Emily added, “Yesterday I went to the police station with his wife to identify the car. Like I said, I’m not sure if this is him. I saw the picture his wife gave the police. The hair seems right.”

One of the technicians handed Moran a plastic bag. Looked like there was a wallet inside, open to a driver’s license. Moran looked at it.

“Walter Newell?” Emily said.

Moran nodded.

Detective Moran took out his phone and placed a call. He turned his back to Emily and spoke quietly. Emily caught some of it. “Walter Newell . . . N-E-W-E-L-L . . . Wife reported . . . Where?” His tone was decidedly pissed as his gaze shifted toward East Hartwell’s town wharf. “What did they find? . . . Anything else I should know?” The last laced with sarcasm.

As Moran talked, the technicians wheeled a gurney to the edge of the storage unit. They folded the plastic tarp around Walter Newell’s body like a cocoon, then lifted it up and onto the gurney. Moments later, they’d loaded him into the coroner’s van.

Quinn’s husband was dead. Quinn would be devastated. Grief-stricken and no doubt guilt-ridden, what with all her talk about the many creative ways she’d have liked to dispose of him. And Emily had gone along, laughing, imagining various ways she might go about dispatching Frank. She cringed at the memory, because what was happening now was no joke.

“How well do you know his wife?” Moran asked.

“She’s our client. Like Mrs. Murphy. We were going to help her declutter.”

“She has a storage unit?”

“A garage. We’re helping her get rid of the things she no longer needs.”

Moran nodded. “Given what you do, I’d imagine your clients confide in you. Isn’t there usually something in their life, beyond the clutter, that they’re trying to fix or at least get past?”

“You’re right. Decluttering can help people with issues that have nothing to do with the actual stuff that’s filling up their living space. Our discussions can get quite personal. But I take the confidence that my clients place in my discretion very seriously.”

Moran wrinkled his brow in annoyance. “Walter Newell was murdered, Mrs. Harlow. Anything that you can tell us about him could help us find his killer.”

“I don’t know anything about him,” Emily said. She thought of Frank’s lawyerly advice and chose her next words carefully. “Walter Newell was not my friend. I’ve never been introduced to him. I met his wife, in a professional capacity.”

“Really,” Moran said. The back doors to the coroner’s van slammed shut and he turned to watch it drive off. Then he raised the crime-scene tape again, gesturing for Emily to precede him out. The rain had stopped. “So why do you think his body was dumped in a storage unit that you happened to be clearing out?”