Thirty-Eight
After we made a Pole Virgins’ promise to never speak of the night again, Gucci dropped me at the end of my alley so I could
roll the garbage out for morning pickup. A fresh inch of snow had fallen, but the alley stank like someone had tossed a well-fed
squirrel into their backyard firepit. As I pinched my nose to block out notes of burnt flesh and incinerated hair, Oat Willimena
dragged her own can through her back gate.
“Are you getting that smell?” I asked.
“I fired my kiln, not knowing there was a raccoon inside. Poor little guy.” She sounded truly mournful. “All that was left
was a few teeth and a little bit of tail. And his penis bone, of course. Also known as a Texas toothpick.” Oat Willimena illuminated
a charred, hooked bit of bone with a flashlight.
I stepped back, horrified.
“Raccoon penis bones are considered magical talismans,” Oat Willimena continued. “Jerry Hall—the supermodel?—she told me once
that when she was growing up in Mesquite, Texas, boys gave girls they liked racoon penis bones, you know, as a simple love
spell. Maybe I should give this one to Emmylou?”
“Woo away,” I managed, feeling a pang at how fun it would have been to tell Emmylou about this conversation.
“Friday, I’m taking her for a tour of the women’s ward of the Old Idaho Penitentiary. It’ll be romantic. How many illicit
love affairs took place between those walls?”
“So many?” I said. If Emmylou and Oat Willimena went out Friday night, it would be much easier for me and Miranda to move Connor’s body undetected. “What a great date idea!”
I excused myself and hurried through the back gate. Snow had covered all my muddy tracks. I decided to take a quick peek at
Connor’s track marks and taser burns—I felt dumb for having missed them. But as I approached the playhouse Emmylou appeared
on the back deck looking radiant in an ankle-length blue silk kaftan.
“Hi, Emmylou,” I said, feeling sad and regretful.
“Evening,” she said.
But before I could make an attempt at reconciliation (or warn her about the amorous penis bone coming her way), she disappeared
back into her side of the duplex.
My own television blared the nineties gem Striptease. Layna sat up from where she’d been sprawled on my mom’s old tie-dyed couch.
“I have amateur sleuthing FOMO so bad right now,” she said.
“Do you want an update?” I asked.
“No. Don’t,” she said with a shudder, as if remembering the severed finger pressed into her hand. “The douchebag was right
about one thing. I wasn’t cut out to be an investigator.”
“You’ll find your post-divorce thing,” I said. “And it will be amazing. Thank you for tonight. For everything.”
Layna tossed the bag of popcorn onto the coffee table and rose to her feet. “Not to be weird, but I just put a listing for
a new best friend on Facebook Marketplace. Any chance you wanna apply?”
“Expect my application by morning,” I said.
Layna gave me a hug and slipped out into the night.
I checked on the twins, who were both conked out. Next, knowing I wouldn’t be able to sleep myself, I went to the kitchen
to call Miranda Carson, who’d given me her number before I left her place. “Did I wake you up?” I said, putting on the kettle.
“I’m feeding Tater Tot,” she whispered.
“Is your husband there?” I sniffed the air of the kitchen, but luckily could pick up no lingering Eau de Anal Glands or Bouquet
of Burnt Racoon.
“Chauncey’s downstairs.”
“What kind of name is Chauncey?” I said.
“East Coast. Old money. He can’t help it. Don’t judge.”
“Oh, I’m judging,” I said.
“He’s watching Alone: Frozen.”
“I love that show! Did the hot girl eat all that seal fat yet?” I tossed a chamomile tea bag into my mom’s vintage Boynton
mug that read: Don’t Let the Turkeys Get You Down.
“Tilly, those creeps. They keep driving by my house. Like slowly. My home security alarm’s on, but I’m totally freaked.”
“Does Chauncey know?”
“I haven’t told him anything,” she hissed. “About any of this! This whole thing, it’s like a nuclear leak. I need to keep
it contained. I can’t let it contaminate the groundwater of my life.”
“Okay, okay. Good,” I said. But I was freaking out too. If Ralphie and Errol were still cruising by Miranda’s, they were still
in Boise, still looking for me.
