A Good Marriage

by Kimberly McCreight

  I took a deep breath and reopened his laptop, then typed in his password—LizzieLOVE. Sam had gotten his new computer the day after he’d thrown up in Mary Jo’s living room during her annual Kentucky Derby party. The password had been a small part of a much longer apology. It had worked, too. I was always so willing to accept anything that might get us back to that perfect place where we’d begun.

  The party where Sam and I met wasn’t even a law school party. I’d gone along with a friend who had a friend who knew someone who claimed there would be lots of attractive eligible medical students in attendance, which had sounded like both a totally stupid reason to go to a party and a wildly appealing one. Also, the party was in The Rittenhouse, a fancy building right off the Philadelphia square, a nice change of pace from the dingy apartments the law school parties were always in.

  I’d been at the party an hour, nursing a beer, when I first spotted Sam’s shaggy hair, two-day growth of beard, and iridescent blue eyes across the room. He was extremely good-looking, but it was the way his whole face lit up when he smiled that made my heart leap. It was electric. When he finally looked my way, and kept on looking, it was like my scalp had been set on fire.

  I felt the color in my cheeks rise as he finally made his way over to introduce himself.

  “You don’t look like a doctor,” he said.

  “What does that mean?” I asked, afraid that he was about to say something dumb like I was too pretty for that, which would ruin everything.

  He pointed around the room. “The doctors all have this way of standing,” he said. “They, like, lean back a little. It’s because they spend so much time on their feet.”

  I looked around the room, ready to argue. But a fair number of people did seem to be standing that way.

  “Will you all be stuck like that forever?” I asked.

  “Me? Oh, I’m not in med school.” He laughed. “Too cutthroat for me. I’m here visiting a friend from college. He’s in med school, and he told me the thing about the standing. However, there is a decent chance that he was only fucking with me.” He smiled, and on cue, my heart jumped again. “If you’re not a doctor either, what do you do?”

  “I’m in law school.”

  “That’s funny. I was supposed to be a lawyer.”

  “What happened?”

  He smiled crookedly. “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

  “Seriously?” I rolled my eyes, though I was already charmed.

  Sam shrugged. “Trying to best an opponent all day is not my thing,” he said, then hurried to clarify. “Not that being a lawyer couldn’t be noble, I mean, theoretically.”

  “Ah yes, theoretically.” I smiled back. Maybe I should have been offended, but I was too distracted by how wobbly my legs felt.

  “I just insulted your chosen profession, didn’t I?”

  I laughed. “A little.”

  “Am I fucking this up?” Sam asked.

  “A little,” I said, though it was hardly the truth.

  “Regardless of what I think about lawyers generally, you’ll do great things,” he said. “That I’m sure of.”

  “How do you know?” I asked. “We just met.”

  “Oh, I can tell,” he said, glancing my way. “It’s a feeling. A good one.”

  “You have a lot of these good feelings?”

  When he smiled this time, my heart nearly stopped. His eyes were so impossibly blue and bright. “Not like this.”

  I soon learned that though not a lawyer or a doctor, Sam was plenty accomplished. He’d recently finished up graduate school at the Columbia School of Journalism and had a job on the metro desk at the New York Times. He was focusing on exposing the secondary impacts of US poverty, especially on children. He even had a feature—“The Orphans of Opioids”—about to run. Sam wanted to change the status quo, just like me. He believed it was possible, too, and as we talked, his optimism swept me away. Within minutes, I suspected I’d met my destiny. Someone who would fix the world with me. Someone who might even fix me. Because I might have looked okay on the outside, but I wasn’t. Ever since I’d lost my parents, I’d been like a burned-out bulb.

  It wasn’t until I met Sam that unseasonably warm April night that I believed I might brighten again one day. By the time we were kissing on the edge of Rittenhouse Square, I’d already started to glow.

  Up on Sam’s computer screen was a website for Enid’s, Brooklyn, which, it turned out, was a bar in Greenpoint. I looked around the empty room again. Was that where he’d gone? To a bar in Greenpoint in the middle of the day? It had only been a matter of days since he’d bashed his head.

