4

"He's not in Spain!"

I shout. "He's under your goddamn hydrangeas! I dug up his bones!"

"You dug up Princess, our old cocker spaniel,"

Doris says. "Bob buried her there years ago."

Doris turns to the officer, all doe eyed, her false eyelashes fluttering. "She's not quite right in the mental department," she says.

"She mentioned a husband,"

the sergeant replies.

"Harold,"

I say, insinuating myself back into the conversation. "My husband's name is Harold."

"Should we call him?"

the sergeant asks.

"Marge,"

says Doris before I can answer. "You know perfectly well that Harold is in an urn. He died two years ago, and you're still not over it."

She turns to the sergeant. "Every time I bring up the idea of a proper burial for her husband instead of leaving his ashes on his easy chair in the living room, she has a hissy fit and changes the subject."

It's the only true thing she's said so far, but I suddenly see how things look to the sergeant, who's eyeing me with a mix of pity and disdain. What does he know about loneliness and loss? He has no idea what it feels like to lose almost everyone around you, including the person you love most in this world. Is it so wrong to want to keep them close for a while longer?

"Old age,"

Doris whispers to him. "Soft in the head."

"I can hear you,"

I say, "and I'm perfectly sound of mind."

"Let's have a chat outside,"

the sergeant suggests to Doris. "Marge, you wait right here. We'll be back soon,"

he adds loudly, as if I'm deaf.

When the two of them return a few minutes later, it's the sergeant who speaks first. "Your neighbor, Doris, is a very forgiving lady. She's decided not to press charges despite what you did to her house. In the absence of other living family members, I'm releasing you into her care. She'll take you to a doctor to have you assessed. We both believe you may be experiencing dementia. Do you understand? You need to get looked after."

"Dementia?"

I say. "I don't have dementia! What I have is a murderous neighbor who killed her husband because he lacked a passion for flamenco. And now she'll want me dead too!"

"There, there,"

says Doris. "I'm only trying to help."

Before I can say anything else, the sergeant has me standing, holding me by the arm, escorting me through the precinct and out the front door, with Doris trailing behind, flirting with every male officer we pass.

The sergeant leads me all the way to Doris's candy-apple-red sedan in the parking lot. Doris chirps the locks open, and the sergeant urges me to sit in Doris's passenger seat. With no other choice, I do so, my legs nearly giving out from under me.

"Easy now,"

the sergeant says as he reaches around to put on my seat belt.

"I can do that myself,"

I say, grabbing the buckle and jamming it into the slot.

"Good!"

says the sergeant, like he's praising a toddler.

Doris lingers, leaning on the open car door, preening for the sergeant. "Thank you very much, Officer. You've been so kind and understanding to poor old Marge. You and your boys should do a calendar to raise funds for the precinct. I'd buy one. You're all so darn handsome."

The sergeant chuckles and eyes his boots. "Thank you, ma'am. You're lucky your neighbor is such a Good Samaritan, Marge,"

he says to me.

I refuse to dignify this with a response.

"I'll take good care of her,"

Doris says. Then she closes my door and click-clacks her way to the driver's side, hops in, and revs her engine.

She waves goodbye to the sergeant, then drives out of the parking lot. We're silent for the entire ten minutes it takes to get to our street, where she lurches the car into a sudden park in my driveway.

"Aren't you getting out?" she asks.

"Doris,"

I hiss, "you killed your husband. We both know it. You weakened him at home, poisoning him slowly through exposure to peanuts. The only part I got wrong is where you killed him, but I know now. You killed him in Spain. Admit it."

Doris sighs, then taps her perfectly manicured fingernails on the steering wheel. "I told you before, Marge. If you don't live life to the fullest, you deserve to die."

She smiles then, a smile so sinister it chills me to my core.

"People will figure out the truth eventually,"

I say. "Because Bob isn't ever coming back."

Doris shrugs. "True,"

she says. "He's not returning, but who's going to care? He's just another old white guy shacking up with a younger woman abroad. Something I've learned through the years is that a few compliments, greased palms, and pretty tears shed at the right moment is all it takes to get away with anything, even murder."

"No one will believe you!" I shout.

"They will, Marge. Come on,"

she says, "let's get you inside."

Spry and appearing well rested despite a long flight home, she hops out of the car while I struggle, my legs jiggling from exhaustion. She offers an arm to help me up my porch steps, but I push it away.

"Need help, Doris?"

I hear behind me.

It's the mailman—mail "carrier"—looking on from the sidewalk.

"Aren't you just the sweetest young man,"

Doris drawls. "Not to worry, honey. I've got this. Marge here had a rough spell this morning, but I'll fix her up good!"

The mailman nods and saunters away.

How dare she. And how dare he. I've waved at him every day, for months and years, and he's never so much as acknowledged my existence, yet he knows Doris by name?

I make it to my front door unassisted. "Goodbye, Doris," I say.

"Oh, this is not goodbye. Not quite yet,"

she replies. "Funny—years and years of being watched and judged by your neighbors, and then one day, you realize you just can't take it anymore. Shame about poor Harold, falling off a ladder the way he did, smacking his head on your garage floor. Pity, too—you finding him there, bled out and dead. A terrible accident."

She turns then, click-clacking her kitten heels down my stairs and marching across the street to her home.

I watch her, a cold dread spreading in my stomach.

I go inside and lock the door behind me. I collapse into my easy chair by the window.

I look over at the urn on the easy chair. "Harold,"

I say. "I owe you an apology. I really thought it was an accident. I'm so sorry. I didn't know she did you in."

The silver urn glints and shines, reflecting my exhausted face back at me.

"Well,"

I say, "I guess this means I'm next."