Spengler left the station and drove out to the Holiday Inn near downtown. The case file Ortiz had given her was on the passenger seat, unopened. She’d been afraid to see what she’d find inside, so she’d left it there and tried to stay focused on work, although her gaze kept wandering back to it as she drove. But even when she couldn’t see the damn thing it was on her mind.
The Evans girls were waiting for her in one of the hotel’s conference rooms, sitting so they were both looking out the windows. The view wasn’t great. A hedge gone partly brittle and brown, and then the parking lot. The sisters were sedate as they answered Spengler’s questions, although Spengler suspected the calm came out of a prescription bottle of Xanax.
The oldest, Hannah, was twenty-two years old. Maddie was nineteen. Both girls wore jeans and sweaters. Typical college student attire. They both looked like Marie—brunettes with hair that swept their shoulders and pert noses, although Hannah could’ve passed for a younger Marie, based on the pictures Spengler had seen. But Hannah was extremely thin, nearly painfully so. It didn’t suit her well. The bones in her wrists were sharp and pointed, and the razor edge of her collarbone was obvious through the fabric of her top. She was either suffering from a health problem or an eating disorder.
“Do you think Dad killed her?” Hannah asked dully. “Is that why you’re here?”
Spengler had a good poker face, but she wasn’t sure how well it was holding up.
“I just need to ask a few questions,” she said. “That’s all.”
“If I was in your shoes and there was a couple who’d gone hiking alone and the wife fell off a cliff, I’d assume he killed her.”
“Hannah, why don’t you shut up?” Maddie said sharply.
“I’m just saying,” Hannah said. Her eyes moved slowly between her sister and Spengler. Definitely drugged. Stoned out of her damn mind. “Mom and Dad have been fighting so much lately it makes me wonder.”
Spengler made a note on her paper. “What’ve they been arguing about?”
“I don’t know,” Hannah said, shrugging. “Neither one of us were around much this summer.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, why did you decide to stay here instead of with your father?” There was a pitcher of ice water in the center of the table. Spengler poured herself a glass, then motioned at the sisters. Any for you? They both shook their heads.
“Dad’s pretty upset right now, and he doesn’t like to be seen that way. He told us it would be best if we didn’t stay at home.”
“Your father told me he wasn’t sure why the two of you decided to stay here,” Spengler said, flipping back through her notes. “Actually, he made it sound like neither one of you wanted to stay with him.”
Maddie’s eyes dropped down to the table. Hannah shrugged.
“I really don’t remember what happened,” Hannah said. She started to say something else, then fell silent.
Spengler watched the girls for a moment, hoping one of them might keep talking, but neither did.
“You said he doesn’t like to be seen that way,” Spengler said. “What exactly does that mean? He doesn’t like to be seen what way?”
“He’s devastated that Mom’s gone,” Maddie said. “They’ve been together for so long I don’t think he knows how to live without her.”
“A few years ago they were fighting all the time, and I asked Mom if they were getting a divorce,” Hannah said. She had three or four bangle bracelets around her wrist, and she kept pushing them up her arm, then down again. “She just laughed, said it wasn’t worth the effort. I asked her what that meant, and she told me her and Dad had separated before, but they couldn’t stay away from each other. They were like magnets, she said. She was always saying things like that.”
“Do you remember when Scottie Union dumped me on Valentine’s Day?” Maddie asked her sister. “Mom told me men are like drugs. A great high, fun to use for short periods of time, but after a while they’d probably kill you. I don’t know how she thought that was supposed to make me feel better, or why she thought it was appropriate to let me know about her experience with drugs.”
Both the girls laughed a little, then sighed.
“What would your parents argue about?” Spengler asked.
“I don’t know,” Hannah said. “They’d usually shut themselves in their bedroom while they fought, so we couldn’t hear much. Sometimes I’d go over to a friend’s place just to get out of there.”
“I’d put in my earbuds and listen to music,” Maddie said. “I just didn’t want to hear it.”
“Did your parents have any problems that you’re aware of? Marital? Financial?” Spengler asked both girls the questions, but looked at Hannah. It seemed as though the meds had loosened her tongue, or she was just the loose-lipped sister.
“Well, there was that time Dad kept hiding his phone and Mom was convinced he was cheating. She swore she could smell perfume on him when he came home from work, but I never smelled it.”
“Hannah, shut up.”
“What? Mom’s dead, and this cop is just trying to help. Aren’t you a little curious about what happened? But even if you’re not, why don’t you just shut up and let me talk?”
Maddie sat back, mollified by her sister’s burst of sudden fury.
“Mom made me sniff a pile of his dirty clothes one time,” Hannah said. “Gross, you know. But I didn’t smell anything except sweat. She was so pissed when I told her that.”
“Do you think your father has had an affair?”
“God, no,” Maddie said quickly. “If anything, Dad was too scared to do anything like that. Mom would’ve destroyed his life and taken everything. And I wouldn’t have blamed her one bit.”
“Did they ever argue about money?”
“No,” Hannah said, smiling a little. “That’s one thing I never heard them fight about. Dad’s really good at making money, that’s what Mom would say. It was his special talent. I don’t know if she meant that as a compliment, though.”
“Do you either of you know if your mother had any interests outside of the house?” Spengler asked. “Clubs or activities, friends she might’ve confided in?”
“She was part of a running club,” Hannah said after a moment of thought. “And a book club.”
“She was president of the PTA where we went to high school,” Maddie said. “She always spent a lot of time outside. Hiking and camping. She liked to take classes. Art and pottery and yoga.”
“And she volunteered at the hospital and the library.”
“Okay,” Spengler said, scribbling into her notepad. “Anything else you can think of?”
“I don’t know,” Maddie said, shrugging and picking a dot of lint off her thigh. “Sometimes she tried new things to surprise Dad. She’s done stuff like that before. Like the time she took those cooking classes. Do you remember, Han?”
Hannah smiled, tears standing in her eyes.
“Yeah. She took those classes for three months, specialized in French cuisine. She wanted to surprise Dad on their twentieth anniversary with a big meal and then he got so sick, so she didn’t. He was in the hospital and kept joking that Mom had poisoned him. That she was trying to kill him.”
“Yeah, I remember that.”
Both girls laughed half-heartedly. Hannah sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve.
“After you’ve been married to someone for so long, I bet it’s hard to be alone,” Hannah said. “Maybe we should be with Dad.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Maddie said. She sounded unconvinced. Kids aren’t stupid, Spengler knew. They picked up on everything, and she thought the girls knew more about Matt and Marie than they were letting on. Parents kept secrets from their kids all the time, to protect them, or to save them from embarrassment, but it hardly ever worked.