“I have a lot of places at my disposal. And Chanel has managed to use all of them as whistle-stops. She was hardly ever here. She’s not been anyplace for long ever since she was discharged from the Navy with PTSD.”

“A disorder she possibly treated with medical marijuana?” I suggest, and when she doesn’t answer I add, “Although based on what I’ve seen she didn’t get her medication locally.”

“Ma’am,” Marino says to her, “I know how difficult this is. But you need to help us out by answering our questions. We’re supposed to believe your daughter never had a housekeeper, that she tends to straighten up after her own self. Well let me ask you this. Who was Elsa Mulligan?”

“Who?”

“The lady who said she’s your housekeeper,” Marino replies. “The one who found your daughter’s body?”

“I’ve never heard of any such person.” She nails her attention on me, her eyes wild. “Who really found her? It wasn’t some fictitious housekeeper that’s for damn sure! So who was it? Who was inside this house …?” She’s raised her voice until she’s yelling.

Carrie has been staying here.

“There is no damn housekeeper! There is no such damn person!”

“The candles, the spinning wheels, the iron crosses and crystals.” I draw her attention to that. “Was your daughter superstitious or into the occult.”

“Hell no!”

“Your decorator, for example, didn’t place these items in here?”

“I don’t know what items you’re even talking about!”

“You’ll see them when you walk into the living room,” I reply and I can’t stop thinking about Carrie.

The neighbors could have been seeing her for weeks, months and would have been none the wiser. They wouldn’t know the young woman driving the red Range Rover wasn’t the owner of the house. Carrie has been helping herself to whatever she wants. That’s why there are potpourris and special charms in rooms she inhabited, and I have a hunch about why the pillowcase turned black in ultraviolet light.

I’ve heard of bed linens treated with copper oxide, especially pillowcases. Impregnating a fabric with nanoparticles of copper is supposed to help combat wrinkles and other signs of aging, and there can be no doubt how Carrie feels about her youthful appearance.

She’s been sleeping in Chanel’s bed.

“Someone’s been in and out according to the neighbors,” Marino is saying. “We’ve got reports of the red Range Rover being spotted on the driveway. Who the hell was in it?”

“How dare you! How dare all of you! How could they let you in?” She steps closer to me and I smell alcohol and garlic on her breath. “Your niece seduced my daughter! She murdered my beautiful daughter in cold blood and they let you inside the house? They let you tamper with evidence!”