Dear Wife

by Kimberly Belle

  “Was anyone there with you?” I ask.

  “I live alone.”

  “Okay. Is there anyone who can verify your whereabouts? A neighbor, maybe, or a client who called on the house line.”

  “No,” she says, then brightens. “But I was online all day. I can prove I was there with the IPs from websites I visited, and the emails in my Sent folder.”

  “You know how to do that?” Jeffrey sounds dubious, like he doesn’t think she’s that capable.

  “Yes,” she says, slow and satisfied. “I have a degree in computer science.”

  Mentally, I shuffle the sister to the bottom of my list. Ingrid is a spinster, the kind of woman who lives alone, works alone, stays alone, but so far, everything I’ve seen and heard from her seems sincere. As suspects go, she’s not a strong one.

  Jeffrey, on the other hand. He checks all the boxes. Every single one.

  He clears his throat, folds his hands atop his lap. “Well, let’s see. I landed at just after noon or so—”

  I nod. “At 12:05 p.m.”

  Surprise flashes across his face, though it shouldn’t. I already told him I looked up his flight number, which means I’ll also know when he landed. I’m not a small-town cop, and I’ve done my homework.

  “Your plane arrived at the gate at 12:11,” I say without consulting my notes. “By 12:24, everyone but the crew had deplaned.”

  “Okay,” he says, thinking. “But I was all the way in the back, so one of the last people off the plane, and then it took forever to get my bag. The Little Rock Airport is notoriously slow. After that I grabbed some lunch.”

  “At the airport?”

  “No. At a little Italian place near the airport. I don’t remember the name.”

  Ingrid makes a sound: convenient.

  “What time was this?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. After one, for sure. Maybe closer to one thirty.”

  “Did you use a card?”

  “I paid cash.”

  Ingrid gives up all pretense. She blows out a sigh, long and loud, and sits up straight in her chair. She’s ready for me to arrest him, to slap some cuffs on him and cart him downstairs.

  “What time did you get back to Pine Bluff?”

  He shrugs. “I think it was around four or so.”

  “Your neighbor, a Mrs. Ashby, confirms it to be around four ten. She remembers because she was watching a rerun of Ellen, who’d just finished her dance. Mrs. Ashby was in the kitchen during the commercial break, making herself a snack.”

  He makes a noise deep in his throat. “More likely pouring herself a drink. Rita Ashby is a nosy old hag whose face is pressed to the kitchen window more often than not. She’s also a drunk. In all those years we’ve lived there, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her sober.” He’s trying to distract me, buy some time. He knows the question coming next.

  “Why so late?” When he doesn’t immediately answer, I add, “I mean, by my math, even accounting for the baggage delay and the lunch stop and afternoon traffic, which we all know can be a real bitch, you should have been home by 2:30 p.m. at the latest. How come you were so late? What were you doing for that hour and a half?”

  His shrug is trying too hard, as is his tone, too high and much too smooth. “It was a nice day, and I’d spent all week cooped up inside at a conference. Don’t tell my boss, but I really didn’t want to go back to the office. I stopped off at a park along the river to read.”

  “Which park?”

  “Tar Camp.”

  A forested recreation area popular with families and fishermen, about halfway between Little Rock and Pine Bluff. Emma and I used to go camping there, back when we were newlyweds.

  I scribble the name on my pad. “How long did you stay?”

  “An hour and a half, maybe longer.”

  “What were you reading?”

  “The CEO of one of our biggest competitors just came out with a book, Stoking the Fire at Work or some such nonsense. My boss is making everyone at the office read it. Honestly, it’s not very good.”

  “Did you see anybody there?”

  “It’s a public park,” he says, getting defensive. “I saw lots of people.”

  “What I meant was, did any of them notice you? A guy in business attire sitting by himself, on a park bench—”

  “It was a picnic table. There’s a cluster of them at the edge of the river.” He pauses to glance at Ingrid, whose brows are bunched in a skeptical frown. “And I was in jeans and a polo. Travel attire.”

