“‘Frank knows. I was asleep,’” Stanley said, repeating her words. “So you’re saying that someone, we’ll say some unknown person, took your car and used it to transport Mr. Newell’s body?” He paused. “Okay. Let’s run with that. Who could that have been? Had to be someone who had a set of car keys or who knew where to find them.” His gaze shifted to Frank.

“Frank doesn’t know anything about that rug,” Emily said. “But I do. I can even tell you where it came from. It was—”

“Emily!” Frank’s voice echoed in the little room. He squeezed her arm. “Don’t be fooled by . . .” he started to whisper, then stopped and addressed Sergeant Stanley. “Can my wife and I have a minute? In private.”

“It’s up to your wife,” Stanley said. “Pardon me, your client.”

Emily nodded to Stanley. Stanley got up and went to the door, glancing at his watch. “Five minutes.” He started to close the door then turned back. “Mrs. Harlow, I’m telling you this in good conscience. From my experience, it’s not a good idea to be married to your attorney. Consider yourself warned.” He left and closed the door behind him.

“‘Consider yourself warned.’ Asshole,” Frank said, muttering into his cupped palm. “And that was entirely too easy. He wasn’t even recording our conversation. If he had been, he’d have informed us.”

Frank fished his cell phone out of his pocket and opened a newscast, turning the sound up. Then he put the cell phone on the table alongside the speaker, turned his chair away from the mirror, and waited until Emily had turned away from it, too. The CNN station was giving the weather report. Heat. Humidity. Chance of occasional thunderstorms.

With the news playing, Emily could barely hear Frank’s low voice. “We don’t know where he’s taking this. What else he’s discovered but isn’t telling us about. Because, taken at face value, it mounts up. Boxes from that storage unit show up in my basement. And now, come to find out that the rug the body was wrapped up in actually was in your car.”

“I know where that rug came from,” Emily said in a whisper as a CNN commentator took viewers through the home of a cat hoarder who’d been evicted from her Brookline home. “There was one like it in the Newells’ garage.”