Chapter Eleven
‘And back to downward dog,’ says the yoga instructor in a soothing voice.
Ass in the air, I struggle to find a good grip on my yoga mat. My palms are that sweaty. Wow, I really hate sweating. Especially this freaking early in the morning.
‘So then you get on the Ferris wheel,’ whispers George from her effortless downward dog beside me.
‘And what happens next?’ She’s been trying to get me to do Monday morning six a.m. hot yoga with her for years, and I finally caved.
Maybe because I knew she’d grill me about Liam.
Maybe because part of me does want to talk about him.
And hot yoga seemed better than her Tuesday triathlon training, which she’s also been trying to get me to do with her for years.
‘Left foot forward, and flowing into warrior two,’ intones the instructor.
I thrust my foot forward and fling up my torso. Finally upright! I flip my ponytail back as the blood rushes from my head, ignoring the itch from the sweat trickling down my back.
‘Yeah, that’s when things got intense,’ I whisper, adjusting my pose a bit. My balance is not the best. ‘He kissed me—’
George yelps, loud, eliciting a frown from our instructor.
‘Sorry! Hamstring!’ she crows, giving me a big, juicy wink. She lowers her voice again. ‘Keep going.’
‘And it was nice.’ I can’t help smiling. ‘Really nice.’
‘Tongue?’
‘Tongue.’
‘Good lips?’
‘Great lips,’ I say fervently.
‘Oh my God, Arjun finally delivered.’
‘Totally.’ I feel a little twinge of guilt for deceiving my friend. But if I unloaded the truth that Arjun may have set me up with a serial killer, George would be apoplectic. It could even ruin their wedding. Anyway, the kiss was nice. I’m not lying. Just leaving out a few details.
‘So when are you seeing him again?’
‘I don’t know … he left kind of abruptly.’
‘Oh?’
‘And forward into warrior three!’ says the instructor, adopting the balance position on one leg, her torso perfectly parallel with the floor.
I lean carefully forward, wobbling on my right leg and airplaning out my arms to keep my balance as I try to flatten my torso.
‘Well, first, some rando grabbed my purse and made a run for it. And Liam went after him, like, no hesitation. Believe it or not, he caught the guy. It was actually kind of …’ I debate my word choice. Impressive? Terrifying? Confusing?
‘Hot,’ purrs George. ‘Love that feral energy.’
‘So then I’m thinking we’re going to keep hanging out, like we’d been talking about. And then suddenly he switches gears and he’s like, “I have to go.”’
‘Huh?’
‘He said he had an early meeting.’ I grunt, wobbling even more.
‘On a Sunday?’ George’s tone of offended disbelief is balm to my soul. She gets it.
‘Yeah … a little sus, right?’
‘Oh, total bullshit. And he hasn’t texted?’
‘Nothing,’ I say. All day yesterday, as I alternated between Reddit and a calming ocean documentary that taught me more than I ever needed to know about jellyfish, I debated texting him.
Then I remembered the scary expression on his face after he punched that guy, and I didn’t.
‘But, fun fact, did you know there’s an immortal species of jellyfish?
Turritopsis dohrnii. They can, like, revert back to their younger—’ And then I’m losing my balance.
As I fall, I fling my arms out, catching George’s arm.
‘Whoa!’ she cries, and before I know it, we’re both on the floor in a tangle of arms and legs. George is having a silent fit of laughter, and I’m not far behind. Oh my God, I might actually pee myself.
The instructor looks at us from her perfectly balanced pose. Her voice remains perfectly Zen.
‘Perhaps a little more focus, a little less talk, ladies?’
George and I look at each other and stifle our laughter.
For the remaining twenty minutes, we’re on our best behavior.
When the class finally ends, George and I head to the ladies’ locker room, where we shower and change, since we’re both headed to work from here.
As she does her makeup at a small sink, I perch on a bench next to her.
‘So should I wait for him to text?’ I ask. ‘Or text him?’
‘Girl, you know I’m a feminist, but do not text him. ’Kay? This is where he proves if he’s actually interested or just fucking around.’
‘How do I know, though, if he’s interested in me, or in …’ I gesture vaguely with my hands.
‘Screwing you?’
More like killing me, but I murmur my assent anyway.
‘I hate to say it, Margot, because I know this is a sore subject for you, but …’ George spears me with her gaze, her mascara wand poised. ‘You have to make your best judgment call and go with your gut.’
‘But my gut sucks!’ I cover my face with my hands and growl. ‘You know this about me! I’m tired of getting hurt. I want to know for sure.’
