Dear Wife

by Kimberly Belle

  It’s your face I see now when Erwin Four leans in, your breath heating up my cheek. “I think you took the money, Beth,” he says, low and deadly, “and if you’re nice I might just let you keep it.”

  There’s only one thing to do here, really. Only one way to satisfy both my temper and my terror.

  I look Erwin Four in the face and knee him hard in the balls. And then I’m off at a dead run.

  MARCUS

  Ma starts upstairs while I gather up the files I’d spread across the living room and kitchen, unpin the papers from the wall and toss everything in a basket I fetch from the laundry room. I can’t stay in the house, not with Ma’s weighted sighs and worried stares. I haul the basket to the car, dump it in the trunk and drive to the station.

  The place is changing shifts by the time I arrive, beat-weary cops trudging out the door, nodding to their fresh-faced replacements like an unspoken passing of batons. I don’t want to think too hard about how long I’ve been on the job, or how little I slept last night. I’m running on fumes and adrenaline, like I do every time I’m nearing a break on a case. Something big is about to happen—I can feel it. The papers with the four phone numbers are burning a hole in my pocket, excitement vibrating in the deepest part of my bones.

  I park at the edge of the lot and head to the door.

  “Hey, Marcus,” another detective says, nodding at the basket in my arms. “Rick’s gym clothes are stinking up the office, if you’re doing a load.”

  “Har. Get the door for me, will you?”

  He backtracks a couple steps, pulls on the handle. “Oh, and Chief was looking for you earlier. Watch your six, he’s on the warpath.”

  Great. A grilling from Chief Eubanks is the very last thing on my agenda. He’s the kind of cop who was born to wear a uniform, an eternally grumpy guy who barks out orders in a tone that makes grown men shake in their buffed boots. I take the long way to my desk, sneaking up the back staircase and looping around.

  I don’t relax until I step into my office, where the Chief is sitting in my chair, looking through a pile of papers I really wish he wasn’t reading.

  “Oh. Hey, Chief.” He doesn’t look up. I settle the laundry basket on the floor, kick it so it’s half-hidden under the desk. “Can I help you find something?”

  He stabs a finger to the top page. “Yeah, you can tell me what this means: ‘Charlotte, Louisville, Jacksonville, Raleigh, Atlanta.’” He looks up over his half-moon reading glasses. “You have some reason to believe Sabine Hardison is on the run?”

  It’s the assumption Jade made, as well. I sink into the chair across from the Chief, the one I normally offer to guests, and swing my ankle over a knee, relaxed and casual. “Just covering all the bases, sir. The husband said it wouldn’t have been the first time. She has a history of antidepressants and wasn’t exactly stable.”

  Chief peels off the glasses and tosses them on the desk. “Yeah, well, funny you should mention the husband. I received a call from Olivia Spinella. I’m sure you know who that is.”

  I shake my head, the name squirming in my belly. I don’t know who Olivia Spinella is, but the fact Chief’s bringing her up can’t be good. “Not familiar, no.”

  “Ms. Spinella is Jeffrey Hardison’s attorney. She claims Jeffrey has an alibi for the window of time his wife went missing, and she also claims you knew about it when you showed up at her client’s house two days ago to harass him.”

  “I wasn’t harassing him. I was questioning him. There’s something fishy about his alibi. Why not be straight about where he was? Why not just say what he was doing in Little Rock?”

  “At 2:30 p.m., Mr. Hardison checked in at the offices of a Dr. Lee, a urologist at CHI St. Vincent in Little Rock. His appointment took about forty minutes, after which he got his prescription filled at the hospital pharmacy downstairs. The prescription was for Viagra, and his attorney has offered up the still-full bottle as evidence. It seems Mr. Hardison had plans to reinvigorate his marital relationship with Mrs. Hardison that night, but he never got the chance.”

  His words are like a punch to the gut, and I try my damnedest not to wince. “Oh.”

  “Yeah. ‘Oh.’” He heaves a heavy sigh, never a good sign. “Ms. Spinella and Mr. Hardison would like to know what we’re doing to find his wife, and to tell you the truth, I’d like to hear the answer, too. Where are you looking? What leads are you exploring?”

