The Loyal Wife

by Natalie Barelli

  Sorry baby, I really need you, you’re the only one who can help me.

  He doesn’t even know how much I helped him.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Thank God for Joan. She must be my guardian angel, or maybe we are each other’s guardian angels. I gave her a call, squeezed my eyes shut and I came right out with it. “I need a place to stay for a while,” I said.

  “Come on over. You can stay as long as you like.” I let out a long breath of relief. I could tell she meant it, too, just from her voice. I made a mental note to tell Madison next time I see her.

  You see, it’s not about self-affirmations so much as being a nice person. Be nice to people, they’ll be nice to you back. Humanity 101. As if.

  And yet here I am, sitting in Joan’s living room, a steaming mug of tea in my hand and a Golden Retriever at my feet. “You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to,” Joan says, “but are you all right?”

  “Not really, but I will be,” I lie. She already knows about my troubles with the police and I don’t want to tell her that The Slut who was screwing my husband turned out to be my best friend. I don’t want to tell her about all my problems. I want to forget about them, even just for a minute.

  “What about our good friend Mario? Can he do something?”

  Mario, my friend the lawyer. The one who helped Joan. I sigh. “Mario’s a divorce lawyer.” I almost add that he’ll most certainly come in handy, but not right now.

  “Oh, dear.” She frowns. “Although, the law is the law, you would think. Well, let me know if you change your mind. We’ve become quite good friends, Mario, Karine and I.”

  Karine, that’s right. She and I used to go to Pilates together. God, that feels like a million years ago.

  “In fact, I’m going to Alexandro’s wedding next weekend. Will you be coming too?”

  Alexandro. Mario and Karine’s oldest son. It’s like getting pulled into my old life. “I—we have been invited, yes, but I’m not sure if I’ll make it.” They’ve probably rescinded that invitation by now. The local murderers don’t exactly make ideal wedding guests. I suddenly get an image of that other wedding invitation, neatly addressed to Mr. & Mrs. Mike Mitchell from Janis Porter. I bet that one’s been rescinded.

  “Oh well, I hope you change your mind between now and then. Now, you make yourself at home. I need to be somewhere, but I will see you later. Max will look after you. Won’t you, Maxie?”

  At the sound of his name, Max wags his tail and pretty much knocks everything in its path. Then he turns his head toward me and nudges my hand for a pat.

  “Thank you so much, Joan. I can’t tell you what this means to me.” I accompany her to the door.

  “Oh, you don’t need to,” she replies, adjusting her coat. “I know very well what it means.” And with a smile and a squeeze of my hand, she’s gone.

  I’m so tired I make a beeline for the spare room, the room that’s going to be mine for the next few days. I can’t put my thoughts in order, so I figure I may as well sleep for an hour, and then I’ll meet up with Fiona. But as I lie on top of the Damask duvet and stare at the ceiling, I find that sleep has other plans.

  My phone buzzes. It’s a text from Mike.

  When are you coming home? I miss you. I love you. Please come home. We can sort this out.

  He’s scared of course. He wants me to retract everything, although why he talked to Fiona is a mystery. He has an angle, and I have no idea what it is, but I sure don’t trust him. I start to type a reply. It goes something like, Please fuck off, but then I change my mind and cancel it. Clearly, he still doesn’t know that I know about him and Lauren. What a creep. He’s still trying to make me protect him. Oh Tamra, I love you so much! You can take the fall, can’t you? For the both of us? I’d do it for you! Not!

  Well, Lauren will be telling him any minute now. I left the bra hanging over the mirror on the top of the dresser. I figured since I had trashed her place, the least I could do was give her an explanation.

  I lay a hand over my eyes, and my breath turns into a sob that brings with it a despair so deep it makes my whole body shake. Images of Mike and Lauren fly through my mind. All this time, for years, I thought they couldn’t stand each other. Now it turns out it was just for my benefit.

  I’m such a loser.

