Zoe slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Jonah, and dressed in the dark. Minutes later, she padded down the stairs, and peeked out at the kitchen table, where her mother sat with Baldino and two of his troopers. Baldino was big, blustery, unpleasant—and actually bald. Just now, he was scratching like a dog at a scaly red rash below the collar of his shirt.
The chief sat next to a skinny young trooper whose last name was Maerz. Zoe remembered him being slightly dopey, but harmless. The chief obviously detested him.
The third cop at the table was Sergeant Vilkomerson. He was the only one who’d ever bothered to tell the Bissells his first name—it was Brian—and the only one to hug them at her dad’s funeral service in town. When Zoe entered the kitchen, Vilkomerson stood and pulled out a chair for her. Unlike Baldino and Maerz, he’d taken his shoes off out of respect for the rules of the house, which were posted at every door.
Officer Maerz had been asking Zoe’s mom boring background questions about Zoe—where she went to school and if she had any hobbies. Zoe’s mom had been stalling so Zoe could get dressed and think through what she wanted to say. Her mother had her laptop in front of her on the table. It was open, for all to see, to a page entitled, “The Rights of Minors During Police Questioning.”
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?”