‘But you can’t,’ she says, completely calm, like this isn’t a totally terrifying part of existence. ‘Even with Arjun, babe, I can’t know for sure for sure for sure. I mean, I’m for sure, don’t get me wrong, but … you know what I mean.’
‘Do I?’
‘Of course you do.’ George gives me an insufferably wise look. ‘At some point, babe, it’s a leap of faith.’
I deflate on the bench with a long groan.
That’s exactly what I was afraid of.
*
Of all the things I imagined doing for work when I was a kid thinking of my future professional options, styling a dead woman’s hair was not one of them.
‘The stylist came down with Covid,’ Bill explained when I went to get my body pickup assignments. ‘So Devin will cover today’s morgue pickups, and I’ll need your help with hair and makeup.’
‘I’m not super great with that stuff …’ I said, gesturing vaguely to my own bare face and clipped-back hair, still wet from my post-hot-yoga shower.
‘But you’re a woman,’ said Bill.
I looked at him. He looked at me.
‘OK,’ I said.
So here I am, in the basement of the funeral home, rolling Vicki Piscetti’s gray hair into hot curlers, per the family’s instructions, before her four p.m. viewing upstairs.
Is it weird? Yes. It’s weird as fuck. I actively pretend in my mind that this is a spa, and Vicki is just snoozing, so that I don’t have to absorb what I’m actually doing.
Every now and then, my phone vibrates, and I check it as discreetly as possible. George is texting me GIF after GIF of people falling in embarrassing ways. I find a few gems to send back, including one of a woman in an eighties aerobics leotard lurching around as if drunk.
Jokes aside, I have to admit the early hot yoga did invigorate me.
I feel more awake and alert than I’ve felt in a long time, which, unfair.
I hate it when George is right about annoying things like rising early and exercise.
If I’m not careful, next thing I know she’ll have me doing intermittent fasting, sauna and my first marathon. Ew.
‘How are you liking the job so far?’ Bill startles me into nearly dropping my phone, which I quickly tuck back into my pocket. He’s working behind me, performing a shave on another gentleman whose family is scheduled to say their private goodbyes later on today before he’s cremated.
‘Oh! Uh … it’s definitely interesting,’ I say as I struggle a chunk of gray hair around a curler. I’ve literally never curled my hair, or anyone else’s. Am I doing it in the right direction?
There’s a moment of silence. I hear the drip of water as Bill dips the razor into a bowl of water.
‘It is definitely that. Interesting,’ says Bill amiably.
It’s not much of an entrance, but I’ll take it anyway – after all, I’m here to investigate.
‘Speaking of interesting,’ I say as I pluck the next curler from the heated base, ‘I keep hearing about one of your former employees. Zoe? Is it true that she just disappeared one day without a trace? I hope you don’t mind me asking.’
He sighs and doesn’t speak for a minute.
‘That’s quite all right,’ he finally says. ‘You are correct.’
‘I’m so sorry to hear that.’ I tackle the hair at Mrs Piscetti’s left temple. ‘Does anyone have any idea what might have happened?’
His voice, normally so calm and steady and funereal, wavers. ‘Honestly, I feel responsible.’
My heart picks up speed.
‘Responsible?’ I try to keep my focus on the hot rollers instead of on him so as not to make him nervous.
‘Well, clearly, she had problems.’ He turns around to face me, the razor dripping suds and water, and I finally allow myself to meet his troubled gaze. I have to keep him talking …
‘Crappy boyfriend?’
‘Roommate. She was afraid to go home. Sad situation. I can’t help but wonder, if I’d offered to help her out …’
What? Afraid to go home?
‘You think she had an abusive … roommate?’ I.e. me???
‘I’m not sure. I try not to pry into my employees’ private lives, but in this case, I wish I had.
’ He sets the razor down gently. ‘I came in here to open up one morning and found her asleep in her office. Apparently she’d spent the night here.
She said things had taken a turn from bad to worse, and she had nowhere else to go.
’ He pulls out a Kleenex from the box on the cart and dabs at his nose, then his left eye.
‘I feel terrible that I didn’t press her for details.
But I did tell the detective that they should look into the roommate, whoever that piece of work was.
’ He gives me a pointed look. ‘I’m aware you’re new.
But we’re a family here, for better and for worse.
If you’re ever in trouble, please say something.
’ His soft expression takes a sudden, hard edge. ‘I’d do anything for family.’
‘Thanks,’ I murmur, doubling my attention down on the next curler.
I think I might be sick.
Is this true? Did Zoe feel like she couldn’t come home to me? Yes, we had our tiffs, our little conflicts, but – Why the hell were you making me the bad guy, Zoe?
