The Last Housewife (6)

According to my phone, cutting through this neighborhood was the shortest route to the River Estate, a swanky hotel I’d only dreamed of staying in when I was an undergrad. But I had a whole new lifestyle now, thanks to Cal’s money.

Your money, I corrected, but only out of habit.

Most of the houses were large and set back from the road, hidden behind walls of trees. But up ahead, one of the mansions revealed itself, the first to forgo a privacy gate. I felt my foot lift off the gas, and the car slowed to a stop.

It was the architecture that haunted me. A particular style of Tudor I hadn’t found anywhere else. The roof climbing into vaunted triangles, sharp as knifepoints, stabbing the air. The stone facade covered with a lattice of brown bars, fitting around the house like a cage. The shades in the windows drawn tight, so no one could see in or out. The lawn so wide, so far to run; the bushes so neat, so full of hidden thorns to snag your stockings, to slow you, to hold you down until that dark shadow towered over you and you were reclaimed.

Cold fear washed through me. I jammed the gas and raced away.

***

An hour later, after checking in to the hotel—still as glamorous as I remembered—and carefully reapplying my makeup, I pulled up to the Yonkers police station. The muscles in my stomach tightened in anticipation. In my lifetime, I’d visited this station more times than I would’ve liked, and far less than I should have.

Inside was nicer than it used to be: fresh paint on the walls, friendly posters of police officers shaking people’s hands, directional signs in slender sans serif spelling out Booking, Restrooms, Front Desk.

I approached the front desk, and a woman only a few years older than me swiveled in her seat. “How can I help you?”

I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. “I’d like to speak to someone about Laurel Hargrove’s death.”

Immediately, her eyes narrowed. “Let me guess. You listened to the podcast.”

Jamie’s podcast? “Well, yes, but—”

“We’re running an investigation,” she snapped. “Not catering to the whims of bored amateur sleuths.”

I gave her a pointed look. “I know Laurel. I was one of her roommates in college. I’d like to speak to whoever’s in charge of her investigation. I know information that might help.”

She studied me. This is why I’d redone my makeup. I knew the difference a polished facade could make. I flashed her a beauty queen’s smile.

“Hold on,” she sighed, turning and picking up the phone. A second later she was saying something in a low voice, then nodding at a closed door to my left. “Chief’ll be right with you.”

The chief of police? That was unusual, wasn’t it, for a chief to handle something like this? Before I had too long to think, the door swung open and a familiar face frowned at me, nothing changed in eight long years besides some extra lines around his eyes.

“You the friend of Hargrove?”

I waited for some sign of recognition—a light in his eyes, a head nod, something—but there was nothing on his face but gruff annoyance.

I adjusted my purse strap. “Yes. You’re in charge of her case?”

He made a beckoning gesture. “Follow me.”

I studied his back as we walked deeper into the station, past an open floor full of desks. So, Detective Adam Dorsey was the chief of police now. Not only that, but he was handling Laurel’s case. What were the odds the same man who’d been in charge of her case freshman year would be the one investigating her death more than a decade later? Yonkers wasn’t that small.

The chief gestured for me to enter a corner office. I perched on the edge of a chair and waited for him to drop himself, with a heavy sigh, on the other side of the desk.

“Okay then.” He steepled his fingers. “Name? Relationship? Let’s hear it.”

Dorsey had already been graying a decade ago, the first time we sat before him. He was a tall man with broad shoulders that strained his crisply ironed shirt, and serious bulk in his stomach, barely leashed in by his belt. His lashes were stubby, but the eyes beneath were sharp. The disbelieving way he squinted at me stirred déjà vu.

I couldn’t believe they’d given him more responsibility, made him the one in charge. How did men like him keep climbing?

“I’m Shay Deroy.” I wiped damp palms against my knees, but my voice betrayed nothing. “Like I told the woman at the front desk, I was Laurel Hargrove’s roommate at Whitney. We attended together from 2010 to 2014. I knew her very well. Probably better than anyone.”

“I see.” Chief Dorsey picked up a pen and held it poised over a legal pad. “So, you spoke with her often, then?”

“No, I—” I felt my cheeks flush. “We actually hadn’t talked since graduation.”

He looked up. “Since 2014? You hadn’t spoken to her in eight years?”

“Yes, but—”

“Well. Shit. At least if you’d said anything different, I would’ve known you were lying. Laurel Hargrove didn’t even own a landline.”

Didn’t own a—“What?”

“You said you had information?”

I sat up straighter, remembering how I’d been on alert just like this, in this same station, in front of this same man, years before. “I can tell you what kind of person Laurel was, who she used to spend time with, what…”