Chapter 20
CHAPTER 20
Vero poured tomato juice and vodka into a coffee mug the next morning and grimaced as she chased two ibuprofen with the hair of the dog. She shuddered, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, then frowned at her dry toast.
I wondered if the brownie had contributed to her hangover or if it was all the junk food and wine she’d consumed while she’d been stoned. She’d awoken later than usual that morning in a foul mood, if not because of her hangover, then probably because Javi hadn’t come over or called the last two nights. He’d claimed he had a big job he needed to finish at the garage, but Vero was convinced he was avoiding her so he wouldn’t have to revisit their conversation about the history of his love life.
I carried my breakfast to the table and sat down beside her, leaning close and keeping my voice low so Mrs. Haggerty wouldn’t hear us in the next room. She and Delia had been playing homeschool all morning, and they were both engrossed in some kind of art project involving dried soup beans and glue.
“Are you sure you’re up for this?” I asked as Vero picked at her toast. She was still looking a little green and I didn’t imagine she was looking forward to executing the plan we had concocted the night before.
“We can’t just walk into that shelter and ask to speak with Patricia Mickler,” she said, careful not to let her voice carry. “Those places have cameras. We can’t afford to be seen with that woman. Especially if Mike Tran has doubts about who really killed Patricia’s husband. If he gets wind of the fact that you and Patricia know each other, then it won’t be Steven in jail on suspicion of murder—it’ll be me and you.”
“We’ll wear baseball caps and sunglasses. No one will recognize us.”
“After the last time, you’d better hope not.” During our last trip to the shelter, Vero had unleashed chaos, literally, unlocking all the cages and freeing about a dozen cats and dogs to create a distraction big enough to conceal the fact that I was searching the lockers in the employee break room.
“Don’t worry. I have a plan.” I’d been (mostly) clearheaded when I’d gone to bed last night, and I’d been awake for several hours already, thinking it through. “We’ll fit right in.”
“And what are we going to do with the kids? We can’t leave them alone with Mrs. Haggerty.”
“We’re not. I called a babysitter.” I checked the time on my phone, expecting Cam any minute. I had texted him first thing that morning and told him I’d make a chocolate cake to go with that spaghetti dinner if he came over a few hours early to keep an eye on the children and Mrs. Haggerty.
Vero and I both fell quiet as Zach padded into the kitchen. It was well past noon and he was still wearing his pajamas, but at least he was dressed. He hid behind a wall, peeking into the dining room with a covetous expression as he watched his sister glue brightly colored beans onto a piece of construction paper under Mrs. Haggerty’s watchful eye. He toddled closer and tugged on Mrs. Haggerty’s pants. She looked down at him over the rims of her glasses and frowned at his rumpled sleepwear.
“I go potty,” he said, puffing out his tiny chest. Vero quietly sniffed the air. I set down my coffee, ready to take him upstairs to change his Pull-Up, but Mrs. Haggerty was first to speak.
“Well? What are you waiting for, boy—an engraved invitation? The day’s almost over already. Go do your business and come back when you’re ready for school.”
“This ought to be interesting,” Vero whispered out of the side of her mouth.
Zach blinked at the woman, then at his sister, who was contentedly gluing her beans. He tore out of the room, and I considered pouring myself a Bloody Mary as his bare feet thundered up the stairs. Vero and I braced for the inevitable tantrum to start—the slamming doors and thrown toys, clothing being stripped off and tossed down the steps—but it never came.
A toilet flushed.
Vero and I exchanged a worried look. A quiet two-year-old was rarely a good thing. Last time Zach had been alone and quiet in the bathroom, he’d been finger-painting the walls with his own poop. “Think one of us should go check on him?” she asked.
Mrs. Haggerty made a sound of disgust at our exchange. “Zachary is perfectly capable of using the lavatory himself. He’ll never learn to be a young man if you don’t expect him to behave like one.”
“Ten to one?” Vero whispered.
“Why not?” I whispered back. “I bought a box of Magic Erasers at Costco.”
“The last time we scrubbed those walls, I wrecked a perfectly good manicure. I vote we hire a painter.”
We both turned as Zach scurried down the stairs. Vero and I blinked at him. His jeans were on inside out. So was his Pull-Up, judging by what I could see of it over the exposed tag on his elastic waistband. His Buzz Lightyear shoes lit up gleefully over a mismatched pair of socks as he marched himself into the dining room and tugged on Mrs. Haggerty’s pants.
