home.
I knew Sharon would like an opportunity to paint Ellen Abbott as a sensationalistic ratings whore. I knew regal Sharon with her twenty years in journalism, her interviews with Arafat and Sarkozy and Obama, would be offended by the very idea of Ellen Abbott. I am (was) a journalist, I know the drill, and so when I said those words – the Ellen Abbott effect – I recognized Sharon’s mouth twitch, the delicately raised eyebrows, the lightening of her whole visage. It was the look when you realize: I got my angle.
At the end of the interview, Sharon took both my hands in hers – cool, a bit callused, I’d read she was an avid golfer – and wished me well. ‘I will be keeping a close eye on you, my friend,’ she said, and then she was kissing Go on the cheek and swishing away from us, the back of her dress a battlefield of stickpins to keep the material in front from slouching.
‘You fucking did that perfectly,’ Go pronounced as she headed to the door. ‘You seem totally different than before. In charge but not cocky. Even your jaw is less … dickish.’
‘I unclefted my chin.’
‘Almost, yeah. See you back home.’ She actually gave me a go-champ punch to the shoulder.
I followed the Sharon Schieber interview with two quickies – one cable and one network. Tomorrow the Schieber interview would air, and then the others would roll out, a domino of apologetics and remorse. I was taking control. I was no longer going to settle for being the possibly guilty husband or the emotionally removed husband or the heartlessly cheating husband. I was the guy everyone knew – the guy many men (and women) have been: I cheated, I feel like shit, I will do what needs to be done to fix the situation because I am a real man.
‘We are in decent shape,’ Tanner pronounced as we wrapped up. ‘The thing with Andie, it won’t be as awful as it might have been, thanks to the interview with Sharon. We just need to stay ahead of everything else from now on.’
Go phoned, and I picked up. Her voice was thin and high.
‘The cops are here with a warrant for the woodshed … they’re at Dad’s house too. They’re … I’m scared.’
Go was in the kitchen smoking a cigarette when we arrived, and judging from the overflow in the kitschy ’70s ashtray, she was on her second pack. An awkward, shoulderless kid with a crew cut and a police officer’s uniform sat next to her on one of the bar stools.
‘This is Tyler,’ she said. ‘He grew up in Tennessee, he has a horse named Custard—’
‘Custer,’ Tyler said.
‘Custer, and he’s allergic to peanuts. Not the horse but Tyler. Oh, and he has a torn labrum, which is the same injury baseball pitchers get, but he’s not sure how he got it.’ She took a drag on the cigarette. Her eyes watered. ‘He’s been here a long time.’
Tyler tried to give me a tough look, ended up watching his well-shined shoes.
Boney appeared through the sliding glass doors at the back of the house. ‘Big day, boys,’ she said. ‘Wish you’d bothered letting us know, Nick, that you have a girlfriend. Would have saved us all a lot of time.’
‘We’re happy to discuss that, as well as the contents of the shed, both of which we were on our way to tell you about,’ Tanner said. ‘Frankly, if you had given us the courtesy of telling us about Andie, a lot of pain could have been forestalled. But you needed the press conference, you had to have the publicity. How disgusting, to put that girl up there like that.’
‘Right,’ Boney said. ‘So, the woodshed. You all want to come with me?’ She turned her back on us, leading the way over the patchy end-of-summer grass to the woodshed. A cobweb trailed from her hair like a wedding veil. She motioned impatiently when she saw me not following. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Not gonna bite you.’
The woodshed was lit up by several portable lights, making it look even more ominous.
‘When’s the last time you been in here, Nick?’
‘I came in here very recently, when my wife’s treasure hunt led me here. But it’s not my stuff, and I did not touch anything—’
Tanner cut me off: ‘My client and I have an explosive new theory—’ Tanner began, then caught himself. The phony TV-speak was so incredibly awful and inappropriate, we all cringed.
‘Oh, explosive, how exciting,’ Boney said.
‘We were about to inform you—’
‘Really? What convenient timing,’ she said. ‘Stay there, please.’ The door hung loose on its hinges, a broken lock dangling to the side. Gilpin was inside, cataloging the goods.
‘These the golf clubs you don’t play with?’ Gilpin said, jostling the glinting irons.
‘None of this is mine – none of this was put there by me.’
‘That’s funny, because everything in here corresponds with purchases made on the credit cards that aren’t yours either,’ Boney snapped. ‘This is, like, what do they call it, a man cave? A man cave in the making, just waiting for the wife to go away for good. Got yourself some nice pastimes, Nick.’ She pulled out three large cardboard boxes and set them at my feet.
‘What’s this?’
Boney opened them with fingertip disgust despite her gloved hands. Inside were dozens of porn DVDs, flesh of all colors and sizes on display on the covers.