  * * *

  I slept for too long. When I wake up, the light that was pouring through the blinds has dimmed to dusk. I don’t know what time it is, but it must be late afternoon.

  I notice the screen on my phone is lit, and I realize that’s what woke me. The ping of a text. It’s from Fiona Martin.

  Ask me a hard one next time. He’s staying at the Ballantyne.

  I sit up quickly; Max’s head pops up next to the bed, his brown eyes fixed on me. Next thing I know, he’s jumped on the bed and is licking my face. It’s the grossest thing I’ve ever had done to me. I feel like I should go and get a chemical peel done immediately before I start to grow warts all over my face. I do my very best to push him off the bed with a spray of “Down Max! Down boy!” and when he does hop off, if that’s what you do when you’re eighty pounds overweight, I get the feeling it’s his decision, not mine.

  “Jeez Max, pick on someone your own size next time.”

  After washing my face, I call Fiona back. “What’s he doing at the fucking Ballantyne?”

  “Well, hello, Tamra? How are you? Nice to hear from you!” There’s no mistaking the sarcasm in her tone.

  “If you want niceties from me, you’ll have to write up that I’m innocent and you have no journalistic ethics whatsoever.”

  “I never wrote you were guilty, I just wrote the truth.”

  “Yeah, right,” I snort.

  “Did you call to berate me? Or do you want the info you asked for?”

  “How long has he been there?” I ask. Is that even relevant? The Ballantyne is less than two hours’ drive from where he and Lauren live, so it’s not like he’s away on business. He’s moved out.

  “He hasn’t been completely alone, if that means anything,” she says, ignoring my question.

  “No way!”

  “There was a woman staying with him.”

  “Really? Who?”

  “Dunno. You didn’t ask for details.”

  I don’t know what to say. It sounds really fast for him to move on like that. Whatever her name is must have snatched him on the rebound.

  “Did you say, was?”

  “She’s moved out, my informant tells me. And she was not pleased.”

  “Huh! I’ll be damned.”

  “I’ve got the photos. You want to meet up?”

  Her voice pulls me back. “Holy crap! Photos of those two? Even for you, that’s a bit over the top.”

  “Heck, no. I’m not your personal sleezebag private investigator. You know where he is now, get your own dirty pictures.”

  “So what are you talking—”

  “I want to show you. Feel like a drink?”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  I leave a note for Joan that I won’t be in for dinner, just in case.

  Fiona and I meet in one of those classic corner bars, nothing fancy. The kind that has dartboards on the wall and a karaoke stage. It reminds me of growing up back in Wisconsin. I hate the place. Nothing to do with Wisconsin I might add, and all to do with my upbringing.

  We slide into a booth in the corner. Fiona orders a Peach Mai Tai, a weird choice, I think, and I get a glass of dry white wine.

  “I don’t know how you can drink that. It’s like sickly sweet syrup.”

  She shrugs. “Since you’re buying, I figured I’d get the most expensive drink on the menu.”

  “Ha! Very funny. Next time we’re going to Starbucks.” I joke, but actually, this place is a good choice, because it’s quiet and dark.

  She checks her cell phone, then, satisfied there’s nothing on it that requires her attention, she sets it on the table, screen up. “What’s the story with that
guy at the Ballantyne?” she asks.

  “It’s personal, if you must know. I’m just trying to figure out if my friend—I mean my ex-friend—is being even more dishonest to me than I thought.”

  “Right. So nothing to do with the case. You lied to me, in other words.”

  “Yep.”

  “It’s serious?”

  “Why do you want to know everything all the time?”

  She shrugs. “I’m a journalist, what do you expect?”

  “Isn’t it exhausting? Because it is for everyone else, you know? You’re like a kid! ‘Why is the sky blue? Why does it snow in winter? Why is your friend’s friend at the Ballantyne? Why did the freaking chicken cross the road? Why—'”

  “Jesus, Tamra! Okay! I get it! You can stop now.” She picks up her phone, glances at the screen, then twirls the little pink umbrella in her drink. “Actually, I have another question.”

