I sit on the back deck with Ben to help him with his vocabulary worksheet. It’s a clear night, finally sweater weather, at least in the evenings and early mornings. The overhead light collects moths and beetles. The buzz of flapping wings in the quiet night air makes me look over to the edge of the pool, where a June bug is stuck on its back and trying to flip itself over. It ends up falling in the water, sending a small ring of ripples across the pool surface. Ben, as if by instinct, goes over and, with one finger, lifts the insect out of the water to safety. His natural kindness is heart melting.
A divorce would destroy him. He doesn’t handle change well; he’d be lost and terrified. It’s the last thing I want to happen, but if Collin ever found out the extent of my deception, he would leave, I know he would. At the beginning I thought it was a lapse in judgment that he might forgive, but after everything that’s happened, I’ve left him no choice.
Ben is getting sleepy and irritable, so I tell him we can do the last few questions on the worksheet over breakfast and send him to bed. Inside, Collin is in the kitchen, putz-ing around. He’s pouring a drink, opening some mail on the counter. I need to check the burner phone while he’s distracted.
Under the sink in the master bath, I reach back to the tampon box and pull out the phone. This time, there is one unread message. My heart drops to my stomach. I lose my breath. I’m afraid to open it—afraid to find out who’s behind these messages. When I click open the text, there is no further clue as to who is sending it, but there is definitely a clear message.
What would you do to stay out of news headlines...and out of jail?
Jail? This person thinks I’ve done something I didn’t do. I wish now that I’d called the police the day I found him. I wish I’d stayed and told them the truth, that I found him like this. I could have maintained the story that Luke was giving me private writing lessons. Collin is so trusting; I’m sure I could have spun it in a way where it would seem plausible that I hadn’t told him. Maybe that I was really excited about a piece I was working on and Luke was helping me polish it, maybe get it into a small publication, and I wanted to surprise Collin with the end result. Far-fetched perhaps, but it would be better than this—than being suspected of having something to do with a murder.
What do you want? I type, and push Send. I wait as long as I can for a response before I hear Collin coming upstairs to get ready for bed. I triple-check that the phone is on silent and push it to the back of the cabinet, closing the door. It keeps me up at night, wondering who this person could possibly be. Is it some stranger who might have seen me parking and then sneaking through the trees behind Luke’s house at night? Have they been following me this whole time, looking for an opportunity to blackmail me, and the crowded party was the perfect time?
Before Collin reaches the room, I strip down to my underwear, throw on a T-shirt and slip under the covers, pretending to be asleep so we don’t have to mutually pretend not to hear the newscast, so I don’t have to see him hide the look of worry and perhaps doubt that I’ve been noticing in his eyes.
In the morning, with the kids at school and Collin at work, I wheel Claire out to the front porch to sit with me. It’s a crisp morning, overcast and hazy, and everyone wants to take advantage of the short few months one can escape the Louisiana heat. I spread a thin quilt over her lap and sit with my coffee and laptop on the porch swing across from her. The weathered slats display peeling yellow paint; they’re cool against the backs of my legs. I think about the day we painted it, not long after we moved in. When everything was perfect. I close my eyes against the memory, trying to ward it off, and I open my laptop.
I search for any updates on the case, finding no real details beyond what I heard on the news last night. I stir hot milk into my coffee and curl my knees up to my chest. Tonight I’ll cook something special. I need to focus on my family, and make Collin feel like everything is just fine. I go through recipes in my head. There’s a Greek chicken thing he likes, maybe shrimp with risotto. As I make a mental grocery list, I’m distracted by the sound of a car approaching. It’s just a dot against the horizon at first, but as it gets closer and takes shape, I see that it’s a police car.
I sit upright, spilling scalding coffee onto my thighs. I swallow the cussword I want to scream out and wipe my legs with my hand. My heart flutters and I watch, hoping it’s just a patrol car passing by. It doesn’t seem to be in a hurry. Maybe that’s all it is...but then it slows and turns into our drive. I hear the scrape of the underbelly of the vehicle against our steep driveway. I suck in a shallow breath and hold it.
Joe Brooks steps out of the driver’s side. He tips his hat to me as he walks toward the porch, with a careless smile as if it’s a social call.
“Morning, Mel.”
I don’t greet him. I concentrate on controlling the look on my face. It can’t read shock or guilt. I must unfurrow my brow and turn the corners of my mouth up into something resembling a welcoming smile. At the very least.
“Joe, hi. You’re here again.”
“Can I take a minute of your time?”
“Of course. Can I get you a cup of coffee?” I ask, hoping my painted expression reads as genuine.
“Sure, thanks.”
“Have a seat, I’ll grab an extra mug inside.” I go inside, rushing, fumbling to get the mug as quickly as I can, wanting him to leave. I want to know what else he could possibly be here for, and at the same time I don’t want to know.
I return to the porch and place a colorful “Best Dad” mug in front of him and pick up the French press off the small table. I can see the top of his head from where I hover behind him, pouring him a cup. I see the pale part in his dark shock of hair. I think about finishing the pour, and then slowly dumping the scalding contents of the French press over his head, tiny rivers of boiling coffee running down his face. This dark thought surprises me and I flush a little, momentarily afraid he can read my thoughts, sitting out there on the porch. I have never been the type to wish others harm, and I’ve raised kind children. But now, after knowing what Joe has done—his abuse of power, his propensity for violence, his almost arrogant remorselessness—and now, his capacity to destroy the life I’ve built, I wish the coffee was boiling oil. I take pleasure imagining him without any flesh on his face—his eyeballs round and bulging like a photo in an anatomy book, his skeleton jaw like a Halloween decoration.