“If those guys grab me, I’m giving you up,” Miranda said. “I’ll tell them your name, where you live, everything.”
“Jesus, Miranda,” I said.
“I’m sorry. I’m not made to endure torture. And I have to protect Tater.”
“That’s fair,” I said. “But what about protecting my kids?”
“I’m really, really scared, Tilly.”
“Me too,” I said. I took a deep breath. Tried to sound strong. “But I do have some good news. You didn’t kill him.”
I heard something clatter to the floor. “What?”
“Connor. He died of a massive Botox overdose. You didn’t kill him.”
A gasp sounded, followed by a little whump.
“Are you okay?” I said.
“I’m . . . I’m on the floor,” Miranda said. “Literally. How do you know? Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” I said. “I got a friend to run a toxicology report. He must’ve been starting to OD on Botox when you saw him.
That’s why he was wheezing.”
Miranda let out a sob. “Thank god, thank god, thank god,” she said.
“How do you think he ended up full of Botox?” I said. “I’ve never heard of that kind of an OD before.”
“Who cares?” Miranda said. “As long as it’s clear it wasn’t us.”
But I did care. I wanted all the pieces to fit. “Hopefully it’ll be clear to the cops,” I said. “Connor was a junkie so maybe
he made a lethal mistake.” I didn’t exactly have vials of Botox and syringes in my possession, so I felt confident about my
innocence. Mostly. But the nagging mystery of how I’d ended up wearing his vest kept me from feeling entirely in the clear.
“Since you know what killed him,” Miranda said, “can’t you go to the police? Like maybe now?”
Just the thought of sitting in a police station for hours made me feel exhausted beyond all reason. “You mean we,” I said.
“It won’t be that bad for you. You’re probably more used to that kind of thing anyway.”
“What kind of thing?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Being around lowlifes, talking to cops, all that. You’ve been arrested before. I remember.”
“If we’re gonna do this, you’re gonna have to quit with the mean girl shit,” I said.
“Sorry. Old habits and all that.”
“I still need you to explain to the police how the body ended up in my car in the first place,” I said.
Miranda groaned. “I’ll do it if I have to. I will. I just don’t want to. It puts everything with Tater at risk.”
“Let’s think this through,” I said. We were both moms. We needed to fully consider possible repercussions of getting tangled up in the criminal legal system.
I paced to my office (aka the pantry) to do some brainstorming (aka stuffing shortbread cookies into my face).
“My mom always used to say: ‘When in doubt, don’t.’ She’d meant it like: ‘When in doubt about whether or not you should get a pixie cut, don’t.
’ But I think the saying could still apply to this more dire situation. ”
“Agreed. We still need to predict the outcomes,” Miranda said. “Maybe we should talk to a lawyer first?”
“Oh no!” I said. “You are not lawyering up and throwing me under the bus!” Miranda would preemptively have the best attorney
in the state, while I’d have to roll the dice on a public defender once I was charged with something.
She made a noncommittal noise. “Maybe just one little lawyer.”
“I’m serious,” I said. “It’ll be hot by Saturday. If we want to try to figure out how he ended up full of Botox before we
go to the police, we need to put him in your freezer tomorrow. But wait—how’s your ankle?”
“Still sprained, my dear.” She paused, then admitted, “But it’s not a bad sprain.”
I started to laugh. “If someone told me when I ran into you and your mom in the co-op the other day that you’d be calling
me ‘my dear’ during a late-night phone call, I wouldn’t’ve believed it.” I stuffed in another cookie.
“True. Why are you chewing soooo loudly,” she complained.
“I do my best thinking when scarfing processed food.”
“I’ve got a feeling right now your brain is a bad neighborhood. Don’t go there alone.”
“It’s been a bad neighborhood for a while now,” I admitted. “And I’m so tired. I’m not thinking straight. How about we sleep
on it?”
“Okay,” she said. “Tomorrow morning, we’ll decide.”
Turn the body over to the cops. Or stick it in Miranda’s chest freezer. Personally I liked the thought of the corpse being on Miranda’s property instead of mine. “I’ll call you once I get my kids to school,” I said. “And then we’ll make a plan.”
I hung up and shoveled in one last shortbread cookie before trundling toward bed.