Detective Burns was leaned against a desk watching us walk in together. A smile would have been nice, but as usual, we only got her squinted eyes and thin pressed lips judging our every move. She led me back to the same room I had been in before and I smiled uncomfortably to Brian when we parted ways in the hallway.
“Did you know Mila was pregnant?” she asked, positioning the camera even closer to me. She sat down in the metal fold out chair and it squeaked under her weight and I waited, hoping it would collapse as some karma for her insensitive questions. But it didn’t and she stared impatiently, waiting for my answer.
I stared at the lens and breathed out, hoping no one would see this pitiful footage. “Yes, I just got the good news last night,” I said coldly.
“A pregnant mistress can be quite provoking.”
Her condescending tone should have bothered me, but it didn’t. My teeth were clenched tightly, causing an uncomfortable pressure on my jaw, not from her wasted efforts of intimidation, but from the weight of the situation. Answering questions about my husband’s illegitimate child was enough to rile aggravation without her having to work for it.
“Do you want me to be honest with you?” I asked, resting my elbows on the table in front of me.
“Yes…”
“If I had known about the affair, I would have asked him for a divorce, Detective Burns. It would have been much less humiliating than having my name plastering every news channel as the widower to a cheating scumbag.” I hadn’t watched the news, but I was fairly certain it was probably true to the situation.
“So, you are embarrassed by the affair?” she asked.
“Of course, I am embarrassed by the affair!”
“And now you refer to your late husband as a cheating scumbag?” she asked, leaning closer to me.
I knew how terrible it was, I really did. It was so terrible, disrespectful even, but I couldn’t make myself feel any differently. Keeping my opinions to myself has always been a struggle for me, and this was one of those times that I silently cursed that quality about myself. “Do you have a better description?” I asked her mockingly and watched her mouth almost hint at a smile.
“Okay, Chloe. How well do you know Brian?”
Again, with Brian? I shrugged, thinking about our lives before this disaster. “Honestly, I have never had a one on one conversation with him apart from these last few days. But I do know that Brian didn’t do this.”
“Chloe, Carson’s time of death was 7:28pm. Brian was at the office with Carson until 7:04pm. That is not even a half an hour window which makes his lack of an alibi alarming.”
“But he doesn’t have an alibi because Mila was not home!”
“So, you wouldn’t be able to speculate on how he would handle the news of finding out his best friend, his business partner, was having an affair with his wife that resulted in him being the father to her child?”
I stared back at her, studying her face. Her lack of emotion was a clear indication that she has never gone through a situation like this. Although, I do not plan on crossing paths with many people who have.
“With all due respect, Detective Burns, I could have known the man my entire life and wouldn’t be able to speculate how he would handle this situation. If you had asked me a week ago how I would handle something like this, sadness would have most definitely been an emotion I would have expected to feel. But to be completely honest, all I feel is anger. So, no, I cannot speculate on Brian’s reaction when my own has come as a surprise.”
“Chloe, I do not know what you are going through, but I do understand your emotions. And I want you to know, those emotions are okay to feel in your situation,” she said smiling at me.
Had I gone on to obtain my PhD and opened my own practice, I would most likely be treating this woman for bipolar disorder. She emotionally torments me one minute, and then offers a sincere apology the next.
But unfortunately, her sincerity brought on a whole different range of emotions and I broke out into tears. Her pity and my undeniable anger towards my late husband was completely overwhelming and I crumbled into a sobbing mess right there in front of Detective Burns, God himself, and a camcorder.
“I am so sorry,” I quickly wiped the tears from my face. “I haven’t been sleeping well.”
“It is okay, Chloe. Now, are you aware that Mila was released…” she started and paused to look down at her watch, “fifteen minutes ago. Brian isn’t completely off my radar, but Mila is obviously now the main suspect in the case.”
Mila being released only meant that she was getting to feel at least some relief in this situation. Even if she didn’t kill Carson, I wanted her to pay for what she had done to me. I wanted justice for that betrayal even though I don’t think the courts accommodate such circumstances.
“I need to make sure that you do not have any contact with her,” she said urgently. “We do not have the murder weapon yet, but the blood in her car was a match to your husband’s and there are some incriminating text messages on Carson’s phone from Saturday evening between the two of them only minutes before the presumed time of death. There is also a tube of red lipstick being tested against the stain found on Carson’s neck. Which we suspect to be a match.”
“What kind of text messages?” I asked quietly.
“There were some texts exchanged with Mila. Texts that give her a pretty compelling motive. Chloe, I cannot justify what your husband done, but I think you may take some comfort in knowing that your husband was ending his affair with Mila the night of his murder, or at least attempting to end it from what we could see in the text message logs.”
Tears fell steadily from my face then and I let them fall. “Chloe, I am confident that within hours we will have Mila back in custody and formally charge her with first degree murder.”
“I just cannot imagine Mila ever being capable of murder,” I admitted. But the evidence was too much to deny. Maybe she wasn’t looking at me when I told her about the lipstick stain because she thought it was another woman’s. Maybe she was looking at me that way because she knew it was hers.
