she uses.”
“Can’t.”
The clock ticked and tocked. “Why can’t you?”
He dug the heel of his hand against bloodshot eyes. Lola guessed that despite the fresh shirt and hasty shave, he hadn’t slept the previous night. He’d knocked away the scab over one of the shaving cuts. A drop of blood swelled and glittered garnet-like in the awful fluorescent light. “You saw that house. We don’t know if this was a burglary or what. It was hard to figure out if anything was taken. But one thing we didn’t find in all of that was a computer. A television, either. Nor a cellphone, not in the house or on her. The phone’s not much of a problem. We’ll just get the records from the company. We’d sure like to have her computer, though. Unfortunately, she used the same laptop for work and at home.”
“Mary Alice didn’t own a TV. But a computer seems like a logical thing to go missing during a burglary. If that’s what it was. Besides, even if you find it, it won’t help you. Mary Alice was paranoid about security. She bought some pretty expensive software so she could scrub everything, even from her hard drive. She stored all of her files on flash drives.”
He leaned forward. “Where’d she keep her flash drives?”
“No idea. But that’s what you’ll want to look for when you’re searching her place. Do you really think this was a burglary?”
“We’re considering all the possibilities.”
Lola thought she’d probably heard those same words from every cop on every crime story she’d ever worked.
“Speaking of which,” he added. “It’s really a formality, but I’ve got to ask: Any reason Mary Alice would want to take her own life?”
“Mary Alice?” Recalling, even as she spoke, a day she’d showed up at Mary Alice’s place in Baltimore at dawn, furious and full of self-loathing after her longtime romantic entanglement had retreated yet again to his wife.
“You’ll dump him when it’s time,” Mary Alice had said. Standing in the doorway fully dressed. Warm toast scent from the kitchen. Coffeemaker burbling. Mary Alice held out her hand. “Give.”
“What?” said Lola. Her throat raw from the night’s shouted recriminations.
“I know how you are,” Mary Alice said. “Whatever it is, hand it over.” And took Lola down into her basement workroom and handed her a ball-peen hammer so that she could smash the new watch with the engraved anniversary message that Lola had lifted from her lover’s bedside table. Then gave her a whisk broom and dustpan. “Clean up your damn evidence.” They’d laughed, then.
“Not a chance,” Lola told the sheriff now. “Even if she had a reason—and she didn’t, not that I know of—she’s the least judgmental person I know. I can’t imagine her being any harder on herself than she was on anyone else.”
“We found a gun at the site. No computer, no phone, but a gun.”
“What kind of gun?”
“I can’t comment on that.”
“It was a .45, wasn’t it? She’s had that thing forever. If you knew her neighborhood in Baltimore, you’d know why. The drug dealers there had this saying: ‘.22—Just won’t do. .38—Best shoot straight. .45—Stay alive.’ Had it been fired? I’ll bet it hadn’t. Besides, a .45 didn’t do that to her. It was a rifle.”
“I can’t comment on that, either. Did Mary Alice know a lot of drug dealers?”
Lola tried to fashion a shorthand description for the creeping gentrification that led Mary Alice to overcome her parents’ objections and bet on a Pigtown rowhouse whose soaring ceilings and marble fireplaces seemed to outweigh the fact that the neighbors on either side had windowless steel doors and curbside parking spaces that no one other than the homes’ owners dared use. “Her neighborhood was—in transition, you might say. But Mary Alice managed to make friends with all the folks on the street, not just the ones moving in but the ones who’d been there all along, too. Maybe not
“Can’t.”
The clock ticked and tocked. “Why can’t you?”
He dug the heel of his hand against bloodshot eyes. Lola guessed that despite the fresh shirt and hasty shave, he hadn’t slept the previous night. He’d knocked away the scab over one of the shaving cuts. A drop of blood swelled and glittered garnet-like in the awful fluorescent light. “You saw that house. We don’t know if this was a burglary or what. It was hard to figure out if anything was taken. But one thing we didn’t find in all of that was a computer. A television, either. Nor a cellphone, not in the house or on her. The phone’s not much of a problem. We’ll just get the records from the company. We’d sure like to have her computer, though. Unfortunately, she used the same laptop for work and at home.”
“Mary Alice didn’t own a TV. But a computer seems like a logical thing to go missing during a burglary. If that’s what it was. Besides, even if you find it, it won’t help you. Mary Alice was paranoid about security. She bought some pretty expensive software so she could scrub everything, even from her hard drive. She stored all of her files on flash drives.”
He leaned forward. “Where’d she keep her flash drives?”
“No idea. But that’s what you’ll want to look for when you’re searching her place. Do you really think this was a burglary?”
“We’re considering all the possibilities.”
Lola thought she’d probably heard those same words from every cop on every crime story she’d ever worked.
“Speaking of which,” he added. “It’s really a formality, but I’ve got to ask: Any reason Mary Alice would want to take her own life?”
“Mary Alice?” Recalling, even as she spoke, a day she’d showed up at Mary Alice’s place in Baltimore at dawn, furious and full of self-loathing after her longtime romantic entanglement had retreated yet again to his wife.
“You’ll dump him when it’s time,” Mary Alice had said. Standing in the doorway fully dressed. Warm toast scent from the kitchen. Coffeemaker burbling. Mary Alice held out her hand. “Give.”
“What?” said Lola. Her throat raw from the night’s shouted recriminations.
“I know how you are,” Mary Alice said. “Whatever it is, hand it over.” And took Lola down into her basement workroom and handed her a ball-peen hammer so that she could smash the new watch with the engraved anniversary message that Lola had lifted from her lover’s bedside table. Then gave her a whisk broom and dustpan. “Clean up your damn evidence.” They’d laughed, then.
“Not a chance,” Lola told the sheriff now. “Even if she had a reason—and she didn’t, not that I know of—she’s the least judgmental person I know. I can’t imagine her being any harder on herself than she was on anyone else.”
“We found a gun at the site. No computer, no phone, but a gun.”
“What kind of gun?”
“I can’t comment on that.”
“It was a .45, wasn’t it? She’s had that thing forever. If you knew her neighborhood in Baltimore, you’d know why. The drug dealers there had this saying: ‘.22—Just won’t do. .38—Best shoot straight. .45—Stay alive.’ Had it been fired? I’ll bet it hadn’t. Besides, a .45 didn’t do that to her. It was a rifle.”
“I can’t comment on that, either. Did Mary Alice know a lot of drug dealers?”
Lola tried to fashion a shorthand description for the creeping gentrification that led Mary Alice to overcome her parents’ objections and bet on a Pigtown rowhouse whose soaring ceilings and marble fireplaces seemed to outweigh the fact that the neighbors on either side had windowless steel doors and curbside parking spaces that no one other than the homes’ owners dared use. “Her neighborhood was—in transition, you might say. But Mary Alice managed to make friends with all the folks on the street, not just the ones moving in but the ones who’d been there all along, too. Maybe not
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