Chapter 5: The Third Floor

"Mariel Kershaw has been dead six years," Lawton said into the phone.

"Sir, I just keep the yard. Paperwork was in order. Title, a notarized release, the storage fees paid up in cash."

"Who did you hand her to?"

"Wasn't me that day. My guy says a woman. Sunglasses, a hat. Didn't say much."

Lawton hung up without saying goodbye.

He stood, and the stool scraped.

"I'm going to the yard. I want that release in my hand."

"Go," I said.

He stopped at the door and looked back at me.

"You need things from the house. Clothes. Your doctor's papers."

"I'll get them tomorrow."

"Take Clancy. He'll be a witness for anything you take, so nobody can say you took more."

He didn't say who "nobody" was.

He didn't have to.

Saturday morning Clancy picked me up in a truck that smelled like bait and sunscreen.

He'd brought me an iced coffee and a sausage biscuit.

"Peace offering," he said. "For the racehorses. And the other guy."

"You thought I had a boyfriend."

"I thought a lot of dumb things. I say most of them out loud." He handed me the biscuit. "I'm sorry, Rue. I mean it."

"Eat your half before I eat it."

He grinned and drove us over the bridge into town.

The house on East Battery was white, three stories, with porches stacked like a wedding cake.

Tourists took pictures of it from the seawall.

I'd lived in it for two years and never once felt like I could leave a coffee cup in the sink.

Clancy jingled a ring of keys.

"Lawton gave me all of them. Said open everything, look at everything, and write down what you take."

"Everything?"

"His words."

The front hall smelled like lemon polish.

Mariel's portrait hung over the stairs, the way it always had.

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