by Megan Goldin
I ignore him and maintain my fiction of sleep, my head pressed into the pillow and my chest rising and falling in deep, even breaths. He turns around so that he is leaning on his elbow, looking over me. I can see his shadow through my closed eyelids.
‘Julie, you’re not asleep. We need to talk. I can tell you aren’t taking your meds.’
‘How can you tell?’ I respond sleepily.
‘You’re tense and you’re constantly flying off the handle for no reason at all.’
‘Don’t you dare suggest that I’m not holding it together.’ I sit up abruptly. ‘I barely get to see you these days. I feel like a single mom.’
‘Julie.’ He leans over me, talking quietly, patiently. ‘Stop changing the subject. You still haven’t answered my question. Have you been taking your medication?’
‘Yes,’ I say, meeting his eyes steadily. ‘Of course. I took it this morning and spent most of the day sleeping.’
‘Good girl.’ He kisses me on my forehead like I’m a child. We lie there for a few more minutes, both of us pretending to be sleeping. My heart beats rapidly while I wait for his next move. He gets out of bed and returns carrying a glass of water.
‘You’re so tense, honey,’ he says, sitting down next to me on the mattress. He passes me two dark green capsules and the water. His eyes don’t waver until I’ve swallowed the capsules. Then he takes the tumbler from me and puts it on the table next to my bed. He turns me on my stomach and lifts up my nightgown. He massages my back, pressing deeply into the muscles with his thumbs so that it’s both excruciating and pleasurable at the same time.
‘I’ve never felt muscles so tight before,’ he whispers in my ear as he kneads his hands into my back. ‘I’m pleased you took those tablets. You’ll wake up refreshed. Back to your old self.’
The medicine is kicking in. I’m floating under the sure touch of his hands.
‘Matt,’ I say drowsily.
‘Yes, honey?’ His voice seems so far away.
‘Why don’t we ever go to the lake house?’
He stops massaging for a split second. Long enough for me to know, even through the medicated haze, that the question bothers him.
‘I don’t like the place. It’s run-down,’ he answers curtly. ‘And it has unpleasant memories.’
‘You told me once that you almost drowned there.’
‘I did. When I was a child. Why are you asking me about that place now?’
‘No reason,’ I say, oblivious to everything. ‘Your mother says that Laura loved it there.’
‘My mother over-exaggerates,’ he says. ‘Laura and I barely went there.’
‘It’s very pretty around there,’ I say as a wave of sleep washes over me. ‘But the house badly needs a new coat of paint. We really should paint it, Matt.’
I drift off. When I wake in the morning, I am naked and wrapped in his arms.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Julie
Alice is sitting on our homemade swing in the sunlit rear garden, catching bubbles that I blow towards her. She giggles so loudly that at first I don’t hear the doorbell ring. It’s only after the third or fourth ring that Alice with her acute hearing points out that we have a visitor.
‘I was in the neighbourhood and I had a few questions,’ the woman says when I open the door. She tells me her name and shows me a detective shield. A flash of panic runs through me. We’ve never spoken directly. We’ve never even met. I know who she is only because I watched from the landing as Matt took her straight from the front door to his study when she last stopped by.
I tell her that Matt isn’t home and won’t be here until much later. Then I realise from the expression on her face that she isn’t here to talk to him. It’s me she wants.
I take her into the rear garden where Alice is still on the swing. I give Alice a couple of big pushes to get her going and then retreat to the patio. We sit opposite each other on hessian chairs. I pour us each a long glass of iced peach tea from a pitcher on the outdoor table.
My hand trembles and I spill some of the liquid. She notices. I want to tell her it’s not from nerves but from my medication. That may lead to a whole host of questions that are frankly none of her business. So I flush at my clumsiness and say nothing.
‘How can I help you, detective?’ I ask. I feel sleepy as I talk, as if I’m slurring my words. I’m back in the haze.
