in, she heard the hush. Someone was making a speech. She stood behind a knot of middle-aged Latinas, all nodding as they listened. Before them, next to a mantelpiece covered in family photographs, was a man she guessed was her own age. Dark and in a suit that seemed too small for him, he was speaking with great intensity.
‘And her faith was important to her. My aunts will tell you, Rosario was the one who actually wanted to go to church.’ The women in front of Maddy turned to smile at one another at that. ‘I hope that faith is a comfort to her now. Because I’ll be honest with you, and I didn’t want to say this there, at the cemetery. But I’m finding it hard to believe right now.’ His voice choked, a show of weakness that made him shake his head. An older man placed his hand on his shoulder.
Maddy had seen plenty of moments like this: a father comforting the brother of the deceased, the extended family wiping away their own tears. It was familiar to her, yet it struck her with new force. Soon she would not be watching this scene, from the back. She would be there, at the front: she, Quincy and her mother, the mourners. Quincy would doubtless demand one of them do what this man was doing right now: deliver a eulogy at the wake, offering a few words about the life of Abigail. She realized her eyes were stinging, but the tears did not come.
He stopped speaking now, held in a long, silent embrace by his father. The mother was hugging the aunts who were hugging her back. The rest were shuffling on the spot, uncertain where to put themselves, waiting for a moment to speak to the family.
Maddy held back, examining more of the photographs on the walls, trying to work out how each of those she could see here related to each other. Eventually she found herself next to the brother. She extended a hand.
He took it, showing her a puzzled brow. ‘Are you one of Rosario’s friends?’
‘No, I’m not. Though I wish I was. She sounds like a great person.’
‘She was.’
‘I’m here because I lost my sister too.’
‘OK. Um, I’m sorry.’
‘It just happened actually. In quite similar circumstances to Rosar—’ She stopped herself. ‘To your sister. Is there somewhere we can talk?’
He led her first into the kitchen, but that was packed even more tightly than the living room. The hallways were jammed too. Finally, he ushered her out back, into a tiny concrete yard. There was no option but to stand close together, their faces near. He introduced himself as Mario Padilla. She said her name was Madison Webb.
‘Hold on a second, I know that name.’ He checked his phone, scrolling down, as if looking for something.
‘Is there something wrong?’
‘Here we are. I knew I’d seen that name. You’re a reporter, right?’
Her answer sounded like an admission of guilt. ‘Right.’
‘You wrote that thing about the sweatshops. I saw that. That was good. Those guys need to be exposed.’
‘Thank you.’
‘But I’m confused. According to this,’ he held up the phone, ‘your sister died last night.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’re here? At my house? Shouldn’t you be with your family or something?’ Seeing Maddy’s face fall, he rowed back. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to judge you. But this is hard. You need to give yourself time.’
She wanted to say that there was no time, that the golden hour had already passed, that that had been his mistake: he had waited till it was too late and now he was hurtling down the dead-end of a lawsuit against the coroner. She even felt an unfamiliar urge to tell him that there was no family to speak of, just Quincy and a mother who … But she would say none of these things. Instead all she managed was, ‘I know I do. But I also want to know what happened.’
‘And you think talking to me might help?’
‘It might. I know you think the coroner got it wrong, that your sister did not kill … did not die by accident.’
‘There’s no way. A heroin overdose? Rosie? That’s just crazy.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Because Rosie lived in this house, same as me. I saw her come home every evening and leave for work in the morning.’
‘What work did she do?’
‘Catering company. In accounts. Good job, but didn’t pay so great. I told that to the police. Smack costs. It’s expensive. If they think she was some kind of addict, how do they think she was paying for it?’
‘What did they say?’
‘They didn’t give me a straight answer, because there is no straight answer except “We got it wrong, she wasn’t on drugs.” Tried to tell me addicts get very good at deceiving people, even their loved ones.’
‘Especially their loved ones.’
‘That’s right! That’s exactly what they said! They say that to you too?’
‘Not this time. But I’ve heard it often.’ When he gave her a quizzical look she explained as concisely as she could, as if it were a mere aside, that she used to cover crime. Then, ‘And you don’t buy it?’
‘Course I don’t. We know our own family, I bet you’re the same as me. You can’t keep nothing secret in a family.’
There was so much Maddy could say to that, but she wouldn’t have known where to start. Instead she said, ‘Was there anything else that didn’t fit? In your lawsuit against the coroner, what’s the case you’re going to make?’
‘We’ve got letters from doctors and all that, saying she was healthy. She’d had an exam like a month before: no sign of any of that shit. So we’re going to say that. But the main thing is the arm.’
‘The arm?’
‘Rosario was found with a needle hole in her right arm.’ He tapped the crook of his right elbow to show where. ‘Now, I’ve never injected myself with anything. But I’m guessing this is how you do it, right?’ He mimed the action of pushing the plunger of a syringe into his arm.
‘Right,’ Maddy said, with a glimmer of what was coming next.
‘I’m using my left hand. That’s the only way I can do it. I can’t be doing this,’ and now he mimed administering an injection into his right arm with his right hand, his wrist forced into an impossible contortion. ‘If the hole is in the right arm, then it has to be done with the left hand. Ain’t no other way.’
‘OK.’
‘But why would you do that? It’s much easier for me to inject into my left arm.’ He mimed that, to show her how much easier. ‘That’s what anybody would do.’
‘Unless they were left-handed.’
‘Exactly. Unless they were left-handed. Which Rosario was not. Same as me, same as everyone except my dad. We’re all right-handed.’
‘And you said this to the police?’
‘Course. But they gave me the same bullshit. “Addicts will inject wherever they can inject.”’
Maddy nodded, taking in what she had heard. ‘So a healthy woman, with no history of drug use, is found dead with a single needle mark in her right arm and a massive dose of heroin in her system.’
‘That’s it.’ He looked back into the house, at the crowd filling the corridor. ‘Same with you?’
‘Same with me. Although, as it happens, my sister was left-handed. So theoretically …’
‘And is that what the police are saying to you? They saying she did that to herself?’
‘Not quite.