I didn’t know exactly what I was waiting for, but it seemed wiser to watch for a little while before trying to figure out if there was a way to get inside of the apartment. It turned out to be a good move because at just around noon a Honda Civic pulled up, and I watched a woman with long, glossy black hair go up the front steps that led to the porch. She peered through one of the panes of glass that lined one side of the front door, then took out her cell phone and made a brief call. Then she sat on the top step, looking at her phone and waiting.

  She was wearing jeans tucked into high brown boots, and a down-filled puffer jacket. Even from a distance I could see she resembled Henry, with a thin face and high cheekbones. I suspected she was his sister. She waited on the top step for about five minutes before a white Chrysler pulled up to the curb. A short, round man got out and the woman greeted him. Together they entered the apartment building. I got out of my car and walked slowly toward the building, climbing the front steps to look at the names on the mailboxes. The six apartments all had a number and then a letter. 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, 3A, and 3B. Henry’s apartment was 2A, so I assumed he was on the second floor, but didn’t know which side he was on.

  I walked down the steps and turned right, peering down the alleyway between Henry’s building and the large brick apartment building immediately next door. There was just enough room for a fire escape, with a door at each level, plus a large window. The window on the second floor was cracked open about six inches at the top, but I couldn’t make out any movement behind its dark facade. I walked to the other side of the apartment, where there was another fire escape, this one with more space around it. Both the door and the window on the second-floor landing were closed, and there was a venetian blind pulled down behind the window. I kept walking for a block then turned right. Two more rights brought me back to my car. I ducked back into the convenience store and bought myself a package of granola mix for my lunch, then sat in my car again.

  Ten minutes later the dark-haired woman and the short man exited the building, the man getting back into the Chrysler and the woman getting back into her Civic. There was an empty child’s seat strapped in behind her, which cemented my guess that she was his sister, and she had contacted the building manager to let her into his place since he was in the hospital. I knew Henry had a cat named Pyewacket, and maybe she’d fed him. I waited about twenty minutes then drove my car about two blocks away. It was mainly residential parking in this part of Cambridge, but I found a parking meter that took quarters and put in enough for two hours. Then I walked back to the building, trying to figure out what side was the B side and what side was the A. It made sense, somehow, that the A side would be on the left, and it was confirmed for me when I looked up at the window that had been open and saw that it was now closed. Henry’s sister and the building manager must have closed it.

  Moving as fast as I could I climbed the fire escape up to the second-floor landing, trying the door first, which was locked, then checking the window, which slid open. I straddled the windowsill, stepping into a kitchen, and closed the window behind me.

  My eyes adjusted fast and I saw Henry’s cat saunter into the kitchen. “Hi Pye,” I said, and crouched down, putting out my fingers. The cat came over and sniffed them, then circled me, rubbing up against both of my ankles. His bowls were in the corner of the tiny kitchen, the water bowl filled to the brim, as was the food bowl. It looked as though he’d just been fed.

  I made my way through the small apartment, the bedroom only large enough to contain a bed and a bureau. The largest room was the living area, and it was the only room that seemed decorated in the place. One wall was lined with bookshelves, and above a dark green sofa was a framed poster for the film Withnail and I. Henry’s desk was in the living room, covered with paperwork that looked mostly like bills, plus a few stacks of books. There was no laptop, and I assumed that he had brought it with him to his office, and that it had been blown up in the explosion. I sat down at the desk and pulled out the top drawer. His passport was inside, along with a checkbook, about a hundred scattered paperclips, and two blank notebooks. I pulled them both out. One was completely filled, mostly with the starts of poems, and an occasional drawing or diary entry. There were a few dates, and the filled notebook seemed to have been completed more than a year ago. The other notebook was only partly filled so I started at the last completed pages and read backward. Most of it was poetry, some were fragments of original lines, and some were other people’s poems that Henry had transcribed out, including a rather long poem by Anthony Hecht called “The Ghost in the Martini.” The only completed poems that had been written by Henry were limericks. The last one he’d written told me everything I needed to know.

  There once was a Joan and a Rick

  Who had mastered just one magic trick.

  Their friendship anonymous,

  Their victims were numerous,

  They murdered, and no one knew dick.

  CHAPTER 30

  JOAN

  Whenever she became angry, and boredom always angered her, Joan remembered the trick she’d learned when she’d been a young girl, probably no more than eight or nine. She’d had a psychiatrist then, named Brenda, and what she remembered most about those trips to Brenda’s office, with its thick carpet and kiddie art on the walls, was that after the session was over Joan would be allowed to take a whole roll of Spree candies home with her. She always picked Spree because it was her sister Lizzie’s favorite candy and she liked to eat them in front of her.

  Brenda had been the one to suggest the anger box. She’d told Joan that feeling angry was perfectly okay, but that acting out that anger was not the best solution. She said that sometimes it was fine to simply pretend to be a different sort of child, a child that did not become angry, that wanted to please people, that wanted to be good. And the easiest way to do that was to find a place to put the bad feelings. After agreeing to try this, Brenda gave Joan a cardboard box, designed to look like a treasure chest, and told Joan that she could use this box if she wanted to. Back in her room, Joan had pushed the box under her bed, but she decided to follow Brenda’s advice. From now on, she would pretend to be a good girl, not talking back to her parents, not being mean to her sister. It didn’t matter what she felt; it mattered how she acted.

