I go through the motions of typing in the numbers, nodding in mock confirmation when I verify that—yes!—I am correct, and this first number is for Sam, her best friend. The other phone numbers don’t match anything in my phone, and I push the list back to them. “Can’t you look up these numbers? Maybe call them? They might know something.” I’m just a poor dumb husband, but gee whillikers, guys—this might help.
“We’ve done that,” the girl says gently, and I let her tone slide because I need her to think that I’m as idiotic as she’s assuming I am.
“The first is to a taxi service. We’ve contacted them and found out that Lillian scheduled a pickup from your house, going to this address.” The man pushes a page forward. It’s a printout of an internet map search, showing the marina’s address.
I’m not sure I’m supposed to recognize it, so I keep a blank look on my face. “What’s there?”
They do this big hem-haw routine, where there’s a lot of shrugging and head-scratching. I let it slide, and hope that someone is notating the fact that I’m ignorant about the marina.
“What’s interesting is that, when the taxi showed up at your house, Lillian wasn’t there.” The man sits back in his cheap chair and folds his arms over his chest.
“So she caught another ride?”
“Maybe, but if I caught another ride, I would call the taxi and cancel it.” The woman glances at the man. “Would you?”
“I would.” The man nods like a marionette. “Would you, Mike?”
Do they think she was killed at the house? I think of my office, of the shed in the backyard, of the locked liquor cabinet, and of the guest bedroom closet. I try to think of something to say to reassure and distract them from my home.
“Yes, I would cancel the taxi, but Lillian is ...” I sigh and look up at the ceiling, trying to decide how to word this. “She’s scatterbrained.” There. That was a nice way to say it. “We went to the Grand Canyon once and she forgot her suitcase. When we got to the hotel and were unloading our bags, she realized that she never packed one. Just ... forgot.” After that, I started to go around behind her, with every school trip of Jacob’s, with every family excursion, and any home project, just to make sure that she had properly completed the task. “So yeah. I wouldn’t be worried or think twice of her forgetting to call and cancel a car.”
“Okay.” Detective Gersh nods slowly, like he’s testing the flavor of the idea on his tongue. “So let’s look at the second call, which was to a domestic-abuse hotline.”
As practiced, I perform a minor lift of my eyebrows and widen my eyes. They are watching me as closely as possible, and this is where the interview starts going downhill. I swallow. “Why did Lillian call a hotline?”
“Excellent question!” the woman says, slapping the tabletop as if she’s struck gold. “We had the same question, which is why we called them. Lillian asked to speak to one of the abuse counselors. We’ve requested the recording of that call, if it exists.”
It doesn’t take high intelligence to connect the dots they are laying out. Lillian was being abused, planned to run away, and I killed her. I clear my throat. “I didn’t abuse Lillian. In almost two decades, I’ve never laid a finger on her.” And God knows, it was hard at times. “Ilovedher.” My voice clogs on that sentence, the truth sticking to the vowels and keeping them in my throat. I did love Lillian. I may be a lot of things—a liar and a cheat—but I did love my wife. I loved every broken, cracked piece of her.
“They’ll check for damage during the autopsy,” the woman reassures me with a snippy little smile, as if she knows exactly who I am and everything I’ve done.
Great,I want to retort. I hope they do. Because they won’t find anything. They won’t find a single bruise or scratch on that skin.
“Okay, let’s move to the last call.” Detective Gersh scratches the side of his face. “I got to say, Mike. This one is odd.”
“In what way?”
“Well, she called theLos Angeles Times, which, as you know, had recently fired her. They faxed over the paperwork, along with a copy of her severance package.” He flips open the folder and thumbs through the pages, then withdraws a few and tosses them across the table. “We thought perhaps she was calling about that, but that’s where things get odd.”
I try to keep up, but I’m distracted by an item on the termination paperwork. “This says that the reason for the termination is vandalism?” I look up. “What’d she do?”
“She keyed her boss’s car, apparently over a negative employee review.” Detective Gersh watches me closely, and I struggle over how to react.
I can’t believe I didn’t know about this. I’m as annoyed by that as I am at Lillian’s reckless behavior. Vandalism of personal property is a misdemeanor, a felony if the damage is over $400. She knew better than this.
My irritation mounts and I force my features to remain calm and concerned. If Lillian had told me, I could have arranged for repairs and handled any insurance claims. Add to that the fact that Lillian shouldn’t have signed any termination paperwork without me reviewing and negotiating on her behalf. She was with theTimesfor two decades—that had weight and power. They couldn’t just turn her out without some real compensation.
My hands are starting to tremble, and I pull them off the table and put them in my lap, where they will be hidden. “You said things got odd. So why did she call theTimes? She wanted her job back?” This all makes no sense. She called a taxi, but she wasn’t there when it arrived. She made an appointment at a women’s shelter, one that she didn’t keep because she was dead. And she called a company that she no longer worked for.
“Oh no, something much more interesting than that.” Detective Gersh pauses for dramatic effect, and I swear I’m going to rip out his tongue if he doesn’t start using it. “Lillian placed an order for an obituary.”
I don’t have to fake surprise for that one. I stare at him, then at her, verifying that it is true. The female detective nods.
“An obituary?” I frown, trying to follow Lillian’s thought process. “For who?”
“Well, for herself.” The detective grins like a Cheshire cat. “What do ya think about that?”
CHAPTER 54