  Chief Eubanks knows better than anybody here the limitations I’m working under. There are sixteen detectives under this leaky roof, and we’ve shared 357 case files so far this year. All of us have more work than we can handle, and the city won’t grant us pay raises or overtime. We’re the most necessary work force in a city that doesn’t appreciate us. It’s no wonder that every year our rank shrinks.

  And yet it sure feels like the Chief here is accusing me of not doing the legwork.

  “Come on, Chief, you know I work harder than anybody in this place. Everything I’ve done has been by the book. I interviewed her friends and family. I combed her computer and tracked her phone. I looked at her bank accounts, even found a couple her husband didn’t know about.”

  He gives me a slow nod, and a pounding starts up in the base of my skull.

  “I also received a complaint from Trevor McAdams,” he says.

  I take a deep breath, blow it out long and slow. “Is that so?”

  “He claims you came to his house with all sorts of accusations about Sabine, that she’s unstable, that she faked a pregnancy test. You want to explain yourself?”

  “She was unstable. The pharmacy confirmed an ongoing prescription for antidepressants and that she had an adverse reaction when she went off them cold turkey last year. She has a history of difficulty getting pregnant as well as a long string of miscarriages. I haven’t been able to confirm she was actually pregnant, or if she had some sort of irregularity that made it impossible to stay that way.”

  “So you think what, that she had some kind of breakdown and took off?”

  I lift both hands like, maybe. “Like I said, sir, I’m just covering all the bases. And Shelley McAdams skipped town the day her husband’s lover disappeared. There’s definitely motive there, maybe opportunity, as well.”

  “The doctor wants you to stay away from her, too.”

  I puff a laugh. “I’ll bet he does.”

  “Did you question her?”

  “She’s in Chicago through the weekend.”

  “Do you have enough to haul her back?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  In other words, no. Chief shakes his head. “This McAdams guy is a doctor, Marcus. He’s smart, respected. Determined as hell. He’s not some guy off the street.”

  I bite down on a scowl, clear my expression. “I’m aware of that, sir.”

  “He knows his rights, and he’s not playing around. He’s got a shitload of folks on Twitter who think you’re incompetent or at the very least, dragging your feet. I don’t know if you’ve seen his feed, but they’re killing you over there.”

  Oh, I’ve seen his feed, all right. It’s just as infuriating as the guy is in real life, a constantly rolling wall of melodramatic wails into the void. One second he’s pissed, then next he’s blubbering like a baby. His emotions bounce around like a dented Ping-Pong ball, with no clue where it’s going to land next. The tweets have a constant theme, though, and that’s me. I’m obstinate, thickheaded, on the wrong path. Last time I scrolled through it, I punched my fist through a wall.

  “He wants you off the case. He’s threatening to sue, and he’s got the money and the pull to make good on his threats.”

  “Is that what this is about? You want me off the case?”

  There’s a long beat of silence—too long—and I try not to squirm like a two-bit criminal brought in for questioning, even though that’s exactly how I feel. That’s my chair he’s sitting in, my desk he’s plunked his Popeye forearms on. My case he’s grilling me on. I can’t have him take it away
.

  My desk phone lights up, the ring shrill in the silent room, and a burst of electricity surges under my skin. Jade, calling me from downstairs.

  Chief Eubanks ignores the phone. “If you want to pass this case to another detective—”

  “I don’t.”

  “If you’ve got other things you need to deal with or need some cooling-down time—”

  “I don’t,” I say through gritted teeth because one time, just once, I lose my shit with some asshole pointing a cell phone camera at my head, and the Chief is still bringing it up, two years later.

  The phone rings for a third time, and he reaches for his glasses, folding them up and slipping them into a pocket on his shirt.

  “I want a report. I want to know what leads you are following, what people you are talking to, what you are doing with my hard-earned tax dollars to find Sabine Hardison. And I want it on my desk by the end of the day.”

