“WHAT? WHAT DO you mean?” Lake asked. All around them diners droned in conversation and waiters plowed brusquely between tables. Yet none of it mattered. What did Maggie know? Lake wondered. She held her breath, waiting.
Maggie bit her plump bottom lip so hard it looked like it would burst. “Maybe I shouldn’t be blabbing like this,” she fretted. “My mother always says I talk out of school too much.”
Damn, Lake thought. Maggie had sensed that she was pouncing and pulled back. She had to be careful.
“This must be such an overwhelming time,” Lake said, keeping her voice easy. “You must feel so confused about what to do.”
“I do,” Maggie said, shaking her head. Her dark curls bounced.
“So Dr. Keaton wanted you to water his plants while he was in California?” Lake asked. Maybe she would have luck, she thought, getting Maggie to start at the beginning.
“Yes, the trees on his terrace,” she said. “And he wanted me to bring in his mail so his mailbox wouldn’t get stuffed.”
At that, Maggie’s eyes brimmed with tears and she dabbed at them with a paper napkin.
“But why give you the keys so far in advance?” Lake said.
“He had his spare set on him when he asked me, so he said he might as well give them to me then. I should have kept them in my purse, but the one I use in summer is really tiny and I didn’t want to lug the keys around all week—so I just stuck them in my desk drawer.”
As Maggie spoke, her eyes fell to her purse on the Formica table. It was small—a tiny white bag of quilted leather.
“Do you think anyone saw him give you the keys?” Lake asked.
“I’m not sure,” Maggie said. “We were in the hall down by the lab when he asked me. Someone might have seen us, I guess—or maybe overheard us from the lab.”
“How about when you put the keys in your drawer?”
“There were probably people around, but I don’t remember who.”
Maggie’s desk was in an open area that people walked by all through the day. It would have been easy for anyone to sneak the keys out of the drawer—especially during the busy hours of the day when most of the staff were engaged in the exam rooms or in the OR. Or at the end of the day, when staff had begun to leave.
“Did you ever have the sense that the keys had been moved in your drawer?”
“No,” Maggie said, almost as a moan. “I almost never use that drawer. I don’t think I even looked in there once after he gave me the keys. Oh God, what if I’m responsible for his death?”
“But you’re not, Maggie.”
The waiter approached and asked for their orders.
“Were you surprised that Dr. Keaton asked you to do such a big favor?” Lake inquired after he’d walked away.
“It wasn’t that big a deal. I live in Brooklyn and his place is right off the same subway line I take home. Plus I was getting paid. The last time he gave me a hundred dollars.”
“The last time?” Lake asked, perplexed.
“In March. I did this in March, too.”
“I’m not following,” Lake said.
“Dr. Keaton consulted with us once before, back in March, for about a month. Toward the end he went to the Bahamas for a long weekend and I checked on his place for him.”
“Got it,” Lake said. It seemed odd she hadn’t heard about Keaton’s earlier stint, and yet she realized there would have been no reason for anyone to bring it up. When she redirected her attention to Maggie, she saw that tears were now streaming down her face.
“Maggie?”
“That’s when it happened,” Maggie said in another whisper.
“The thing you mentioned before?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you tell me about it.”
“It was Friday night—the weekend in March that he went away. A friend and I were going to meet in SoHo after I stopped by Dr. Keaton’s. I was running late so I called her from the apartment, and later, at the restaurant, I realized I’d left my cell phone on his counter. I felt so stupid. My friend said she’d go with me to get it and when we went back there after dinner, I had this—I don’t know—this creepy feeling someone had been in the apartment. There was a light on in the bathroom but I know I never turned it on.”
Lake felt her stomach twist. She remembered the light she had seen in Keaton’s bathroom—and her fear that the killer