Face of Murder

Zoe noted all of this and continued to look, because for as long as she was making observations, she wasn’t getting out of the car. And the longer she could stay before getting out of the car, the longer it would be before small talk and socializing and the chaos of a household with a young child.

She sighed to herself and disengaged her seatbelt, knowing that she was being childish. She just didn’t much feel like talking and laughing with a stranger when all she could think about was Dr. Applewhite, spending the night in a cell.

Shelley was waiting for her on a neatly manicured path that cut through the grass of the front lawn, her back to her own house. Zoe joined her, doing up the middle button on her suit jacket, trying to mentally steel herself for what was about to come.

“Don’t look so worried,” Shelley said, elbowing her gently in the ribs as they paused at the front door. “I’m not married to a dragon, and we aren’t raising a werewolf. Just normal folks.”

Zoe wasn’t about to admit that normality was what she was afraid of, since it was so often completely alien to her. Nevertheless, she followed Shelley through the unlocked door, and entered a warm space that was instantly filled with the sounds of cooking emanating from the kitchen.

Zoe took a deep breath of the air, scenting herbs and vegetables against the rattling of pans and hum of an extractor fan above a steaming dish.

“I’m home,” Shelley shouted at the top of her voice, making Zoe flinch.

She turned to see her colleague taking off her shoes and putting them onto a rack of five other pairs, and reluctantly did the same. Other people’s customs at home—it was always strange to adapt to them. Zoe had two cats, and there seemed to be little point in sparing her carpets the touch of her shoes. They were already susceptible to loose fur, tracked mud, cat sick, and whatever small pieces of animal they had not quite finished eating after dragging them inside.

At least, when they could be bothered; Euler and Pythagoras were rather lazy in their middle age, seeming to prefer the tinned meats she brought them from the store.

“Mommy!”

A small whirlwind of pink rushed into the hall from another room and quickly collided with Shelley’s legs. The young girl—who, Zoe remembered, was named Amelia—was quick on her feet, despite the fact that she must have been only just comfortable with walking and running. She held her hands up in the air for balance, until she could grasp onto her mother’s calf for support.

“Hi, sweetie,” Shelley said, leaning down to lift her daughter into her arms. “This is Mommy’s friend, Zoe. Do you want to say hi?”

Amelia took one glance at Zoe and then hid, burying her head in her mother’s shoulder.

Zoe watched with a growing sense of horror. Of course, the child would sense that there was something wrong with her. Children were intuitive. At least, normal children were. They knew when there was something off about a person. They knew it without being able to explain why.

Maybe Zoe should just excuse herself, back out, and go home. Her own mother’s voice rang in her ears with that old familiar taunt: devilchild.

“Don’t be silly, you’re not shy,” Shelley chided with a laugh, bouncing Amelia up and down on her hip. “Come on. Say hello to Zoe.”

Amelia turned back with a grin, her blonde hair brushing over her shoulders. “Hello!” she exclaimed, the word not quite fully formed, but distinguishable.

Zoe hesitated. What should she do? The girl looked happy enough, smiling and giggling. “… Hello, Amelia,” she managed.

“Daddy’s making dinner,” Amelia announced proudly.

“It smells good,” Zoe conceded.

Amelia, seemingly happy with the way the conversation had gone, laughed merrily and wiggled her feet. Shelley took this as a cue to put her down, and Amelia ran down the corridor toward the lights and sounds of the kitchen.

“You remembered,” Shelley said, beaming.

For a second Zoe had no idea what she was talking about, until it dawned on her. “Of course. It is easy enough to remember your daughter’s name.”

“Not everyone does.” Shelley squeezed Zoe’s shoulder briefly, then followed her daughter down to the room that was mostly hidden past the doorway. Zoe could see that it extended to the right, but that was all. “Come on. Come meet Harry.”

Harry was a new name, but Zoe assumed that it must refer to Shelley’s husband—that was, of course, if they did not have a pet of any kind. Who else could it be?

She trailed behind Shelley, noting the presence of three framed photographs on the wall that each showed some variation of the family members in black and white, and into the kitchen. It opened up as she had predicted, some twenty feet along the whole of the back of the house, with an open-plan dining room on the other side. There were six chairs around the table, despite there being only three people in the family unit.

At the stovetop, there was a man standing with his back to them. He was six feet tall, and his back and shoulders were broad. He turned as they came in, brandishing a spatula that was coated in some kind of white sauce.