  The Chief leaves, and I sit here, breathing through my rage. Fucking Jeffrey Hardison and his fucking attorney. Fucking Doctor McAsshole. The footsteps fade into silence in the hall, and I punch in the number for Jade. “Please tell me you have good news.”

  “That depends. Atlanta’s kind of a hike, and I hear it’s really hot this time of year.” She snorts, but I’m in no mood for joking around.

  I shove the door closed with a foot and edge around my desk, holding the cord high so it doesn’t snag. “Tell me.”

  “Okay, so I found a cluster of check-ins, and from a whole slew of IP addresses. They’re kind of all over the place, which means they’re most likely coming from a cell phone.”

  “Any of the burner numbers?”

  “I can’t see the cell phone numbers, only the IP of the carrier. And a carrier’s IP address changes all the time, depending on the cell phone tower it’s pinging. The only exception is when the cell hops onto a Wi-Fi network, and then it becomes static.”

  My head is pounding. I yank open my top drawer, reach in for the bottle of Excedrin—industrial-sized, because of all the moments like this one. I don’t give a shit about IPs and cell phone towers, only where they point. “So, did you find her or not?”

  “Hold your horses, Sparky, I’m getting there. I’ve got two addresses for you, each of them with dozens of hits, both of them coming from inside Atlanta city limits. One for a boardinghouse on English Street, and the other for a church.”

  She rattles off the addresses, and I scribble them onto the pad.

  “And the burner numbers?” The manager gave me four, all of which I passed on to Jade less than an hour ago.

  “Those are up next. I’ll call you as soon as I’ve got something. Now go out there and get her.”

  I’m already on my feet, already thinking about the fastest route to the airport. “On my way.”

  BETH

  I am packed and banging on Miss Sally’s door in record time, by my calculations a mere twenty-seven minutes after kneeing Erwin Four in the balls. The whole time I was hurtling through rush hour traffic to Morgan House and stuffing my belongings into a bag, I was doing the math. Four minutes, maybe five for the little shit to pull himself off the floor, double that for him to sound the alarm... He’ll spew lies and false accusations, which means I need to hurry.

  I lift my fist and bang on the door again.

  “Hang on, hang on, I’m coming,” Miss Sally’s voice says through the wood. She pulls the door open with a smile. “Hey, sugar, what are you—uh-oh. Why are you so sweaty?”

  I don’t really wait for her to invite me in; I wriggle my way past.

  “And how come you’re panting? Did you run all the way here?” She shuts the door behind me, flipping the lock with a metallic clunk, and the noise sends a sliver of panic up my chest. My gaze flicks to the windows, two paned sheets of glass plenty big enough for an escape.

  And then I see the rest of the room and I freeze.

  “What’s wrong?” she says, taking in my expression. “What happened?”

  I don’t answer because I can’t. I am rigid with shock, my entire body frozen at the spectacle that is Miss Sally’s room. It looks like something out of a movie set. Dark and blood red, with sculpted molding and carved furniture, Victorian behemoths with stubby clawed feet. There’s velvet everywhere, rich maroon and burgundy lined in fringe and hung with tassels. Even the walls are papered in it, lit up with an occasional filigreed brass lamp.

  And on every horizontal surface, on the tables and cabinets and elaborately carved stands, are sculptures of very large, very erect penises. It’s like Moulin Rouge meets gay porn, an orgy of Belle Epoque with homosexual brothel.

  I turn in a slow circle, taking it all in. “What is this place? Where am I?”

  “You like it, huh?” Miss Sally sinks onto an overstuffed love seat, patting the cushion beside her. “Now come on. You sit down and tell Miss Sally what happened. What’s got you all in a tizzy?”

  I tear my gaze off a ruby dildo lamp, telling her the two-second version: “I kneed the pastor’s son in the balls, and now I have to leave.”

  Disappointment flashes across her face. “Wait a minute. You don’t just knee some poor sucker in the balls, not without a reason. There’s got to be more to the story than that. Miss Sally wants to know what it is.”

  “As much as I’d love to tell you everything, I don’t have time. I used this address on my job application.”

