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Penny didn’t have the funds or energy to be tossed out on the street for the rest of the night, so she stifled a sigh and gave a shrug of her shoulders. Looking satisfied, the man introduced himself as Lucky and left his door open behind him as he made his way upstairs. A loud TV blasted from inside, and the smell of animals and old smoke was enough to make Penny gag.
She climbed behind him to the second-level apartment. He let her in, handed over a key while she traded him for the check she’d kept safely stashed in her bra. The last of her money. Her final crumbs of financial security.
Penny cleared her throat as she stepped into a bare room. “I thought the ad said that the apartment was furnished.”
The screen on the window was torn. Old wooden floorboards creaked even before she stepped on them, and the kitchen counter—a white, cracked lacquered surface—was stained with an unidentifiable substance. A bed frame sat in the corner, but there was no mattress. A dresser missing three of its drawers was pushed against one wall. It was painfully obvious the carpeting in the sad excuse for a living room hadn’t been vacuumed.
Penny turned to look for Lucky’s response, but he was already gone. A door on the first floor slammed shut, and the television cranked up a few notches. Someone yelled for a glass of water above her. Moans filtered through the open window, dreadfully loud as two voices—one male, one female—rose in an excitable crescendo toward an inevitable finish.
Penny’s very heart sagged. She sat on the floor of a studio apartment that was costing her over $1,300 a month. Penny didn’t swear (good Midwestern Catholic girl that she was), but this place was a piece of shit.
Her phone rang. She took it out, saw her mother’s number, and pushed back the tears threatening to fall.
“Mama?” Penny answered. “How are you?”
“I’ve been worried! You were supposed to call me the second you arrived. According to the bus schedule, you should’ve been there forty minutes ago.”
“I’m just getting to my apartment. Sorry to worry you.”
“So?” Her mother’s voice hinged on the brink of terror and excitement. “Tell me all about it. Can you see the Hollywood sign from your apartment? Did you meet anyone famous yet?”
“It’s amazing. Just magnificent.” Penny pulled herself to her feet, made her way to the window, and glanced out at her view of a dumpster where a woman was currently tugging her skirt down and pocketing money in her bra. A man climbed into a car and reversed down the alley.
Penny bit her lip and stifled a sob. Then she glanced at the Rolex sitting on her cracked countertop and took a deep, steadying breath as she reached for it. She clutched it in her fingers so hard her hand knotted in a fist.
“Just wait until you hear all about it, Mama,” she said, releasing her grip on the watch and draping it over her wrist, admiring the look of her dirty, dirty secret. “You won’t believe the people I’ve met.”
TRANSCRIPT
Prosecution: Mrs. Tate, how long have you worked in the publishing industry?
Eliza Tate: This is the only job I’ve ever had.
Prosecution: How many years? Ballpark is fine.
Eliza Tate: Over a decade.
Prosecution: I’m assuming you consider yourself a professional, then, after ten-plus years in the business. You’ve thrown launch parties, organized readings and signings, facilitated book club discussions.
Defense: Your Honor, is there a question here?
Prosecution: Mrs. Tate, have you ever facilitated a literary event before?
Eliza Tate: Of course. Plenty of them.
Prosecution: And in your extensive experience, have you ever had a book club discussion turn to a plot for murder?
Eliza Tate: No.
Prosecution: Are you telling me, Mrs. Tate, that you didn’t discuss the subject of murder on the afternoon of February 13, 2019, with Anne Wilkes, Penny Sands, and Marguerite Hill?
Eliza Tate: I don’t remember everything we talked about. We had a lot of wine. We discussed a lot of things. Do you remember everything you talked about on February 13?
Prosecution: I don’t. But I would certainly remember if I’d made plans to murder a man.
THREE
Nine Months Before
