Archie turned back to the table. Ngyun, Heil, and Flannigan hadn’t moved. They were all looking at Susan. The fridge was grinding up a storm. “Bag it,” Archie said to Heil. Heil blinked at him, and then snapped to, produced an evidence bag from his pocket, and used a pen to guide the key off the table and into the bag.

Archie turned back to Susan. “Where did you get the key?” he asked.

“It was in my purse, like I told you,” Susan said. “I found it when I was at the assisted living facility. But I don’t know how long it’s been there.”

“Okay,” Archie said. He had to think, make sense of this, sort out the timeline. “When was the last time you cleaned out your purse?”

Susan frowned. “I don’t clean out my purse. I just buy a new one and put what I need in that.”

Archie pulled out one of the two empty chairs for her and motioned for her to sit. “I want you to tell me everywhere you’ve been the past few days,” he said.

She tossed her purse on the table next to the tampons and slumped down in the chair. “Oaks Park,” she said. “The newspaper. The morgue. Waterfront Park. The hospital. Home. The Mississippi Magnolia Assisted Living Facility.” She shot Archie a wry look. “Which, by the way, does not have a magnolia anywhere near it.” She threw up her hands. “And here.”

“Have you been away from your purse?” Archie asked. “Maybe set it down somewhere?”

“No.”

“You didn’t put it aside at the hospital. Leave it on the back of a chair? Set it down at the park while you were tending to Henry?”

“I wear it,” she said. “I don’t put it down.” She gave the purse a little shove. But it was stuffed so full it didn’t move. “It has my cigarettes and phone in it.”

The purse sat between them all on the table, like an odd centerpiece. It had a woven leather body, double handles, and a leather chest strap that clipped on to either side with a gold buckle. There was no zipper or flap and the top gaped open. Archie could see the corner of a wallet, the cap of a water bottle, and a pair of sunglasses that Susan wouldn’t need until July.

“It’s open,” Archie said.

“It’s a Bottega Veneta tote,” Heil said. “It’s supposed to be open. That’s the style. Reese Witherspoon has one just like it.”

“Exactly,” Susan said.

Archie and the other two detectives looked at Heil.

“My wife leaves InStyle out in the bathroom,” Heil said.

“How do you wear it?” Archie asked Susan.

She looked at him like he was crazy. “You’ve seen me with this purse a hundred times.”

He didn’t remember ever having seen her with that purse, but that didn’t mean anything. Some detective.