Gilpin chuckled. ‘I gotta hand it to you, Nick, I mean, a man has his needs—’
‘Men are highly visual, that’s what my ex always said when I caught him,’ Boney said.
‘Men are highly visual, but Nick, this shit made me blush,’ Gilpin said. ‘It made me a little sick, too, some of it, and I don’t get sick too easy.’ He spread out a few of the DVDs like an ugly deck of cards. Most of the titles implied violence: Brutal Anal, Brutal Blowjobs, Humiliated Whores, Sadistic Slut Fucking, Gang-raped Sluts, and a series called Hurt the Bitch, volumes 1–18, each featuring photos of women writhing in pain while leering, laughing men inserted objects into them.
I turned away.
‘Oh, now he’s embarrassed.’ Gilpin grinned.
But I didn’t respond because I saw Go being helped into the back of a police car.
We met an hour later at the police station. Tanner advised against it – I insisted. I appealed to his iconoclast, millionaire rodeo-cowboy ego. We were going to tell the cops the truth. It was time.
I could handle them fucking with me – but not my sister.
‘I’m agreeing to this because I think your arrest is inevitable, Nick, no matter what we do,’ he said. ‘If we let them know we’re up for talking, we may get some more information on the case they’ve got against you. Without a body, they’ll really want a confession. So they’ll try to overwhelm you with the evidence. And they may give us enough to really jumpstart our defense.’
‘And we give them everything, right?’ I said. ‘We give them the clues and the marionettes and Amy.’ I was panicked, aching to go – I could picture the cops right now sweating my sister under a bare lightbulb.
‘As long as you let me talk,’ Tanner said. ‘If it’s me talking about the frame-up, they can’t use it against us at trial … if we go with a different defense.’
It concerned me that my lawyer found the truth to be so completely unbelievable.
Gilpin met us at the steps of the station, a Coke in his hand, late dinner. When he turned around to lead us in, I saw a sweat-soaked back. The sun had long set, but the humidity remained. He flapped his arms once, and the shirt fluttered and stuck right back to his skin.
‘Still hot,’ he said. ‘Supposed to get hotter overnight.’
Boney was waiting for us in the conference room, the one from the first night. The Night Of. She’d French-braided her limp hair and clipped it to the back of her head in a rather poignant updo, and she wore lipstick. I wondered if she had a date. A meet you after midnight situation.
‘You have kids?’ I asked her, pulling out a chair.
She looked startled and held up a finger. ‘One.’ She didn’t say a name or an age or anything else. Boney was in business mode. She tried to wait us out.
‘Yo
u first,’ Tanner said. ‘Tell us what you got.’
‘Sure,’ Boney said. ‘Okay.’ She turned on the tape recorder, dispensed with the preliminaries. ‘It is your contention, Nick, that you never bought or touched the items in the woodshed on your sister’s property.’
‘That is correct,’ Tanner replied for me.
‘Nick, your fingerprints are all over almost every item in the shed.’
‘That’s a lie! I touched nothing, not a thing in there! Except for my anniversary present, which Amy left inside.’
Tanner touched my arm: shut the fuck up.
‘Which we have brought here today,’ Tanner said.
‘Nick, your fingerprints are on the porn, on the golf clubs, on the watch cases, and even on the TV.’
And then I saw it, how much Amy would have enjoyed this: my deep, self-satisfied sleep (which I lorded over her, my belief that if she were only more laid-back, more like me, her insomnia would vanish) turned against me. I could see it: Amy down on her knees, my snores heating her cheeks, as she pressed a fingertip here and there over the course of months. She could have slipped me a mickey for all I knew. I remember her peering at me one morning as I woke up, sleep-wax gumming my lips, and she said, ‘You sleep the sleep of the damned, you know. Or the drugged.’ I was both and didn’t know it.
‘Do you want to explain about the fingerprints?’ Gilpin said.
‘Tell us the rest,’ Tanner said.
Boney set a biblically thick leather-covered binder on the table between us, charred all along the edges. ‘Recognize this?’
I shrugged, shook my head.
‘It’s your wife’s diary.’
‘Um, no. Amy didn’t do diaries.’
‘Actually, Nick, she did. She did about seven years’ worth of diaries,’ Boney said.
‘Okay.’
Something bad was about to happen. My wife was being clever again.
AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE
TEN DAYS GONE
We drive my car across state lines into Illinois, to a particularly awful neighborhood of some busted river town, and we spend an hour wiping it down, and then we leave it with the keys in the ignition. Call it the circle of strife: The Arkansas couple who drove it before me were sketchy; Ozark Amy was obviously shady; hopefully, some Illinois down-and-outer will enjoy it for a bit too.
