bearing down on me, shouting the names of a million women who fought bravely to the death. Misha would be in that army. I would be in that army despite the calculated stupidity of my most recent words. I had said them because I needed to know whether Muffin Crandall would be in that army.
Her sallow cheeks bloomed a dull cranberry color as she cocked her head and bellowed, “You fucking idiot! Get out of here!”
Muffin’s outburst caused the guard to stand and scowl near her desk, but I had won.
Women tend to fall into three categories when exposed to demeaning remarks about women: those who start throwing the furniture around, those whose upper incisors draw blood as they bite their lower lips but say nothing, and those who seem not to have heard. Muffin Crandall’s response was diminished only by the fact that all available furniture was bolted to the floor. And I had learned more about her than she wanted me to know.
“If you’d actually killed that man, you’d never admit it,” I said as she stood to leave. “If you’d really killed him there would have been a good reason. You would have covered your tracks. You would not have stashed the body in a public freezer for five years. It’s too stupid, and you’re not stupid. Your story doesn’t work.”
I stood when she did so I could measure her against myself for height. I’m five six, and she was at least an inch and a half taller. Big-boned, although her hands weren’t as overlarge as her brother’s. She had a competent, self-assured posture even in prison denims. I concluded that Muffin probably could have killed a stranger in her garage five years ago, but that she probably didn’t. Or if she did, the story she now told to account for her actions was not the truth. Not even remotely.
Slowly she sat down again and picked up her phone. I copied each move, my gaze locked on those dark blue retinas.
“Kid,” she pronounced, “why don’t you just go back to predicting the number of cow pies in Arkansas after a lunar eclipse? Stop wasting my brother’s money. You don’t know what you’re doing, and that makes you an epic pain in the ass, capisce?”
“Capisce,” I agreed. At thirty-five it’s nice being called “kid.” “And you’re right,” I went on. “I don’t know what I’m doing and only accepted Dan’s offer because I’ve recently decided to make lots of money. God only knows why. There’s nothing I want to buy. Nevertheless, I know enough to have concluded that your story about the body in the Roadrunner freezer isn’t true. I have no idea what to do next.”
“Jesus,” Muffin Crandall said. It was not a prayer.
“Probably I’ll prepare a report. On legal-sized paper, no staples.”
“That will be nice,” she murmured sweetly. “Then you can give it to your psychiatrist, who will know what to do.”
The guard had looked at her watch and was moving toward Muffin.
“You’ve given me an idea,” I said. “Very helpful.”
“That was not my intent,” Muffin Crandall mentioned over a sagging shoulder as she was led away.
The door to the reception area was opened by the same chipper guard-in-training who’d locked me in. She continued to strike me as a debutante who’d accidentally wandered into a Marine boot camp, again tucking her tan shirt into those ugly uniform pants. The tucking created a sense of déjà vu that made me question whether I’d actually talked to Muffin yet at all. The presence of another woman in the visiting area lobby confirmed the passage of time. I was sure she hadn’t been there when I arrived. And I would have noticed.
I would have noticed because of the basket. She was an older woman with white curls framing a carefully made-up face. She wore a pastel blue shirtwaist dress accented by a flowered scarf used as a belt. And she carried a large basket lined with blue and white checked napkins. There was a blue ribbon on the basket’s handle. Nestled within the napkins was a mound of cookies. They filled the prison lobby with a mouthwatering scent that immediately derailed my train of thought, whatever it had been. All that remained were two words—“chocolate chip.” My trains of thought are easily derailed by any olfactory experience of chocolate chip cookies.
“Mrs. Tewalt,” the guard said politely, “we’ve explained to you and your friends several times that you may not bring gifts to a prisoner. We cannot take these cookies to Mrs. Crandall as we could not take her the sandwiches, cake, and jug of lemonade you brought two days ago. You can bring her white socks and underwear, shoes that cost less than fifty dollars, and personal toiletries from the approved list. Would you like another copy of that list?”
“Oh, no, dear,” the woman said. “But why don’t I just leave these cookies for you and the other ladies who’re looking after our Muffin. I assure you they’re freshly baked and not one of them has a file in it!”
“This sort of work must be very hard for you,” she said to the guard as an afterthought, a sympathetic frown wrinkling her peaches-and-cream brow.
The debutante guard caved in. Anyone would.
“Here, have a cookie,” she said to me after accepting a basket any American over twenty could immediately recognize as Red Riding Hood’s.
“Um, I’ll just take an extra one for my dog,” I agreed. “She’s out in my car.”
“In the parking lot,” I added as if there were some chance I’d left my car in a tree. Militaristic uniforms, even on toll booth operators and debutantes, cause me to attempt truly concise levels of explanation. I don’t know why.
The woman named Tewalt gasped. “In your car! Oh dear, it’s so hot out there. You know, leaving an animal in a closed car can be—”
“It’s actually a truck with a camper shell,” I explained, heading for the door with the Tewalt woman in fluttering pursuit. “And it isn’t closed. The back is open, it’s parked in shade, Brontë has water and a battery-powered fan covered in mesh screening so she can’t stick her nose in it, and did I hear you say you brought these cookies for Muffin Crandall? I just saw her.”
“Well, for heaven’s sake!” Mrs. Tewalt said. “Are you with the police?”
“I’m a social psychologist. Mrs. Crandall’s brother, Dan, has asked for my help.”
As we reached the door the blonde guard called, “Please, Mrs. Tewalt, don’t bother coming again except during official visiting hours, and please no more food.”
“Of course, dear.” The reply was not sincere.
“I’m Helen Tewalt, an old friend of Muffin’s,” she told me in the parking lot, averting her eyes to the ground for her second remark. “This has been terribly upsetting for her friends, you know. We’re all afraid it could happen to us.”
“You’re all afraid you’ll kill somebody and then store the body in a freezer?” I blurted.
“The, well . . . mental situation is what I meant,” she said softly. “Muffin just fell apart after Deck died. That was her husband, you know. She never got over it, started doing such odd things. Now we’re afraid it’s Alzheimer’s or something like that. If only we’d seen the signs long ago.”
Her sigh joined the warm breeze blowing eucalyptus leaves across the paved parking lot. I could see Brontë’s sleek head eagerly tracking my progress toward