“Chloe, this was a crime of passion and the wounds your husband suffered are proof of that. Mila was pregnant and your husband had just told her that he was going to fix his marriage, to you. People can often surprise us with what they are capable of doing when the things they want most are threatened.”
I didn’t want to hear that. Being able to hold on to the anger I had was making this much easier to deal with. I wanted to be angry, because the less hurtful route was much more difficult.
“Does Brian know all of this?”
She smiled briefly, “I am sure he knows by now. Another detective has been speaking with him. Brian will be okay, Chloe. You need to worry about taking care of yourself.”
Brian was waiting outside the room when I walked out and his blank expression let me know that he had been told everything I had just heard. He shook his head slowly at me and held the door as I walked outside.
“They are searching the house again,” he said calmly when we pulled away from the station.
“When?”
“Now.”
He drove back to his house and parked along the curb. We both sat quietly in the car, watching uniformed officers walking around the property again. Their once inviting and beautiful home now seemed dark and criminal, full of secrets. The garage door was open, serving as a gathering place for the search teams that seemed to be frantically examining clothing on a plastic table. The need to search a second time warranted cadaver dogs that although I couldn’t see, I could hear their barks spilling through the walls. The street was filled with curious neighbors, phones in hand, eagerly waiting for anything exciting to happen. “They could have it all wrong, Brian,” I offered, seeing his effort to keep himself together. His life would never be normal again, not here anyway. Even if they were both cleared as suspects, people will always remember them as the couple who got arrested for the murder of Carson Damichi. His
neighbors are no longer just neighbors to him, they are now his critics, his very own paparazzi.
“Carson wanted to stay with you. Mila, was possibly willing to murder because she didn’t want to stay with me,” he said and his face fell eerily blank.
“Brian, Mila loves you very much. Whether or not her actions show that, I know that she does,” I tried to tell him even though I knew it was a moot point.
Detective Burns pulled into the driveway with an impressive speed and I watched her march straight into the house without speaking to anyone. She was certainly on a mission and considering the circumstances, that was not a good sign. I looked back to Brian anxiously to see his same suspicions rising.
I don’t think either of us remembered to breathe while we waited for her to walk back out of the house. But when she did finally emerge, Brian’s door flew open and he went running to her. Not me. My body suddenly felt like the entire world was weighing me down, making it impossible to move. Pressing me against the seat of that car as I sat starting out the window. Everything else blurred except for one thing. My eyes were focused on the plastic evidence bag in Detective Burns’ hand; a large kitchen knife stained with blood inside it.
Three more detectives came walking out with Mila in cuffs and Brian stopped as he watched her get taken back to the police cruiser. She was not crying this time. Her face was blank while she looked back to Brian. She offered no sign of emotion and she slowly turned her head to look away from.
My ears were ringing with a loud buzzing hum and I could hear my own heartbeat pounding in my head so loud that I felt like my body was bouncing to its beat. But I also felt no real emotion watching Detective Burns carry the knife that murdered my husband. I couldn’t grasp the reality of it. I couldn’t even accept it. It was like I wasn’t even there, wasn’t really seeing it. Like I was outside of my body and just watching it happen from a distance, in disbelief.
Chapter Eight
There was a couple walking the shoreline. Hand in hand, clearly in love, or just foolish, however you prefer to look at it. The woman was nothing extraordinary, not by Vogue standards. Her larger body frame was certainly not overweight, but the kind that she would be ashamed of because society tells her to be. She probably spends too much time dieting and staring shamefully at herself in the mirror. The kind of self-image issues that only she would be aware of because she is her own harshest critic. The man on the other hand, he was skinny, too skinny. Maybe they both shared an eating disorder and that is what bonds them, or maybe they don’t even notice each other’s imperfections. That is how it should be, I hope that is the way it is for this couple. But the woman stops, staring out over the ocean and the man keeps walking. I strain my eyes, trying to see what it is that she is looking at when I notice the man kneeling several yards away from her. My attention directs to him and what he is doing while I completely lose interest in what the woman is looking at. He appears to be drawing something in the sand and I lean against the balcony rail, hoping that getting a few inches closer will actually let me see what he was drawing. But it doesn’t.
He jumps back to his feet and I can almost see the dust from the sand flying off his hands while he smacks them against his plaid shorts. He stares down at whatever he had been working on and I can see his teeth showing, he is smiling now. He runs back to the woman and she bounces with excitement but she still doesn’t look at him. He reaches her side and wraps her in his arms and the two of them run hand in hand to where he had just been. The woman’s hands cup her face and he pulls her into him again. It wasn’t a proposal, unless he didn’t have a ring. I suppose anything is possible. I would never know what he wrote in that sand. But it was a beautiful moment for them either way. I just witnessed them making a moment together, a memory that would build on their love for each other and my heart ached knowing that I would never have another one of those moments again.
I looked at the clock on my way to the door. Carson’s, my husband’s, funeral was in one hour and I hadn’t even showered. I opened the door to see Janet staring judgingly back at me, which is the only look I have ever gotten from this woman. She gave me a one over and rolled her eyes before pushing passed and letting herself in.
