Wilde Lake(75)

“Fred, what the hell are you talking about?”

He smiles. There’s a sense of payback here, as if he needs to tear her down because she didn’t win fair. Gee, Fred, sorry your client attacked me and committed suicide. I’m sorry, too, I didn’t get my day in court. Because I would have destroyed you.

“See you, Lu. Who knows when our paths will cross again?”

She stews all the way back to Columbia, mired in rush-hour traffic, an unpleasant novelty for her, given how early and late her days run. What the hell was Fred talking about? Right, left, who cares? She goes back to the office, cursing the Drysdales for the three hours her kindness has cost her, resigned to working late. No good deed, etc. etc.



Dusk has fallen by the time Lu thinks to glance out the window. She sees her reflection in the glass. The glass makes her think of sliding doors, a woman walking into her bedroom, discovering a strange man.

Then she thinks of the man, standing outside the apartment in the dark, choosing his point of entry.

He didn’t know right from left. He didn’t know right from left.

If Rudy had gone to the other apartment, his victim would have been Jonnie Forke, the state’s witness, the woman who saw him lurking around the complex the week before Mary McNally was killed.

Okay, so what? What difference did it make if Drysdale killed the woman behind door number 1 or the woman behind door number 2? If Jonnie Forke had any connection to Rudy Drysdale, she would have mentioned it to Mike Hunt or Andi. They would have told her over and over again to be candid, to reveal anything that might come up in court. If she knew him, recognized him from somewhere, it only would have strengthened the ID.

Lu Googles “Jonnie Forke”—nothing. Literally, nothing, which is bizarrely impressive. She plugs “Jonnie Forke” in Facebook, finds an entry for Juanita Forke. Graduated Centennial High School. No overlap with Drysdale there. Relationship status, single. She has only seventy-four friends, so she’s one of those people who actually uses Facebook for friends, yet doesn’t think to opt for the highest-security settings. To be fair, the site changes its privacy policy so often, some well-intentioned people don’t realize their fences are down. Lu can even look at all of Jonnie Forke’s friends.

Nine of whom have the surname Flood.

Jonnie Forke.

Juanita Forke.

Jonnie Flood Forke.

Juanita Flood Forke.

Had she given her full name at the grand jury proceeding, the syllables sliding past Lu’s ear because she was so full of adrenaline she couldn’t be bothered to note that a witness’s legal name was different from the one she used? But “Juanita” didn’t mean anything to Lu, and there was no reason for Jonnie Forke to use her maiden name.

Juanita Flood Forke.

Juanita Flood.

Nita Flood.





APRIL 8


The apartment doors at the Grove—still THE G OVE on the sign, perhaps forever THE G OVE now—have fisheyes. Did they always, or were they an add-on, a concession to the modern age and the changing nature of the people who lived here? Not that a fisheye would have saved anyone from Rudy Drysdale, no matter which door he chose. Lu stands in front of Jonnie Forke’s door for one, two, three minutes, waiting to be examined and deemed worthy of entrance. She definitely heard footsteps in the apartment after she knocked. Didn’t she? She takes a few steps backward, just in case the person on the other side of the door can’t see her. Can’t blame the woman for being extra careful. After all, a tenant was killed here not that long ago.

Killed by someone who might have been looking for the woman across the hall.

Go figure, Fred finally went the extra mile. But he didn’t share the information about Drysdale’s dyslexia with the state’s attorney’s office because there was no gain for him to advance the theory that Rudy Drysdale meant to kill Jonnie Forke. That’s ethical. Fred is not obligated to help the prosecution do its job. And it’s possible that Fred knows only that the intended victim was one of the prosecution’s key witnesses. He may not have figured out that she has a complicated history with the Brant family.

“Hi” is all Jonnie—Nita—says when she finally opens the door. Of course Lu has seen her several times since Mary McNally’s body was discovered, but only now is she seeing Nita Flood, the teenage girl she glimpsed perhaps two or three times. If anyone knows sausage, it’s Nita Flood. That was Lynne, throwing shade long before the term existed. Lu never cared for Lynne. She remembers Ariel, flushing bright red, embarrassed by her friends. The others had laughed. Had Davey laughed? Lu has never thought to connect that scrap of memory to what happened later that fall and then on graduation night. Or the time she and Randy—what was his last name?—saw Davey on the path near where Randy lived, but also where the Floods lived. I see him around all the time, Randy said. Suddenly, a bright line is shining in her mind, connecting so many isolated events. What else will be connected before she’s through?

“You don’t seem surprised to see me,” Lu says.

“I’m more surprised how long it took you to figure it out. Everyone’s always saying how smart you are.”

Lu doesn’t recall any time the newspapers have given her credit for being extraordinarily intelligent, but who knows what Jonnie Forke reads between the lines.

She follows her into the apartment, noting Jonnie Forke’s skin, which has the orangey glow of a year-round tanner. Self-tanner or tanning salons, Lu thinks, then wonders why her mind is stuck on such a trivial track.