“Who else knew it was there?”
“Layna,” we said in unison.
“I called her the second I dropped my kids at school,” I said. “She didn’t pick it up.” That was when I’d texted Gucci an SOS.
“She’s flying to Portland,” Gucci said.
“To sell that house!” I said. “I spaced it.”
“Did anybody,anybodyelse know it was there?”
“Nope.” But one person might’ve been able to figure it out. “I think I know who could’ve done this,” I said. I gave Gucci a powdered-sugar-dusted kiss on the cheek and headed toward the door at a trot.
When Miranda threw open her front door, she had a crutch under one arm and wore gold-rimmed aviator reading glasses and an ombre sweater that looked like a struck match. She seemed slightly less happy to see me than if I’d been a member of a religious order hell-bent on convincing her to renounce her favorite holidays.
“What are you wearing?” she said, as I hustled inside.
“Ralphie and Errol might be out looking for me.” The floral curtains were drawn so I took off my sunglasses, pulled down the hood of my coat, and unwrapped the scarf from around the bottom half of my face. “Look, I know you have Tater Tot. But I have a question for you.” I didn’t want to talk about corpses anymore over the phone. And also I thought that in person, I’d be better able to glean whether or not Miranda was telling the truth.
Tater was fast asleep on the couch in a jelly bean onesie.
“She is definitely the cutest baby in the world,” I said.
“I’m glad to see you, but why are you here, Tilly?” Miranda said.
I turned to face her. “Did you move Connor’s body?”
“Did Iwhat?”
“Move it. You know, without me?”
“How could I move his body?” she said. “I don’t even know where it is.”
“But did you?” I pressed.
She waved her crutch as if to say:Earth to Tilly. “Do I look like I could move a body by myself? What is this about? Wait, wait, wait. So he’s... it’s... gone?”
“Into thin air,” I admitted.
“Where to?” Her voice had turned shrill.
“I have no idea, but I’ll tell you when I figure it out,” I said, wrapping the scarf back around my head and donning sunglasses as I turned to leave.
“Not so fast,” Miranda said. “You know the proverb ‘It takes a village to raise a child’?”
“Um, yeah?” I said.
“I have a baby and a sprained ankle. So how about being my village?”
Oddly, taking out Miranda’s trash and loading her dishwasher made me feel less like her lowly house girl and more like a beneficent auntie with goddess vibes. It was good to be part of something.
I was behind the wheel and sweating in my scarf, beanie, hooded coat, and sunglasses when my phone rang. I put it on speaker as I drove past three jaunty Canada geese marching regally down the sidewalk.
“You okay?” Layna asked. “I just landed and saw your test frenzy. Text frenzy.” I could hear another woman’s voice in the background.
“Did you move thepackage?” I demanded.
“Package?” she said. “Whatta I want wif jour packages?”
