Page 33 of Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers

As Officer Gray continues explaining why they’re not spending any of the city’s funding on pursuing Marshall’s death, frustration boils in Vera’s veins.And what about the flash drive?she wantsto shout. Though to be fair, she’s mostly angry at herself about the flash drive, because if she hadn’t taken it, then maybe they would’ve taken the case more seriously.

Guilt is not a feeling Vera is familiar with. As soon as it rears up, Vera squishes it firmly. She did what she had to do in order to ensure that the case fell into the most capable hands, which are hers, obviously. Just look at these cops, sitting at their desks, typing into computers. They’ve gotten too complacent. No, Vera did the right thing. She chose to take on Marshall’s case, and now she will see it through to the bitter end.

EIGHTEEN

OLIVER

It has only been a couple of weeks since Oliver received word that Marshall died, but it feels like an entire lifetime has passed. It also, strangely, feels like not much has changed, which is ridiculous. But then again, he’d never been close to Marshall, not since their mother died. He and Marshall would meet up once or twice a year, tops. The last time they’d met up, well, that was the day before Marshall died, and that hadn’t gone well at all.

You’ve always been jealous of me. The knockoff twin. That’s what they all called you.

“Eh, what are you doing? Don’t daydream when you are on the ladder,” Vera calls up to him.

“I’m not daydreaming.” He was most definitely daydreaming. He clears his throat and screws a new lightbulb into the light fixture before climbing back down the ladder. “I’ve changed the bulb for you, but I think your electrics need rewiring. I don’t think the power is running as efficiently as it should.”

“Oh, I can’t afford new electrics,” Vera says. She picks up a tray from the counter and gestures at Oliver to join her at the table.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll do it for you one of these weekends.” Oliver can’t quite explain it, but when Vera called him this morning, asking if he could help her change a couple of lightbulbs, he hadn’t minded at all. In fact, he found himself looking forward to coming back to Vera’s little shop and spending time there. Especially now that it’s clear that Marshall’s death was an accident.

“I make tang yuan.” Vera pushes a bowl filled with five large glutinous rice balls swimming in lightly sweetened broth toward him.

“Gosh, I can’t remember the last time I had this.” He sips at the broth, which is steaming hot and spicy-sweet with a strong kick of ginger. The warmth slides straight down his throat and into his belly like a comforting flame. He bites into one of the tang yuan and finds it chewy and soft in the best possible way and filled with a sandy-sweet black sesame paste. His mother used to make tang yuan, and he remembers it being just as comforting as it is now. Maybe it’s not so strange to like Vera’s company; something about her soothes his soul.

“Is it good?” Vera is watching him like a hawk, practically unblinking.

“Yes.” Oliver bites into another tang yuan and finds this one filled with sweet peanut paste. “It’s so good. I love tang yuan.”

Vera nods, satisfied. “So I am thinking maybe one of these nights you all come for dinner here—”

The ringing of Oliver’s phone interrupts her, and with a quick apology, Oliver answers. It’s the tenant from 3B, telling him thatthey can’t get any hot water. Oliver promises to look into it and hangs up. “I can’t stay long. I’m supposed to be on the job.”

“Speaking of job,” Vera says, “I have start reading your manuscript...”

“My manuscript?” It takes a beat for him to recall Vera finding it in his car. He narrows his eyes at her. “Vera, I thought I told you to put it back where you found it.”

Vera looks entirely unapologetic. “Why? So you can forget it exist for another ten years? No, I take it home and I have been reading it. It’s not so bad. Maybe a bit slow to begin with; I keep falling asleep when I read it.”

“Thanks a lot, Vera.” Actually, Oliver can barely remember what he wrote in that manuscript. He vaguely remembers that, like the stereotypical amateur writer, he’d based it loosely on his own life story. He really should tell Vera to give it back to him, but he doesn’t have the time right now. Finishing up his tang yuan, Oliver takes his leave and drives back to his place.

His steps are leaden as he makes his way to the basement to check on the water heater. Working as a building manager had seemed like the perfect job all those years ago. Quiet, low-key, with plenty of downtime to work on his writing. And Oliver has been working all this time on his writing, he hasn’t just been sitting on his ass, waiting for various things in the building to break so he can be useful. It’s just that this job was meant to be a temporary one, one that he would quit once his writing took off, and now it’s been more than ten years and Oliver is still in the same place, literally, same chair, same little apartment, same everything. And nothing but rejections on his writing.

As Oliver works on the water heater, his phone rings again. He sighs, putting his tool in his pocket and retrieving the phone; 3Bhas always been impatient. He taps on the green phone icon and turns his attention back to the water heater.

“I’m working on it,” he says by way of greeting.

“Oliver?” The voice stops him in mid-crank. That’s not 3B. It’s the voice he’s dreamt about ever since high school.

“Julia?” Oliver straightens up, wiping off his sweat with his forearm, as though she could see him. “Hey, what’s up?”

A shaky sigh. “Sorry to bother you, is this a bad time?” She sounds so apologetic that his chest tightens.

“No,” Oliver says quickly.Never a bad time for you, he wants to say, but that would be very inappropriate, so he leaves it at no.

“Okay, um, this is going to sound weird, but...” She sighs again, and this time he catches the tone of frustration and pain behind the sigh. “I just got a call from some guy who says that Marshall was renting an apartment downtown. Marshall had mentioned it before he left, but I guess I must have forgotten about it after he died. I thought he’d just gotten it, but it turns out I was wrong. I can’t even—he had a secret apartment, Ollie!” Her voice shakes then, almost breaking, and Oliver is filled with the familiar sense of anger toward Marshall. God, why did Marshall have to be such a raging dick? “God knows what he was doing in it for how long, I mean... gah!” She takes a deep breath. “Anyway, the landlord said he’s going to empty out the apartment tomorrow, but he asked if we wanted to go over to retrieve Marshall’s stuff. I can’t go because of Emma. Do you have time to go? I’m sorry, I know it’s such an imposition, but I just don’t—”

“I’ll go,” Oliver says simply. He’ll go, because it’s Julia asking, and he’ll do anything for her. Always did everything for her, back in school, when she let him. And seeing her again last week after so many years had been one of the most incredible moments. Hedesperately wishes they could go back to how they were before. “I’ll grab everything that looks useful.”

Julia snorts bitterly. “I don’t know if I want to know what’s even in that apartment.” She pauses, and Oliver finds himself holding his breath. When she does speak again, her voice is tight with pain. “Um, if you do find... you know, something, uh, you know—if he was, uh, betraying our marriage vows—I’d rather not know.”

---