  For fuck’s sake, Sam.

  My face felt hot as I dialed his number. When the call went straight to voice mail, I had a long moment where I thought I might leave a message telling him not to bother coming home. A moment when I felt like even rehab wouldn’t be enough. But instead of saying that, instead of saying anything, I closed my eyes, swallowed down my sorrow and anger, and hung up the phone.

  Fifteen minutes later I stood on the short, tree-lined stretch of Montgomery Place between Eighth Avenue and the park, staring up at Zach’s impressive brownstone. In the golden late-afternoon sun, it was breathtaking. Five floors of flawless reddish-brown sandstone, with an extravagant stoop that seemed twice the width of the ones on either side. Through the huge windows in front, I could see a massive Art Deco chandelier floating under fifteen-foot ceilings.

  Of course, given Zach’s success, I did wonder why he and Amanda had chosen Brooklyn over Manhattan. I imagined Zach could have easily afforded a similar home in Tribeca or the West Village. Brooklyn did have a unique charm, but so did those neighborhoods. If Amanda was from a small town, though, maybe she’d been the one who preferred something quieter and more down-to-earth for Case.

  I held my breath as I finally made my way up the front steps, relieved that there was no crime tape or any other indication that Zach’s home was still being held by police. Not that I was looking forward to actually going inside. From Zach’s own description, it had been a particularly gruesome scene, and it wouldn’t have been cleaned up. The police and EMTs didn’t mop up the blood and sanitize after your wife’s bludgeoned body was taken away. It was left to you to put your house back in order, even when they didn’t think you were the one responsible for breaking it to pieces.

  At the top of the steps, I crouched down next to a large planter filled with chic fernlike greenery. It lifted easily, and there was the key on the ground underneath.

  Shit. I had been hoping the key might be gone, proof that somebody other than Zach had indeed used it to gain entry the night Amanda died. Somebody who’d also used Zach’s golf club to beat her to death.

  But the notion that somebody had swiped the key, used it to get in, killed Amanda, and then put it back? Some things strained credulity. Like the idea that Zach had simply forgotten to tell me about the part of his hearing where an outstanding warrant was discussed.

  It was bothering me. That was the honest truth. The Zach I knew from law school was meticulous about details. There was no way he had simply forgotten about the warrant. He hadn’t mentioned it because he didn’t want me to know. As I turned the key, I realized I still wasn’t sure if it was the fact of the warrant or that Zach had tried to hide it from me that bothered me more.

  Even the way Zach’s front door popped open with a gentle whoosh was fancy. I kept my eyes down as I stepped inside the dim, no doubt lovely foyer, careful to avoid having to face the stairs. The typical layout of Park Slope brownstones would put them straight ahead—the stairs and the blood and the brain matter. My mouth already felt tacky. I needed to stay focused on the here and now, the task at hand.

  Zach had said that the papers about Case’s camp would be in Amanda’s small desk in the front room. I didn’t look up until I’d stepped safely into the vast, thoroughly updated open living room. It was sparkling white with fashionable midcentury modern furniture. The air was a little stale, but t
hat was the only sign anything was amiss.

  The desk—slim and graceful like Amanda—was near the windows. I headed over, stopping first for a closer look at the photos in a sleek built-in along the wall. They were in coordinating frames and so carefully curated that even the poses in the photos—taken over years—seemed somehow to have been planned to one day work together. The idyllic images made it hard to imagine that Zach and Amanda ever had an unhappy moment, much less a violent altercation that had ended in Amanda’s death.

  The pictures also confirmed what I’d noticed at Rikers: Zach was much more attractive than he’d been in law school. More definition in his face, brought on by age, or the twenty pounds of muscle he looked to have put on. Or maybe it was the confidence that came with success. The old twitchiness I’d noticed at Rikers had likely been an aberration brought on by the stress of the situation, or maybe by seeing an old friend. Regardless, there was no doubt that Zach had come into his own. And, appallingly, I had a momentary flicker of regret.

