twelve

“Should we call the police?” Ms. Washburn was walking around the apartment slowly, as if expecting that in the other rooms, surely there would be some household accoutrements. But I knew for a fact there would be nothing, so I did not tour the living space. I was standing in the middle of what had been the main room, and I imagine I was wearing what Mother calls my “thinking face,” which is ostensibly an unusually serious expression with pursed lips and downturned eyes. I know only that I was, indeed, thinking.

“To report what crime?” I asked. “Someone who leased an apartment has moved out. It happens thousands of times a day with no help from the authorities.”

“That’s not funny, Samuel.”

“It was not intended to be.”

She called from the bedroom. “Even the hangers in the closets are gone.”

“I am not surprised. You might as well give up the search, Ms. Washburn; you’ll find nothing here.”

She walked into the living area, now a sea of unpolished wood, looking strangely puzzled. “How did you know there would be nothing here?” she asked.

“This apartment was meant to look like someone’s home, but it was never really staged convincingly,” I said. “There was no indication of daily life here. No clothing was out of place. No items were in the dish drainer or the dishwasher. The only disturbed areas were the ones Ms. McInerney and her compatriot or compatriots wanted us to see.”

Ms. Washburn nodded. “The bloodstains and the open window,” she said.

“I think the police will discover, if they took samples, that the ‘bloodstains’ were anything but blood. But even those have been cleaned up, and the window is once again closed, the screen down. This was not a living area. This was a stage set.”

Ms. Washburn looked around the room and shook her head. “It’s eerier empty than it was when we were supposed to think someone had jumped out the window. Why would someone go to all this trouble to convince us something was going on?”

“We were supposed to be witnesses, but when I began to find holes in the narrative they were creating, we became pawns. The longer they could keep us away from Questions Answered, the better.”

“It feels a little personal, doesn’t it?”

“It is personal, Ms. Washburn. Assuming Ms. McInerney was one of the architects of this charade—and I find myself hard-pressed to imagine a scenario in which she was not—this was targeted directly at me. She could have chosen anyone to act in the role she was preparing, and she decided upon me.”

Her eyes searched my face for a moment. “Does that make you angry?” she asked.

“Any number of things make me angry, Ms. Washburn. This one offers both irritation and opportunity.”

“Opportunity?”

“If I can understand the motivation behind it, the way this crime was planned can go a long way toward answering the question at hand. I believe it is time to confer with our client.”

Ms. Washburn raised an eyebrow. “But we have no idea where Sheila might be now,” she said.

“Our other client.”

We used Ms. Washburn’s cellular phone to call Detective Dickinson, and since I suggested (some might say insisted) we meet in person, he directed us to Henry’s, a diner on the Livingston campus of Rutgers University in Piscataway. Dickinson said no other Piscataway police officers would be on campus, as the university has its own force and the town gets involved only when a serious crime is committed.

He was sitting in a booth at Henry’s when we arrived, scanning the menu. He was seated facing the door—the better to avoid any surprise visitors—and nodded at me when Ms. Washburn and I walked in. We joined him in the booth.

“The food here isn’t bad, but it’s not like a real diner,” Dickinson said. “I mean, the fries are made from sweet potatoes.”

When a waiter—surely a student, judging by age and demeanor—arrived, Dickinson asked for a grilled cheese sandwich and a soda. It was not yet time for lunch, which I eat with Mother every day anyway, so I ordered nothing. Ms. Washburn requested a cup of coffee, and I believe she did so simply to be polite. She respects people at their work, and would think we were wasting the waiter’s time if she did not pay for something.

I understand her respect for workers, but I was neither hungry nor thirsty. It would make no sense to waste food or drink.

“What was so urgent that we had to meet?” Dickinson asked once the waiter walked away. The diner was not doing very brisk business at this hour, but then college students who do not have early classes tend to sleep late. He was keeping his voice low although it was highly unlikely there was anyone within earshot who might have an interest in our business. “Have you solved the case?”

“Mr. Hoenig does not solve cases. He answers questions.” Ms. Washburn said it before I could have.

Dickinson waved a hand to indicate her statement was irrelevant. “Whatever. Did you figure it out?”

“Not yet,” I said. “I need more information, and that’s why we are here.”

“You need information from me? What am I paying you for?”

I heard Ms. Washburn make a noise deep in her throat, but she said nothing. I answered, “Presumably, you are paying me to take the information and interpret it correctly. If I am reading the situation properly, you do not trust yourself to do so.” Dickinson’s face, surprisingly, twisted into an angry expression while his right hand extended its index finger toward me, but I did not give him time to react verbally. “First, I need to know if you have discovered any evidence that Sheila McInerney and the murder victim Oliver Lewis were indeed married.”