  I sigh. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

  “Why did you contact me that first time? Really?”

  I take a moment to gather my thoughts. I remind myself that I’m sitting across from a journalist who has no issues with betraying my innermost secrets. Somehow, that makes me trust her more.

  “Mike is having an affair with my closest friend, and he’s going to leave me. They think I don’t know. Actually, scratch that. Lauren knows I know. I kinda trashed her place yesterday.”

  “I see, and that’s the friend whose husband is staying at the Ballantyne.” She’s not asking a question, so I don’t bother to answer. “So telling me about the affair and the abortion was to get back at your husband.”

  “I told you it was revenge. Can you imagine how it made me feel when I found out? I protected him back then, when he had the affair with Charlene. He asked me for help, to deal with her, and I did.” I sneer at the thought. “I’m the worst idiot.”

  “He asked you to drive her to the clinic, because he wanted to make sure she kept the appointment, is that right?”

  “That’s exactly right. He didn’t trust her.”

  She takes a sip of her drink, then curls her lips downward in a show of disgust.

  I cock my head at her. “Told ya.”

  She smiles. It’s the first time I’ve seen her smile. Then I see her phone light up. She grabs it quickly, then puts it back.

  “Are you going to do this all night?” I ask. I’m about to make another sarcastic comment but she snaps her head up and frowns at me.

  “It’s my daughter, she’s got a tummy ache. My mother’s looking after her.”

  “Oh, sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “That’s okay. Why would you?”

  “How old?”

  “Six.”

  “Wow. Six years old.” I smile in spite of myself. “That’s got to be a nice age, hey?”

  There’s a softness that smooths out the frowns and lines over her face. She smiles, and I realize with a start that Fiona Martin is actually very attractive. Usually whenever I see her, her face is closed up in a scowl.

  “Where’s Dad?” I ask, knowing how impertinent the question is, but at this point, do I care? No.

  “He’s not around.” She takes a sip of her drink and her lips purse together in a grimace, again. It almost makes me laugh.

  “I have a question for you too,” I say. “When I called the paper with my story, I expected one of your colleagues to call me back. One of the guys who write about local politics. Candidate for governor had affair with dead girl. I would have thought they’d jump at it. Instead I got you. No offense but you know, you don’t write much, and not about local politics either.”

  “Is there a question in there?” she asks.

  “Why you?”

  “Simple. Because no one else wanted to touch it.”

  I take a moment to reflect on that. “It’s because he’s rich, isn’t it. They were worried about lawsuits.”

  “No, it’s because no one believed you. Simple as that.”

  “Really?”

  She nods. “In our business, people call with crazy stories all the time. We have to sift through the noise.”

  “I see. But you believed me?”

  She shrugs. “I can’t afford to be incredulous. I’m not on the payroll.” When she looks up at me, she must see the confusion in my face because she adds, “I don’t get the good stories at the Tribune.”

  “Why not?”

  She gives me a wry smile and points her chin toward the cell phone on the table. “I can’t run off whenever a good lead presents itself. As nice as single motherhood is, it’s also a bit of a ball and chain. No one wanted to follow up on your story because they thought you were a nutcase. But I had a hunch.”

  “In my experience, hunches usually lead to a wild goose chase,” I say, with a smile.

  “Yeah, okay, but this was different. I remember when Charlene went missing. I wasn’t the journo to cover it at our end, but I remembered thinking the key to this case was here, not in Texas. No one actually saw her or spoke to her when she was supposedly in Austin. I tried to get my boss to listen, get me to ask questions at this end, but he wasn’t interested. He thought it was a waste of time. So when you called, yeah, I thought, I’ll take that one. It’ll be a nice change from reporting on gardening shows.”

  “Well, good for you.” I even clink my glass with hers, until I remember she’s done me more harm than good. But then again, there’s a part of me, a very small part of me, that knows it’s not completely her fault. Everything she wrote is true, to a point.

