CHAPTER ELEVEN #3
He swore under his breath before asking, while still staring at the painting, “Do you live alone, Detective Hackett.”
“Yeah.”
“Have you ever lived with someone else—someone you were romantically involved with.”
“A few years ago.”
“What did your home look like.”
“What do you mean?”
Larkin turned. “I live with someone. He was at that apartment for six years before I came along. Six years is a long time to accumulate belongings and refine one’s sense of style.
For example, he had a very nice linen throw—I despised it for no reason other than its texture—but six days after I’d moved in, he replaced it with a cotton blanket.
I’m certain I made no overt signs of discomfort around that throw, but he’s quite adept at picking up on my nonverbal cues, and when given the choice to keep an item he’d purchased based on his home’s long-established aesthetic or see to my personal comfort, he chose me.
It was the first of many compromises in sharing his space, and now, despite having lived together for only three and a half months, my presence cannot be overlooked.
“My key ring is by the door, my cuff links on the nightstand. My psychology textbooks have been shelved where only art and history and reference books lived before. My houseplants take up space where he used to keep his easel and painting supplies. I tell you this because no two people will have the exact same opinions on home décor, and living together forces compromise, no matter how small.”
“Totally.”
“Now that we know this DB is not the homeowner,” Larkin continued, “would you like to give another go at establishing the psychology of place.”
“Is this a trick? Am I supposed to say I don’t know?”
“You may certainly say as much,” Larkin answered. “But I’ve already given you a clue to hit the ground running.”
Steps echoed on the basement stairs, and Larkin recognized the pace and footfall as Doyle’s.
When he appeared in the open doorway, Doyle said, “I didn’t find the cat.
And the dishes in the kitchen don’t look to have been used by an animal for a while.
But you know what I did find? A knife block with an incomplete set. ”
Larkin straightened his posture.
“There’s a meat cleaver missing, for sure,” Doyle concluded.
To Millett, Larkin asked, “After you’re done here, will you inspect the bathroom for blood.”
“The bathroom?”
“Please.”
Millett looked between him and Doyle before shrugging. “Sure.”
Larkin returned his attention to Hackett. “Twenty-eight days ago, we met the homeowner’s alleged wife.”
Hackett looked surprised. “I’d have never guessed two people lived here.”
“Why.”
“Well, it’s like you said, when two people live together, compromises are made. But the home feels very, uh, uniform, I guess.”
“And.”
“And I didn’t notice any wedding photos.”
“Not everyone hangs those.”
“Everyone I know who’s married does,” Hackett countered.
“I was married for four years,” Larkin said. “My ex-husband and I never hung up our wedding photos. You may use generalities as guidelines and statistics to narrow down likelihoods, but you must not allow your own life experience to color a hypothesis.”
Hackett was silent for one, two, three seconds. Then he asked, “So you… don’t think the homeowner is married?”
Larkin answered, “Tell me why I think that.”
“Wait a minute,” Doyle interrupted. “Stephanie and Phyllis aren’t married?”
Larkin held a hand up for silence.
Hackett said, slow and thoughtful, like he was feeling the concept out, “When my ex moved out, my place looked… not messy, but I suddenly had all these empty nooks and crannies. Places that he’d—” Hackett faltered, looked over his shoulder at Doyle, to Millett on his right, but continued when the use of that particular pronoun failed to garner a reaction.
“—that he’d had his belongings. It kinda looked like I’d been robbed, but of only one personality. ”
“Interesting description. Continue.”
Hackett pointed up, indicating the ground floor of the home.
“The upstairs doesn’t have that empty look, like someone recently walked out of a shared life only a month ago.
Of course, the homeowner could have moved fast to erase all evidence of another person, but I don’t think most people mourn the ending of a relationship like that, even more so a marriage.
There’s no evidence of a compromise once existing between two people.
” He shrugged before asking, “How’d I do? ”
“You did quite well,” Larkin said.
Hackett blinked a few times. He tugged his mask down. “Really?”
“Larkin—” Doyle tried.
“I did ‘quite well!’” Hackett exclaimed. He looked around before saying to Millett, “Did you hear that?”
“Yeah, that’s great, kid,” Millett answered offhandedly. “You know, this is why I went into forensics. People are unpredictable.”
“On the contrary,” Larkin said. “Human behavior is almost too predictable. It can be a real bore.”