Her mouth pursed as she paused her lesson to look him over. “Did you remember to wash your hands?”
Zach nodded, splaying his damp fingers in front of him.
She scrutinized them through the narrow frames of her glasses. “Very well. Take a seat.”
Zach ran to the empty chair beside Delia and scrambled up the side of it, perching on his knees. His wide eyes lit with triumph as Mrs. Haggerty passed him a sheet of construction paper and a bottle of glue.
“How did you do that?” I asked her, coming into the room and staring at my son with an awed sense of wonder.
“People rise to the level of expectation you have of them. If you don’t trust them, how are they supposed to prove you can? Your generation coddles kids too much,” she grumbled. “You’re all so afraid of everything. If you want kids to grow into capable adults, you can’t strap them to a padded chair and tell them not to wiggle. You’ve got to let them fall and make mistakes, and be willing to forgive them.”
Vero scoffed. “That’s pretty strong advice coming from someone whose own son never comes to visit.”
Mrs. Haggerty looked a little stung. “I never said my generation did any better. Our kids survived mostly on their own wits and hose water. And you’re right,” she said ruefully, “that’s probably why my son doesn’t come to visit. He and I aren’t terribly close after his father ran him out years ago. It was easier on all of us once Owen passed, I suppose. Regardless, Brendan turned out to be a fine young man. I did a much better job with him,” she said proudly.
“Speaking of Brendan,” I said, sensing an opening, “I still haven’t been able to get in touch with him. Are you sure you don’t have any idea where he might have gone? Or when he’s coming back?”
Her eyes clouded over and her frail jaw set. “Brendan’s a grown man. He’ll come back when he’s ready. He doesn’t need me telling him what to do, and he doesn’t need to waste his time taking care of me. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for my afternoon repose.”
Mrs. Haggerty dismissed the children to the playroom and hobbled upstairs. Vero and I waited until we heard her bedroom door close before speaking again.
“You’re right,” Vero said. “She’s definitely covering for him. Penny and Brendan must be in this together.”
“If we can prove Penny knows Mrs. Haggerty, it won’t be hard to prove she knows Brendan, too.”
Vero stiffened. She sat up and cocked her head. “What’s that?” she asked, pressing her palms against the table.
The glass panes in the kitchen windows began to vibrate. “I don’t know,” I said, holding on to the counter as a repetitive, low thump reverberated through the walls. We didn’t get earthquakes in Virginia—at least not ones anyone could actually feel—so why were all the dishes in my cabinet starting to shake?
Vero ran to the window and pulled back the curtain. The thumping grew louder, the vibrations rattling the wineglasses I still hadn’t gotten around to washing from last night. A vehicle drove slowly toward my house, its windows open and stereo blaring. If it wasn’t for the grinning face behind the wheel, I never would have recognized Mrs. Haggerty’s Mark V.
The car’s body had been painted a garish shade of purple. Flecks of glitter sparkled in the finish, and the new chrome grille glistened in the sun. Eggplant Ecstasy had been hand-lettered across the hood in fancy looping script. The tires were brand-new with wide, white-walls, and a disco ball hung from the rearview mirror, spraying the interior of the car with rainbow-colored light.
Vero and I came bursting out of the house. Cam beamed at us through the windshield, his face mostly hidden behind an enormous pair of purple rhinestone sunglasses that could have belonged to Elton John. Arnold Schwarzenegger was riding shotgun, strapped in a tiny purple helmet, his front paws braced on the dashboard. There was a high-pitched whine as the entire front end of the car lifted on a pair of stilt-like hydraulics.
“I’m going to murder Javi,” Vero said as the car began to bounce. The front tires dipped low, then ricocheted off the pavement, catching more air every time they hit the ground.
I covered my ears, the music almost deafening as Cam slung his arm over the door. His hand tapped out the rhythm, his head bobbing to the beat of the trembling bass that was blasting through the souped-up stereo.
“What did you do to Mrs. Haggerty’s car?” I shouted over the music.
“I know, right?” he shouted back, his smile as bright and wide as the car’s shiny new bumpers. “Vero’s boyfriend’s got some mad skills. This thing is sick! Mrs. H is gonna love it!”
The children came running out of the house, drawn by the noise. Mrs. Haggerty came out after them, scowling and covering her ears. Vero caught Zach as he zipped past her, demanding a ride.
“Turn it off!” I shouted.