  “So, you’re leaving.” Miss Sally is a lot of things, but stupid is not one of them.

  I nod, acknowledging an unexpected pang. I didn’t realize until now how much I’ll miss Morgan House, how much I’ve come to think of it as home, even if only a temporary one. I sink onto the couch next to her, brushing away the sadness. The police will be here any minute. It’s past time to go.

  “How much do I owe you?”

  “Well, it’s past noon,” she says, crossing her long legs. Under her white eyelet skirt, they’re lotioned into a high shine, reflecting in the room’s dim light like glass. “I’ll have to charge you through tomorrow.”

  “That’s fine. How much?”

  I expect her to check a list, to pull up some file on her computer or at the very least, reach for a calculator, but she rattles off a number without the slightest hesitation, like Rain Man. “One hundred and twenty dollars.”

  I peel off the bills and hand them to her. “Can I borrow a piece of paper and a pen?”

  She stands, fetching some from a sideboard on the opposite wall. Perfumed stationery and a fountain pen, of course. I kneel, scribbling my message on a glass-topped side table. When I’m done, I fold it twice, write Martina’s name on the outside and hand it to Miss Sally.

  “Do you know where you’re going?” she says, pocketing the note.

  “I will when I get there.”

  Miss Sally gives me a sad smile. “You take care of yourself, you hear?”

  “You bet. And thanks for everything. I’m really going to miss this place.”

  She grabs me by a shoulder and yanks me in for a hug. I wasn’t expecting it, and for the first few seconds, stand stiff as a board in her arms, but she smells so good and her breasts are like two giant, soft pillows against my cheek, so I relax and give in to the embrace even though the clock is ticking. She pats me on the back with a giant paw, murmurs into my hair, “Poor, sweet girl. It gets easier, you know.”

  “What does?”

  She cranes back her head to look down, arching her back, and something unexpected presses into my leg. “Running. Starting over. But you’re smart, and you’re stronger than you know. You’ll find your place.”

  It’s all I can do to nod.

  She releases me, waving a rose-scented hand through the air. “Now get out of here. I’ve got shit to do.”

  A few seconds later, I’m racing down the backstreets to where I parked my car, a couple blocks away, thinking that’s one mystery solved, at least. Miss Sally’s boobs might be bigger than mine, but she definitely wasn’t born female.


  Dear Martina,

  Sorry I ditched you today, and sorrier still that I lied. As usual, you were right. I’m the one who took the money from Charlene’s desk. I know, I know—stealing from a church is pretty much a one-way ticket to hell, but I had my reasons. Valid ones, I promise. Tell the Reverend it was me, will you? Make him point the police away from you and the cleaning crew. And tell everybody, too, that I’m really, truly sorry.

  Thanks for everything—for Jorge, for the job, for your friendship. Especially the last one. One day, when all of this is behind me, I hope I can come back to thank you in person.

  Be safe.

  XO,

  Beth

  * * *

  When it comes to finding a new place to stay, the two thousand dollars from Charlene’s top desk drawer and the Georgia ID in my pocket have certainly broadened my search parameters. I don’t dare to turn on my phone, which I powered down as I was running out the church door, so I drive to a new part of town and putter up and down random streets until I spot a motel advertising rooms for the bargain-basement price of twenty-two dollars a night. It’s an ancient three-story building wedged into the downtown connector, one wing literally hanging over the overpass, which probably explains the price. One semi too many rumbling by its shabby walls, and they’ll come crumbling down.

  The lot is packed, but I find a vacant spot between two rusted-out heaps that make the Regal look like a late-model Cadillac. Two men lean against the railing on an upper floor catwalk, watching me make the trek to the office. I acknowledge them, but I don’t wave or smile.

  The office is tiny, a windowless room with a couple of ratty chairs and a desk behind bulletproof Plexiglas. The woman sitting behind it is nondescript—drab hair dragged into a low ponytail, an unlined and makeup-free face, a lumpy body under shapeless clothes. A boring slice of white bread compared to the smorgasbord of color that is Miss Sally.

  She waves off my ID. “You don’t need that here. You alone?”