The House Across the Lake(46)

Unlike on those design shows, the Royce kitchen shows signs of frequent, messy use. Multicolored drops of food spatter the countertops. A tray on the center island holds a bowl and spoon crusted with dried oatmeal. On the stovetop is a pot with soup dregs at the bottom. From the milky film coating it, my guess is cream of mushroom, reheated last night. I assume Katherine was the cook of the marriage and Tom has been reduced to eating like a frat boy. I can’t help but judge him as I peek into the trash can and see boxes that once held microwave Mexican and Lean Cuisines. Even at my drunkest and laziest, I would never resort to frozen burritos.

What I don’t see—in the trash or anywhere else in the kitchen—are signs something bad happened here. No drops of blood among the food spatter. No sharp knife or hacksaw or weapon of any kind drying in the dishwasher. There’s not even a Dear John letter from Katherine, which is what Marnie had predicted.

Satisfied there’s nothing else to see here, I do a quick tour of the rest of the first floor—tasteful sun-room off the kitchen, guest powder room that smells like lavender, entrance foyer—before heading upstairs.

My first stop on the second floor is the only room not visible through the expansive windows at the back of the house—a guest room. It’s luxurious, boasting a king bed, sitting area, and en suite bathroom that looks like something out of a spa. It’s all crisp, clean, and completely boring.

The same goes for the exercise room, although I do examine the rack of free weights for dried blood in case any of them had been used as a weapon. They’re clean, which makes me feel both relieved and slightly troubled that I’d thought to check them in the first place.

After that, it’s on to the master bedroom, where the sight of my own house through the massive windows brings another guilt-inducing reminder that I watched Katherine and Tom in this most private of spaces. It’s made worse by the fact that I’m now inside their inner sanctum, casing it the way a burglar would.

I see nothing immediately amiss in the bedroom itself, other than an unmade bed, a pair of Tom’s boxer shorts discarded on the floor, and an empty rocks glass on his nightstand. I can’t decide which is worse—that my spying has already taught me which side of the bed is Tom’s or that a single sniff of the rocks glass instantly tells me he was drinking whiskey.

When I round the bed and check Katherine’s nightstand, I encounter the first sign of something suspicious. A small bowl the color of a Tiffany’s box sits next to her bedside lamp. Resting at its bottom are two pieces of jewelry.

An engagement ring and a wedding band.

It immediately reminds me of Rear Window and Grace Kelly as seen through Jimmy Stewart’s telephoto lens, flashing dead Mrs. Thorwald’s wedding ring. In 1954, that was proof of guilt. Today, however, it proves nothing. That’s what Wilma Anson would tell me.

In this case, I’m inclined to agree. If Katherine did indeed leave Tom, wouldn’t it be natural for her to leave her rings behind? The marriage is over. She wants a fresh start. She doesn’t need to keep the jewelry that symbolized their unhappy union. Also, I know from our first, dramatic meeting that Katherine doesn’t always wear her wedding band.

Still, it’s suspicious enough for me to pull my phone from my pocket and snap a few pictures of the rings sitting in the bowl’s gentle curve. I keep the phone out as I peek into the bathroom, which is even bigger and more spa-like than the one in the guest room. Like everywhere else, the only thing it points to is that Tom Royce is a slob when left on his own. Exhibit A is the towel bunched next to the sink. Exhibit B is yet another pair of boxer shorts on the floor. This time, I don’t judge. Someone prowling my bedroom right now would see yesterday’s clothes in a heap at the foot of my bed and a bra tossed across the back of the easy chair in the corner.

I move from bathroom to walk-in closet. It’s large and tidy, the walls covered by an elaborate grid of shelves, hanging rods, and drawers. Nothing appears to be missing, a realization that brings a renewed sense of worry. While roaming the house, I’d been slowly coming around to the idea that maybe Katherine really did just up and leave Tom without giving him a clue about where she went. All these clothes, bearing labels from Gucci, Stella McCartney, and, in a refreshing bit of normalcy, H&M, suggest otherwise. As does a matching set of luggage tucked in the corner that I would have assumed belonged to Tom if the tags dangling from the handles didn’t bear Katherine’s name.

While I can understand leaving her engagement ring and wedding band behind, Katherine surely would have taken clothes with her. Yet the closet is filled with her things, to the point where I can spot only one empty hanger and one blank space on the shelves.

When Katherine left—if she left—she took only the clothes on her back.

I start opening drawers, seeing neatly folded sweaters, T-shirts and sweats, underwear in a rainbow of colors.

And a phone.

It’s stuffed into the back of Katherine’s underwear drawer, almost hidden behind a pair of Victoria’s Secret panties. Seeing it makes me think of Mixer and Katherine’s red triangle pinpointing her location.

I use my own phone to take a picture of it, then swipe through my call log until I find Katherine’s number. The second I hit the call button, the phone in the drawer starts to ring. I brush aside the panties until I can see my number lit up across its screen. Below it is the last time I called her.

Yesterday. One p.m.