Sam’s midnight-blue Range Rover is parked by the curb, and he opens the driver’s door and unfolds from it like a praying mantis, clothed in a Versace suit and mirrored sunglasses. He is a different person every time we meet, and today he has gone for the successful-fashionista look. The effect is dampened by the quick scurry of his steps around a bum sleeping under a palm tree. He waves at me through the window.
Always so anxious, so eager. It was that, more than anything, that caused what ended up happening. I’m not a gay man, but I’m a man of opportunity, and Sam gave me plenty of that.
“Hi.” Sam opens the car door and a flood of California heat comes in.
I don’t say anything, and wait for him to shut the door. Twisting the air knob to high, I watch as he shifts in his seat to face me. There is a moment of silence. The last time we saw each other, I told him no, and he said yes, and even though I had promised Lillian that it was over, we did it one last time.
I meant what I told Lillian. This, between me and him, it is just sex. There is no feeling, at least not on my part. The thought of being intimate—of holding or kissing him—makes my stomach curl. While Sam satisfies my sexual needs, I have been emotionally loyal to Lillian since the day that I married her.
He reaches for me, and I tuck deeper into my seat. “Don’t. I need to ask you some questions.”
His features harden, and he withdraws, like a child who has been told that he can’t have another cookie. He should know how this works, especially given that my wife is being cut open, on an autopsy table, just a few miles away.
My wife. His best friend.
It’s been a fucked-up situation for a long time, but one that I was handling, one that had an exit strategy in place, if my wife hadn’t grown nosy and jumped onto the train early. “Tell me about when you saw Lill.”
“It was yesterday morning. I came by the house, talked to her for a bit.”
He isn’t emotional, which I appreciate. Between Jacob’s tight face and all the phone calls from Lillian’s family, I can’t take any more memories or crying. “What time was it?”
“Around ten thirty. Maybe eleven.”
Okay, so before she went into the pantry. “Did she say what she had planned for the day?”
“Said she was going to the attorney with you. Didn’t mention anything else in terms of her day. She was off her meds, though. I asked if she was going to take them and she got a little pissy at that.” He rubs his forehead, thinking. “She asked me about the video, if I knew anyone who could get it taken down. I told her that I’d reported it.”
Pinching my eyes closed, I try to put myself in Lillian’s headspace. Her meds, which are to combat bipolarism and depression, were a crutch that she often abandoned. The withdrawal effect followed a fairly consistent pattern of mood swings and erratic behavior, followed by increased alcohol dependency, paranoia, and occasional blackouts.
The chances were high that Lillian had taken the alcohol somewhere to drink. And then what? Thrown the liquor bottle away? Given it to someone? If only she had taken her car. I could have easily followed the recorded path from the tracker. Instead she walked out of the house—and maybe thatisa blessing, because at least I have a radius to begin with. Though between that and the taxi request and the Malibu beach where she was found ... I lower my forehead to the steering wheel and consider, for one long moment, killing myself.
I am a man who prides himself on anticipating problems and contingency plans, and yet I was egotistical enough to put every single egg in a nostalgic basket that my wife had access to. My wife, who I had recently scorned and who was a loose cannon on a good day. I deserve to have my balls sliced off and fed to me with a spoon. That unfortunatepunishment is top of mind, a threat recited with cheerful frequency every time I come close to potentially fucking up with Ned.
“What’s wrong?” Sam puts his hand on my arm, then withdraws it. “I mean, I know what’s wrong. I know that she’s dead, but you—”
“I’m not upset that Lillian is dead.” Saying those words aloud is a luxury that I never expected to have, and the fact that I am saying them now is not an indicator of success, but rather of how tilted this situation has become.
“Oh.” Sam pulls off his sunglasses and folds them up, then carefully inserts them into the pocket of his jacket. “So, ah. What is the problem?”
“She had something I need. Something for Colorado.”
Sam turns to me, and I am almost grateful at the look I see there. The slow understanding tinged in fear. The look I must have myself, at a level five times higher than his. “How important is it?” he asks carefully.
At this moment, there are two paths I can take: one where I tell Sam the truth, and one where I lie. Can I trust him? The probability is high but not certain, and my wife is not the only lover I lie to.
“Not crucial,” I say briskly. “But it’s annoying, not having it. Anything you could find out about Lillian’s last day ... let me know, first. Before you tell the cops, or anyone else.”
“Sure.” He grins at me, and when he reaches for my hand, I don’t pull it away despite the crawl of discomfort it creates in my chest. This, us—it needs to stop. “Come to my place tonight.”
“I can’t. Fuck, Sam. Lill just died. I have a son. For all I know the cops are watching me.”
My chest tightens and I fumble with the center console lid, anxious for my inhaler. This has been a complete waste of time, because Sam knows nothing. The Benromach box could be in a public trash can right now, a $400 million key tucked inside it, waiting to be picked up by a janitorial service.
I need to find it, and every second that passes could be the difference between my doing so or it being picked up and taken away. I need to establish a grid around the house and then walk it. Meet with David, see what he knows and whether he saw her that day. The police should be able to ping locations off her cell phone. I need to go to the station, right after this, and see if they’ve already done that and, if so, what they’ve found out.
I grip the inhaler in my right hand and suck in a deep breath, holding the medicine in for a long beat. Coughing slightly, I adjust the strap of my seat belt. “Call me if you think of anything. I’ve got to go to the station now, answer some of their questions.”
“Are they suspicious of you? I mean ...” He colors around his ears. “Do they think there’s any chance that Lillian didn’t kill herself?”