Over the next twenty minutes, more and more police officers arrive at the Lowell household.
We instruct the kids to stay up in their rooms, because we don’t want them to see what’s going on out there. At some point, they are going to find out that our neighbor was murdered, but I want to postpone that as long as possible. I end up making some pizza bagels in the microwave and let them eat them in their rooms.
I watch the spectacle through the window. Suzette comes home about half an hour after the police arrive, and I watch as a man who looks like a detective breaks the news to her. She covers her eyes and starts to sob, although to my eyes, it looks fake.
She’s not at all upset that her husband is dead.
At some point, the police will arrive at our house to ask questions. But it hasn’t happened yet. And when they do, I’m not sure what to tell them.
Enzo and I sit at the kitchen table, staring down at the pizza bagels I made for us. In the best of times, they would be unappetizing. The cheese is unmelted on one side and somehow overcooked on the other side. But even if it were a gourmet meal, I wouldn’t be able to eat one bite of it.
“I don’t understand,” I say to Enzo. “What happened over there?
Were you in their house?”
“No!” he cries. “I never went inside. I was outside. Working.” “And you didn’t hear a thing?”
“No, but you know my equipment is loud. I never hear anything inside the house.”
I look down at Enzo’s hands, clasped together on the kitchen table. “Where is the cut?”
“What?”
“You told me you cut your hand,” I remind him. “That’s why you were bleeding everywhere, remember? So where is it?”
He holds out his left hand. I don’t even see it at first, but when I look closer, I notice the cut on the palm.
I’m just going to say it: there is no way that cut created that much blood.
“Cuts on the hand bleed a lot,” he says defensively. “Lots of blood vessels.”
“It’s not bleeding now.” “Well, it stopped.”
I don’t know what to say. I want to believe him. I really, really do. Because when I think about Jonathan Lowell lying on the floor of the living room with his throat slashed open, I don’t want to think about the fact that my husband could be responsible for doing something like that.
If he did that, he is a very different person than I thought he was.
Before I can formulate another question, the doorbell rings. Even though we were expecting it, we both jump. Enzo looks terrified as he grabs my arm.
“Millie,” he croaks. “Do not tell them about the blood on my shirt.
Okay?”
I shrug off his grip and get out of my seat to answer the door. I have no intention of telling them about his shirt. Wasn’t I the one who told him to change it?
That same detective who broke the news to Suzette is standing at our front door. He’s around forty, with neatly trimmed graying hair, wearing a beige trench coat over a white shirt and dark red tie. I’ve met a lot of detectives over the years, and something in the back of my head tells me not to trust this one. Then again, I feel that way a lot around cops.
“Mrs. Accardi?” The detective’s accent sounds more Queens than Long Island. “I’m Detective Willard. You got a minute?”
I nod wordlessly. “Yes.”
“Can I come in?” Willard asks.
This is not my first rodeo, and that’s how I know it’s a mistake to invite a police officer into your house. Once I tell him it’s okay to come in, he can look around. And when I think about the bloody shirt my husband just stripped off, I would prefer he didn’t look around.
“Actually,” I say, “my kids are inside. So I’d rather stay out here on the porch.”
“If that’s what you want,” Willard says.
I flick on the porch light, and we step outside. The mosquitoes are circling, and I wish I had spritzed on some protection, but I’m still not going to invite this man into my home. I’d rather get eaten alive.
“So I don’t know if you heard what happened,” he says.
He’s watching my expression carefully. Whatever else I can say about this detective, he seems smart. I decide to be straight about what happened.
“I, uh I have a good idea ” I clear my throat. “I went over to talk to Suzette, and I saw Jonathan lying on the floor, and he was ” I have to close my eyes, trying to block out the memory. “I came home to get my phone and call 911, but then I heard the police sirens.”
Willard nods. “Your neighbor, Janice Archer, was the one who called them. She said she heard shouting inside the house.”
Janice—of course. Always watching. And she has a perfect view of the front of 12 Locust Street.
“She said she saw you enter the house after she called the police,” he says. “Then you left shortly after.”
Thank God I decided to tell the truth. Janice saw everything, so at least now she has confirmed my story. It will be nice, just this one freaking time, to not be a murder suspect.
“She also told me,” Willard continues, “that your husband entered through the front door about two hours before the scuffle. And she never saw him leave, which means that he went out through the back door, which she does not have a view of.”
“My husband is a landscaper,” I say. “He works in their backyard a lot. It’s just a job.”
“Mrs. Archer says that he is at the Lowell house frequently,” he says. “Especially when Mr. Lowell is not home.”
Okay. Wow.
“That’s not ” I compose myself, reminding myself that the detective is looking for a reaction from me. I’m not going to give it to him. He didn’t even ask me a direct question, so I don’t owe him an answer. “Mrs. Archer is a busybody. Nothing is going on between them.”
“Yeah? You sure about that?” “I’m sure,” I say tightly.
Willard adjusts his red tie. “You know anyone who might have wanted to hurt Jonathan Lowell?”
“I didn’t know him well.” “How about your husband?”
“My husband would never do something like that!” I burst out. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!”
A grim smile twitches at the detective’s thin lips. “I just meant did your husband know Mr. Lowell well?”
“Oh.” My cheeks grow warm. “No. I I don’t think so.”
“How about Mrs. Lowell?” The subtext in his words is obvious. “Did he know her well?”
“Not that well.”
“Even though he was over there all the time?” “Working.”
I’m furious at myself for allowing the detective to fluster me this way. Ten years ago, I never would have let that happen. Becoming a wife and mother has made me soft.
“Well,” Willard says. “Maybe I better talk to your husband then. You mind getting him?”
I take a calming breath. “Of course. Just a moment.”
I return to my house and close the door behind me, leaving the detective on the front porch. I lean against the door, taking a moment to breathe in and out. Detective Willard has rattled me. When I look down at my hands, they’re trembling.
I finally pull myself together enough to enter the kitchen. Enzo is still sitting there, the cold pizza bagels in an untouched pile in front of him. He looks up at me when I enter the room.
“Well?” he says.
“The detective wants to talk to you,” I say.
Dread fills his handsome features. He’s looking at me like I told him he is being marched to a firing squad. But he gets out of his chair and walks to the front door to talk to the detective.