Then we drive back into Missouri over wavy hills until I can see, between the trees, Lake Hannafan glistening. Because Desi has family in St. Louis, he likes to believe the area is old, East Coast old, but he is wrong. Lake Hannafan is not named after a nineteenth-century statesman or a Civil War hero. It is a private lake, machine-forged in 2002 by an oily developer named Mike Hannafan who turned out to have a moonlighting job illegally disposing of hazardous waste. The kerfuffled community is scrambling to find a new name for their lake. Lake Collings, I’m sure, has been floated.
So despite the well-planned lake – upon which a few select residents can sail but not motor – and Desi’s tastefully grand house – a Swiss château on an American scale – I remain unwooed. That was always the problem with Desi. Be from Missouri or don’t, but don’t pretend Lake ‘Collings’ is Lake Como.
He leans against his Jaguar and aims his gaze up at the house so that I have to pause for appreciation also.
‘We modeled it after this wonderful little chalet my mother and I stayed at in Brienzersee,’ he says. ‘All we’re missing is the mountain range.’
A rather big miss, I think, but I put my hand on his arm and say, ‘Show me the inside. It must be fabulous.’
He gives me the nickel tour, laughing at the idea of a nickel. A cathedral kitchen – all granite and chrome – a living room with his-and-hers fireplaces that flows onto an outdoor space (what midwesterners call a deck) overlooking the woods and the lake. A basement entertainment room with a snooker table, darts, surround sound, a wet bar, and its own outdoor space (what midwesterners call another deck). A sauna off the entertainment room and next to it the wine cellar. Upstairs, five bedrooms, the second largest of which he bestows on me.
‘I had it repainted,’ he says. ‘I know you love dusty rose.’
I don’t love dusty rose anymore; that was high school. ‘You are so lovely, Desi, thank you,’ I say, my most heartfelt. My thank-yous always come out rather labored. I often don’t give them at all. People do what they’re supposed to do and then wait for you to pile on the appreciation – they’re like frozen-yogurt employees who put out cups for tips.
But Desi takes to thank-yous like a cat being brushed; his back almost arches with the pleasure. For now it’s a worthwhile gesture.
I set my bag down in my room, trying to signal my retirement for the evening – I need to see how people are reacting to Andie’s confession and whether Nick has been arrested – but it seems I am far from through with the thank-yous. Desi has ensured I will be forever indebted to him. He smiles a special-surprise smile and takes my hand (I have something else to show you) and pulls me back downstairs (I really hope you like this) onto a hallway off the kitchen (it took a lot of work, but it’s so worth it).
‘I really hope you like this,’ he says again, and flings open the door.
It’s a glass room, a greenhouse, I realize. Within are tulips, hundreds, of all colors. Tulips bloom in the middle of July in Desi’s lake house. In their own special room for a very special girl.
‘I know tulips are your favorite, but the season is so short,’ Desi said. ‘So I fixed that for you. They’ll bloom year-round.’
He puts his arm around my waist and aims me toward the flowers so I can appreciate them fully.
‘Tulips any day of the year,’ I say, and try to get my eyes to glisten. Tulips were my favorite in high school. They were everyone’s favorite, the gerbera daisy of the late ’80s. Now I like orchids, which are basically the opposite of tulips.
‘Would Nick ever have thought of something like this for you?’ Desi breathes into my ear as the tulips sway under a mechanized dusting of water from above.
‘Nick never even remembered I liked tulips,’ I say, the correct answer.
It is sweet, beyond sweet, the gesture. My own flower room, like a fairy tale. And yet I feel a lilt of nerves: I called Desi only twenty-four hours ago, and these are not newly planted tulips, and the bedroom did not smell of fresh paint. It makes me wonder: the uptick in his letters the past year, their wooful tone … how long has he been wanting to bring me here? And how long does he think I will stay? Long enough to enjoy blooming tulips every day for a year.
‘My goodness, Desi,’ I say. ‘It’s like a fairy tale.’
‘Your fairy tale,’ he says. ‘I want you to see what life can be like.’
In fairy tales, there is always gold. I wait for him to give me a stack of bills, a slim credit card, something of use. The tour loops back around through all the rooms so I can ooh and ahh about details I missed the first time, and then we return to my bedroom, a satin-and-silk, pink-and-plush, marshmallow-and-cotton-candy girl’s room. As I peer out a window, I notice the high wall that surrounds the house.
I blurt, nervously, ‘Desi, would you be able to leave me with some money?’
He actually pretends to be surprised. ‘You don’t need money now, do you?’ he says. ‘You have no rent to pay anymore; the house will be stocked with food. I can bring new clothes for you. Not that I don’t like you in bait-shop chic.’
‘I guess a little cash would just make me feel more comfortable. Should something happen. Should I need to get out of here quickly.’