Delia giggled maniacally as Cam attempted to lower the hydraulics. The car dipped and bobbed erratically as he fiddled with buttons on the dashboard. The car dropped with one final chassis-shaking bounce, then the stereo fell abruptly silent as the engine cut off.
My ears were still ringing when Cam opened his door and got out. He held Arnold in one arm and splayed the other wide, showcasing the car. “Gorgeous, am I right? Your boyfriend gave me a killer price on the paint job. But the mods cleaned me out. Cost me the last of my reward money, but it was totally worth it. Right, Mrs. H?” He took off his rhinestone sunglasses and placed them gently on her nose, positioning them over her own wire-rimmed spectacles as she came over to inspect the car.
“I like the color,” she said, looking genuinely pleased.
Cam put a hand to his chest and let out a breath. “I wasn’t sure about it at first—you know, if it would attract the ladies—but Javi really sold me on it. He said it projects the message that I’m confident in my masculinity.”
“An eighteen-foot eggplant will do that,” Vero said.
“How about we all take it out for a cruise and get some ice cream?” Cam asked. “The back seat is huge. We can all go! It’ll be like a party on wheels.”
The kids cheered. Cam looked at me expectantly. Delia pulled on my pant leg. “Can we please go for a ride in Cam’s pretty purple car?”
“ I think that’s a lovely idea.” Mrs. Haggerty’s tone suggested she expected me to say no.
I was probably going to regret this. Cam’s last party involved dead loan sharks and strippers. “Only to the drive-through at the end of the street,” I said with a pointed look at Cam. “And they have to use their car seats.”
Cam held up three fingers in a Scout Promise. The children clambered into the open door of the car. Delia gripped the enormous steering wheel and pretended to drive while Zach poked the disco ball, making the glittery lights swirl around the ceiling.
I pulled Cam aside, out of earshot of Mrs. Haggerty as she buckled herself into the passenger seat.
“What’s up, Mrs. D?”
“I need to borrow Arnold Schwarzenegger for a few hours.”
Cam tucked the dog snugly under his arm. “What for?”
I was afraid he was going to ask me that. “I’m going to visit an old friend. She’s very fond of dogs. I thought she’d like to meet him.” That middle part was true. Patricia Mickler was very fond of dogs. It was me she never wanted to see again. Cam chewed his lip as he stroked Arnold’s head. “We’ll only be gone a few hours,” I assured him. “Vero and I will take very good care of him.”
Cam looked over his shoulder at my children as Vero buckled each of them into their car seats. “I guess that’d be okay,” he said, passing me the dog. “But Arnold needs to be walked every hour or he’ll piss on the floor. And don’t let him ride in the back seat. It makes him carsick. He starts drooling right before he—”
“Got it,” I said, sparing myself the details. I’d endured far worse with Kevin Bacon.
I gave Cam a few twenties to buy everyone some ice cream and reminded him to keep his music at a reasonable volume as he got into the car. “And no explicit lyrics, or the kids will repeat them.”
“Cool,” he said, buckling himself in. I wasn’t sure if he meant he was cool with the request or he thought it would be cool to test it. It was too late to ask him as I watched them drive off.
Vero disappeared inside the house. She came out a moment later, holding a baseball cap and a pair of dark sunglasses. “You sure about this?”
I handed the dog to Vero and passed her his leash. “Not at all.”
Three hours had passed since we’d parked behind the animal shelter, and Vero and I had almost given up. “That’s her,” I said, ducking lower in the driver’s seat.
We watched from my minivan as Patricia Mickler got out of a familiar brown station wagon and approached the employee door. Her head was down as she dug in her purse for her key card, but she wasn’t hard to recognize. She hadn’t changed much since the last time I’d seen her four months ago. She had the same mousy brown hair, pulled back in a casual ponytail, and wore the same jeans and sweatshirt matted in dog and cat hair. She had a bit more color in her cheeks after her long trip to the Caribbean with her boyfriend, and maybe a little more spring in her step, but she was still the same meek, unassuming woman who had propositioned me to murder her husband by slipping a note under my plate in a crowded Panera dining room last fall.
According to Patricia’s social media, she had only returned to the country a few weeks ago. She probably figured it was safe to come home, now that the Russian mobster who had employed her husband was no longer a threat to her.
“Maybe we should just wait until she gets off work,” Vero suggested, rolling up our empty fast-food bag and tossing it in the seat behind her. “We can follow her back to her place and talk to her there.”