  I tried to shake it off, to pretend I hadn’t felt it—desire for a man whose dead wife’s blood was all over the stairs only feet behind me. Whatever I was feeling obviously wasn’t about Zach anyway.

  I picked up one of the framed pictures of Amanda and Zach on their wedding day, on a beach somewhere tropical. Amanda looked stunning in a simple lace wedding dress, holding casually arranged exotic flowers; Zach was smiling in a light linen suit. They looked effortlessly happy in the way of people who have everything.

  I wondered what the pictures of Sam and me from our wedding day would say. All I remembered was feeling grateful and, God, so impossibly in love. Sam had arranged our entire wedding himself. Wedding planning without my mother would have been too hard, and Sam had known that intuitively. From the moment we met, we’d been like that—connected in one continuous loop.

  We were married in the beautiful backyard of a West Village town house owned by a wealthy boarding-school friend of Sam’s. Sam had personally strung every inch of the backyard with the twinkling white lights I’d talked about loving on our first date, and the flowers were the blue hyacinths Sam had brought me on our second. Neither Sam nor I had family there, but we’d been surrounded by friends. A guitar played by Sam’s college roommate serenaded me down the aisle, Heather from law school baked the cake, and Mary Jo performed the ceremony. We wrote our own vows. Sam’s, of course, were much more beautiful than mine.

  “I promise to be your light home” was his last vow. And in so many ways, meeting Sam had been like a flare shot off, startling me awake and blazing a trail through my darkness. And yet, we’d ended up so hopelessly lost. I was still choosing him, wasn’t I? Every single day.

  My phone rang, startling my eyes off the photos. I dug in my bag for it.

  Sam, apparently back from Enid’s. And, just like that, our wedding memory dissolved and I was angry at him all over again.

  “What?” I answered.

  “Well, hello to you, too,” Sam replied jovially. Drunkenly? It was possible, but if so, not very. His speech always became rapidly, notably slurred, and it wasn’t. “I saw you called. I was just calling you back. But you sound … busy.”

  “I am busy,” I said, determined not to interrogate him about Enid’s or Greenpoint. It was only the rehab that mattered now, and I couldn’t exactly get into that in Zach’s house. Or that seemed as good an excuse as any not to say a word. “Because I’m working.”

  “Okay then.” Sam sounded wounded. “I can let you—”

  “What have you been up to?” I challenged.

  “Oh, I’ve just been writing,” Sam said. “Wasn’t a bad day on the book. Five pages. Then again, my butt never left my chair, so maybe five pages isn’t actually that impressive.”

  “Never left your chair, huh?” A completely voluntary, gratuitous lie.

  “Well, I did go to the post office,” Sam said, carving himself an out. “For stamps. What’s with the third degree?”

  It hasn’t even been a week, Sam.

  “I’m tired, that’s all,” I said. “It’s been a long day.”

  I could feel Sam’s guilt rise in the silence. And I was glad. A little guilt was better than nothing.

  “Okay,” he said finally, but tightly. Like he wished he’d said something completely different.

  “I’ve got to go,” I said. “I’ll see you later tonight.”

  I hung up without waiting for him to say goodbye. I gripped my phone and pressed it against my lips.

  Suddenly there was a loud crash, followed by a bang. It had come from the back of the house. On the other side of a door at the far end of the living room. I stared toward the closed door.

  “Hello?” I called out, heart thumping. Please don’t answer. Please don’t answer. I glanced behind me toward the front door, trying to calculate how fast I could sprint out that way if necessary.

  “Hello? Who’s there?” I shouted in as deep and imposing a voice as I could muster. “I’m Zach Grayson’s attorney!”

  Only silence in return.

  “Hello?”

  More silence.

  I threw my phone back in my bag and gripped Amanda and Zach’s wedding picture in two hands as I inched toward the door, my back to the bloody stairs.

