Garcia: So Winding Creek—the actual creek and the surrounding greenbelt—is on private property.
Sifowicz: Yes, owned collectively by the home owners in the neighborhood. I’m on the HOA board. Four hundred houses. Average sale price now is eight hundred thousand. That’s twice what some people bought theirs for fifteen years ago. This is a good place to be.
Garcia: How did you feel the Pollitts were viewed here in the neighborhood?
Sifowicz: Pretty well. They were popular. Iris is kind of a force of nature. Everyone knows her.
Garcia: What was your first thought when you saw Julia Pollitt and Ned Frimpong in the park?
Sifowicz: I was jogging with a coworker who also lives here, Steve Butler. I’m VP of sales at a software company and Steve is our VP of product development. It’s easier to stick to the training regimen when you have a partner. Steve suggested a run that morning. We were approaching the park when I heard Julia Pollitt screaming. Steve heard it, too. We looked at each other and ran straight for the park. I thought she was being assaulted. We entered the park and saw them by the bench and saw the body. Ned Frimpong was trying, I think, to resuscitate or embrace his mother, and Julia Pollitt was trying to pull him away from the body. She had her phone out.
Garcia: She texted her mother instead of calling 911, yes?
Sifowicz: Yes. I think that might be normal for a panicking teenager. I took care of calling 911 and told her I was.
Garcia: Did you know Danielle Roberts?
Sifowicz: Well enough to say hello. My wife knew her better. All the school moms, well, they seem to know each other. If they volunteer a lot.
Garcia: How so?
Sifowicz: The moms, and yeah, some of the dads, well, they run the programs. They raise the funds for all the extra things that make our schools special because the state takes a ton of Lakehaven’s property taxes to build and support schools in less fortunate areas. I’m OK with that, by the way. But it is a huge amount of money shifted from Lakehaven schools—last year it was over one hundred million dollars—and parents here have very high expectations. Stratospheric, even.
Garcia: What with having bought their homes here strictly for the school district.
Sifowicz: Absolutely! They make sure the teachers have any extra thing they need. Iris is kind of that supermom volunteer who is on every committee. My wife is an insurance agent. She doesn’t have time to volunteer the way Iris does, but I think she was amazed at Iris’s energy. But that’s Iris. Or was.
Garcia: You were there when Iris Pollitt arrived.
Sifowicz: Yes, and of course, I didn’t know the truth. None of us did.
Garcia: The truth?
Sifowicz: Well, yes, all that’s come out since. So much deception, so many lies. It’s shocking. This is a nice neighborhood.
5
Kyle
“Dad?”
Kyle Pollitt awakens with a bolt. Sweat on his ribs, feeling fevered. He blinks away the awful image from his dream—blood droplets on an expanse of white—and sees his son, Grant, standing over him, pale. For a second Kyle thinks he’s still in the dream and has said something in his sleep. Something terrible that Grant would never understand. Kyle blinks again and realizes he’s awake.
It was only a dream.
“Dad?” Grant repeats.
“Yes. Hey, buddy. Good morning.” Kyle blinks, wipes a hand across his face.
“Something bad is happening. Julia went somewhere with Ned and then Mom ran out of here and told me to stay here and there’s tons of police sirens in the neighborhood.”
“OK. OK.” Kyle gets out of bed, wearing only his boxers, and pulls on exercise pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt with Lakehaven Track printed across the front—Julia runs cross-country. He picks up his phone and texts Iris: YOU OK?
No answer.
They look at each other, hearing another set of sirens approaching in the distance.
“You stay here,” Kyle says.
“Why?”
“Because I said so.” Kyle steps into sandals, the closest shoes at hand, although it’s cold outside, and searches for his car keys.
Grant watches him gather his stuff. He sees his father’s hands tremble, slightly, as he stuffs keys and wallet into his gray pants.
“Dad?”
“I’ll text you in a few minutes.” Kyle finds his car keys and hurries out. He drives his BMW toward the sounds of the sirens. He sees people, neighbors, walking along Winding Creek Trail, toward the sirens.
Toward the park.
Fresh sweat breaks out on his ribs, his palms. He feels sick.
He arrives. There are multiple police cars: Lakehaven and, just arriving, Travis County Sheriff’s Office. An ambulance. Lights flashing on all of them. A crowd starting to form. Near one of the cars he sees his wife and his daughter. Unhurt, but in the middle of it all. He swallows past the thickness in his throat.
The police officers are setting up a perimeter and they keep him back. He calls to Iris; she hurries over to him, holding Julia tightly.
“It’s Danielle Roberts,” Iris says. “She’s dead.”
“What? How?”
“I don’t know how she died. Julia and Ned found her.” Iris’s gaze is steady on him.
The words nearly stagger him. Kyle tries not to show it, and so he folds his arms around his wife and his daughter. Kyle’s tall, and over their heads he sees Danielle’s body sprawled on a park bench. Officers are starting to process the scene. He stares at her. And then he sees it, below her feet, under the bench, near her shoe, because one of the deputies has started taking pictures and aims her camera right at…
A cell phone. Lying on the ground, under the bench.
Phones have records in them. Of calls made and calls received.
He tightens his hugs on his family.
What has he done? Panic roars in his chest, like a clawing, living beast.
This isn’t happening, he thinks.
“Dad, I can’t breathe,” Julia says into his shoulder.
He releases her instantly, instead putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
“The police want Julia to give a statement. At the station, away from all this,” Iris says.
“All right,” he says.
“I’ll take her. You stay with Grant.”
“All right.” He most decidedly does not want to go to the police station. “Who did this?”
“I don’t know. It’s not like we have muggers hanging out in that park.” Iris’s voice is shaking, her lip trembling.
“It has to be random,” he says. “Everyone loved Danielle. Where is Ned?” he asks.
“With the police. They’re talking to him. Trying to establish her movements.”
Movements. What a clinical word, he thinks. Her movements. Where she was, who she talked to. Who she saw. Tracking her phone. He feels cold terror inch up his spine. I want out. I want out. Words, echoing in his head.
“I’ll go with Julia. You’ve had a shock,” he says. Knowing full well what Iris’s answer will be.
“No. I’ll go. I was here.” And there he hears it, the barest bit of accusation that she had to come and comfort their traumatized daughter while he lounged in bed.
“All right. Whatever you think best.”