CHAPTER FOUR
Deb Leander lived two doors down from Carol Paige, in a house that looked almost identical from the outside but felt entirely different the moment Kate stepped through the front door.
Where Carol's house had been ordered and still, Deb's had the accumulated disorder of a life actively lived within it: stacks of magazines on the entry bench, a pair of reading glasses on top of a half-folded newspaper, three different coffee mugs scattered around on different tables.
The living room smelled like burnt toast and something floral.
Deb herself was on the couch. She was in her early sixties, with short silver-streaked hair and a very tired-looking face.
As Kate and Sloane approached her, the woman’s face held a raw, glassy shock.
She had her hands wrapped around yet another mug, and she kept looking toward the window as if she expected someone to come up the walk.
A uniformed officer sat in the armchair across from her, a young man with a careful and patient posture.
He looked relieved to see them come in. Kate and Sloane took seats on the love seat across from Deb.
Kate let a moment of quiet settle before she spoke, giving Deb the time to adjust to two new people in her orbit.
"Ms. Leander, I'm Agent Wise, and this is Agent Sloane,” she said in a very measured way. “We're very sorry about Carol, and we know this has been an awful morning for you. But do you think you could manage just a few questions?”
Deb nodded once, tight and quick, looking at Kate and then Sloane. "Deb," she said. "I always go by Deb." Her voice came out scratched and a little thin.
"Okay, Deb. Can you walk us through this morning? Just in your own words."
Deb tightened her grip on the mug. "I went over for coffee, which is pretty common for us. At least twice a week, I’ll swing by for coffee on her patio.
Usually, I also go over a few times a week later at night, around nine or so for a glass of wine and some conversation.
But last night I couldn’t. I'd been with my nephew last night, babysitting, and I couldn't come by the way I normally would, so I figured I'd just come over in the morning instead.
Carol had a date last night and I wanted to hear about it.
" She stopped and looked down at the mug.
"I came around the back, like I always do.
Carol leaves the door unlocked for me. The light in the kitchen was on but she wasn't in there.
And then I looked through into the living room and I just...
" She pressed her lips together and shook her head slowly.
"I called 911 the moment I saw the blood.” Her voice trembled and she made a slight choking noise.
“I don't even remember doing it, honestly. It's just... I must have."
"You did the right thing," Sloane said, keeping her voice low and even.
"She was supposed to tell me about her date." Deb said it softly, almost to herself.
"So, you know who she was going out with?" Kate asked.
"It was something she’d arranged through a new app.
Carol had been on this app for a few weeks.
Her daughter set it up for her. She wasn't exactly thrilled about the whole thing at first, but there was this man she'd been talking to.
" Deb turned the mug in her hands. "Paul.
I never met him. She'd been taking her time with the whole thing because the divorce was only final about eight months ago—even though they’d been separated for closer to two years. She didn't want to rush into anything."
"How bad was her marriage?" Sloane asked.
"Pretty bad form what I know. He was never abusive or anything like that, but Carol was pretty sure he’d cheated on her a few times and he had just checked out.
The way she told the story, she asked for the divorce and he was fine with it.
No argument, no shock. Eleven years together, and the last couple of those...
" Deb trailed off and made a gesture with one hand that conveyed the whole of it without requiring specifics.
"She only really started feeling like herself again this past year. "
The uniformed officer leaned forward slightly.
"Her phone's been photographed and logged as evidence," he said.
"But I can tell you what's on there. She sent a string of texts to her sister around nine last night.
Sounded like she'd just gotten home from the date.
Pretty cheerful. She told her sister she'd had a genuinely good time, that the man seemed like a real adult.
Those were her words. A real adult. She sent a few similar messages to Deb, too. "
Kate looked at the officer. "What's the last text she sent?"
"To the sister, at 9:22. Said she was going to pour a glass of wine and call it a night. That was it."
Kate registered the timeline in the back of her mind: home before 9:30, texts to her sister, wine poured, and then… the end.
"Did Carol have contact with her ex-husband?" Sloane asked, looking back to Deb.
Deb made a flat sound. "Not if she could help it.
They weren't enemies, by any means. But he'd moved to Atlanta about a year after the split and they barely spoke.
There wasn't anything ugly between them that I was aware of.
It was just... a marriage that ran out of road.
" She set the mug down on the table beside her, and Kate noticed her hand stayed near it after she let go, not quite willing to be empty.
"Did Carol ever mention feeling unsafe?” Kate asked. “Anyone bothering her, or anyone she was worried about?"
Deb looked up at that and the expression on her face indicated that she found the question strange.
"No. Nothing like that. She was one of those people, you know…
she didn't worry much. She wasn't someone who checked the locks twice before bed.
" Her voice thinned at the end of the sentence and she looked back toward the window.
"Is Carol's family local?" Sloane asked.
"Her daughter is about forty minutes away. I called her this morning, after the police came. The sister's in North Carolina." Deb rubbed the side of her face with one hand. "Carol's daughter is going to be devastated. They were so close. Carol talked about her constantly."
Kate gave it a moment. "The back gate in the fence along the neighbor's property line," she said. "Do you know if that gate is typically kept locked?"
Deb blinked, as though shifting gears through the grief. "I don't think it locks. It just latches. I've come through it myself a couple of times when I parked in the alley." She looked at Kate steadily. "You think that's how someone got in?"
"We can’t know for certain just yet," Kate said.
Deb nodded as her eyes moved to Sloane, then back to Kate.
She had composed herself enough now that the initial shock had settled into something heavier and more permanent.
"She was really happy last night," she said.
"I could tell from the texts she sent me, just little messages.
She was excited about this man. She hadn't felt that way in a really long time. "
No one filled the silence that followed. Outside, a car passed slowly on the street, and Deb turned toward the window, watching it go.
Kate stood, not wanting to put this poor woman through anything else. "Thank you, Deb. Truly. If you think of anything else, this officer will make sure it gets to us." She nodded to the young officer, who acknowledged her with a brief nod back.
On the front porch, Kate pulled the door shut behind them. The street was quiet, the yellow tape from Carol’s house visible at the far end of the walk two doors down.
"The back gate, the unlocked door,” Sloane said. “Whoever this was, they knew about those things or they figured it out in advance."
Kate thought about the wine glass on the floor, the folded blanket on the couch arm, the lamp burning. The order of it all, completely undisturbed except for the blood and the wine in middle of the rug. "And it doesn’t seem like Carol Paige had any idea it was coming. None at all."
They walked back toward Carol’s house where the ME had arrived. And when Kate saw them rolling in the stretcher for Carol’s body, she was reminded of one of the reasons she most certainly did not miss this job.