Or maybe Bill isn’t being totally truthful. Does he have something to hide, and needs a convenient scapegoat, like an innocent roommate? After all, he has plenty of ways to dispose of a body …
A clomping sound of footsteps draws both our eyes. An orange head appears, attached to a plaid mini dress. Elsie, holding a bouquet of orange flowers so large, her entire face is invisible.
‘Special delivery for Margot,’ she says in a tone of such extreme neutrality, it manages to feel aggressive.
‘Oh my God,’ I say. ‘Here – let me take those—’ Elsie dumps the bouquet into my arms. It’s insane.
‘Zinnias, calendulas, dahlias, begonias,’ Elsie recites with a sniff. ‘Someone spent a lot of money.’ She looks me dead in the eye. ‘Lucky girl.’
‘Uh, thanks?’ I look for somewhere to put them down as Elsie clomps back off. The only spot I can see is Vicky Piscetti’s chest.
‘Sorry, Bill, I … I’d better find a place for these! I’ll be back!’ I scurry upstairs. In the privacy of the small coat room where I stowed my purse, I fish out the card buried in the bouquet.
Sorry for ending our lovely date so abruptly. Can’t wait to see you again. How about Saturday? And are you ok with activities on the water? Liam xo
My heart pitter pats in my chest as I take in the note, the heady smell of the arrangement, the knowledge of how much this must have cost – a couple hundred, easy.
I stuff the card back into the flowers and pull out my phone to text him, because it’s an obvious yes.
I need to keep investigating him, and however complicated this all feels, at least he’s making it easy to see him again.
The flowers are beautiful!! Saturday sounds great. Love the water. What time?
As I hit send, a little tremor of anxiety does go up my spine, because ‘water’ makes me think of the beach where Kayleigh and Crystal’s bodies were found …
but it’s not like the killer drowned them.
They were drugged and smothered, frozen, then dumped on that beach months later.
Water had nothing to do with their demise.
I look around the coat closet, but there’s nowhere in here to really put the flowers. Maybe I could grab an empty urn from storage in the basement to temporarily keep them hydrated? That’s not too weird, right?
As I exit the coat room, I nearly bump into Devin.
‘Whoa! Sorry! These flowers make it hard to see!’ I joke as a piece of paper flutters to the ground – urgh, the card! Devin grabs it before it touches the floor and gives it a glance.
‘Liam,’ he says, his brows lowering before his eyes snap back up to me. ‘What the fuck, Margot.’
Heat fills my face. Even though Devin told me not to go looking for trouble, he does not get to question my decisions.
‘It’s not a crime to go on a date.’
He pokes the card back into the flowers with a dark expression.
‘Yeah … I should probably tell you the thing I just remembered.’
‘What?’
‘Whoever Zoe saw that last day? He was love bombing her.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Flowers.’ Devin’s tone is grim. ‘I remember now. A giant bouquet, just like this one. Two or three days before their date. A red velvet cupcake with a heart. Then, that last day, a single rose.’
‘And that was all from Liam?’ I’m not even sure if I should believe him. Pretty convenient he remembers this now.
Devin frowns. ‘Like I said, it was hard to keep track of the names of all the guys. But don’t you think it’s a hell of a coincidence that this guy, who by the way you already suspect, is doing the same to you?’
‘Flowers aren’t that uncommon as a gift.’
He laughs, but it’s not a nice sound. ‘Sorry – I thought you suspected him. Now you’re defending him?’
‘It’s one bouquet. I’m just being rational.’
‘Is it rational to tell a suspect where you work?’ Devin lifts a brow. ‘Did you tell him your home address too?’
My pulse launches into a sprint. Did I tell Liam where I worked? Shit.
‘I’m not stupid,’ I snap. ‘He has no idea where I live. But yes, I told him where I work. It’s not a state secret.’
‘You’re playing with fire,’ says Devin, but in a calm, almost compassionate voice, which just pisses me off even more.
I hate that in a way, he’s right. I am playing with fire.
But only because no one else is willing to.
What am I supposed to do, when no one else cares about justice?
Hole up in my pumpkin shell like freaking Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater’s wife, which, by the way, what the hell was that nursery rhyme about?
‘I care, Devin.’ My voice betrays me by cracking. ‘I don’t know what else to tell you.’
‘I wish you’d let it go. Let her go.’ He looks at me intently. ‘Trust me. It’s what she would’ve wanted.’
I don’t answer, but as he walks away, I realize the bouquet is trembling in my hands.
Because I definitely told Liam about my body-moving job. But did I say it was here, at Anderson & Pulaski?
Despite my bravado to Devin, I can’t actually remember.