Zoe loved her mother’s feistiness and felt proud that she’d inherited it. Her mom worked six days a week managing a dumpy spa called Piping Hot Springs (“Relax and rejuvenate in one of our healing pools!”). She also worked as a hostess at a great café called Loula’s, in Whitefish, and directed traffic on a road crew whenever they repaved Route 93. Even so, Zoe knew her family was always short on cash. She knew her mom felt like she was running down a train track, just a couple of steps ahead of the train.
Zoe’s mother told Officer Maerz that Zoe’s hobby was collecting trophies, which seemed to impress him. The truth was that Zoe literally collected trophies—she thought they were ugly and ridiculous and awesome so she bought them at yard sales and thrift stores. If you went into her room and didn’t know any better, you’d be amazed that one girl could be so good at swimming, public speaking, archery, macramé, ballooning, and raising livestock.
Zoe’s mom began rambling magnificently now. She described hobbies of Zoe’s that were entirely made-up. One of her supposed collections—32 of the 50 official state spoons—so piqued Maerz’s interest that Zoe was afraid that he’d ask to see it.
Zoe sat down next to her mother.
“I am all about state spoons,” she told Maerz. “I’m starting to worry that I’m too into them.”
Zoe’s mom bit her lip, and kicked Zoe gently under the table.
“Yeah, okay,” Chief Baldino said gruffly. “I think we’re done with the icebreakers.”
He signaled to Maerz that he’d be taking over the interrogation since Maerz clearly wasn’t up to it. (Zoe’s mom shot her a familiar look—the look that said, Alphas are the worst.) Maerz shrank in his chair, looking hurt.
Baldino slid a piece of paper across the table to Zoe.
“Can you confirm that you sent this e-mail to us at nine fifteen last night?” he said.
Zoe glanced down. When she looked back up at Baldino, all she saw was the man who had abandoned her dad’s body.
“Yes, I sent that e-mail,” she said, “which is why it has my name on it.”
Baldino put on reading glasses that seemed weirdly dainty for such a fat, overstuffed armchair of a man, and read the e-mail aloud. Zoe’s mom grimaced when she heard the name Stan—if her dad had known him way back when, in Virginia, her mother must have, too—and again when Baldino got to the sarcastic final sentence, “You’re welcome.”
“I assume those are your words?” said Baldino. “Since they have your name on them?”
“Yes,” said Zoe.
“So how about you tell us how you know all this?”
Zoe’s mom made a show of scrolling down the webpage, then nodded to her. Zoe knew she couldn’t tell the whole truth, but she could at least tell nothing but the truth.
“Jonah and I were trying to find the dogs,” she said.
She glanced at Officer Maerz, who had been sullenly taking notes ever since he’d been removed from power, and then at Sergeant Vilkomerson, who gave her an encouraging you’re-doing-good sort of nod. Baldino folded his arms tightly across his chest and puffed his stomach out so far that he looked seven or eight months pregnant.
“We got caught in the blizzard,” Zoe said. “We went to Bert and Betty’s place to warm up. We used to stay there all the time.” The memory was so painful that she couldn’t help but add, “After my father died—and you guys refused to go get his body.”
Baldino was unfazed by the remark, but everybody else shifted unhappily in their chairs. Zoe’s mom leaned over and whispered, “Don’t, honey. That’s not fair.”
Zoe pulled away from her, surprised.
“How is that not fair?” she said.
Baldino interrupted before her mother could answer.
“So you encountered Stan Manggold at the Wallaces’ former residence?”
“Yes—if that’s his last name. He called himself Stan the Man.”
“My god,” said Zoe’s mom.
She even recognized the nickname.
“And how exactly do you know that Mr. Manggold is responsible for the deaths of Bertram and Elizabeth Wallace?”
“I saw—” Zoe began, then broke off immediately. She’d been about to say, I saw him do it. That would have gone over well: I saw it in a movie on the back of a superhot guy.
“You saw what, exactly?” said Baldino.
“I saw how he bragged about it,” she said. “And I saw the poker he killed them with. He thought Bert and Betty were rich. He was still trying to figure out where they hid their money. But they didn’t have any money—and now their bodies are in the lake.”
Her voice was shaking.
“Zoe,” said Baldino, “did you and your brother see anyone other than Stan Manggold while you were out at the lake—anybody you knew, anybody you didn’t know, anybody at all? I want you to think carefully about your answer. Because we’re going to write it down.”
At this, Officer Maerz looked up at his boss, as if to say, Are you talking about me? Baldino rolled his eyes and said, “Yes, Stuart, whatever she says, write it down.”
Everyone looked at Zoe, waiting. X’s face flashed into her head. She felt protective of him. He had carried them home.
Just then, there were noises from outside—it sounded like animals had gotten into the garage and toppled the garbage cans.