19

Saturday, July 17

Peter eyed Carol Cohn on the monitor outside the downtown interrogation room. She sat at rigid attention that could only have been learned at the hands of nuns during her childhood. Her expression, one of superiority, gave no ground. On the other hand, her quick-dry shorts and wrinkle-proof knit top had been defeated through many hours of riding chained-up in Linda’s RV. The formerly perfect pouf of red hair hung in tatters around her face.

Not feeling any remorse, are you?

“Some killer, huh?” Brent said, nodding at the small figure. “Shall we go shake a confession out of her?”

Brent followed Peter into the interview room. They stood before her, arms crossed.

Carol looked up with a quizzical expression. “I don’t understand why I’m here.”

“I imagine it’s for the same reason you toppled three cat trees and ran out of Cecilie Watkins’ house.”

“Those cat trees have always been wobbly. They must have fallen on their own.”

“Dumping Sarah’s car in Port Huron? Sneaking into Canada? Flying under a fake passport?”

“Research.” Carol gave her mouth a tiny, smug quirk.

“You’ve been very busy,” Brent said, sighing with a sorrowful look. “Funneling automatic deposits from your book vendors through an account you opened using the social security number of a deceased client, then shooting the works into the Caymans.”

Carol shrugged. “A girl has to have a hobby.”

“And Sarah Schellenger? Is strangling your friends another one of your hobbies?” Brent asked.

Carol looked at them and blinked once, slowly, like a lizard. Her glasses magnified her eyes, reinforcing the resemblance.

“What happened with Sarah?” Peter asked. “You were lifelong friends.”

“Not friends. Not exactly.”

“No?” Brent asked.

Peter and Brent remained still, waiting for Carol to fill the silence. Finally she closed her eyes and heaved a sigh.

“Did you really grill Leroy for six hours when he returned?” Carol asked.

“That we did,” Brent said. “But I’m sure that’s nothing to a woman who rowed across the Saint Clair River in pitch darkness.”

“Speaking of Leroy,” Peter said, “did he tell you he recorded your conversation in the RV? The one where you accessed your offshore bank account? The shot of your balance has great resolution.”

Carol pursed her lips, thinking. Brent and Peter waited. Peter imagined she was doing the math: eventually she would tell them, if it took six hours or ten hours, or twenty. With the bank accounts, they had too much evidence for her to bluff her way out. Finally she shook her head and scoffed quietly. “I always knew he’d be trouble.

“There’s always this one person,” Carol continued, “They’re younger, taller, prettier, smarter. Everyone likes them. If you bring cupcakes you baked yourself to the church potluck, nobody eats them because they’re too busy stuffing themselves with her Oreos. If you go to a party together, all the men ignore you while they try to get her attention. She marries a man who adores her. It doesn’t matter what you do, she always does it better and her life is always easier.

“I suggest an idea for the books, and everyone poo-poos it. Sarah suggests the exact same thing two days later and they’re all on board, because she’s so brilliant. Why is that?”

“You resented Sarah,” Brent said. “You felt unappreciated. Is that why you embezzled from the group?”

“It was too easy,” she smirked. “They left all the paperwork to me. ‘Go back to your adding machine, Carol,’” she mimicked. “‘We’re the creative folks. We need you to pick up after us and keep us out of trouble with the IRS. We don’t need you for the fun stuff.’”

“If you hated her so much, why did you belong to Fiber and Snark?” Brent asked.

“I didn’t hate her, not exactly. I was her—the young girls call it a ‘frenemy’. The group was fun when it started. Sarah was just an irritant, like a little rock in your shoe that you can’t ever shake out, and every once in a while it gets into the right spot and it stabs your foot. Most of the time it was fine.”

“What changed, Mrs. Cohn?”

“When Frank passed, I had to find ways to fill my time. That’s when I started going to Sarah’s group. Anything to get out of that house. Then the writing started, and that was exciting, making money with the books. But Sarah decided we needed to give it all away, and everyone just nods their heads like a bunch of puppets.”

“So you made sure you got your share. Did Sarah realize what was going on?” Peter asked.

“Of course not. Nobody was minding the store but me.”

“Why kill her?” Peter asked.

“It was the house.”