Matt’s back to being diligent about making sure I’m taking my meds. The more I take them, the less I’m able to resist him, and his nightly routine of capsules washed down with a glass of water. I haven’t gone for a run in days. I feel bloated and unhealthy. I worry about the lake house plants dying without regular watering, and weeds taking over the freshly planted garden beds overlooking the lake. Every morning I wake wanting to visit the lake house, and yet most days I can’t even get out of bed. The truth is that I can’t drive to the store without getting sleepy.
‘I’m sorry if my timing isn’t good,’ the detective says. I notice she doesn’t offer to come back another time. ‘I have a few questions for you about Laura West’s death.’
‘Of course.’ I try to inject energy into my voice. ‘Anything I can do to help.’
‘Did you once work at the Sommerville Horse Ranch? It’s about thirty miles out of town.’
My mind is blank as I contemplate the question. Sommerville Horse Ranch? It’s there somewhere in my memory. I am distracted by the groaning of the ropes as they rub against the oak tree branch each time Alice goes up and down on the swing. The detective stares at me, waiting for an answer. I force myself to focus.
‘Sorry. What was the name of the place?’
‘The Sommerville Horse Ranch,’ she says slowly. She looks at me oddly.
‘I worked there,’ I say. ‘Years ago. When I was a student.’
‘Do you recall whether your husband’s first wife, Laura, came there for lessons?’
‘That was a long time ago.’ I scramble to get my thoughts together, to stop my mind from drifting. ‘I haven’t thought about that place for ages.’
‘To make it easier for you to recollect,’ she says, taking a blue folder from her bag, ‘I’ve spoken with the staff at the ranch and they mentioned that you were Laura West’s riding teacher. In fact, they say the two of you built a rapport during the weeks she came for horse riding lessons with you.’
‘That’s strange,’ I say. My voice is thin. ‘I worked with kids mostly, not adults. I don’t recall meeting Laura but I suppose if the horse ranch says I taught her then they must be right . . . ’ My voice trails off. Surely I would remember teaching Matt’s wife to ride a horse?
‘This might help jog your memory.’ The detective removes photocopies of documents from a folder and places them before me on the table. ‘They’re the horse ranch’s records. They show that Laura West came to the school for riding lessons on six occasions between September and November in the year she disappeared,’ she says. ‘In all but her first lesson, she was assigned to you.’
I recognise the familiar horse ranch letterhead. The writing is cramped. My vision blurs suddenly as I lose focus. After two failed attempts, I force myself to concentrate and read the words.
‘You were the only Julie working there.’ The detective’s voice cuts through my confusion. ‘So it must refer to you.’
‘I suppose I must have taught Laura,’ I say helplessly. I’m not sure what to say. ‘The paperwork must be correct.’
‘Is this your signature?’ she asks, showing me another document. It’s a photocopy of a logbook entry for a one-hour class with Laura West. In the column under ‘Trainer’ it says ‘Julie’. Alongside it is the signature that I used in those days.
‘That’s my signature,’ I say.
‘Would it surprise you to know that this is the exact day that Laura West went missing?’ The detective looks at me again. To see my reaction. It makes me uncomfortable, as if she is looking into my soul. ‘Do you remember giving Laura a riding lesson on the day she disappeare
d?’
‘I don’t recall,’ I answer blankly. Even through the numbness and confusion that clouds my mind, I know this is bad. Real bad. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t really remember anything about that time. Until you showed me this, I didn’t even know that I’d met Laura.’
‘Mrs West,’ the detective says, enunciating every word as if I am a recalcitrant schoolchild, ‘is there someone who can verify where you were the weekend that Laura West disappeared?’
‘Mommy? Mommy?’ I look towards Alice. The swing has come to a standstill. I get up and push Alice until she is back soaring through the air.
‘Sorry, detective,’ I say when I return to the patio. ‘I’m not feeling well today. What was your question?’