Dickinson seemed to drop whatever intention he had of arguing with me and put his hands flat on the table. “Of course we did. They were married in Stanford, Connecticut, just under seven months ago.”

“Seven months?” Ms. Washburn said. “Sheila told Samuel they’d only been married a few weeks.”

“She also said they were married in Darien, Connecticut,” I reminded her. “I do not see a reason to assume anything Ms. McInerney told us was true.”

“That’s probably a decent bet,” Dickinson noted. “Because her real name is not actually Sheila McInerney. It’s Cynthia Maholm.” (He pronounced the name “Mah-HOL-em,” but I believed it to be “Ma-HOME.”) “Luckily, the records indicated she went by the name McInerney professionally once she was married.”

“Was Oliver Lewis’s real name McInerney?” Ms. Washburn asked.

Dickinson shook his head. “No, his name was in fact Oliver Lewis. But our pal Cynthia apparently wanted people to think she’d married a guy by the name of McInerney, so she used that one.”

The sense of that decision eluded me. “Why would she want people to think her husband’s name was McInerney?” I mused aloud. “Wouldn’t everyone she knew before her marriage know her real name, particularly her first name, which normally wouldn’t be changed?”

“More questions, and no answers yet,” Dickinson said, looking directly at me. “I don’t understand why I’m doing all the work, and you’re the one getting paid.”

Of course, Dickinson was drawing a salary from the Piscataway police department, and I had not yet been paid at all, but again, it felt like that information would not contribute to the conversation in a productive way.

“Have you contacted the Edison police?” I asked Dickinson. “Did they do any analysis on the supposed bloodstains found in Ms. Maholm’s apartment?”

The waiter reappeared carrying Dickinson’s food and Ms. Washburn’s coffee. Dickinson told the young man that he had taken far too long to bring the order, and the waiter, who I felt had done nothing of the sort, apologized. I saw Ms. Washburn’s eyes harden as Dickinson suggested the waiter not expect a very large gratuity. The young man said nothing. Obviously our professional discussion ceased until he once again left the table. Once Dickinson had taken a first (very large) bite of his grilled cheese sandwich, he sipped heavily on his soda, then sat back and considered my questions.

“After Oliver Lewis’s body was discovered, of course we got in touch with the Edison department to ask about the scene with you two earlier in the day,” he said, a slight twist in his mouth indicating he might be amused by what he was saying. “The stains were not blood at all. They were red nail polish.”

“That was what Mr. Hoenig had expected,” Ms. Washburn said. I noticed she had not yet sipped any of her coffee.

Dickinson’s expression seemed less amused now. “Yeah, well. Edison wanted to talk to you about that too. You might be hearing from a Sergeant Polk. But I did remind them that all that happened on their turf was an alleged B and E with a very suspect accuser. My guess is they won’t be calling unless they find something really unexpected.”

He appeared to expect some kind of reward or acknowledgement, as if he had done Ms. Washburn and me a great favor. I saw no reason to interrupt, and Ms. Washburn also said nothing for nearly one minute.

“When she was posing as Sheila, this Cynthia Maholm mentioned three names of friends. She said her friend Jenny LeBlanc threw the party where she met Oliver Lewis.” Ms. Washburn was not referring to notes, and even though she had not been present at the conversation in question, she was accurate in all her facts. “She said that Lewis showed up with someone named Terry Lambroux, but that she had never met Terry and didn’t know which gender Terry was. And she said that someone named Roger Siplowitz had been there when she and Lewis got married. Do we have any idea whether any of those people are real?”

Suddenly Dickinson seemed quite engrossed in his food. He did not look up to make eye contact with either of us. “I haven’t had time to look into that yet,” he said.

Ms. Washburn and I exchanged a glance. It was possible that Detective Dickinson was not the most energetic member of the Piscataway police department.

“Why don’t you leave that to me?” I suggested, on the assumption that the task would be completed much more quickly and efficiently in hands other than those of Detective Dickinson. “I will report back to you very soon.”

Dickinson nodded. Then, as if struck by a thought, he looked up from his plate and into my eyes. “You didn’t seem surprised by anything I told you,” he said.

“I was not surprised,” I assured him. That information, I believed, would give him confidence that he had contracted intelligently.

“Why not?” Dickinson appeared almost oppositional, his hands balling into fists.

“Because it makes sense, except for Ms. Maholm changing her name,” I answered. “That did not surprise me so much as it instilled in me a desire to do more research. Ms. Washburn?” I gestured to my associate, who stood up so we could make our exit.

On our way out, I noticed Ms. Washburn laying a five-dollar bill on the table and anchoring it under her untouched coffee cup.