  She liked to remember that time that her parents had lost her for a whole night, while she slept in the closet listening to Lizzie’s Discman. She had felt so seen, and incredibly powerful the next day. All she’d had to do was look like she’d been in danger. It was then that she decided that fighting the world would not get her anywhere, but that she could always change the world in ways that no one would ever know. Not only was it better, it was easier.

  She still felt anger, though. And on the day that Joan heard about the death of Richard Seddon she’d been in one of those bored, angry moods. It was a Tuesday and she’d woken late, climbing out of a succession of disturbing dreams, then found herself sitting at her kitchen island, drinking a cup of coffee, and wondering what she was going to do with the next few hours. Her sister, who she rarely saw, and her mother, who she saw way too often, were coming over later in the morning to check in. “I’ll bring lunch,” her mother said. “I don’t want you to have to worry about anything.” She’d go for a run, of course, but what she really wanted to do was to share some of the satisfaction she’d gotten from the fact that she’d arranged to have her husband and his stupid girlfriend murdered and no one seemed to suspect a thing.

  Idly, not expecting anything, she’d put Richard’s name into Google, knowing it was a slightly reckless thing to do but feeling safe about it. He was on her mind. They’d had no contact since immediately before the day of the murder, and she wondered how he was holding up. The first thing that came up was a news story about an explosion in Cambridge at the offices of Private Investigator Henry Kimball. The body of Richard Seddon had been found on the premises.

  She forced herself to take two deep breaths, then sped through the news reports, quickly constructing a narrative of what she thought had happened.

  Somehow Henry Kimball had actually figured something out and approached Richard with it. It was the only thing that made sense. Why didn’t Richard get in touch with her? Frustration flared in her, and she could feel her face getting red. If he’d come to her, they could have figured it out together, as they always had. Instead, he’d decided to take matters into his own hands, and he’d gotten himself killed.

  And he’d left Kimball alive.

  Joan got up and paced through her house. She found herself continually drawn to the big window in the living room that looked out over her driveway. The police would be stopping by to visit, wouldn’t they? Henry must have figured out that Richard was somehow involved in the death of her husband, and from there it was pretty easy to figure out that Richard and Joan had been in the same class at the same schools growing up. Still, was that enough? They’d been so careful over the years to never let anyone know they knew one another. At least she had. And she had always trusted in Richard, believing that he had been as careful as she was.

  But maybe he wasn’t. With him dead now, they’d be looking through his house. Maybe he kept a diary, a place where he’d written down everything they did together?

  Panic was surging through her, but there was something else, as well, little stabs of grief, the realization that Richard was gone from the world, and he was the only person to whom Joan had ever revealed herself. It was an almost physical sensation, and Joan held on to the edge of her velvet love seat, doubled over as though she’d been punched in the stomach. The feeling was intense, and surprising. If she’d simply been told that she would never see Richard again it wouldn’t have bothered her at all, but somehow knowing she couldn’t see him even if she wanted to felt like more than she could bear. His death had erased a part of her own life she wasn’t yet willing to give up.

  And then the feeling passed. Richard had disappointed her, like every other stupid person on this planet. He’d clearly screwed up somewhere along the line or Henry Kimball would never have gotten that close to him. What she needed to find out was how much Henry knew, if there was anything concrete, or if it had all just been a guessing game. What if he’d written his suspicions down? Had he told one of his old police colleagues?

  Joan put on jeans and a sweatshirt from Springfield College that she’d had forever, and got into Richard’s BMW, speeding down her driveway so fast that she nearly hit Gretchen Summers, out power walking with her yappy dog. Joan lowered her window and Gretchen leaned in, her brow furrowed, and said, “Joan, how are you?”

  “You know,” Joan said.

  “I know everyone writes the same thing, but what I said in my note I absolutely mean. Anything, I mean anything you need, just let me know, okay?”

  “I appreciate that, Gretchen,” Joan said. The little dog whose name she’d forgotten was emitting eardrum-splitting barks, and Joan wondered if she let the car roll a little forward during this conversation if she could crush it under one of her wheels.

  “Where are you off to now? If you have errands, you know I’d be happy to do them.”

  Joan said, “I’ve gotten some more bad news, I’m afraid. As I’m sure you know I hired someone to follow Richard and he was the one who found the bodies. He was an old teacher of mine, and sort of a friend, and I just found out he’s in the hospital.” Joan had said the words out loud partly to hear them and judge them for herself. She knew that if she wanted to get close to Henry then she would need to create a narrative.

  “Oh, no. What happened?”

  “Did you read about that explosion in Cambridge?”

  “Of course. Oh my God. Did that … Was that …?” Gretchen transformed her rubbery face into a look of concern and shock, but Joan could also read the pleasure in it.