We’d been sitting here for hours waiting for her to show up. My fuel light was on empty, Cam’s dog had eaten most of our french fries, and my bladder was full. Unlike Arnold, I couldn’t take a leak in the narrow strip of grass beside the parking lot. That would definitely turn heads.
“Traffic is too heavy. We’d probably lose her. I’ll go inside and see if she’s willing to talk.” I tucked my hair up into my baseball cap, put on my sunglasses, and put Arnold under my arm. I gave Vero my keys and got out of the van, following the sidewalk around the building to the main entrance at the front.
With my cap pulled low, I approached the check-in desk and signed in using a fake name. They handed me a form on a clipboard, inquiring about the purpose of my visit. “I’m surrendering a pet,” I said, holding Arnold up to the counter. “He pees on the carpet. I can’t keep him anymore.”
I held my breath, hoping I had correctly predicted what might happen next. That they would want one of their volunteers to meet with me first, to talk about support and resources, to persuade me to keep the dog before allowing me to walk out.
The woman behind the counter offered me a polite but unconvincing smile. “Before you go and leave the little guy with us, we’ll just ask you to meet with one of our staff. They’ll have some questions about your dog that will help us rehome him.”
“Does Patricia still work here?” I asked. “She helped us with his adoption several months ago. I’d prefer to meet with her if she’s free.”
The attendant checked her computer screen. “Looks like she just got in. Let me put you and Arnold in a room where you can wait for her.”
The attendant buzzed us through a heavy steel door and escorted us into the room of cages behind the counter. Arnold and I were met by a cacophony of barking dogs, and his ears perked, alert and anxious as I tucked him inside my jacket to help him feel safe. Cam would murder me and Venmo my entire life savings to himself in revenge if I let anything happen to his beloved dog.
The attendant showed us into a tiny sterile meeting room with a small table and two chairs and a large plexiglass window. I had been hoping for something more private (and less like a police interrogation room), but it was better than having this conversation out in the open. She gave me a full-color glossy brochure to read about the shelter’s services while we waited for Patricia.
I sat down with Arnold in my lap, studying the pamphlet: adoption, rehoming, vaccinations and emergency care, end-of-life assistance… My eye snagged on a photo of a pale blue gift bag with a paw print embossed on the side. Your pet’s cremains will be returned to you in decorative casket bag—
“Who do we have here?” I dropped the brochure at the sound of Patricia’s voice. She came in holding a clipboard. She gave my form a quick skim, then knelt in front of Arnold and scratched his tiny head. “Aren’t you just a handsome little guy?”
I cleared my throat as she inspected his eyes and ears then moved on to his paws. “Hello, Patricia.”
Startled, she looked up at my face. Her cheeks paled and she dropped her clipboard. She straightened slowly, taking a skittish step back from me as her eyes darted to the door. “What are you doing here? I thought we agreed never to see each other again.”
“Believe me. I never wanted to see you again either.” It felt like walking back into a nightmare, right back to the moment my unwitting life of crime had begun. I had that same sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. “I need to talk to you.”
“It’s over,” she said, reaching clumsily for her clipboard. “Harris is dead, the case is closed, and you and I have nothing more to say to each other.”
“I need to ask you about Elizabeth Chen.”
She kept her eyes on the floor as she searched for her pen. “Birdie doesn’t work here anymore.”
“But you know her,” I concluded, noting her use of a nickname.
Patricia gritted her teeth. “Not well,” she said curtly.
“How about Margaret Haggerty?”
Patricia froze on one knee. Her gaze slowly lifted to mine. She glanced past me, through the plexiglass window into the kennels. Then she bolted.
Patricia strode fast toward the nearest exit. I scooped up Arnold and followed her, matching her brisk but cautious pace, neither one of us wanting to attract attention. She pushed open a fire exit. Arnold bounced and yapped in my arms as I picked up speed to catch up to her.
She cut through the grass, groping in her coat pocket for her car keys as she made a beeline toward the parking lot. I heard my van cough and rattle as Vero started the engine. The tires squealed, but I was too busy racing after Patricia to turn to see where Vero was going.
Dogs barked, chasing us along the fence and climbing up on the chain link to snap and growl at us. Patricia reached the employee lot on the far side of the building and stepped over the curb. She lost her balance when my van skidded suddenly into her path and jerked to a stop. Patricia whirled at the sound of my sneakers on the pavement behind her. She held up both arms in an effort to keep me and Arnold back.
“We only want to talk to you,” I said, darting left then right, blocking her path. Arnold barked as Patricia tried to get past me.