  “Still. A guy all alone at a picnic table, reading a book. I’d imagine you stood out.”

  “I’d imagine so, but tell me this, Detective—how am I supposed to find them?”

  I dip my head, ceding the point. Not that it helps him any. Even if he had been at Tar Camp, it’s not like any of the people there would remember him, and they certainly wouldn’t have exchanged names and numbers.

  But the bigger point is, he’s lying. All the signs are there. The stare down across my desk, the way his breath comes quicker, the microscopic flashes of panic I keep catching on his face. Something about his story is not true.

  “Help me out here, Jeffrey. I just want to make sure I’m not missing anything.” I lean toward him, hands folded on top of a sloppy pile of papers. “According to what you just told me, you were alone all afternoon yesterday, either in your car, at an unnamed restaurant or in a public park, from around 12:30 p.m. until a little after four, when the neighbor confirms you pulled into your driveway.”

  He nods. “That’s right. Yes.” Add sweating to the list. His face has gone shiny, sprouting a million wet pinpricks.

  “And at no point during those three and a half hours, the same hours your wife walked out of the Super1 on East Harding and disappeared, can anyone but you verify your whereabouts.”

  He’s silent for long enough I almost feel sorry for him. He sucks a breath, then two more, thirteen brain-numbing seconds, and then the best he can do is: “Pretty much.”

  I try to hold my expression tight, but the smile sneaks out anyway.

  Gotcha.

  BETH

  I pull to a stop in the middle of the two-lane drive, double-check the address on the Post-it note Martina handed me earlier this morning and gawk at the building before me.

  A church. Martina works at a church. A neo-Gothic monstrosity of beige brick and stained glass, with crimson gables and scalloped finials and lancet arches. In the very center of the main tower, a rose window stares out like the eye of a cyclops. Above it, at the steepest point of the roofline, a wooden cross reaches with long arms into a pale blue sky.

  The Church of Christ’s Twelve Apostles.

  Oh hell no.

  My hand clenches around the gearshift, jiggling it into Reverse. The Church and I aren’t exactly on the best of terms, not since I went to the leader of mine for guidance and he refused to unshackle me from a monster.

  “It’s perfectly normal to argue,” Father Ian had told me. “All couples do. But the successful couples learn to forgive. They put the resentment behind them and move on.”

  I nodded my head in pious agreement. “I understand that, Father, but he...hurts me.”

  “Hurts you how?”

  For a second or two, I considered pulling up my shirt and showing him my cracked ribs. In the end, I settled on, “With his hands.”

  “Closed or open?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “His hands, when he hurts you. Are they closed or open?”

  The logical part of me understands Father Ian’s reluctance to believe you would be capable of such cruelty. He’s known you most of your life, guided you through so many sacraments. And we were together for two years before you shoved me into that hotel wall. It was two more years before you punched me, and another year after that before you punched me again. The violence came on so gradually, and then so fast. To Father Ian, to everyone but you and me, my complaints came out of nowhere.

  In the end, we
compromised: Father Ian would counsel you on the proper ways to handle an argument, and I would pray to become a better wife.

  A honk comes from behind me, two friendly, rapid-fire beeps. I look up to find a pretty blonde in my rearview mirror. She waves, diamonds winking on her wrist, and I try to remember what Martina called them, these wealthy women from the northern suburbs. Betty somethings. I gesture for this one to go around, but she doesn’t move, and the road is too narrow for me to turn around. With a sigh, I put the car in Drive.

  The two-lane road slices through a manicured lawn clotted with oakleaf hydrangeas and boxwoods sculpted into perfect circles. Before I can find a place to turn around, it dumps me into a parking garage, five-plus stories of stacked concrete. I swing the Buick into a visitor’s space, finally shaking off the blonde on my tail. She motors past, rounding the corner to the next level.

  The holy hush—that’s what I’ve since learned it’s called, this brushing of allegations like mine under the altar rug, though I suppose I should give Father Ian a little credit. He lived up to his end of the bargain and talked to you. But whatever he said only made things worse. You came home looking for a fight, one that ended with a concussion and a weeklong ringing in my ears. That Sunday, Father Ian pressed the communion wafer through my split lips like nothing had ever happened. As soon as I turned away, I spit the thing into my hand.

