This room felt realer than the others, as if people actually lived here. At the same time, it looked gutted. The walls were bare, and a leather sectional sofa and a low coffee table were the only pieces of furniture in the large space. There was a faint smell of rot in the air, treacle-sweet and cloying.

“Maybe you could answer a few questions while we wait for him?” Marshall said.

“Drinks!” she said, ignoring this.

She was already pulling open a white cabinet. The whole kitchen was white-on-white, but right now it was filthy. Dishes were piled up in the farmhouse sink and along the counter. Three or four disposable aluminum casserole pans were in a stack, the sides encrusted with dried food. Beside me there was a set of stainless-steel flour and sugar canisters with a small army of prescription pill bottles standing in an amber row in front of them. A dozen or so fresh peaches were rotting down to sludge in a crystal bowl. A cloud of tiny fruit flies hovered around them.

“Do you have coffee?” I asked her.

She could use some, and I spotted a fancy Nespresso machine on the other side of the sink. She shook her head, though, dragging out a bottle of Hendrick’s.

“I have room-temp gin or fuck off. Which would you prefer?”

“I’m good, thanks,” Marshall answered.

She opened another cabinet, but it was empty. The glasses were scattered, used and dirty, around the room. She picked them up, one by one, smelling them and peering at the bottoms, until she found two that did not have visible mold growing inside. She banged them onto a clear space on the island so hard I was shocked they didn’t shatter against the marble. Then she looked to me.

“No thanks.” My smile felt sickly.

She sloshed gin into both glasses anyway, then picked up the fuller one and drank it off. She banged it down again, just as hard.

“You sure?” She picked up the other glass, waving it back and forth between us.

“We’re good,” Marshall repeated.

She wheeled on him. “Oh, you’re good, are you? How nice for you.” The gin sloshed in its glass. I was afraid that she was going to drink this second shot, too, and God only knew how many of the prescriptions lined up on the counter were already in her system.

“I’d love some.” I reached for the glass.

“Offer rescinded.” She jerked it back and gulped it down, open-throated. Her eyes were watering now, and her voice was raspy from raw liquor.

“We just need to ask you a few questions,” Marshall began, but those were the exact wrong words.

She drew back, chest heaving. “Are you reporters? If you are, you have to tell me. Are you some kind of sneaky cops?”