It was a good question, one she’d been asking herself. “Do you think he was killed here?” she asked, avoiding having to come up with an answer.

Moran’s gaze dropped to the rug Walter Newell had been rolled up in. A technician was wrapping it in plastic. “We’ll know that soon enough. But as far as how he got here . . .” The sun broke through as he pointed to a CCTV camera mounted to the roof of the unit beside the Murphys’. “As soon as we view the footage, I expect we’ll have an answer to that, too.”

22

DETECTIVE MORAN DROVE Emily back to the Inner Peace office. The sun had come out and the pavement was steaming. “I’d appreciate it if you’d come to the police station and give a written statement,” he said after he opened the car door for her. “Today. While the details are fresh in your mind.”

How long would it be before she could shake that nauseating smell or stop seeing Walter Newell’s pale face, stained as if someone had smeared the side of it with Mercurochrome?

“I’ll go now and get it over with,” Emily said.

Emily got into her car. Moments later, a police cruiser drove past. No lights flashing. No rush now. Emily followed it, driving slowly toward the exit.

The surveillance footage would confirm what Emily had told the police. That she’d arrived and opened the unit on Sunday. Left after a few hours. With any luck she’d been hidden by her car when she’d changed her shirt. It would show her trying to get back in the next day.

But in between, what? Because overnight, someone else had opened the unit, dragged in a dead body rolled up in a wet area rug, shoved it under the workbench, and then left the unit fastened with a new padlock.

She reached the street entrance. A uniformed officer moved aside orange cones that temporarily blocked the way. Just beyond was parked a van with a satellite dish mounted on top. BOSTON 35 was written in fat red and white block letters on the side.

Emily gripped the wheel and accelerated past. She hoped against hope that they weren’t already broadcasting the story. She could imagine the headline: “Body Found in Self-Storage.” That would get people’s attention, immediately conjuring the severed head from Silence of the Lambs.

Quinn would be waiting at home for some word of what had happened to her husband. Continuing to check her phone. Hoping for a call from a friend or a hospital or Wally himself. Emily shuddered to think that Quinn could learn of her husband’s death from a news crawl.