  “It was Henry Kimball’s office. I’m sure it had nothing to do with me or with what happened with … Richard, but I’m worried. I mean, I’m worried about Henry, and I want to find out what happened.”

  “Of course you do. Of course you do. That makes total sense.”

  “So I should …”

  “Of course.” Gretchen straightened up. “Cinnamon, stop barking at Mommy.”

  Joan drove away, weirdly happy she’d been able to talk with one of her neighbors. It had helped to clarify in her mind her next steps. It made total sense that she’d be rushing off to the hospital to find out how Henry Kimball was, and that she’d want to talk with police detectives. She’d been through a major trauma. Her husband had not only been cheating on her, but he’d turned out to be a murderer. She’d be frazzled and nervous and wondering if the explosion had anything to do with her. And if she was asked if there was some connection between her and Richard Seddon she’d simply deny it. There wouldn’t be any proof. Even if Richard somehow wrote about it, she could just claim he’d been obsessed with her since high school, that she’d never even thought about him until she heard his name in the newspaper story about the explosion.

  She was going to be fine.

  And not only that, she wasn’t bored anymore. She’d discovered she was happiest when the world was concerned about her. That period right after she and Richard had drowned Duane Wozniak, when she’d been repeatedly interviewed by the police about what had happened on the jetty, had been one of the happiest nights of her adolescence. All those adults, all those concerned faces, and it was like she was conducting them with every word she said, every tear that spilled down her cheek. She had felt more power in the immediate aftermath of Duane’s death than she’d ever felt before, more power than she felt in gymnastics, knowing she was the best in her school.

  The feeling had been almost as good in the aftermath of the classroom shooting when she’d arranged to have Madison killed. There had been attention, then, as well, everyone worried about PTSD and how she’d process the trauma of what had happened along with the tragedy of losing such a close friend. The problem then had been that she had to share the spotlight with all the other kids who’d been in that classroom, and some of the kids, like Missy Robertson, had totally fallen apart at the time. That girl had actually wound up hospitalized, which had probably all been bullshit because she was fine now, on one of the local news stations as a weatherperson, and the rumor was that she was writing a book about what it was like to survive a school shooting. No surprise there.

  Sometimes Joan fantasized about what it would have been like if she’d talked Richard into convincing his psychotic friend James to kill everybody in that classroom except for her. It would have been easy for James. No one in that class was going to suddenly become a hero. Certainly not Mr. Kimball, who had frozen like a mannequin in a store window. She could picture it now. James shooting every kid, and then Mr. Kimball, and then leaving her alive while he put a bullet into his chest. She’d have been famous, of course. Nationally famous. The girl who lived.

  So now she was a widow, and not just an average widow, but one whose husband was also a murderer. She had enjoyed it for a while, getting the stupid cards and the texts from friends with emojis of hearts, none of them even suspecting she’d had anything to do with all the tragedies that had peppered her life. She could only imagine what they said about her to one another, wondering how one person could withstand so much violence in her life. It felt good, but it also left her with a feeling of emptiness, that it was just so easy to fool the world. That was why Richard’s death hurt so much. It wasn’t just that he was her partner, it was that he was the only one who knew how smart she really was.

  Without really remembering how she’d gotten there, she was suddenly on Storrow Drive, heading toward Boston Memorial Hospital. There were crew boats on the Charles River, and heavy winds were stripping trees of leaves. For a moment she thought about leaving Dartford, maybe moving to Boston now that she had the freedom. But she also knew that she’d established herself in her little corner of the world, doing just enough home decorating to feel as though it was a career. And the other truth, the one she knew down deep, was that she didn’t want to live anonymously in a city, that she wanted the notoriety of small-town life. She was the talented gymnast whose life had been full of tragedy. That was not an identity she wanted to give up.

  She found a metered spot two blocks from the hospital and bought two hours’ worth of time. She had no idea what to expect when she asked after Henry at the front desk. If he was still in the ICU, she doubted very much that she would be allowed to see him. Still, she had to try. And maybe she’d be able to get crucial information about whether he was going to live or die.

  She made her way through the revolving door, making sure not to touch either the glass or the metal push bars. She passed a patient in a wheelchair, a skull-like head bent over so that all Joan could see was sparse white hair and old mottled skin. She hated hospitals with a fervor that was almost a phobia. The thought of being so old that you couldn’t take care of yourself was horrifying to her, and always had been. At the age of six she’d refused to visit her mother’s dying father, screaming so hard that she was eventually allowed to wait in the car with her father while her mother and sister went inside to say their goodbyes.

  At the front desk she told the receptionist that she was here to see Henry Kimball, if that was possible.

  “Are you a family member?” the heavy, frowning woman said.

  “I’m a very close friend. If I can’t see him, that’s okay. But I’d love to talk with someone about his condition.”

  “Hold on one moment, okay?” she said, picking up a phone, then before dialing, asked, “What’s your name?”

  “It’s Joan Whalen.”

  “Uh-huh.” The woman got through to someone and spoke quietly enough that Joan couldn’t hear the words above the ambient noise of the busy hospital lobby. When she put the phone back down in its cradle, she looked at Joan, and said, “Someone will be right down.”