‘I asked,’ she says in a clear voice, ‘whether you can account for your whereabouts the weekend Laura West was murdered. We’d like to eliminate you as a suspect. Or . . . ’ she leaves the sentence unfinished. I know the implications. The coincidence is too great. Even in my confused state, I can see that.
‘It was years ago,’ I say in the petulant tone of a child. ‘How could I possibly remember where I was six years ago?’
‘Mrs West. Julie. I don’t mean to be rude, but this is an investigation into the murder of your husband’s first wife. It strikes me as strange that you were possibly the last person to see his first wife alive. So we really are going to need details of where you were and who you were with on the day and during the hours in question.’
‘I guess it looks bad.’ I hate myself for the desperation in my voice.
‘Yes. It does,’ she agrees.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Mel
I never thought I’d say it but I was pleased Joe had been suspended from school. It brought us closer. And it helped get him fired up again. It had been a long time since I’d seen Joe this enthusiastic about anything.
‘Cognitive psychology,’ Joe said, making a face over his granola bowl at the breakfast table. He did not expect to spend his last day of suspension from school in a university lecture hall.
‘Smile, Joe,’ I said. ‘You might actually enjoy it.’
We arrived halfway into the lecture through a door in the back of the hall. The auditorium was packed with students, none of whom, from what I could see, had their laptops open or their phones in hand. They all sat in rapt attention as Matthew West paced across the podium with his hands in his pockets as he spoke.
I thought we’d arrived unseen but it soon became clear that our presence had been noted.
‘We have a special guest today from our local police department,’ Matthew West said. He looked in my direction, which prompted his students to turn their heads to look at us as well. ‘Detective Carter might not be happy to hear that, while witnesses might not always lie, they often don’t tell the truth either.’
He addressed the room. ‘What do I mean by that? A witness will get up on the stand in a court of law. And swear on the holy bible to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The witness may mean every word of that oath. And then he or she will give false testimony. Why?’ He looked at his students. ‘Anyone?’
‘Because of perception?’ A student in the front piped up.
‘Jason over here is absolutely correct. People perceive things differently,’ he said. ‘That’s why witnesses give radically different accounts of the exact same event. Not just because each witness saw something different from his or her vantage point, but because of how we process information. We’ve talked about this before. What else can affect the reliability of a witness? Anyone?’
‘Leading questions,’ said a girl.
‘That’s right. Psychologists in a series of experiments conducted as far back as the seventies found that when subjects were shown footage of a car accident, their recollection of what appeared in the footage was affected by the questions they were asked. For example, if the word “smashed” was used in a question then subjects were more likely to recall seeing broken glass among the wreckage, even though in reality there was no broken glass in the footage they viewed.
‘Our memories of events are influenced by how we process them afterwards. What others tell us. And what we hear in the media. But there are other factors that play havoc with human memory. What are they? Let’s hear from the fifth row.’ He pointed at a student slumped down in his seat. ‘Tom?’
‘Trauma,’ said the guy, straightening up.
‘Trauma,’ repeated Matthew West. ‘We’ve discussed in previous classes how trauma shapes and reshapes our memory.’
He put up a slide of a young man taken in the late eighties, judging by the clothes and hair style.
‘It’s 1986. The year most of you probably started kindergarten. Adam Logan is an honor student at a Pennsylvania college. He’s popular and well regarded, with a high GPA and a great future ahead. He’s recently become engaged to his high school sweetheart and is in the process of applying for graduate school. One night, he’s driving home to his parents’ house for the weekend when the police stop his vehicle.
‘The policeman asks him to stand outside his vehicle. Adam Logan doesn’t argue. He’s a fine upstanding citizen. He does as he’s asked. While he is standing there, the policeman determines that Adam Logan fits the description of an assailant given by a woman attacked in that area the previous night.
‘The police put Adam Logan into a line-up. The victim immediately points him out as the attacker. She is “absolutely certain that it is him”. Her exact words, written in the police report. Adam Logan is arrested and charged.’ Professor West puts up a mug shot of Adam Logan with a pale face and bloodshot eyes.
