24

WEDNESDAY

THE NEXT MORNING, Emily was awake long before Frank or Lila. She’d barely slept. One minute she had herself convinced that the man who’d come to their house was the man who’d run into her at the coffee shop. Those stained shoes, right? Plus he’d recognized her. But if he was, then the man who’d run into her at the coffee shop wasn’t Walter Newell, because Walter Newell was dead. Unless he wasn’t.

The next minute, the notion that the man who’d come calling on Frank was Walter Newell seemed patently ridiculous. The man had no beard. No mustache. And would someone who drove an Audi and owned a mansion in Mandarin Cliffs be driving around town in a green Ford pickup, even if it was pretty new? It all came down to who the dead man in the storage unit was.

As soon as she got up, Emily checked the news feeds. None were reporting the victim’s identity.

At eight o’clock, moments after Frank, his usual nonverbal morning self, came downstairs in his bathrobe and poured himself a cup of coffee, Emily’s cell phone chirped. The readout said NEWELL. Emily showed Frank and answered the call.

“I wasn’t sure if it was okay to call you,” Quinn said. “This has been such a nightmare.”

“Ask her if she identified her husband’s body,” Frank whispered.

Emily shushed him and turned away. She couldn’t very well lead with such an intrusive question, though it was what she wanted to know. “I thought you might need some space,” Emily said. “I can’t even imagine what you must be going through. What with the police and all.”

“Yeah, well, the police treated me with kid gloves . . . up to a point. Then they started in on whether Wally and I had been getting along. Did we have any financial problems? Did he have anger management issues? Was he screwing around? Was I screwing around?”

“Fishing,” Emily said. Sounded familiar.

“There were a few awkward moments. It was sort of a minefield. Because, well, I don’t need to tell you, marriage is never uncomplicated, and with the police, honesty’s not always the best policy.” She sounded like Frank. “I was glad Ryan was there. He kept me from saying too much.”

Maybe Ryan did have a few redeeming features.

“Have they been giving you a hard time, too?” Quinn asked.

Did cross-examining her on her whereabouts and impounding her car count? Quinn didn’t need Emily’s woes piled on top of her own. She said, “It must have been hard, identifying the body,” cringing at how intrusive that sounded.