Forty
Nate and Agent Mozzarella stared at me, waiting for me to explain my outburst. But all I could think was: Where in God’s green acres is the corpse? Even the Hefty Cinch Sak containing Connor’s teal vest had disappeared.
“Sorry,” I stammered. “I got Botox. For the first time. Yesterday.” I pointed at my forehead, which had enough lines to make
my story unconvincing. “And it’s a toxin. A neurotoxin. And I think it’s affecting me.” This ridiculous excuse was the best
I could manage. “I wanted you to . . . to look in my kids’ playhouse and . . . and see that Ken doll because basically that’s
what I feel like. Plastic fantastic.” The men looked baffled. “You’ll wanna search the shed, right? I have the key. Let me
grab it.”
Nate followed me inside, ostensibly to make sure I wasn’t going to flush a pound of cocaine down the toilet. But as soon as
we were in the kitchen, he said, “Tilly, what’s going on?”
We faced each other, no more than two feet between us. There were gold flecks of concern in his eyes. If I stood on my tiptoes,
I could’ve kissed him. But of course I didn’t. Not now.
“Going on?” I squeaked.
“Why’d you think we were going to arrest you?” he said.
I opened and closed my mouth, as if I’d Freaky Friday-ed with a goldfish. Now was the time to say: Some creepy white supremacists are planning to attack the capitol in eleven days. But no sound came out.
“You know, if you need anything, you can let me know,” Nate said, his face creased with worry, confusion, and—could it be?
—longing. It’d only been five days since we’d pressed every possible square inch of our naked flesh together.
Surely he was wondering why I’d ghosted him, and why I seemed so off my nut now.
But instead of trusting the first man I could actually see myself with for the long haul, I said, “I need you and your work
buddy to finish up and get out of here so I can get my kids to school.”
Hurt flashed in his eyes, even as he nodded. “Okay. If that’s what you want.”
By the time Nate and his fellow agent had searched our whole side of the duplex, the twins had missed the bus, so I drove
them to school.
“Why did Coach Duran and that other man want to look through all our things, Mommy?” Phoebe asked.
“They’re trying to find a bad guy,” I said, meeting her eye in the rearview mirror.
“There’s a bad guy hiding at our house?” Alice said, sounding worried.
“No, no. Everything there is safe and sound,” I said. “They were just making sure.”
“Is Coach Duran going to be your boyfriend?” Phoebe asked.
“We like him,” Alice said.
“I don’t need a boyfriend,” I said, as I pulled up to the front entrance of Roosevelt Elementary. “I’m too busy being a mom.”
“You don’t seem that busy,” Phoebe added, helpfully. “Maybe you could find the time.”
When Gucci sashayed in to meet me at Guru Donuts in her ankle-length fuzzy black coat printed with green alien faces, I wanted
to jump up and hug her for making me feel a sliver less alone. Since I figured Ralphie and Errol wouldn’t darken the doors
of a donut shop offering hipsterberry donuts for $40 a dozen, I’d already taken off my scarf, hoodie, and sunglasses and now
offered to buy Gucci’s donut and coffee even though it was fifty-fifty whether or not my credit card would be declined.
“What do you mean, the body’s gone?” she said in a shocked whisper as we tucked into our sprinkle donuts. (By the time this mystery was solved or I went to jail, I might be three-quarters sugar.)
“Gone. Vanished. Disappeared. Two inches of snow covering any possible tracks. Did you, by any chance, move it? You got a
pink sprinkle. Right here.”
“Of course I didn’t move it,” she said, wiping at her nose. “Got it?”
“Got it,” I said.
“Who else knew it was there?”
“Layna,” we said in unison.
“I called her the second I dropped my kids at school,” I said. “She didn’t pick it up.” That was when I’d texted Gucci an
SOS.
“She’s flying to Portland,” Gucci said.
“To sell that house!” I said. “I spaced it.”
“Did anybody, anybody else know it was there?”