‘His bail is denied, as might be expected for a suspect involved in a vicious assault. He has to spend the next few days in police lockup as it’s the President’s Day weekend. Unfortunately, while he is in lockup, he is beaten up by another inmate and permanently loses the hearing in his right ear. When he finally meets his public defender, he gives irrefutable proof that he could not have been the attacker. The evening of the attack Adam Logan was working as a waiter at a restaurant near his university campus which, as it happens, is located in another state, more than a four-hour drive away. The cops check his alibi and reluctantly admit that he is telling the truth. Charges are dropped and Adam Logan is let out after spending three days in jail. He’s left with partial hearing and post-traumatic stress disorder. It puts a big dent in his GPA and ruins his Ivy League graduate school plans.
‘So, how did the witness get it so wrong?’ Professor West asked the silent rows of students. It was a rhetorical question.
‘You know, it was an eye-opener when the attacker was finally caught a month later, during another assault on a victim in the same neighbourhood. The attacker was three inches shorter than Adam Logan. He had blond hair, not dark brown hair. He had a goatee beard, while Adam Logan was clean-shaven. He had half a dozen tattoos. Adam did not have even one. On almost every detail, the victim got it wrong. Yet she was not knowingly making it up.’
Behind him, on the screen, he put up a slide with a photograph of Adam Logan alongside a photograph of the assailant who was ultimately convicted of the crimes. They looked nothing alike.
‘The witness identified the attacker as driving a red hatchback. While the attacker’s car was red, it was in fact a sedan. Not a hatchback. Why did she get it wrong? Because she herself had once owned a red hatchback and when she saw red cars she was more inclined to perceive them to be hatchbacks.’ He put up a slide of the real assailant’s vehicle and Adam Logan’s hatchback.
‘But why of all people did she pick out Adam Logan in the line-up, a man she’d never met in her life? Well, when I looked into this case, I found that Adam Logan resembled the victim’s ex-boyfriend; they’d broken up a few months before because he was violent towards her. Adam Logan had the same stocky weightlifter’s build as her ex, and similar colouring. Added to that, it turned out the victim hadn’t seen the attacker’s face properly. The trauma of the a
ssault was so severe that when the police asked her to pick out the suspect, she pointed at Adam Logan, who she associated with violence because he had the same colouring and a vague resemblance to her violent ex-boyfriend.’
He paused to let his words sink in.
‘Let’s be clear, the witness was not purposely trying to mislead the police. She honestly believed Adam Logan was the man who’d attacked her. She was suffering from trauma and this caused her memory to play tricks on her.
‘Do honest witnesses lie?’ Professor West asked. ‘Witnesses are unreliable for the simple reason that human memory is unreliable.’
He broke off and loudly clapped his hands twice. ‘People, a reminder that tomorrow is the deadline for you to email me your interest in attending my summer school class.’
Joe and I stayed in our seats as the students filed out of the lecture hall. When the last stragglers left, I approached Professor West. He was on the podium unplugging his laptop.
‘I hope I didn’t completely ruin your faith in witness testimony, detective,’ he said without looking up.
‘Not at all,’ I answered. ‘We rarely rely just on witnesses these days. We have DNA and other forensics for confirmation.’
‘How is your investigation going?’ He stopped fiddling with his laptop to look up at me. I saw expectation on his face. Concern.
‘It takes time investigating this type of case,’ I said. ‘Six years is a long time.’
He nodded, almost sympathetically.
‘Is there something you need from me today, detective? I’m sure you didn’t sit through the class due to an interest in psychology.’
‘Actually, the class was fascinating. But you’re right. I came to find out if you have Laura’s work notes from the period before she disappeared. I understand you were collaborating with her on a research project.’
‘I’m surprised you know about it,’ he said, without looking at me, as he put his papers in a pile and packed them into his briefcase. ‘The study was in the initial phases. We didn’t advertise it.’