“ Larkin ,” Doyle said again, this time putting a stress on his name that couldn’t be ignored.
“Yes,” Larkin answered, obediently heading for the door.
He slipped past Doyle, hiked up the stairs, stepped around the officers still stationed in the threshold, and entered the living room.
Larkin tugged his mask off before raising the hem of his borrowed T-shirt and flashing a bit of skin as he wiped sweat from his brow.
“All right,” Doyle said as he followed Larkin into the sweltering room. “Since when is Phyllis not the wife she claimed to be?”
“Detective Hackett did an acceptable—”
“Hackett is so desperate to impress you, I think he might’ve peed a little when you said good job .” Doyle crossed his arms. “Why don’t you think they’re married?”
Larkin hesitated. He stared over Doyle’s shoulder at the unoccupied dining table.
His memory of June 12 played out like ghosts repeating their final moment in life.
He could see Doyle, see the look of surprise, of sorrow, of shame cross his features while Phyllis spoke of the Kitten Klub.
It had been the exact moment Larkin understood the enormity of Doyle’s childhood trauma, and he’d been so brokenhearted by its truth, so desperate to hide his insight into that baggage, to spare Doyle any further distress, that the clues all around him—so fucking obvious in retrospect—had become white noise.
But Larkin couldn’t say any of that without effectively blaming Doyle for what was his own blunder. Instead, he said, “I-I sometimes become obsessed with the minute details, to the detriment of the bigger picture. I was guilty of this with Harry Regmore and—”
Doyle leaned forward, his arms still crossed. He said, quiet but firm, “Stop it.”
“I’m trying to explain why I made a mistake.”
“Did you make a mistake?” Doyle countered. “Or did your hypothesis change based on emerging data?”
“I need you to let me take blame for this.”
“No.”
“Doyle.”
“You no longer believe Stephanie and Phyllis are married because…?”
With a touch of attitude, Larkin snapped, “Because confidence looks like strength, goddammit .” He shook his head, slapped his mask against the palm of his open hand a few times, then tried again, calmer.
“When someone is acting in a way that benefits us—Phyllis speaking about Esther’s disappearance—we are more likely, more willing, to interpret their confidence as trust. Naturally, we desire a beneficial action or belief to be strong—might is right.
Earlier in the car, I told you I questioned Phyllis’s benevolence and integrity, but not her ability.
I didn’t because she was so sure of who Esther was and how she, herself, factored into Esther’s life, that her confidence colored my perception of how Phyllis fit here, in this home.
“But there’s nearly four weeks of uncollected mail, none of which is in her name.
There’s the lack of a second identity seen anywhere in the home’s furnishings or possessions, and the one tangible object we could positively link Phyllis to, Esther’s belongings—which included several forms of identification in the name of Barbara Fuller, quite possibly Esther’s real name, which would mean the mourning jewelry did once belong to her—is now missing. ”
“Missing alongside Phyllis,” Doyle clarified as an expression of disbelief slowly crossed his face.
Larkin said, “Insect activity puts the cat sitter’s death between June 8 and 19, and the oldest postmark in the mailbox is June 13. The evidence, as it stands, suggests that Ms. Sato hired a cat sitter and went out of town sometime before June 12—because June 12 was when we interviewed Phyllis.”
“You mean, while we were sitting there,” Doyle turned and pointed to the dining table, “talking with her about Esther and the Broadway clubs, the cat sitter might have been downstairs? Dead ?”
“It would explain why Phyllis had been comfortable and confident in her environment,” Larkin answered. “She’d eliminated the only threat to the false narrative.”
Doyle scrubbed his face with one hand. “This is a lot.”
“Yes, I agree.”
“But why would Phyllis be here? By your logic, does she even know the homeowner?”
Larkin motioned Doyle to follow him, and they stepped out of the home and into fresh air. The setting sun had left the sky a glazed-over gold with clouds like puffy pink cotton balls. A mild and much-welcomed breeze cooled the sweat under Larkin’s arms. “Have you heard of the term erotomania.”
“I don’t think so.”
“It’s been called a number of rather inventive names over the centuries, including maladie d’amour and psychose passionelle —”
“You make it sound so romantic.”
Larkin chuckled. “Erotomania has been classed as a subset of delusional disorder. It’s primary, chronic, and seen more often in women—the delusion that another person is in love with the individual.”
Doyle’s brows rose.