“What house?” Brent asked, perplexed.

“Mrs. Peltier’s house? The one Sarah bought, next to Alma’s?” Peter asked.

“I loved that house since I was a little girl. That was before Ruth went dotty and turned it into a warehouse for the Home Shopping Network. I’d walk past it on the way to school and pretend I lived there. I picked a room for myself, one with a turret, and I imagined myself sitting on the window seat and waving at the world from my castle.

“Ruth never liked me. I never once got to go inside. I was in high school when Sarah started first grade, and my mother expected me to walk Sarah home every day. Ruth invited her in for cookies every Thursday.

“I’d be walking alongside Sarah, and Ruth would open her door and call out to Sarah and ask her in for a snack. The next day, Sarah would jabber on about the cookies and how many she ate, and she’d show me some gaudy piece of costume jewelry Ruth gave her to play with.

“I never should have told Sarah the house was on the market. She didn’t bother to think about me. She just barged in and outbid everyone. One person shouldn’t have so much.”

“She killed Sarah over the house?” Debby was astounded.

“She knew the contract would be voided if Sarah died before the closing,” Lia explained. “That would give her another chance at it. But I think the house was just the final straw after a lifetime of envying everything Sarah had.”

“What about Leroy? Why did she drag him into it?” Debby asked.

“Leroy’s kidnapping had nothing to do with Sarah. He’d made noises to Carol about getting involved in writing the books and running the business. Carol knew if he got his hands on the spreadsheets, he would figure out what she was doing. The accounting was perfect according to the deposits that were made to your bank, but the foreign editions were published under a separate account and the royalties were deposited into Carol’s offshore bank.

“When Carol decided to kill Sarah, Leroy’s disappearance made him a convenient scapegoat. She faked the phone call to Alice by splicing together recordings of practice interviews she did with Leroy, which she manipulated to get the phrases she needed. Then she added in enough static to make it sound like a bad connection, and when Alice’s back was turned, she deleted Alice’s messages so it could never be analyzed.

“She faked the attack on herself and drugged Cecilie’s sport drink, so when Sarah died, it would point back to Leroy and everyone would think it was about the books. If the only attack was on Sarah, the police would look at other motives for her death.

“Carol carried the burner phone with her and put the battery in when she wanted it to ping and place Leroy nearby.”

“That little—” Debby’s face was now red.

“I think the word you’re looking for is ‘biotch,’” Alice said.

“Why did she get him out of the way in the first place? What good was that going to do? He was still going to come back,” Cecilie said.

“The way I understand it, it was a two-pronged plan. By forcing him to write all day long for a month, she expected him to develop such an aversion to writing that he would happily return to being your handsome but clueless frontman,” Lia said.

“But if he didn’t?” Cecilie asked.

“The disappearance of Lucas Cross shortly before his next release was bound to send sales into the stratosphere. She figured she might need to cut her losses and run. She was hoping to get a big score before that was necessary,” Lia concluded.

“Poor Leroy,” Alice said.

“Poor Leroy, hah!” Debby said. “He ran off with that hussy.”

“Citrine?” Alice asked, mouth gaping.

“No, the one that kidnapped him. They made that little side trip to Toronto so they could give us Carol as their going away present.”

“No!” The other women said in unison.

“Carol’s plan backfired,” Debby continued. “He says he got his rhythm after the first week of being chained to a laptop and has decided he’s a writer.

“Remember Nick Russell from AustinCon? Leroy and what’s-her-face headed off in her RV to meet up with Nick and his wife in Minnesota. Nick has promised to mentor him while they travel around the country.”

“But our launch!” Cecilie wailed.

“He said it was time we stood up to take our bows, and the notoriety will carry us through until our fans get used to us.”

“I don’t know if there can be an us without Sarah,” Cecilie mumbled.

“Maybe we need to reinvent ourselves. I miss my quirky villagers. I’d like to get back to that series,” Alice said.

“I’m tired of that Koi bitch,” Debby said to Cecilie. “What say you and I kill her off in a spectacular way.”

“We could toss in Colt for a twofer,” Cecilie said. “They meet, fall in love, and get blown to bits on the honeymoon.”

“Now you’re talking.”