Here She Lies

buzz cut and skin weathered beyond his years. He was squinting as if he normally wore glasses. “His name’s Thomas Soiffer. Owner of a white van, Massachusetts plates, resides outside Springfield. E-Z Pass had him driving west on I-90 across Massachusetts yesterday morning.”
    “And?” Julie.
    “Why was he here?” Me.
    “What we know about Mr. Soiffer is mostly on paper. He’s a plumber by trade, but he has a criminal record. Not what you’d call the finest of citizens. Did some time for assaulting his girlfriend — nearly killed her.”
    “And he used his E-Z Pass to drive here and sit outside my house before killing someone?” Julie said. “Not the brightest bulb.”
    Lazare’s eyes paused a moment on Julie and I couldjust see his detective mind calculating a diplomatic bridge between our layman’s comfort zone, where the most obvious assumptions ruled the borders like trigger-happy armed guards, and his professional instincts to carefully navigate the unknown.
    “Well, Forensics found some other blood along with Zara’s, but we don’t know if it belonged to Soiffer or someone else,” he said. “If we had a murder weapon or a DNA sample on file for him, it would make this a lot simpler. But we don’t. So now it’s all about legwork. We’re trying to find him.”
    Just then Lexy issued a fairly dramatic sigh and I sat forward, ready to get up and go to her. But the sigh melted back into the monitor’s static silence; she had gone back to sleep.
    “Does that name — Thomas Soiffer — ring any bells with either of you?” Detective Lazare asked.
    Julie and I agreed that neither of us had ever seen the man in the picture nor had we heard his name. It was a stranger’s name, though one we would now never forget. A stranger with a criminal record, a dangerous man, hanging around outside Julie’s house yesterday morning, only hours before a murder.
    “So far none of the local plumbers and electricians and so forth recognize the name either,” Lazare said. “We’ve put the word out and we’ll see if we hear anything in the next few days.”
    “Detective,” I said, deciding to risk a theoretical leap, “do you think someone might have thought Zara was one of us? Since she resembled us, I mean.”
    “Anything’s possible.” Lazare sort of smiled. “Why? You wouldn’t know that name from the prisonback in Kentucky, would you? He didn’t do time there, but sometimes these guys know each other. They talk.”
    “I’ve never heard the name,” I said. “Not that I can remember. But I saw a lot of the prisoners. I saw hundreds of people. And Bobby’s been working in that one prison for over ten years — he’s seen thousands.”
    It was a medical prison. Some of the prisoners had a real need for physical therapy, but some used it as a way to break their routines. You could tell, mostly, who was in pain and who was just bored. It was the restless ones I most hated working on, pressing my hands into their muscled flesh, the intimacy of that, while their eyes darted around the office, looking for something — what? A way out? A weapon? All the prisoners there were white-collar criminals, but incarceration had a way of transforming some people, creating a taste for violence. And the detective was right: talk they did, sometimes endlessly and often with an absurd amount of self-righteous indignation.
    “We’ll check it out with the prison,” Lazare said. “We’ll also find out if any prisoners released recently had anything against you.” He pulled a notepad from his pocket and jotted a reminder. “Julie, you renovated this house last year. Am I right?”
    “Yes, I did.” She had gutted the barn and rebuilt the interior from scratch. “My contractor’s name was Hal Cox. He brought in a lot of people. I didn’t know their names — I was still living in Connecticut.”
    “Could you e-mail me the particulars of your contractor? And anyone else involved in the project.”
    “Sure,” Julie said. “The contractor handled everythingwith the architect. I can put you in touch with her, too.”
    “Much obliged.”
    Julie nodded. “So, Bobby’s not a suspect anymore?”
    That was a sticky word, suspect, and it caught in my mind.
    “Bobby and I had a good, long talk,” Lazare said, “but at this point, no one is officially a suspect.”
    “Not even Thomas Soiffer?” I asked.
    “Yes and no. We’d like to speak with him.” He pulled his mouth into a thin, evasive