He opens his wallet and pulls out two twenty-dollar bills. Presses them gently in my hand. ‘There you are,’ he says indulgently.
I wonder then if I have made a very big mistake.
NICK DUNNE
TEN DAYS GONE
I made a mistake, feeling so cocky. Whatever the hell this diary was, it was going to ruin me. I could already see the cover of the true-crime novel: the black-and-white photo of us on our wedding day, the blo
od-red background, the jacket copy: including sixteen pages of never-seen photos and Amy Elliott Dunne’s actual diary entries – a voice from beyond the grave … I’d found it strange and kind of cute, Amy’s guilty pleasures, those cheesy true-crime books I’d discovered here and there around our house. I thought maybe she was loosening up, allowing herself some beach reading.
Nope. She was just studying.
Gilpin pulled over a chair, sat on it backward, and leaned toward me on crossed arms – his movie-cop look. It was almost midnight; it felt later.
‘Tell us about your wife’s illness these past few months,’ he said.
‘Illness? Amy never got sick. Once a year she’d get a cold, maybe.’
Boney picked up the book, turned to a marked page. ‘Last month you made Amy and yourself some drinks, sat on your back porch. She writes here that the drinks were impossibly sweet and describes what she thinks is an allergic reaction: My heart was racing, my tongue was slabbed, stuck to the bottom of my mouth. My legs turned to meat as Nick walked me up the stairs.’ She put a finger down to hold her place in the diary, looked up as if I might not be paying attention. ‘When she woke the next morning: My head ached and my stomach was oily, but weirder, my fingernails were light blue, and when I looked in the mirror, so were my lips. I didn’t pee for two days after. I felt so weak.’
I shook my head in disgust. I’d become attached to Boney; I expected better of her.
‘Is this your wife’s handwriting?’ Boney tilted the book toward me, and I saw deep black ink and Amy’s cursive, jagged as a fever chart.
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘So does our handwriting expert.’
Boney said the words with a certain pride, and I realized: This was the first case these two had ever had that required outside experts, that demanded they get in touch with professionals who did exotic things like analyze handwriting.
‘You know what else we learned, Nick, when we showed this entry to our medical expert?’
‘Poisoning,’ I blurted. Tanner frowned at me: steady.
Boney stuttered for a second; this was not information I was supposed to provide.
‘Yeah, Nick, thank you: antifreeze poisoning,’ she said. ‘Textbook. She’s lucky she survived.’
‘She didn’t survive, because that never happened,’ I said. ‘Like you said, it’s textbook – it’s made up from an Internet search.’
Boney frowned but refused to bite. ‘The diary isn’t a pretty picture of you, Nick,’ she continued, one finger tracing her braid. ‘Abuse – you pushed her around. Stress – you were quick to anger. Sexual relations that bordered on rape. She was very frightened of you at the end there. It’s painful to read. That gun we were wondering about, she says she wanted it because she was afraid of you. Here’s her last entry: This man might kill me. This man might kill me, in her own words.’
My throat clenched. I felt like I might throw up. Fear, mostly, and then a surge of rage. Fucking bitch, fucking bitch, cunt, cunt, cunt.
‘What a smart, convenient note for her to end on,’ I said. Tanner put a hand on mine to hush me.
‘You look like you want to kill her again, right now,’ Boney said.
‘You’ve done nothing but lie to us, Nick,’ Gilpin said. ‘You say you were at the beach that morning. Everyone we talk to says you hate the beach. You say you have no idea what all these purchases are on your maxed-out credit cards. Now we have a shed full of exactly those items, and they have your fingerprints all over them. We have a wife suffering from what sounds like antifreeze poisoning weeks before she disappears. I mean, come on.’ He paused for effect.
‘Anything else of note?’ Tanner asked.
‘We can place you in Hannibal, where your wife’s purse shows up a few days later,’ Boney said. ‘We have a neighbor who overheard you two arguing the night before. A pregnancy you didn’t want. A bar borrowed on your wife’s money that would revert to her in case of a divorce. And of course, of course: a secret girlfriend of more than a year.’
‘We can help you right now, Nick,’ Gilpin said. ‘Once we arrest you, we can’t.’
‘Where did you find the diary? At Nick’s father’s house?’ Tanner asked.
‘Yes,’ Boney said.
Tanner nodded to me: That’s what we didn’t find. ‘Let me guess: anonymous tip.’
Neither cop said a thing.
‘Can I ask where in the house you found it?’ I asked.
‘In the furnace. I know you thought you burned it. It caught fire, but the pilot light was too weak; it got smothered. So only the outer edges burned,’ Gilpin said. ‘Extremely good luck for us.’
The furnace – another inside joke from Amy! She’d always proclaimed amazement at how little I understood the things men are supposed to understand. During our
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