  “Considering Mike called you and admitted to the truth, although why he did that is anyone’s guess at the moment, you must be pleased with yourself for following that hunch. He did have an affair, and he did pay her money to have an abortion.”

  “Yeah, actually Tamra, there’s a couple of kinks there, but first I need to get something else to drink. This is disgusting.” With a quick check at her cell phone, she slides out of the booth and makes her way to the bar.

  I wonder what kinks she’s talking about. And even more confusingly, why did Mike own up? To the paper, no less? What’s happened to make him think it was safe for him to do that?

  Fiona returns with two glasses of wine. “What did you want to show me?” I ask.

  “The theory around Charlene’s murder always centered on the fact that she went home to Austin. The police are having difficulties pinpointing where and when she died. Her body has been in the ground for almost two years. That’s a lot of decomposition. But they still believe she wasn’t killed that night, the night you drove her to the abortion clinic. They still think she flew back to Austin, and that she came back here soon after.”

  She stops talking but I don’t remember hearing a question. I tilt my head. “Are you waiting for me to say something?” I ask.

  “Well, does it sound right to you? Their theory?”

  I feel myself redden a little. “Why are you asking me?” Then I immediately regret the words, knowing how defensive they sounded. I shake my head. “I’m just worried you’ll use whatever I say for your next exclusive.” I make air quotes around the word exclusive.

  “Okay, I can see why you’d think that. But I’m not. You’re the one who said you saw her get into your husband’s car. You also said he had killed her. I’m asking you again because it seems I can’t get a straight answer out of you on this one. Do you know for a fact that he killed her? That same night? Because I can’t tell the difference anymore, between you revenge-rambling and you telling me facts.”

  She cocks her head at me. I take a moment. “What did you want to show me?” I say at last.

  She sighs, gives me a look. “I’m coming to that. The morning after you took her to the clinic, Charlene went back to the house she shared and picked up her stuff. A few days after that, she took the flight that she’d already booked weeks earlier, back to Austin.”

  I rub a finger against the side of my glass, where the condensation has pearled and small rivulets are forming. I knew Charle
ne had supposedly used her plane ticket of course, because I poured over the news for months, waiting to see if she’d be found. I remember well the sleepless nights, the dread that I felt all the time, knowing I’d made a terrible mistake. I was sure the police would be knocking on our door, because she’d just finished working for Mike when she disappeared. He was nervous, too, back then. He seemed distracted. No, more than that, anxious. Tense. Spooked even. He asked me once, about a week after that awful night, how Charlene had seemed that evening. I figured he was worried I might have seen him, but it was such a strange question. I scoffed, and I just said ‘fine, why?’, as if he’d somehow challenged me. He didn’t answer. I made the decision the next day to tell him everything. That I knew, that I’d seen what he had done. I wanted to tell him what I did. That I’d meant to help him, to protect him, to protect us. We would work out what to do, what to say, together. But then I found the news item online. Her family said she had come home, and then disappeared a day or two later. I didn’t understand why they believed that. I remember for a moment thinking maybe she wasn’t dead. That maybe she’d gotten up from her shallow grave, brushed herself off and walked away. I didn’t really think that, obviously. But I didn’t talk to Mike about it in the end, because no one came knocking on our door, and one day, I realized I hadn’t thought about her in a while. After that, Charlene simply receded further and further away from my mind.

  Fiona has stopped talking, but something she said earlier made me pause. I close my eyes, trying to capture the memory that’s on the tip of my brain. Ah yes. I open my eyes again. “You said she went back to her house to pack her stuff, how do you know that?”

  “Her housemate came home. Charlene had moved out and left a note. It was agreed that Charlene would move out around that time anyway, so that wasn’t a red flag in itself. Charlene took most of her clothes and asked that the rest be sent to her mother in Austin. She left money, too. For bills. She also sent a text the next day, a thank-you message.”