“How do you think he ended up full of Botox?” I said. “I’ve never heard of that kind of an OD before.”
“Who cares?” Miranda said. “As long as it’s clear it wasn’t us.”
But I did care. I wanted all the pieces to fit. “Hopefully it’ll be clear to the cops,” I said. “Connor was a junkie so maybe he made a lethal mistake.” I didn’t exactly have vials of Botox and syringes in my possession, so I felt confident about my innocence. Mostly. But the nagging mystery of how I’d ended up wearing his vest kept me from feeling entirely in the clear.
“Since you know what killed him,” Miranda said, “can’t you go to the police? Like maybe now?”
Just the thought of sitting in a police station for hours made me feel exhausted beyond all reason. “You meanwe,” I said.
“It won’t be that bad for you. You’re probably more used to that kind of thing anyway.”
“What kind of thing?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Being around lowlifes, talking to cops, all that. You’ve been arrested before. I remember.”
“If we’re gonna do this, you’re gonna have to quit with the mean girl shit,” I said.
“Sorry. Old habits and all that.”
“I still needyouto explain to the police how the body ended up inmycar in the first place,” I said.
Miranda groaned. “I’ll do it if I have to. I will. I just don’t want to. It puts everything with Tater at risk.”
“Let’s think this through,” I said. We were both moms. We needed to fully consider possible repercussions of getting tangled up in the criminal legal system. I paced to my office (aka the pantry) to do some brainstorming (aka stuffing shortbread cookies into my face). “My mom always used to say: ‘When in doubt, don’t.’ She’d meant it like: ‘When in doubt about whether or not you should get a pixie cut, don’t.’ But I think the saying could still apply to this more dire situation.”
“Agreed. We still need to predict the outcomes,” Miranda said. “Maybe we should talk to a lawyer first?”
“Oh no!” I said. “You are not lawyering up and throwing me under the bus!” Miranda would preemptively have the best attorney in the state, while I’d have to roll the dice on a public defender once I was charged with something.
She made a noncommittal noise. “Maybe just one little lawyer.”
“I’m serious,” I said. “It’ll be hot by Saturday. If we want to try to figure out how he ended up full of Botox before we go to the police, we need to put him in your freezer tomorrow. But wait—how’s your ankle?”
“Still sprained, my dear.” She paused, then admitted, “But it’s not a bad sprain.”
I started to laugh. “If someone told me when I ran into you and your mom in the co-op the other day that you’d be calling me ‘my dear’ during a late-night phone call, I wouldn’t’ve believed it.” I stuffed in another cookie.
“True. Why are you chewing soooo loudly,” she complained.
“I do my best thinking when scarfing processed food.”
“I’ve got a feeling right now your brain is a bad neighborhood. Don’t go there alone.”
“It’s been a bad neighborhood for a while now,” I admitted. “And I’m so tired. I’m not thinking straight. How about we sleep on it?”
“Okay,” she said. “Tomorrow morning, we’ll decide.”
Turn the body over to the cops. Or stick it in Miranda’s chest freezer. Personally I liked the thought of the corpse being on Miranda’s property instead of mine. “I’ll call you once I get my kids to school,” I said. “And then we’ll make a plan.”
I hung up and shoveled in one last shortbread cookie before trundling toward bed.
Thirty-Nine
Friday
When a masculine rap sounded on the front door while I was trying to get the twins ready for school, I sensed in my cytoplasm it was bad news. Little Sister did too, because he barreled toward the front door, barking savagely.
I was hunched over holding the dog by his collar when I opened the door to a bulky man in a black ATF vest looming on the doorstep, legs wide. He had a face like a ball of mozzarella. A few feet behind him, Agent Nate Duran stood looking like he wanted to teleport to somewhere more fun, like Hell.
