The Other Mrs.(57)

Even more, the stool was out of reach of Alice’s body. Which makes me think someone else yanked it from beneath her feet.

In which case, was it even a suicide? Or was it murder?

I turn white. A hand goes to my mouth. “What’s wrong?” Will asks. “Everything all right?” I shake my head, tell him no, I don’t think so.

“I just realized something,” I say, and he asks with urgency, “What?”

“The picture of Alice. On Imogen’s phone,” I say.

“What about it?” he asks.

“The police hadn’t come yet when Imogen took the picture. It was only Imogen,” I say, wondering how much time lapsed in between her arriving home and calling the police. Was it enough time for Imogen to stage a suicide? Imogen is tall, but she’s not heavily built. I can’t imagine she’d have had the strength to haul Alice to the third floor—even if Alice was drugged and unconscious, unable to fight back—to hoist her up and into the noose. Not alone. Someone would have had to help her. I consider the friends she smokes with while waiting for the ferry to arrive. Clad in all black, rebellious and oppositional, full of self-loathing. Would they have helped?

“In the picture, Will, the step stool we found in the attic. The one Alice would have had to use to do what she did. Everything else was knocked over. But the stool remained upright. And it was too far away for Alice to reach. If she’d been alone, the stool would have been knocked over, and it would have been much closer to her feet.”

He shakes his head. “What are you getting at?” he asks, and I see a change come over him. His posture shifts. Ruts form between his eyes. He frowns at me. He knows what I’m suggesting.

“How can we know for certain,” I ask, “that it was a s-u-i-c-i-d-e? There was no investigation. But there was also no note. Don’t people who k-i-l-l themselves usually leave a note? Officer Berg said it himself, remember? He told us he never pegged Alice for the type.”

“How would Berg know,” Will asks angrily, “if Alice was the suicide type?” It isn’t like Will to get angry. But this is his sister we’re talking about. His niece. His flesh and blood.

“I don’t trust Imogen,” I admit. “She scares me,” I say again.

“Listen to yourself, Sadie,” Will says. “First you accuse Imogen of taking our knife. Now you’re saying she killed Alice.” Will is too worked up to spell the words out, though he mouths them for Tate’s benefit. “You’re all over the place. I know she hasn’t exactly been welcoming, but she’s done nothing to lead me to believe she’s capable of murder,” he says, seemingly having already forgotten about the writing on my car window just the other day. Die.

“Are you really suggesting that this was a murder made to look like a suicide?” he asks, disbelieving.

Before I can reply, Tate again begs, “Please, Mommy, play with me.” My eyes drop to his, and they look so sad, my heart aches.

“All right, Tate,” I tell him, feeling guilty that Will and I are going on like this, ignoring him. “What do you want to play?” I ask him, voice softening though my insides are still in a tizzy. “Do you want to play charades, or a board game?”

He tugs hard on my hand and is chanting, “Statue game, statue game!”

The wrenching on my hand has begun to hurt. It’s wearing on my nerves, because not only is he pulling on my hand, hurting me, but he’s trying to turn my body, to make it go ways it doesn’t want to go. It’s subliminal, the way I yank my hand suddenly away, holding it above my head, out of reach of his. I don’t mean to do it. But there’s an immediacy to it. So much so that Tate flinches like he’s been slapped.

“Please, Mommy,” Tate begs, eyes suddenly sad as he stands before me and leaps for my hand. I try to be patient, I really do, but my mind is whirling in a dozen different directions and I don’t know what Tate means by this statue game. He’s begun to cry. Not a real cry but crocodile tears, which wear on me even more.

That’s when I catch sight of the doll I kicked aside over an hour ago. Her limp body is pressed against the wall. “Put your toys away and then we’ll play,” I tell him, and he asks, “What toys?”

“Your doll, Tate,” I say, losing patience. “Right there,” I tell him, motioning to the floppy doll with her frizzy hair and marble-like eyes. She lies on her side, dress torn along a seam, one shoe missing.

Tate’s look is leery. “It’s not mine,” he says, as if this is something I should know. But of course it’s his—it’s not like any of the rest of us still play with toys—and my first thought is that Tate is embarrassed for having been caught playing with a doll.

“Put it away,” I say, and Tate comes back with a quintessential childish reply.

“You put your doll away,” he says, hands on hips, tongue thrust out at me. It startles me. It’s not like Tate to act this way. Tate is my good boy, the kind and obedient one. I wonder what’s gotten into him.

But before I can answer, Will does so for me. “Tate,” he says, voice stern. “Do as your mother says and put your toy away. Right now,” he says, “or your mother won’t play with you.”

Having no choice, Tate picks the doll up by a single leg and carries her upside down to his bedroom. Through the floors, I hear the thump of her plastic head hitting the hardwood.