I lead her to the street, fling open the back door of the car, and encourage her into a sitting position, with her body facing out and her feet skimming the curb. Warm, I think. You’re supposed to make sure that people in shock stay warm. I tear off my jacket and wrap it around her shoulders, then grab a bottle of water from the seat pocket. I notice for the first time that my own hands are trembling.
I look back to the house, making certain no one’s there. Part of me is terrified, overwhelmed by what I just witnessed, but another part seems detached and eerily calm.
“Did you see anyone?” I ask, glancing back at the girl. I twist the cap off the water bottle and hand it to her. “In the house or running away?”
She shakes her head hard, like a dog with a toy in its mouth.
“The house was empty,” she says. She takes a sip of water clumsily, as if she’s forgotten how to do it. “Except for her—for Eve.”
“You just got here? Right before I came?”
“Yes. I . . . I called out, but no one answered. Then I saw the light in the office. Omigod, I can’t get it out of my head.”
“Are you the one who called and asked me to come down here?
“What?”
“You work here, right? Did you call me this morning? I’m Bryn. Uh, Mrs. Carrington.”
“No, I don’t work here. I sell them bread.”
As she says that, I recall the baguettes nosing out from the bag on the ground. And besides, it couldn’t be her. The woman on the phone had a baby-doll voice, not like this girl’s.
So where had the person been phoning from? And where is she now?
I glance up and down the street, wondering what’s taking the police so long.
“What’s your name?” I finally think to ask.
“Sara. Sara Cummings. Who did that to her?” She’s almost wailing now. “Who?”
“I don’t know.” In my mind’s eye I see it again. Eve’s butchered face, the frantic spatter of rust-colored blood.
A memory comes, unbidden, of me in a Massachusetts hospital three months ago. I’d woken at dusk, dressed in a blue-and-white-print hospital gown and throbbing in pain. I’d been sponge-bathed by then, but when I turned over my arm, I discovered smears of blood leftover from the accident. It was brown, just like the blood in Eve’s office. I realize now that she must have been murdered hours ago.
“Sara, was Eve married, do you know?” I ask. “Or involved with someone?” There was a provocative, challenging air to her. What if she spurned a man who was obsessed with her? Or cheated on him? He could have become infuriated, murderous even.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
I glance back toward the house, to the second story. “Did she live here?”
“Yes, upstairs, above the kitchen.”
So maybe a break-in instead. She could have come downstairs last night and stumbled upon a burglar who’d figured there might be cash in the catering office.
But all that blood. The savagery. It’s not a burglary, I tell myself. It’s personal. I start to dry heave again and fight it back.
I grab a water for myself, and as I unscrew the cap, another thought pushes through. I accused the waiters of stealing my money, and based on the phone call I received this morning, it’s likely that Eve confronted them and even induced one of them to return the cash. Could he have returned later in a rage?
If that’s the case, I’ve set this all in motion, caused her death. No, please, it can’t be true . . . Paul’s death and now this.
I need to call Guy. But right when I reach for my phone, I hear the sound of a car approaching. I look to the right. A black-and-white police cruiser is barreling in our direction. It lurches to a stop, and moments later two cops emerge, both with hands resting lightly on their guns. One’s a female, super tall and a brunette, the other a dark-haired guy with pockmarked skin.
“Did one of you call 9–1–1?” the female asks. Her badge reads “Robichaud.”
“I did,” Sara says between teeth that have resumed their chattering. She thrusts her chin toward the house. “They killed her with an ax.”
“You saw it?” the male cop says. “Are they still in there?”
“I don’t know. I just came with the bread.”
Before I can attempt to translate, both cops turn simultaneously in my direction, as if sensing they’ll have more luck with me. That’s hysterical, I think. I, the walking basket case, am about to be the most coherent one at the scene.
“She was making a delivery,” I explain, “and I came in right afterwards. We found Eve Blazer’s body in the office, at the back of the first floor. No one else seemed to be around.”
Robichaud asks for our names, and after she scribbles them down, she orders us to stay right where we are until she and her partner have searched the house.
“And don’t talk to anyone,” she adds. “That means no phone calls, too.”
The two cops exchange a look and then hurry up the short cement sidewalk to the house.