“Yeah. You’re a pain in the butt but I never knew you to actually commit murder.” He stood up. “Now I know this is a big news story and all, and I know you’re going to write about it, but I don’t want you starting some cockeyed investigation of your own, okay? Leave the investigating to the professionals.”

“But…” began Lucy.

“No buts. I don’t want to see you with a knife in your back. When you get that urge to stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong, just remember how that lady looked, okay?”

Lucy felt a tingling right between her shoulder blades. “Okay,” she said.

He turned to go back in the house, then paused, looking down the cul-de-sac. “Is it always this quiet around here?” he asked. “Where is everybody?”

Lucy considered. “Some of the women are at a bake sale, that’s where I’m supposed to be.” She sniffed. “Mimi, too.” She looked at the houses, neat as pins, each set in the middle of a square of lawn. “He’s a vet, he’s probably at his office and she teaches riding, Saturday morning’s a popular time for lessons,” she said, pointing to the Westwoods’. “Frankie LaChance is a single mom, she’s at the bake sale and her daughter’s at the football game. The Burkharts, they’re across from Frankie, well, he’s the football coach and I don’t know where she is. Maybe shopping for back-to-school clothes for the twins. As for the Cashmans, Chris is at the sale and her husband is probably chauffeuring their kids to computer class or something.” She paused, thinking. “Mimi’s youngest son is on the football team. Fred, that’s her husband, is probably there. His brother, too.”

“What about your family?” he asked, looking towards Lucy’s house.

Lucy’s face paled. “Bill’s at work, Sara’s at the football game, and Zoe slept over at a friend’s house last night.”

“Your son?” asked Horowitz.

“He doesn’t live with us anymore—he’s on his own now—and Elizabeth’s back at college in Boston.”

“We’ll need their addresses,” he said, going back inside. A few minutes later, an officer sat down on the bench beside her and took her statement, including the addresses, then told her she was free to go. She was sitting in her car, starting the engine, when she saw the men from the medical examiner’s office wheeling out Mimi’s body, encased in black vinyl, on a wheeled stretcher. She sat, silent, watching as they lifted the stretcher over the porch steps and rolled it down the driveway. There was a pause and a jolt as they collapsed first the front legs and then the rear and slid it into the van. Then they got in and drove off. Lucy waited until they were gone before starting the engine.