“Nope.” But one person might’ve been able to figure it out. “I think I know who could’ve done this,” I said. I gave Gucci
a powdered-sugar-dusted kiss on the cheek and headed toward the door at a trot.
When Miranda threw open her front door, she had a crutch under one arm and wore gold-rimmed aviator reading glasses and an
ombre sweater that looked like a struck match. She seemed slightly less happy to see me than if I’d been a member of a religious
order hell-bent on convincing her to renounce her favorite holidays.
“What are you wearing?” she said, as I hustled inside.
“Ralphie and Errol might be out looking for me.” The floral curtains were drawn so I took off my sunglasses, pulled down the
hood of my coat, and unwrapped the scarf from around the bottom half of my face. “Look, I know you have Tater Tot. But I have
a question for you.” I didn’t want to talk about corpses anymore over the phone. And also I thought that in person, I’d be
better able to glean whether or not Miranda was telling the truth.
Tater was fast asleep on the couch in a jelly bean onesie.
“She is definitely the cutest baby in the world,” I said.
“I’m glad to see you, but why are you here, Tilly?” Miranda said.
I turned to face her. “Did you move Connor’s body?”
“Did I what?”
“Move it. You know, without me?”
“How could I move his body?” she said. “I don’t even know where it is.”
“But did you?” I pressed.
She waved her crutch as if to say: Earth to Tilly. “Do I look like I could move a body by myself? What is this about? Wait, wait, wait. So he’s . . . it’s . . . gone?”
“Into thin air,” I admitted.
“Where to?” Her voice had turned shrill.
“I have no idea, but I’ll tell you when I figure it out,” I said, wrapping the scarf back around my head and donning sunglasses
as I turned to leave.
“Not so fast,” Miranda said. “You know the proverb ‘It takes a village to raise a child’?”
“Um, yeah?” I said.
“I have a baby and a sprained ankle. So how about being my village?”
Oddly, taking out Miranda’s trash and loading her dishwasher made me feel less like her lowly house girl and more like a beneficent
auntie with goddess vibes. It was good to be part of something.
I was behind the wheel and sweating in my scarf, beanie, hooded coat, and sunglasses when my phone rang. I put it on speaker
as I drove past three jaunty Canada geese marching regally down the sidewalk.
“You okay?” Layna asked. “I just landed and saw your test frenzy. Text frenzy.” I could hear another woman’s voice in the
background.
“Did you move the package?” I demanded.
“Package?” she said. “Whatta I want wif jour packages?”
“Wait! Are you drunk?”
“Do drinks drunk at forty thousand feet even count? They’re like calories eaten standing up.”
“You know, the package we stashed in my yard the night you borrowed my sled? Did. You. Move. It?”
“Oh, the package!” she said. “I don’t want to eat Indian for dinner. I’ll be farting all night. Sorry. Talking to my friend, Elaine. We’re
in an Uber. I brought her to be my emotional support animal since you’re busy.”
“Layna! Focus! Did. You. Move. The. Package?”
“No, I didn’t move him.”
“Not him,” I insisted. “It.”
I slammed on my brakes to avoid hitting a goose. My car skidded, then blessedly stopped without plowing into anything. The
guy behind me laid on his horn. I rolled down the window and leaned halfway out. I might have screamed a couple choice obscenities
at the driver—and the goose.
“Tilly, wash goin’ on?” Layna said. “Are’s you okay?”
“It’s nothing. A goose in the road.”
“You can’t swing a dead cat in Boise without hitting a freaking goose. No sushi! You know wasabi burns my sinuses. Wait. Is
he—the package—is he gone? Like Gone Baby Gone?”
Longing for my mother sliced me like a hot knife through cheesecake. And I missed Emmylou too. Layna might want to be my new
bestie, but right now she was hammered in an Uber with someone named Elaine who had a craving for sashimi. I forced myself
to push my grief down, to focus.
“I can’t talk about it now. Not on the phone,” I said. “But don’t worry about me. Good luck listing your house.”
“Burt, Tilly!” she was still shouting as I hung up.