull?” Miranda said. “Tilly, why do you have his dog?”
“I went to his house looking for clues. The dog was stuck there. Alone. Starving. Come on now. Tell me about this CPS case.”
“Okay, okay. So Connor had a girlfriend named Korielle.”
Where had I heard that name? There was too much coming at me.
“Korielle’s son told his preschool teacher his mom’s boyfriend beat her up,” Miranda continued. “That’s why CPS was called. I met Connor and the dog on a visit to Korielle’s. Later, she admitted Connor was physically abusive. Controlling. A total loser. CPS policy is to take kids out of violent homes.” Tater Tot let out a little cry and Miranda jostled and soothed her.
“So a mom has a bad boyfriend she can’t get rid of and CPS yanks her kids?” I said, suddenly angry again.
“CPS policies are beyond terrible,” Miranda agreed. “I realize that.Korielle was a really good mom. And she wanted to break up with Connor. So I told her to use me as an excuse.”
Then I remembered. Korielle rhymes with L’Oréal. “Connor was texting with a woman named Korielle!” I said. “That’s where I’ve heard the name.” I pulled out my phone and showed Miranda the picture I’d snapped of the framed photo on Connor’s desk. A smiling Connor had his arm slung around a woman with bleached hair. A sad-looking little boy stood beside her. I’d thought the woman was Baylee.
“That’s her,” Miranda said. “That’s Korielle.”
“So Connor thought of you as the meddling caseworker who made his girlfriend break up with him,” I mused. And he thought of Korielle as the one who got away.
Little Sister was trying to wriggle away from me, but I kept two fingers under his collar and the tea towel below his torn ear. Not that I cared if the dog bled on Miranda’s floral rug. I wouldn’t be surprised if a 1980s Laura Ashley called wanting that rug back.
“You got it,” Miranda said. “In the alley that night, Connor had a big goose egg on his forehead. And he seemed like, kind of out of it? When he saw me in the alley, he staggered at me. Making this wheezing sound. And his face—it was like a monster.”
“Jesus,” I said. If Idaho Connor had attacked me in a dark alley, I’d think he looked like a monster too. “What do you mean, though?”
“He was like this!” Miranda contorted her face, mouth wide open and twisted, one eye squinted shut. “Then he was making these horrible rasping noises and trying to push me into the trunk of his car. Head first. At least I thought it was his car. There were scissors. Like right in front of my face. In the trunk, right? So I grabbed them and managed to get him in the leg. I spun around and got him again before he knocked the scissors out of my hand. Somehow I pulled my taser out of my purse. I always thought it was so insane my mom made me carry it.” She laughed, a little hysterically, and took a big sniff of the top of Tater Tot’s head, as if to ground herself. “Tasing him—” She shuddered, and I knew shewouldn’t say more. “He toppled forward and I ran to my car. But when I looked back. He was... he was... His top half was in the trunk, his legs hanging out. I could tell he wasn’t moving. I went back and he was... he was dead.”
“Dead,” I said flatly. “You think the taser really killed him?”
“Oh, he was dead, all right,” Miranda said.
“Taserscankill people,” I said. A social worker had been tased to death by the cops at a routine traffic stop in Culver City a few years back. Still, I didn’t think people died of being tased that often. “But you said he was wheezing?”
“It was weird,” Miranda agreed.
Having just discovered Connor’s killer, I wasn’t eager to convince her she hadn’t actually done the deed. Still, I wondered if there was more to the story than Miranda knew. After all, I still didn’t know where I was for seven hours or how I ended up in the alley of Huckleberry’s at four in the morning wearing Connor’s vest. “Any chance you saw a teal vest lying around?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Why?”
“No reason. Never mind. So you lifted up his legs and stuffed him in my trunk.”
She nodded, weepy and trembling. “I wiped the keys and tossed them in the dumpster. But I promise: I had no idea it was your car. I would have never. Can I ask?” she said with real trepidation. “Is he... is he still there?”
“No,” I said sharply. The corpse was in my backyard. Where he was my problem, when he should’ve been Miranda’s. “But for god’s sake, why didn’t you call the police?”
“I’m in the process of trying to adopt a baby!” Miranda said. “And then suddenly my file says I tased a guy to death behind a strip club? Even if I don’t get charged with manslaughter, I lose my chance at keeping Tater Tot. One baby. Is that too much to ask? When every piece of trash on this earth has at least two without trying.”
“Are you seriously calling metrash?”
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean you.”
I sucked my teeth. But it was starting to sink in that Miranda hadn’t intended to do me harm.
Miranda explained that when she drove by me the next day, after seeing me in the co-op, she’d recognized my LuvLife plates and realized what she’d done. “That’s why I came by your house last Wednesday!” she said. “I was going to tell you everything. But then your neighbor showed up and you hustled me out of there.”
“You could’ve come back,” I said. “But of course it was easier for you to let me deal with it.”
“I got Tater Tot on Sunday,” Miranda said. “And then some ATF agents came around questioning me because someone stole my license. I’ve been terrified and overwhelmed. And you’re right. Honestly I wanted to pretend that nightmare didn’t really happen.”
