Today I was a Hockney painting, awash in still, blue boredom, the pool in the backyard calm as a glass of water. The house behind me—ours, I suppose—massive and angular in the California style so popular here in Dallas, dramatic staircases bending away from the back balcony at harsh angles, like the house was a person on two bent knees, begging to be loved. My husband, Cal, said something about it reminded him of me. He thought it would make me happy.
You look happy, I reminded myself. Especially from far away. I accentuated the point by smoothing sunshine-yellow polish over my toenails, chin resting on my knee like a child. I decided now was as good a time as any to indulge in my favorite entertainment these last six months.
Regrettably—but perhaps also predictably—I, like every other woman my age, had become addicted to true-crime podcasts. The attraction was obvious: a morbid fascination with our own mortality. But for me, there was also this: the host of Transgressions, my favorite podcast, was none other than Jamie Knight, my childhood friend. It had been years since I’d spoken to Jamie, and although I knew he’d become a journalist—there was never anything else for him—it had been such a surprise to see his name in the podcast description. Such an unexpected eruption of feeling when I pressed Play and heard his voice in my ears, warm and crackling. It had touched something in me deeper than nostalgia, and while I couldn’t quite name the feeling, I knew enough about it to keep my interest in Transgressions a secret from the other wives and from Cal.
I dabbed polish on my pinkie toe and pressed Play on the latest episode, newly arrived this morning. Jamie’s voice curled into my ears, the hills and valleys of his inflections as familiar as a map of home. “Welcome back to Transgressions, friends. I’m your host, Jamie Knight.” A memory of him flashed in my mind: seventeen and newly a man, scruff shadowing his jaw, grinning at me cheekily from the driver’s seat as he drove me home from school.
“This week’s murder—” Jamie’s voice caught, and immediately, I sat straighter. He cleared his throat. “Hits a little close to home. Actually, that’s why I’m telling you about it at all. Because technically, the cops haven’t decided whether to rule this death a homicide or suicide. I have my suspicions, and we’ll get to those, but let’s start with the facts. Two weeks ago, thirty-year-old Laurel Hargrove was found hanging from a tree on the edge of the De Young Performing Arts Center on the Whitney College campus. It was her alma mater.”
One minute, I was pressing the nail brush like a fan against my toe, spreading sunshine over the cuticle; the next, the bottle slipped from my hand into the pool, golden yellow snaking like spilled blood through the water.
Laurel Hargrove. Whitney College. It couldn’t be. Laurel Hargrove was my best friend from college. It had been eight years since I’d talked to her, but back then, we’d sworn to run as far as possible from Whitney, from Westchester, from the entire state of New York.
And I’d done it. I’d worked hard to shut the door on the past, to keep it locked, fast and tight. Don’t let it in, I warned myself, the instinct knee-jerk. All of my calm, blue boredom, my luxurious ennui, was replaced in an instant by visceral fear, my teeth sinking into my kneecap as if it were a leather bit to quell a scream.
“Laurel’s death has all the markings of a suicide,” Jamie said, his words coming faster now. “According to the police report—which I’m admittedly not supposed to have—she was hung by a rope, the kind anyone can buy at a hardware store. The furrow the rope created in her neck slanted vertical, breaking her hyoid bone and tearing her cartilage. Although some doctors have claimed injuries like Laurel’s can occur with strangulation—you’ll remember the media circus around Jeffrey Epstein’s death—most agree these types of injuries occur more often in suicidal hangings.”
I’d sworn to protect Laurel, years ago. How many things could you fail at in one lifetime? I felt as though I’d plunged into the pool after the nail polish, and now I was suspended underwater, pressure crushing me from every angle.
Jamie Knight, of all people, kept reciting the cold facts of Laurel’s death, each detail so clinical, so…familiar.