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PROLOGUE
Wanton Destruction
The silent pool reflected a cornflower sky, shaded by trees gently waving their saw-bladed leaves in the breeze. As the sun crested higher, it painted the backyard in the dreamy melted ice cream colors of a David Hockney painting. In the face of such beauty, it was easy to forget that those drooping trees were oleander, or that the border of plants skirting the outer edge of the yard were all dead or dying from heat and neglect.
Adonica Blake stepped out into this serene garden of death and found her husband face-down on the concrete tile. His mug had shattered—he must have dropped it when he fell—and in that cloud of pulverized plaster, the spilled coffee looked like a semicolon. It was one of the universe’s cruel jokes, that spill. Because, for Donni, it would come to represent two complete but distinct passages: before her husband’s death, and after.
The spilled coffee was what finally chipped through that icy layer of shock. Such a human thing, that carelessness. The easy wanton destruction of it. As if a man could not even fall in his own backyard without a blasting a tiny corner of the universe apart.
Suddenly, everything felt much too real. The lingering scent of petrichor in the air, mingling with the chlorine and the oleander. The bite of the mourning chill on her bare shoulders. The bright silvery flash of light in her periphery. Was it the sun glancing off a car windshield, or dry lightning come to strike her dead?
My husband is dead, thought Donni.
It echoed the dull shock she’d had the last time she had seen a man die.
But that time, she had been expecting it. Because it had been all her fault.
The breath disappeared from her lungs.Oh God, she thought.What have I done?
Birds took flight from the oleander and the sago palms as Donni screamed in a way that perfectly befitted a retired actress. Because that was exactly what she was.
???????
The police came. Sirens off. Donni wondered if sirens were only for the living. It felt like a fact she had known once but could no longer remember. She couldn’t remember calling the police, either, but her phone was in her hand and so was one of those stupid agave lemonades she’d been sent a case of that gave her the shits.
Maybe they gave me amnesia, too.
It probably had been the neighbors who called. The Hutchinses, she was pretty sure their names were. She and Marco had had them over for coffee once. Not that they spoke much anymore. Their two old properties, both midcentury modern ranch houses, sat adjacent to one another and were easily confused. And confuse them people did when they wrote “MURDERER” on the front porch in pomegranate juice or hurled rocks through the large glass windows. More than once, Donni had gone out to get the mail and seen Nancy Hutchins scrubbing in one of her little house dresses.
Probably the Hutchinses had been crossing their fingers that someone had finally done them both in.
“Hello, Adonica,” Jenna Corcoran said stiffly, her face a mask of polite dislike. There was a young male officer with her. Donni didn’t know his name, but he had light brown skin and looked like he ought to be selling bibles somewhere. “Where is your husband?”
Donni noticed she paused, as if she had only just stopped from sayingthe body.
“He’s out back.”Firing up the grill, she almost added.
Officer Corcoran was staring at her now, stern and disapproving. Even though they were roughly the same age, it made Donni feel like an unruly student and she nearly giggled. There was a lightness in her veins that felt like heroin, which she’d tried only once and then never again. The airy numbness of it scared her almost as much as the disconnect had. She was losing fucking control.
The younger officer was also looking at her, but not at her face, and that was when Donni realized that she was only wearing sleep shorts and a silky tank top.
Officer Corcoran realized that, too. “Josh,” she snapped. “Go take photographs before the coroner gets here. You know Pat’s a total dick.
“Why don’t you sit down.” It wasn’t a suggestion and even if Donni had chosen to take it as one, Officer Corcoran robbed her of the choice by steering her into the living room with its ugly geometric rug and glass and acrylic fixtures while the male officer discreetly made his way outside, into the backyard.The scene, she thought.
Strange how both movies and crimes both had scenes.
Officer Corcoran paced her living room. She was in great shape, Donni couldn’t help but notice, the blue police uniform streamlining her body into something sleek and compact. She kept picking things up and putting them down—pictures, knickknacks, even a wineglass. This last one seemed to be of particular interest. She tilted it. “Were you drinking?”
“Yeah, two nights ago.” The outrage in her voice wasn’t feigned.
Officer Corcoran set the wineglass down carefully. The next thing she picked up was a fleece robe, which she flung in Donni’s direction. Rather pointedly.
“When did you notice your husband had fallen?”
“When I went outside,” Donni replied unthinkingly, sliding her arms into the sleeves.
“Do you remember what time it was?”