  I took one last deep breath before pushing open the swinging door with my hip, picture frame held high. On the floor of the kitchen was a shattered ceramic bowl, dimes and quarters strewn about nearby. My eyes darted around. But there was no one in sight and, luckily, no closet or other obvious place to hide. The dish could have fallen on its own, I tried to tell myself. Set too close to the edge, maybe on the verge of toppling for days.

  But then I spotted the back door. I walked closer, careful not to touch anything, hoping my eyes were playing tricks. The door was definitely ajar, though. Someone had been there just now. Someone who’d knocked the dish over, probably in a rush to get out the back door at the sound of my ringing phone. What would have happened if Sam hadn’t called and I’d surprised them in the kitchen?

  My hands trembled as I dialed 911.

  “Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”

  “I’d like to report a break-in.”

  I waited on the front steps for the police to arrive. An endless fifteen minutes later, a patrol car finally pulled up and parked in front of a nearby hydrant. A middle-aged female officer and a younger man got out. He was short and solidly built. She was tough-looking and a head taller, with slicked-back blond hair and imposing shoulders. She walked ahead a few steps, very obviously in charge.

  “This your house?” she called up.

  “I called to report the break-in,” I said. “But it’s my client’s house. I’m his attorney.”

  “Your client, huh?” Her eyebrows bunched. “He inside?”

  “No, no,” I said, making the calculated decision not to mention Zach’s current residence in Rikers. “I was here to pick something up for him. I was inside when I heard a noise at the back of the house, in the kitchen.” I motioned over my shoulder to the house. “When I went to check, there was a smashed dish on the floor and the back door was hanging open. Like somebody had just run out. I can show you. I didn’t touch anything.”

  “There anything missing?” the female officer asked, peering up at the house without taking a step closer. “Signs of an actual burglary?”

  “Nothing obvious—the drawers weren’t opened or anything. Only the broken dish. But like I said, it’s not my house.”

  “I thought you said there was an open door.” The female officer leveled a pair of skeptical eyes at me as she made her way up the steps. “Right?”

  Sarcasm. Okay, so that answered that question: she knew exactly who my client was and all about Amanda’s murder. Did she think I’d staged this?

  “Yeah,” I said, sharply, but just short of rude. OFFICER GILL, her nameplate read, and unfortunately, I did need her help. Staying polite seemed wise. “And the open door.”

  “Well, let’s ge
t this show on the road,” the male officer said, clearly oblivious to the tension as he started up the steps. Officer Kemper was his name.

  “The blood hasn’t been cleaned up,” I said, glancing at Officer Gill.

  She avoided eye contact.

  “Blood?” Kemper asked. “Somebody want to clue me in?”

  “The Key Party Killing.” I glared at Gill. “I believe that’s what you all are calling it.”

  His eyes widened. “Oh, that’s this?”

  “Same house,” Gill said, then turned back to me. “Unlock the door, then wait out here. Till we make sure it’s clear.”

  I hovered outside the mostly closed front door, listening for a commotion—a shot fired in the dark, officers shouting, a suspect discovered, a struggle. But there was only more silence. Ten minutes later, the door swung open.

  “You’re good,” Officer Kemper said, breathing hard from his pass through the house.

  “You know, whoever was here probably had something to do with Amanda Grayson’s murder,” I said as I moved toward the door. It wouldn’t change how the officers handled this, but it would be good to have it on the record. “It’s a reasonable assumption.”

  “Okay,” he said, but with a tone that said That’s not my department.

  We stepped back inside. And there it finally was: the staircase. Clearly a recent addition, it was pale wood with modern steel detailing in the railing and treads. Blood was splattered all over the walls near the bottom—small drops and big drops and a fine spray. Long splashed lines on top of that like a gruesome Jackson Pollock painting. There was an entryway table under a mirror knocked out of place, beneath that a small, stained towel. In the center of the polished blond wood beneath the stairs was a huge circle of smeared blood. As though somebody had made an effort to clean up, only to make matters worse. But it was one nearly black spot to the side of the last step that was most disturbing. I could picture Amanda’s head lying there, the insides pouring out like a cracked egg.