Page 34 of Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers

“Of course.” He’s about to add that Marshall was loyal to her and he’s sure he won’t find anything that would say otherwise, but then he stops himself. Because why bother lying? The only person Marshall was ever loyal to was himself. But still, Oliver hates that Julia now knows this about Marshall. Despite everything, despite his own feelings for her, he’d always hoped that Marshall would prove him wrong, that Marshall would treat her right.

“Thanks, Ollie.” There’s another pause, so long this time that Oliver half wonders if she’s hung up. But as he lowers the phone to check that the call is still ongoing, she says, “It was really nice seeing you the other day. After all this time.”

His heart swells and he finds it hard to draw breath. “It really was,” he replies with so much unspoken emotion. “And so good to see little Emma too. I hope—uh—I hope we see more of each other now.”

Oh god, that came out all wrong. That was so fucking creepy, oh my goddd.

Like he’s hitting on her now that her husband has passed. Argh! That was not at all his intention. He scrambles to save it. “I just meant—uh, I hope we don’t lose touch again?”

A small laugh, more sad than happy. “Yeah. D’you know, I never quite figured out why we stopped hanging out.”

The thought of Julia wondering why they stopped being friends is so acutely excruciating that Oliver can’t quite find the words to reply to her.

“See you around, Ollie,” she says, and hangs up before he can say anything.

Oliver stares at the phone for a long time, his thoughts and emotions warring in the cool darkness of the basement. When the phone rings again, it is apartment 3B, asking why they still don’t have any hot water.

•••

The next morning, Oliver finds himself standing in front of Marshall’s secret apartment, key in his hand, licking his dry lips with increasing nervousness. He has no clue whatsoever what he might find inside. Hard-core porn? Illegal firearms? Who the hell knows what Marshall wanted to hide from Julia? But certainly it would be something shady, because otherwise Marshall wouldn’t have had to hide it.

Well, whatever. It’s not Oliver’s job to keep Marshall out of trouble anymore. He stabs the key into the keyhole and turns it. The lock clicks open and Oliver turns the handle.

The stale smell of old cigarette smoke hits him full in the face. That’s right, Marshall was a smoker. Had been ever since he was a sophomore in high school. One time, Baba discovered Marshall’s pack of cigarettes and without missing a beat, Marshall blamed it on Oliver. The few startled, silent seconds that Oliver took to respond were all that was required for Baba to believe Marshall. He’d been so disgusted, his upper lip curling into a sneer as he looked at Oliver.

The apartment is your typical overpriced San Franciscan fare.Oliver looked it up last night and saw that the rent starts at twenty-five hundred for a studio, which this one is. That’s a lot of money to spend on a secret apartment that looks like it was primarily used as... storage? There’s a floor mattress, the sight of which triggers a whole-body shudder running through Oliver, because he can just about imagine what Marshall was using it for, but aside from that there are no other pieces of furniture, merely boxes stacked on top of one another. It doesn’t look at all like a place that anyone lived in.

Oliver goes to the far end of the studio and opens a window to let some of the stink of stale smoke out. He looks at the boxes, dreading to find out what’s inside them. Taking a deep breath, he reaches out for the nearest cardboard box and opens the top.

Huh.

O-kaaay.

Inside is not a stash of wrapped bricks of cocaine or stacks of counterfeit money or anything that he’d expected but a sculpture about four feet tall. It’s a model of a U-shaped spaceship, its surface carved with extremely elaborate minute detail. Oliver lifts it very, very carefully, because it’s obvious even to him, someone who knows nothing about sculptures, that this is a true work of art. The amount of detail that has gone into this spaceship is staggering; you can even see people inside the tiny carved windows. He places it on the floor before stepping back and staring at it, dumbfounded.

A piece of art, a beautiful one at that. Why does Marshall have it? Oliver feels like he shouldn’t be handling this delicate piece of art with bare hands, but he hadn’t thought of bringing gloves here, and he needs answers, so he lifts the piece gingerly and peers at the bottom of its base.

Sure enough, there are words carved into it.

F. Martinez.Failure to Launch.

Oliver sets the piece back down, his mind racing.Failure to Launchis obviously the title of the piece, and F. Martinez presumably the sculptor. Fleetingly, he wonders about the possibility of it being filled with drugs—maybe Marshall was smuggling drugs? But no, he dismisses the thought as soon as it surfaces. This is true artwork, not a front for some drug-running business.

He opens the next box. This one is filled with prints of beautiful photographs of waterfalls and forests, each one so vivid that Oliver can practically hear the rush of the rivers in the pictures. In the lower left-hand corner is a signature he can’t make out. By now, Oliver has no freaking clue what is happening, so he opens more boxes, and the more he finds, the less he understands.

Before long, the studio looks like a tiny art gallery, albeit one owned by the most eclectic collector. There are oil paintings, and jumbled yarn pieces strung together with bits of broken glass and feathers, and cartoon drawings, and more sculptures. Some of the pieces are lone ones; others come in a set. They’ve all been made by different artists.

Oliver is absorbed by the bizarre discovery, his mind racing ahead—or rather, backward, into the past, digging frantically to figure out just what the hell Marshall was up to, but still he can’t make any sense out of it.

“Oh, Marshall,” he says, his voice heavy with sorrow and regret. “What have you done?”

NINETEEN

JULIA

Cooking has never been one of Julia’s strong suits. Marshall confirmed that many times over, but over the course of their married life, she tried very hard to improve, first consulting cooking websites and blogs, then moving on to YouTube videos, and finally learning through TikTok. Unfortunately, despite all the hard work, Julia still never quite got the hang of it. At best, her food is passable, but it can never be accused of being anything that might cause cravings, unless the craving is for the meal to be over. Yet another thing marking her down as an incompetent housewife and human in general.

But one thing she does excel at is charcuterie boards. Well, she used to call them cheeseboards, up until the term “charcuterie board” took over the Internet. Her charcuterie boards absolutely slay. It’s too bad that Marshall never liked cheese or cured meats or any of her boards, even the dessert ones; otherwise it would have been charcuterie boards every day.

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