She stood in a black blazer with a matching pencil skirt and her makeup was painted on perfectly. The woman was going through the hardest day of her life and she still found it important to stroke her vanity. Carson must have learned from his mother, although I had never met his father. Actually, Carson never even talked about him. I caught the impression once that it was a family feud situation that was still a little touchy. But a whiff of brandy followed her like she had bathed in it, so her put together appearance was a result of self-medication. No judgments here.
“Hi, Janet,” I said sarcastically as I shut the door.
Her being here was enough to motivate me to get ready by simply being able to hide away from her. I showered and got dressed, throwing on the same black dress and heels that I had worn for Carson’s birthday dinner. I tried to imagine what people would think of me when they saw me. Pity, I am sure. I would always be known as that widow now. I just hope that rumors of my late husband’s unborn child haven’t circulated yet.
I sighed when I walked into the living room to see Janet holding our wedding photo, that thing had sat untouched on the mantle for four years and now it seems like a focal point for everyone who walks through the door. “This wouldn’t have happened if you would have been a better wife,” she said calmly before she sat it back down. Guess someone already spilled the beans on the whole affair to his mother at least. Great.
I walked over, grabbed every picture, and took them into the kitchen to throw them in the trash. I couldn’t stand seeing them anymore. Maybe she was right. Maybe my husband wouldn’t have had an affair if I had been a better wife and maybe he wouldn’t have gotten himself murdered. But maybe he would have done it no matter how complacent I had been.
“Janet, I am sorry for your loss.” I grabbed my keys and shut the door behind me. If she had planned on riding together, she should have kept her motherly advice to herself.
The number of cars in the parking lot solidified my regret in having only one service, but I felt a small relief at the sight of Brian standing next to his car. He hurried over to open my door and I could tell he felt just as out of place as I did while we walked in together. We were getting sympathetic stares and we both knew they weren’t only for the loss of Carson. The crowded room and uninvited hugs were making me feel claustrophobic at best which made taking a front row seat at my husband’s funeral not seem as bad.
The musty smell in the entrance was drowned out by the abundance of floral arrangements surrounding Carson. I looked between them all. Mainly because I was desperately trying to avoid the centerpiece of the room, my dead husband. I appreciated the simple planters, the green and insignificant ones, but discarded the other baskets as they mockingly boasted their colorful life in a room that was surrounded by death. But I couldn’t stop thinking about a single rose that was lying in the floor. It had no place there and I scanned each arrangement trying to pick out which one it had fallen from. But oddly enough, it was the only red rose on the altar.
The organ music stopped suddenly and I looked to see the pastor taking post in front of us; the same pastor who married me and Carson. My face burned and I harshly looked over to Janet, angry with her decision to bring in the one pastor in all of Rhode Island who would bring on the hardest memories. But she was staring straight ahead and my eyes instinctively followed hers.
A complete hollowness took over me as I looked at Carson lying in front of me. He seemed so peaceful in his black suit and I questioned whether or not he knew the hell he was going to put me through, not only in death, but in the life he left behind for me. But as I looked at him, I really did miss him even through all the resentment I felt toward him.
I didn’t miss the man that he was, but I missed the idea of the man I thought he could have been. I had spent our en
tire marriage waiting for the time that his job would not be the most important thing to him. I spent it waiting for him to look at me the way he had looked at me that first night we danced together and I missed the way it felt to still have that hope to hold onto. I missed the way it felt to be ignorant to his lies.
The pastor drudged on with his misguided eulogy of what a loving husband Carson was so I tuned him out to look at the portrait of Carson perched on an easel next to the casket. It was a great picture of him, his smile was so full of life in that picture and I tried to remember that version of him rather than the one that laid still in front of me.
Brian patted my leg and I looked around to see the room emptying. I offered a quick apology to him and eagerly stood to leave. I was stopped by people I had never met before and I routinely thanked them for their condolences. I stared off to a group of children playing in the corner, completely oblivious to the situation around them, while the unfamiliar faces began to reminisce on each of their own fond memories of Carson and how much he meant to them and I took in a deep breath of relief when Brian finally led me outside.
“Do you need me to drive you to the grave site?” he asked.
“No, thank you.”
I got in my car and wiped the tears away before I pulled in behind the hearse. My stomach sank thinking of how much I didn’t even want to go to the cemetery but I pushed those thoughts aside knowing there wasn’t really a choice in the matter and we slowly made our way through town. My stomach was tight while my discomfort grew. Every car was pulled over watching us. And with me being the first car in the precession line, I was like the main float in some damn parade. Everyone watched me follow the hearse and their faces said it all. They were all thinking they were glad they weren’t me. And I wished I could tell each of them how right they were for appreciating that.
Two men in black ties were holding the rod iron gates to the cemetery open for us and we drove along the narrow pavement to the bottom of a hill where I could see a blue tent with matching blue cloth covered chairs sitting empty. I read once that cemetery translated to “resting place” and I forced myself to focus on that while we pulled to a stop.
The Things We Don't See Page 9