“I have nothing to say to you!” she said, reaching for her phone.
Vero slid the van door open behind her. “I figured you might say that.”
Vero grabbed Patricia around the shoulders and threw herself backward, using all her weight to leverage them both into the van. I slammed the door shut. Then I sprinted around the hood and climbed into the driver’s seat. The whole van rocked as Patricia and Vero wrestled in the back.
I set Arnold in the passenger seat and put the van in gear. He barked, releasing a stream of urine as I peeled out of the parking lot. I didn’t know where I was going, only that my plans for the day had not included kidnapping when I woke up that morning.
I jerked the wheel, taking the entrance into the parking garage of the mall. Vero and Patricia flew like pinballs across the floor in the back seat, thrown apart by the force of my turns as the van spiraled up the ramp. Vero sat up, her face triumphant in the rearview mirror as she brandished Patricia’s cell phone. Patricia scrambled for an exit. Her face twisted as she attempted to wrench the sliding door open, only to find it locked.
“Childproof,” Vero pointed out as she caught her breath.
Patricia smacked the door in frustration. She sat down hard with her back pressed to the door as she glared at me, red-faced in the rearview mirror. “What do you want?”
I skidded the van to a stop in an empty corner of the garage and turned in my seat to face her. “Who is Margaret Haggerty to you?”
“I told you, I’ve never heard of her.”
“Then why did you run?”
“Why do you care?” Patricia twisted around to wrestle with the door again.
“Because my children’s father is being held for murder right now, and I don’t believe he killed the man they found buried in Margaret Haggerty’s yard, but I think you know who did.”
Patricia went still. “I can’t help you!” she snapped. “I don’t know anything about that man. Or who killed him.”
“But you do know something.” Her body language alone told me that much. She was hiding something, and I was determined to find out what it was.
“I don’t owe you anything! Aaron and I are finally happy. And we don’t need anyone rehashing what happened to Harris last fall.”
“That’s exactly what’s going to happen if you don’t tell us what you know,” I warned her. “The police are pursuing a case against my ex-husband for the murder of Gilford Dupree. Their investigation has them looking very closely at Steven’s business, and there’s a very suspicious Loudoun County cop who’s a little too curious about the bodies they found on his farm, including your husband’s.”
Patricia’s jaw tensed.
“You can either help me figure out who really killed that man, or you can let the LCPD reopen the investigation into your husband’s murder.” We both knew that wasn’t really a choice.
“If I tell you what I know, are you going to let me go?”
“That depends on the quality of your information,” Vero said, as I said, “Of course.” I glared at Vero sideways. “What’s Birdie Chen’s connection to Margaret Haggerty?” I asked.
Patricia pressed her mouth shut.
“A man doesn’t turn up dead in an old woman’s backyard for no good reason,” Vero pointed out.
Patricia held up a finger, making her position clear to both of us. “I am not saying Birdie Chen had anything to do with this. But she knew people.”
“What people?” I asked.
“You know,” Patricia said, fumbling for words, “people who do what you do.”
“People who write books?”
“People who handle problem husbands.”
Vero’s mouth formed a shocked O. No matter how many times or how many ways I had tried to explain to Patricia that her initial impression of me was based on a simple misunderstanding, she had stubbornly refused to believe I wasn’t a killer for hire. Maybe because it made her feel less foolish for propositioning me to murder her husband in the first place.
Patricia lowered her voice. “One day, after a particularly bad argument with Harris, I came in for my shift at the shelter. Aaron noticed I was in a lot of pain. My wrist was swollen, and I couldn’t hold any of the animals. I should have gone to the emergency room, but I had already been to the ER earlier that month, and I was worried someone at the hospital would report it. When I refused to let Aaron take me, he suggested I let one of the techs at the shelter look at my arm. Birdie was on duty that day. She took me back into the vet clinic, gave me some pain meds, and wrapped my wrist in a splint.
“When she asked me how I’d injured my arm, I made up some story about how I’d tripped over a curb. She told me she’d figured as much. That she’d ‘tripped over the bad-boyfriend curb a few too many times, too,’” Patricia said, hooking her fingers into air quotes. “Birdie knew exactly how the injury had happened. For weeks after that, I avoided her at work, afraid she might report it to someone.
