LITMIR.BIZ

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about the details is easier than thinking about Elise lying dead on the floor.

      “Since the tiles aren’t sealed yet, they aren’t slippery. And, on top of all that, the faucet is missing.” I’m on a roll now, imagining myself in a movie or on TV, and I continue. “In addition, since the alarm wasn’t going off when I got here, she must have disarmed it, which means she either knew the killer or didn’t care about his opinion, since her…uh…cellulite was showing.”

      Everyone is staring at me. They are either incredibly impressed with my deductions or they figure I’ve gone nuts. Considering I’ve been down the latter road before and I’d recognize the signs (they always want you to sit down and stay calm, no matter what the situation is), I’m betting it’s the former.

      “Just call me Mrs. Monk,” I say smugly. Of course, I miss the most important detail—the television character, Mrs. Monk, is dead, as Nelson quickly points out.

      “So your theory is that someone broke into her house and killed her for her faucet?” Nelson asks. He pretends to be taking down what I say in a little notebook, but I don’t think he really is. “You get that, Drew?” he asks his partner, who actually is taking what appear to be copious notes.

      “I’m saying that I left the faucet on the counter yesterday when I delivered the bar stools and that it’s not there now.”

      The detectives exchange a look as though I’ve picked up on something they already know but I’m not supposed to.

      I don’t bother mentioning my feeling that something else is not quite right in the kitchen because they are already acting like I’ve got a screw loose and because it seems as though something is more right than wrong.

      I mean, if you don’t count Elise.

      Detective Scoones puts on a new pair of rubber gloves and picks some of the pills off the floor to look at them. He lifts one off the little teddy Elise has on.

      “Looks like she interrupted a robbery,” he says.

      “Only, her ring’s still on,” I say, embarrassed that I checked while I waited for the police to show up, and pointedly not looking at Elise now because I don’t want to see them looking at a dead woman’s finger even though I did.

      Detective Nelson suggests that maybe they just couldn’t get the ring off Elise’s finger.

      I think about how she waved that diamond around like it was a medal, and I swear I can hear her voice in my head echoing Charlton Heston’s sentiments— “From my cold, dead hands.” Only I guess she wouldn’t let go even then.

      Things aren’t adding up, but Detective Harold Nelson isn’t interested in my theories. And, truth be told, I’m not interested in Detective Nelson, so I direct my observations to Andrew Scoones, aka The Handsome Detective.

      I tell him that, in addition to the ring, she’s got a Bvlgari watch worth about ten thousand dollars. They start to cover Elise’s body with a sheet and stop to look for the watch, which I already know isn’t there.

      “You should check upstairs in her nightstand,” I say. Elise had been very specific about needing a small drawer beside her bed for “everyday” jewelry. If I had a ten thousand dollar watch, it a) wouldn’t be “everyday” jewelry, and b) would be kept in a safe. But then, I had a husband who would have stolen it and given it to one of his girlfriends and then accused me of losing it, like he did with the little diamond anniversary necklace he gave me. “She kept her watch in the top drawer on the left side of the bed.”

      “You just happen to know which side of the bed she slept on?” Nelson asks, one eyebrow raised like this tidbit of information actually proves his theory that I’m the killer and I’ve just hoisted myself by my own petard. A little slow on the uptake, it finally occurs to me that they know damn well that this is a murder. They are simply toying with me to see what they can get.

      “There anything else you want us to check out on this murder theory?” he asks, as though the fact that I’m an interior designer means I couldn’t possibly have anything valuable to offer beyond what color to paint a focal wall.

      They suggest I leave the house for a breath of fresh air and Detective Scoones, Drew, instructs an officer to accompany me. When I ask if I can go home, he tells me he’d like me to stick around.

      Meanwhile, Detective Nelson tells one of the uniformed cops to check upstairs. When the cop reminds him they already have, Nelson tells him to check again, thoroughly. The thought that the murderer might still be there hadn’t occurred to me, and that—combined with the blood on my shoe—leaves me weak-kneed all over again.

      Or maybe it’s the idea that the good-looking Detective Drew wants me to hang around. Funny how your brain (or is it just mine?) can operate on two levels at the same time. Like when your great-aunt in NYC dies and for just a split second you wonder if her rent-controlled apartment can pass to you. I mean, you’re sad and all, but there’s this little section of your brain, this piece that sentiment and emotion doesn’t touch….

      Never mind. I’m sure it’s just me.

      As an officer escorts me toward the door, limping because I am down to one of my good Todd’s driving moccasins that I’ll probably never find on sale again, it occurs to me that maybe the reason I can’t leave is because I’m a suspect. “They can’t possibly think I could have killed Elise, right?” I ask as he opens the front door for me. He looks me over. My working wardrobe consists of only black, white and beige, so that I never clash with swatches I’m showing a customer. Today I am wearing white jeans from T.J. Maxx’s clearance rack with some designer’s name on the back pocket. They’re a size ten, but they run small, and I look pretty good. I mean, for me.

      “I wouldn’t think so,” the patrolman says. “No blood. If you hit that woman, you’d be pretty spattered in blood.”

      I stiffen, holding my arms away from my clothing. Suddenly I don’t know what to do with my hands. My body seems alien to me—a piece of evidence. Even though they don’t have Elise’s blood on them, I will have to throw out the clothing I have on because every time I even glimpse them in my closet I will remember that I was wearing them when I found Elise.

      Outside, four police cars are parked at odd angles to the curb, and neighbors are beginning to cluster at the ends of driveways. Two women in jogging suits round the corner and stop in their tracks to stare at me. They converse with each other in hushed tones and then take off in the other direction. It is eerily quiet and I think about how different this neighborhood is from my own.

      I am in a foreign country, or maybe on another planet.

      In my world the residents would be all over the police, demanding to know what happened. There would be a lot of yelling, and every sentence would have either “Syosset” or “this community” in it, driving home what the police already know—that we don’t tolerate bad things happening in our neighborhood. Someone, probably Joan Favata, would be marshaling her daughters to take all the littler kids around the corner to Mrs. Kroll’s place where they could play on the new swing set, and someone else would be pushing money at the older ones to stroll down to Carvel for soft ice cream so that no one would see something awful come out of the house, like a body bag.

      Here in The Estates, there appear to be no children. There isn’t a single basketball hoop in anyone’s driveway, no bikes litter the road. There isn’t a single Sesame Street Plastic Playhouse or so much as a doll stroller blocking the sidewalks. A lone woman in a midcalf skirt and man-tailored blouse with a Ralph Lauren–ad dog leaves a nouveau Victorian with a wraparound porch that’s a shade too small for the wicker furniture on it. She throws a fisherman’s knit sweater over her shoulders as she casually saunters by the patrol car. Striking a pose, she stops to talk to one of the patrolmen while signaling her dog to stay off Elise’s perfectly manicured lawn and sit beside her. The cop pats the dog and appears noncommittal as the woman gestures toward first Elise’s house and then her own.

      Across the street a man has the hood of his

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