“Hey!” He grinned, as Shelley stepped forward to plant a kiss on his mouth. “You must be the famous Zoe.”

Zoe watched their causal affection with growing jealousy. They were so comfortable, as if they barely even noticed the value of what they had. Zoe had never been close enough to anyone for those casual daily kisses that were as habitual as locking the door or brushing your hair. All of the relationships she had managed were short, and went nowhere. She had never so much as lived with another person since getting her first flat as a teen.

“Hello,” she said, automatically, nodding a greeting. “It is nice to meet you.”

“You, too,” Harry said, turning back to his cooking while he talked over one shoulder. “I just love having guests over. I get to be a little more creative in the kitchen, you know?”

“You like to cook?” The green-eyed monster already stirring in Zoe’s chest took another leap toward life. Not only was Shelley married with such a pretty child, but she had a husband who didn’t mind taking on his share of work around the house?

“Well, with Shelley’s hours, she wasn’t always home to take care of it, so I learned. I have to say it’s become a bit of a passion of mine. Me and Amelia take some time on the weekends to bake together, don’t we, munchkin?”

Amelia giggled and joined her parents by the stove. “We made cookies,” she said.

“That’s right! We should have some after dinner. Z, you’ll love them. We still have chocolate chip and oatmeal left,” Shelley said, reaching to get down some half-full jars from a cupboard above the sink.

“That would be nice,” Zoe said distantly, already feeling herself disengage from the conversation. She knew that she wasn’t supposed to, but she was seeing that there were four cookies left in one jar but only three in the other, and that the cupboard contained seven other items before the door was closed, and that the joint on the door was slightly off by two degrees causing it to hang crooked, and everything was closing in on her.

Zoe didn’t have this. She didn’t have anything even close to this. She had one person in the world—just one. Not a parent, or a lover, or a child, but just one person that she could rely on and trust and always be comfortable with. Dr. Applewhite. And now she was in a cell at the FBI headquarters, waiting to go through further questioning in the morning rather than going home to her husband.

Dr. Applewhite’s husband! How he must have been feeling! He would be so worried—and that was Dr. Applewhite’s real family, wasn’t it? Don was a lovely man, but he wasn’t as close to Zoe as his wife was. He wouldn’t see this from her side. He would be angry with Zoe. He would blame her, even if Dr. Applewhite didn’t.

He would be right, too.

And here Zoe was, coming to the home of a colleague who was kind enough to show care for her at a difficult time—and what was she doing? Comparing herself, over and over, relentlessly. Studying Shelley’s family and her home, judging her. Finding herself wanting. The flame of jealousy over Shelley’s perfect life was twinned with one of shame, and it was all getting too much.

“I think it’s about ready,” Harry said. “I’ll start dishing up. Amelia, honey, can you get some bowls out for me? You want to help Daddy serve dinner?”

Zoe wasn’t supposed to be here. She didn’t belong. She was intruding on this perfect picture, staining it just by being there. She wasn’t the kind of good person that Shelley and Harry and Amelia were. She should have seen that from the beginning, should have stayed away.

She couldn’t stay now.

“I have to go.” She rushed out, turning abruptly and striding down the corridor.

There were fifteen steps to the door, and in the interim after her announcement there was a sudden silence in the kitchen. Then she heard the clattering of plates behind her, murmured yet hasty words from Shelley and Harry, and footsteps.

“Z, wait,” Shelley called out, coming rapidly closer as Zoe grabbed her boots and started to put them back on. “Please, stay for dinner. It’s cooked now. Just sit and eat, and you can go home right after.”

“I cannot stay,” Zoe told her, chancing a look up at her partner’s face. She regretted it immediately. By the way a change came over Shelley’s expression, Zoe gathered that she was showing too much of her inner turmoil on the outside.

Emotions were tricky. She wasn’t good at faking the ones she did not feel, like everyone else was. But other people were good at hiding them, too, and Zoe had never been great at that. It was only when she had her ice-solid mask on, the lack of any kind of expression, that she had ever been able to fool anyone. It seemed that her mask must have slipped.

“Just take a breath, Z. Please. I know you’re having a hard time right now, but that’s what I’m here for. We’re partners, right?”

Zoe, her boots now firmly in place, could not look at her. “Not here. Here you are a wife, a mother. I should not be here. I have to go.”