“I was relieved when she finally took a position somewhere else. That was the last I time I saw her. But a few days after Birdie left, a woman I’d never met before showed up at the shelter and asked to speak with me.” Patricia bit her lip, as if she wasn’t sure she should continue. “When I asked the woman who she was, she gave me a fake name, but it was definitely Margaret Haggerty. She was old and very sweet. She seemed harmless, so when she offered to take me to lunch, I went.”
“Are you sure we’re talking about the same Mrs. Haggerty?” Vero muttered. I jabbed her with an elbow as Patricia went on.
“Margaret wouldn’t say how she knew, only that she knew Harris wasn’t a good husband and she wanted to help me. I just assumed she was friends with Birdie—some kind of therapist or social worker or something. I figured Birdie had told her about my wrist. At first, I was upset, but then Margaret and I started talking. She asked me all kinds of questions about Harris—who he worked for, what he did for a living. It was such a relief to get it all off my chest—about the kind of person he really was. I told her more than I should have, about the horrible things he was involved in… you know, the stuff with the mob. She listened to it all, and I never felt like she was judging me. After I told her everything, she apologized. She said she was sorry she and her friends couldn’t help me with my problem. That she wished they could. She seemed genuinely upset she couldn’t do something more.
“As Margaret was leaving, she said she had heard rumors about a website.” Patricia threw a pointed look at me. “She said she didn’t know for sure, but she’d heard people talking about a place online where women could post anonymously about their problems. I told her I didn’t see how gossiping with a bunch of strangers on the internet would help me get out of my marriage, but she kept insisting that I should try to find it. That I shouldn’t feel guilty for asking for help. That I’d be better off without him. I asked her if she knew what the website was called or where to find it, but she said she had no idea. She said she had only heard whispers about it and she wasn’t good with computers. Then she left, and I never heard from her again.
“It took me weeks of searching, but I finally found the women’s forum she was talking about. I didn’t have any luck there. I tried to look Margaret up to thank her anyway. That’s when I realized the name she had given me was fake. I didn’t know her real name until I saw her on the news a few weeks ago, when they found that man buried in her yard.”
Vero’s jaw fell open. “Definitely didn’t see that one coming.”
“Mrs. Haggerty was the one who told you about the women’s forum?” I asked in an attempt to distill all this information into some digestible breadcrumb I could follow. The women’s forum Patricia was referring to had only been a chat group on the surface. It had also been a thriving whisper network of disgruntled women searching for contract killers who were willing to dispose of problem husbands for a price. Before I’d met her, Patricia had been a frequent visitor to the site, desperate to find someone willing to murder Harris. But no one there had been willing to kill someone who had worked for the Russian mob. That’s when Patricia had stumbled onto me, misconstrued the nature of my work, and offered me fifty grand to murder her horrible spouse.
“Look, I’ve told you everything I know. Can I have my phone back now?” Patricia held out a hand, but I was hardly listening. My thoughts had snagged on something Mrs. Haggerty had said to her. That Patricia would be better off without him.
Margaret Haggerty and Penelope Dupree had both given me that exact same advice.
And what had Mrs. Haggerty meant when she said she was sorry she and her friends couldn’t help ? Why had she sought Patricia out? What kind of help had her friends hoped to offer a woman who was desperate to get out of her relationship?
None of the members of Mrs. Haggerty’s book club was married.
Except one—Sally.
Sally certainly wasn’t happy in her marriage to Robert, and what had Mrs. Haggerty and her friends done for her? They had invited her to join their book club. A woman who worked for the Office of Vital Records had given her a certificate. They had given her a wooden box and a gift bag full of cremains…
Everyone has a job to do. Everyone contributes.
Suddenly, everything clicked into place. I could see all the characters and their roles in the story clearly. They all had a job. All made a contribution. Viola, the women’s advocate and human resources professional, managed the group. Lola, the nurse, forged medical records at her hospital. Destiny printed death certificates at work. She provided custom engraving for the urns from her Etsy shop, and Birdie stole animal cremains from the shelter to fill them. Then there was Kathy, the cleaner who tidied up the evidence of their crimes and Gita, who used her flower delivery business to handle the memorial arrangements…
That tattoo over Mrs. Haggerty’s heart—the one she claimed she got years ago—wasn’t a three-leaf clover at all… it was a club .
Mrs. Haggerty wasn’t protecting Brendan. She was covering for her friends. But what was Penny’s role in all this? And how long until they initiated Sally?
I started the engine.
“Where are we going?” Vero asked.
“We’re taking Patricia back to her car. Then we’re going home.”
“Why?”
“To get ready for book club.”