Page 46 of The New Couple in 5B

My hands are still shaking. My fingers feel like icicles in his warm grip. “I did.”

“What brings you up here today?”

I wonder if I should call Olivia. She’s famous for saying that no one ever thinks they need a lawyer, but everybody does. A woman is dead; I found her. She had a grievance against us, was threatening to sue. There are pictures of my husband all over her gallery. I glance at Max, who shrugs.

“Dana called me,” I say. “Asked to meet.”

“She’s your—?”

“My husband’s cousin.”

“Just a family visit, or—?”

That must be his technique, to let his sentences trail, asking you to fill in the blanks. I am about to tell the truth. That we inherited an apartment that rightfully should have been hers. That she was angry, apparently stalking my husband, had things she wanted to share about him. But I realize how odd, how suspicious, that sounds given the circumstances.

“She wanted me to see her work,” I say instead. “We’ve only recently gotten to know each other since the recent passing of her father.”

Not a lie, right? Obviously, she wanted me to see her work, or she wouldn’t have asked me up here. Those pictures in her darkroom; is that what she wanted me to see? Are there more? Things she didn’t display but wanted to reveal. Are they on her computer, or hidden in a drawer somewhere? What will the police find when they start looking?

The detective offers a slow nod. Max shifts behind me, gives me a little poke.

“Was she troubled?” asks the detective. He hands me a pack of tissues from his pocket, and I take one. I must be a wreck. “Was there a history of depression?”

“She was estranged from her father when he passed. So like I say, we weren’t close. I don’t know much about her history.”

“But you were close to her father?”

“My husband’s uncle—yes. He was our closest relative. We cared for him through his illness and death.”

More tears fall. There’s a bottomless well, it seems. I use the tissue he provided, to wipe at them, annoyed that I can’t keep a grip on my emotions.

He waits a moment. Then, “I’m sorry this happened to you today.”

I don’t know how to respond to that; it’s so kind, so compassionate. I push back into Max for support.

“Can you just run down the details for me?” he asks when I nod my thanks.

I tell him about the call—sort of. How we made the appointment, and she sent me the address. How we took a cab up here, walked through the gallery, found her body. He listens, nodding, scribbling in a leather notebook he produced when I started talking.

“Who is next of kin?” he asks.

I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know. I’ve tried to call my husband, but I can’t reach him.”

He gives me a quizzical look, as if everyone is reachable every second and it’s weird that my husband is not. “He’s in a play,” I add, a little defensive even to my own ears. “He doesn’t bring his phone into rehearsals and performances.”

“An actor,” he says with mild interest. “His name?”

“Chad Lowan.”

He writes that down and I have the irrational feeling that I shouldn’t have told him my husband’s name. Which makes no sense, because there’s nothing to hide, and even if there was, this detective is going to know all our names at some point. I am a true-crime writer so I know a thing or two about procedure, and the police will treat this place as a crime scene; the death will be investigated. There will be questions, at least some looking around for motive and opportunity for something other than suicide.

“I saw her phone on the desk in her office,” I offer. “It was ringing.”

We walk down the hall in that direction. The far door leading to where I found Dana is already cordoned off with crime scene tape. High enough for people to walk under, a reminder that they are entering a crime scene and to take the appropriate care.

In Dana’s office, Detective Crowe pulls some gloves from his pocket before picking up the phone. He taps the screen and looks at it a moment. I see something on his face that I don’t like—a kind of suspicious squint. He turns the phone around to me.

The lock screen is filled with call bubbles.

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