  I realize that not every church operates this way. That ignorant and willfully blind priests like Father Ian are, for the most part, a dying breed. I once read an article about an abused woman who claimed church was the only thing that kept her going, the one hour each week she allowed herself a glimmer of hope. And yet I stare out my windshield at this one, and I feel nothing but dread.

  Martina all but guaranteed they would hire me on the spot. She said she told them that I clean like she does, powering through six toilets in the time it takes others to scrub one, even though she’s never seen me work so much as a sponge. I have no idea why she has taken up the role of my protector, but I’m not exactly in a position to turn her down. I do a mental count of the bills strapped to my stomach. After Jorge and groceries, it’s a whole lot lighter than it was just yesterday. It would take me days to find another job, which means church or not, I can’t afford to walk away from this one. I brace myself and climb out of the car.

  The garage stairwell dumps me out at a side entrance, and I step into a hallway that smells like pine and incense. I follow it past a long line of double doors, then stop at an open one, gawking into a cavernous space three stories high. Rows and rows of plush crimson seats, thousands of them, are arranged in sections on a gentle slope around a podium hung with stage lights and two giant LED screens. And what’s that—an orchestra pit?

  Voices come from somewhere behind me, and I continue down the hallway, following the signs to the administrative offices. Colored light trickles down from stained glass windows high above my head, painting patterns across a freshly vacuumed carpet. I can’t imagine why they need another person on their cleaning staff. So far, everything I’ve seen here has been spotless.

  The executive offices are bright and spacious and, as far as I can tell, span the entire length of the church. There’s a reception area straight ahead, with hallways dotted with doors on either side. A woman sits behind the receptionist’s desk, one I recognize. Prim white blouse, understated pearls, diamonds at her wrists, blond hair teased into a helmet atop her head. Up close, she’s not half as pretty as she was in my rearview mirror.

  She greets me like she’s never seen me before. “Welcome to the Church of Christ’s Twelve Apostles. What brings you in today?”

  “I’m here to see Father Andrews.”

  “It’s Reverend,” she corrects, turning to her computer. She punches a few buttons on the keyboard with a baby pink nail. “Do you have an appointment with the Reverend?”

  “Yes, at ten.” I arrange my face into a careful neutral. “My name is Beth Murphy.”

  She tells me the Reverend had a minor emergency in the music room and asked me to meet him there, then rattles off a series of convoluted directions for what is basically a trek to the basement. I thank her, then head in search of the stairwell.

  A few minutes later, I step into a full-on recording studio. Modern and airy, furnished with sleek black chairs and leather couches arranged in clusters around a stage. Multiple rehearsal rooms each with their own mixing panel are lined up along the wall, across from a soundproof recording booth. Behind its smoky glass, a spongy microphone hovers like a spaceship from the ceiling.

  “Hello?”

  A thump, followed by a muffled curse, drifts up from somewhere behind me. I turn and that’s when I see them, two stovepipes of dark denim ending in orange Nikes, poking out from under one of the mixing panels. He wriggles himself out and heaves to a stand, holding out a hand.

  “Erwin Andrews,” he says, smiling behind his clipped white beard. “And you must be Beth.”

  I shake his hand, swallowing a flutter of nerves. It’s been years since I’ve been on a job interview, especially one for which I am so monumentally unqualified. I know how to scrub a toilet, yes, but what if he asks about prior experience? What if he asks for references?

  “Why don’t we sit?” The Reverend is fit despite his age, popping off the ground with surprising speed and agility. He leads me with long, nimble strides to a matching pair of couches to the right of the stage. He’s a runner, judging by his shoes and his build.

  He points me to the couch, then plucks a chair from the stage and swings it around, placing it so we’re almost knee to knee. Not too close, but not far away, either. Relaxed and informal.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he says, clasping his hands. “Why would the pastor of a place this size want to interview every potential employee? Why not let someone else do it? The office manager, maybe, or the head of the cleaning crew.”

