If Jayne asked why I’d been unfaithful, I would tell her I’d been an idiot. That Brie and I had been going through a bad patch, that we both had made decisions we’d deeply regretted. If Jayne asked whether I knew who Brie had cheated on me with, I would have to say yes, but I would have to add that I had never revealed this person’s identity to anyone except Detective Hardy — after some prodding — and that she had looked into this person and concluded he had nothing to do with Brie’s disappearance.
I would have to tell her Detective Hardy believed I’d used a weekend fishing trip with my friend Greg as a cover story — an alibi — and that in the night I’d actually driven back to Milford, killed Brie and disposed of her body, then returned before dawn and joined Greg for coffee later that morning. She further believed it was possible I’d drugged Greg so that he slept through the night, thereby making it nearly impossible that he’d notice my absence.
I would have to tell her that, while I was never charged in connection with Brie’s disappearance, the media was well aware that I was a suspect. (I blame Hardy for that, she no doubt leaked it in order to put more pressure on me.) For a while there, I had TV news trucks sitting at the end of my drive every morning, trying to get some kind of comment from me.
I would have to tell Jayne that despite the lack of any concrete evidence that I’d done anything wrong, Isabel continued to campaign for my arrest, even though Brie’s mother, Elizabeth, and her brother, Albert, and his wife, Dierdre, seemed willing to give me the benefit of the doubt. But Isabel’s stridency scared the other members of the family, including her own husband, Norman, from ever speaking up on my behalf.
Isabel’s harassment took several forms. She wrote letters to newspapers, filled with wild accusations, about what it was she believed I had done. The papers, thankfully, did not print them because they were deemed libelous, but that didn’t mean that they didn’t do occasional updates headlined “Where Is Brie?” or “Brie’s Fate Still a Mystery.”
Isabel hired a lawyer to sue me in civil court, where the bar is set a little lower than in criminal court when it comes to holding someone, at least financially, responsible. She didn’t win — Nan Sokolow’s firm helped me with that, too — but the legal bills wiped out most of my savings.
Isabel’s quest to get justice for her sister had always struck me as somewhat ironic, given that she’d always seemed to resent Brie and been jealous of her since they were much younger. It was a one-sided rivalry, so far as I could tell. Brie had always been happy for Isabel when something good came her way, but it was rarely the other way around. I believed it went back to their teens. Only a year apart in age, they competed in such fields as parents’ attention, academics, and boys.
Anyway, Isabel’s vindictiveness couldn’t have come at a worse time, considering that my business partnership with Greg was dissolving, and my prospects were not good.
I would have to tell Jayne that things deteriorated to the point that I decided to legally change my last name. At least that way, on paper people did not recognize me. There was no longer a need for an unlisted number. (Still a bit old school, I was and am one of the last people on earth to have a landline.) When anyone did a Google search on my new name, the allegations against me did not come up. I mean, who wanted to hire someone to work on their house who many believed had killed his wife and disposed of the body?
It was a lot to tell.
But I felt I was going to have to spill all of it to Jayne. It was better coming from me than someone else.
She’d have questions, I knew that. I’d have at least one for her, too. And it wasn’t to ask her whether she would forgive me. I couldn’t see any reason why she would, or even should. If the positions were reversed, could I forgive her for keeping something this big a secret?
No, my question for her would be more like, “Do you want to stay here and I’ll move out, or can I help you find a place?”
I would be willing to do either.
Of all the things she might choose to ask me, I imagined the number-one question would be short and to the point.
“Did you kill your wife?”
And I would look her in the eye and I would say, “No, I did not.”
I was imagining that exchange as I sat in a bar, sitting alone in a booth, working on my second or third or fourth Sam Adams. I didn’t remember driving here after seeing Greg and Julie, or even coming inside. I felt as though I had always been here, that this booth was my past, my present, and my future. I existed entirely in this moment in time.
As I sat there, I engaged in one of my nervous habits, which was to tear off bits of a paper napkin, roll them up into balls the size of a pea, then flick them off my upturned thumb with my middle finger. Sometimes the ball would fall off my thumb before I could launch it, other times I could shoot one across the room.
When the waitress, a heavyset woman in her fifties, came over to see whether I wanted another beer, she glanced down at the half dozen paper pellets I’d fired off.
“Nice range,” she said. “Another?”
I was about to say yes, but any more to drink and I wasn’t going to be able to drive myself home. I was probably already in the danger zone.
“No, I’m good,” I said.
The waitress stood there a minute, looking at me.
“You been in here before?” she asked.
“Not sure,” I said, which was true. “Not in a while, anyway.”
“Because you look familiar to me. Pretty sure I’ve seen you somewhere. Although not lately.”
“Maybe I just have that kind of face,” I said.
“What’s your name?”
“Carville,” I said. “Andrew Carville.”
“Oh, okay,” she said, nodding. “I had you pegged as somebody else, but his last name was Mason.”
“Well, there you go,” I said, and slapped some bills on the table as she waltzed away.
I couldn’t put it off any longer. I went out, got in the Explorer, and headed for home.
I was almost there, not even a block away, when I saw that car again, the one I’d seen heading down the street to Max’s house.
Detective Hardy.
Coming from the direction of my place.
I watched her unmarked car disappear in my rearview, then hit the blinker to turn down my street.
When I got to my house, Jayne was sitting on the front step, waiting.
Looked like I wouldn’t have to tell Jayne much of anything, after all. I was guessing the detective had already filled her in.
Thirteen
“I brought flowers,” Isabel McBain said. “This room needs some color.”
Her mother, Elizabeth, turned her head wearily on the pillow to see what Isabel was up to. She was arranging a small bouquet in a foot-tall metal vase on the movable dining table that had been wheeled away from the bed. Isabel’s husband, Norman, tall, thin, and balding, stood back, watching his wife fuss about.
“What do you think of that?” she asked. “Don’t they look nice?”
“They look wonderful, Izzy,” Elizabeth whispered. “How are you today, Norman?”
“Fine, Elizabeth,” he said flatly while Isabel continued to arrange the bouquet. She took a step back, studied her handiwork, concluded they were not quite right, then repositioned several of them. “Norman, what do you think?”