Mailbox.
I hit the brake, glanced back up at the house, and backed up far enough that I could see the front door and the mailbox. There, peeking out from under the flap, was my signed note for Stefanie Knight.
Once I had it in my pocket and was driving home, I kept wondering if there was anything I’d missed. I swung into a fast-food joint, headed straight for the men’s room, and flushed all the tissues, including the one I’d used to wipe the blood from my finger, down the toilet. I tore the note written on the back of my checkbook into a dozen pieces and flushed it as well. Then, as an afterthought, I ripped up the scrap of paper from Stefanie’s mother and flushed a third time. As I exited the stall, a man washing his hands glanced at me, no doubt wondering just how severe my bowel disorder was.
I got back in the car and felt I’d thought of everything. I’d covered my tracks well.
Oh fuck.
My name and e-mail address were on a piece of paper in that woman’s house. When the police came to tell her about her daughter’s murder, she’d tell them about the man who’d been by earlier that evening, looking for her, supposedly to return a driver’s license.
Think. Think.
My fingerprints weren’t anywhere at Stefanie’s house. As far as anyone could tell, I had not been inside. I could stick with the story that I’d found her driver’s license. Ditch the purse behind Mindy’s, if I had to. Police could think some kid stole the purse, driver’s license fell out, I found it, attempted to return it. Went to the address on the license, met her mother, got a further address, went there, found no one at home, window smashed in, thought that looked funny, called 911.
That way, I’d look less suspicious. Being the guy to make the call.
I’d crack in an instant. Five minutes under the hot lights and I’d spill my guts.
No, no, I wouldn’t. I could pull this off.
But first, I wanted to get home and look inside Stefanie Knight’s purse. What I wanted to find in there was nothing. Nothing that would lead someone to want her dead if she’d lost it, been unable to produce it, to give it back.
When I got home I went straight to my study and was taking the purse out of the bag when I heard Sarah call to me from upstairs. “Zack? That you?”
I tossed the purse behind a box of old papers I kept under the desk and went upstairs, finding her in our bedroom, emptying a basket of clean laundry and slipping it into drawers.
“How’s Kenny?” she asked.
Kenny? I thought. Was there something wrong with Kenny?
“Huh?” I said.
“Kenny’s wife. How’s she doing?”
It came back to me. “Aww, she’s okay. She’ll be fine. Should be out in a day or two.”
“That’s good,” Sarah said. “He didn’t say what’s wrong with her?”
“No, not in detail, and I didn’t want to ask unless he offered, you know.”
“How long’s Kenny been married?”
“I don’t know exactly. He’s about my age. Probably as long as we have, I’d guess.”
“Have you ever met his wife?” Sarah asked. She seemed to have a lot of questions.
“No, she’s never come into the shop when I was there, or if she did, I didn’t know it was her.”
“Do you know her name? In case you wanted to send a card?”
“What did he say? Mary? Marian? Something like that?”
“Could it have been Gary?”
I looked at Sarah, who had stopped putting away clothes and was staring right at me.
“Gary?”
“That’s right.”
“What is that short for? Gariella or something?”
“No, just Gary.”
“Why on earth would you think Kenny’s wife would be named Gary?”
Sarah paused a moment, like she was working up to something. “Kenny phoned here tonight, while you were out.”
Houston, we have a problem.
“He did.”
“Yes. He called to tell you that that thing you wanted had come in, and he’d hang on to it whenever you had a chance to drop by.”
“Okay.”
“And then I told him how sorry I was that his wife was not well. And you know what he did then?”
“No. What did he do then?”
“He started laughing. So hard that he started choking. He thought that was a very funny thing for me to say.”
“So his wife’s not sick after all?”
“Kenny doesn’t have a wife,” Sarah said. “But he does have a companion.”
“A who?”
“Kenny said he couldn’t believe you didn’t know that he wasn’t exactly the marrying kind. He said he lives with a man named Gary, and that Gary is very well, thank you very much.”
This was enough to make me forget all the events that had transpired in the last couple of hours. “Kenny’s gay?”
“Evidently.”
“No shit. Kenny’s gay?”
“I don’t really think that’s the issue here,” Sarah said.
“How long I been going to that store? Eight, ten years, maybe? Way before we moved out here. You’d think maybe in all that time I’d have learned to read the signals.”
“You’ve missed plenty of others before.”
“I’d never have guessed. But now that you mention it, he never has talked about a wife or kids or-”
I knew instantly I’d made a blunder. “So,” Sarah said, “he’s never mentioned a wife. Yet if I’m to believe anything you say, not only does he have one, but she’s under the weather.”
“Sarah, listen, I know I may have seemed a bit odd tonight.”
“Gee, I hadn’t noticed.”
“It’s kind of hard for me to explain right now. I just have a few things I have to attend to, but, listen, it’s not like I’m having an affair or anything.”
In some households, mentioning the word “affair” might be enough to raise suspicions, start an argument, make someone burst into tears. Sarah reacted differently to the suggestion that I might be seeing someone else.
She began to laugh.
“Why is that so funny?” I asked.
She smiled. “You having an affair. Of all the people I’d suspect of having an affair, you’d be the last. You know why?”
“Why?”
“Because you’d have too guilty a conscience. When you’ve done something wrong, you can’t hide it. It shows in your face. You get kind of flushed, you perspire. I can spot these things.”
I shot a sideways glance into our dresser mirror. I looked warm. Sweaty, even.
“No,” Sarah said, regaining her composure. “I think I’ve got it figured out. I know what’s going on.”
“You do.”
“Yep.”
“What is it you think is going on?”
She approached me and smiled. “I think maybe, just this once, for the first time since we’ve been married, you’ve actually remembered my birthday and decided to do something special about it.”
I tried to smile as Sarah slipped her arms around my waist. “That