  It’s almost word for word what I said to Martina last night, when she told me she’d set up the interview. She didn’t know the answer, either.

  “Martina says that you interview everybody.” I tell my nerves to shut up, but they don’t listen, and neither does my body. Sweaty hands, hammering heart, the works. I clear my throat, struggling to rein myself in.

  “I do, Beth, and I’ll tell you why. Because we are a community here at CCTA, and as its leader, it is my responsibility to keep people from harm. Everyone who walks through that door needs to know that they are sheltered. Regardless of where they came from or what brought them here. That is the promise I have made, to provide a secure, positive, healthy environment where everyone, from the worshippers to the volunteers to the janitors, know that they are safe.”

  In other words, he needs to ensure I’m not a criminal. He says it without rancor, but still. Reverend Andrews is the godlier version of Miss Sally. I wouldn’t want to cross him, either.

  I nod, plastering my most law-abiding look on my face. “That makes total sense.”

  “Good. Excellent.” He slaps his thighs. “Now, I assume you know how to operate a mop, so we can skip the boring parts of this interview and get right to the part where I ask if you can sing.”

  “I...” I blink, frowning. “I’m sorry, what?”

  He waves an arm at the setup along the edge of the stage, guitars and microphone stands and a drum set worthy of Charlie Watts. “Music is an essential part of worship at CCTA, an essential part of our culture. God has blessed me with parishioners who have the voices of angels, to make up for others who are...how shall I say this...not put on this earth to carry a tune. Sometimes the Lord works in mysterious ways, and other times He is painfully obvious.” He sticks a finger in his ear, jiggles it around. “What I want to know is which one are you?”

  “I fall in the second category, unfortunately.”

  Another lie. I can sing, and I can read music, too. But admitting to either would mean getting shoved onto this stage or worse, the one upstairs, in a cathedral that must seat thousands
. The spotlight can feel too hot, too bright, even when you’re not trying to hide. No way I’m letting them shine it on me.

  “What about an instrument? Do you play anything?”

  Piano—or I used to, until you mangled my left pinkie.

  “No.” I shake my head. “Sorry.”

  The Reverend looks mildly disappointed. “What about a beat? Can you carry one of those?” He taps his foot, snaps his fingers in a slow, rhythmic cadence.

  I can’t help but smile. “I can do that.”

  “Excellent! Then you can play the tambourine. We always have room for more tambourine players.”

  And here it comes. The invitation to attend Sunday services. Reverend Andrews wants to save my soul, and he wants me to play the tambourine while he does it. I picture me in a singing, swaying crowd, joyous faces tipped to the heavens, while he holds his healing hands above us all. There will be no tambourine playing in my future. No church service, either.

  He swings an ankle over a knee, leaning back in the chair. “Do you have a favorite team?”

  I dip my chin, raise my eyebrows. Team?

  “You know, sports. Football, baseball, basketball. And don’t be looking at me like it’s a crazy question. More than half the hard-core Atlanta United fans I know are female. Fifteen-nine our first season. You like soccer?”

  “I’m not really much of a sports fan.”

  For the next twenty minutes, the Reverend wanders topics like a drunken bumblebee, bobbing from bloom to bloom. We talk about movies (I haven’t seen one in ages), books (I will read anything but horror), whether or not I thought the TV show did The Handmaid’s Tale justice (yes, absolutely). He asks me my favorite color (what am I, twelve? Fine, yellow), and what do I think about when I’m alone in my car (how not to get pulled over). We touch on favorite foods (mine: french fries, his: pizza) and this place I absolutely must visit, the BeltLine, a walkable, bike-able trail that connects dozens of in-town neighborhoods, because I haven’t lived until I’ve had the truffle fries at Biltong Bar (ask for extra mayonnaise). Our banter is more suited to a bar, or maybe a match.com chat group. I don’t know what this conversation is, but it’s definitely not an interview.