But of course, I only offer cream and sugar and then sit opposite him, careful not to give away my trembling hands. I glance sideways at Claire a moment, wondering how much of what is said, if any, she is capable of absorbing. She just stares out into the front yard’s trees. I envy her for a moment because she’s somewhere far away and safe.
“What can I do for you, Detective Brooks?”
“Mel, you can still call me Joe.”
I don’t say anything back to this, only nod in acknowledgment. I’m not sure what he’s playing at, acting overly friendly, but I’m not falling for whatever show he’s putting on.
“How’s Collin?” he asks, breezily.
“Please, just...what’s this about?” I ask, and his smile fades.
“All right, then. Do you recall what you were doing Thursday, September 20?” he asks.
“Uhh, I don’t—I can barely remember what I was doing yesterday at this time,” I stall, scanning my mind for that date, for what he’s getting at. “I usually have a writing group that night, Thursdays, I mean.” At least I’m being honest because that was weeks ago and I really don’t remember the exact dates.
“So you were at Classics Bookstore that night?” he asks, and I have to think back. Which weeks did I skip? Was I there that day? How will it be significant?
“Probably. I don’t go every week, but...”
“We have a witness that says you weren’t there.”
I shift in my seat.
“Then I guess I wasn’t. Like I
say, I usually am, but I don’t...”
“Were you with Luke Ellison that evening?” he asks.
I think of Luke. It was such a short time ago that he was here, looking at me longingly, whispering lovers’ words in my ear. A career and happiness, a holiday in Italy spread out in front of him.
“No.” I don’t say more because I hear that my voice is husky with the strain of holding back tears.
“No?” he repeats. I don’t repeat my response. I wait to see where he’s going with this.
“We have a witness who says he saw you get into Luke’s truck in the parking lot of the bookstore several weeks ago.”
Nausea, something like seasickness, washes over me. The only person who saw me sitting in Luke’s truck that night was Lacy. Or so I thought. Could he be using the male pronoun to throw me off? I feel sure that Lacy has gone back to Joe even after saying she was done with him, but I can’t believe she’d involve herself in this. Maybe there was someone else passing through the lot.
“Yes, I sat in his truck for a second,” I admit.
“But you said you weren’t with him.” Joe writes something down in a tiny spiral notebook, then looks up and fills the pregnant silence.
“I told you. We spoke about writing, maybe lessons. He was giving me one of his books. I sat in his car for a second, to reach in the back and take a book off the stack—get his card and info. I already told you that.”
I want desperately to say that he could corroborate that story with Lacy, because I’d told her the same thing. But I already lied to him in the diner about how I knew her, that I’d met her only once before. I can’t change that now—too much rests on my consistency. I suppose, if it becomes necessary for my survival, I’ll have to bring Lacy into it, but not now.
“I didn’t know he gave private coaching lessons,” Joe says, an unyielding look in his eyes.
“How would you?”
“Well, he doesn’t have any indication on his website or business card, and no family members have mentioned a side coaching business. He makes plenty of money from his books. Why would he need to?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“You wouldn’t know.”
“No,” I say, trying to keep my voice light.
“I met the guy a few times. Didn’t strike me as the charitable type, just offering private lessons,” he says, and I pause, absorbing that Joe had met Luke before.
“All I know is that he made the offer. I thought about it. And I decided against it.”
“Decided against it.” He says this like a simple echo, no meaning to be gained from it. Was it a question?
“Is there anything else?” I ask curtly.
“So your statement is that you never met him outside the bookstore.” I realize in the moment, when he uses the word statement that I don’t have to answer any of these questions if I don’t want to, and maybe I shouldn’t because I can’t be absolutely sure that I wasn’t seen. Whoever is texting me knows something, but it would likely be my word against theirs if it came down to it. I could always tell the truth about that cap if it were found. Well, part of the truth: that I must have set it down on the seat of his truck the day I sat in it to get his information and grab a book. It correlates with what I just said. The more I act guilty of something or refuse to cooperate, the more attention I’ll draw to myself. So I answer.
“Yes, that’s right.” I hold firm. If he knows more than he’s saying, I think he’d tell me, he’d press me for more information. All he knows is Luke looked me up on his computer. That’s nothing. I met one of the other moms in Ben’s class recently, and I thought she was quite funny and engaging, so I casually googled her name, just to see who she was. It led to Facebook, Twitter, site after site. That’s not abnormal. I wasn’t stalking the woman. He has nothing.
“Is that all?” I stand as if to escort him off the porch. He puts down his cup and stands too, countering me, but he doesn’t make a move to leave.
“You understand I’m not trying to give you a hard time here, Mel. It’s just that the guy seemed very interested in you. Obsessed might be the wrong word, but preoccupied, perhaps. And then we hear that you were seen with him, in his truck. That doesn’t exactly look like nothing.”
“Well, it is nothing.” I swallow hard. I can hear the sound it makes in the quiet morning air. I clear my throat to try and mask the guilty sound.
“I’m just telling you how it looks. The guy seemed like a jerk. If he was harassing you or anything, and you’re just trying to remove yourself from this whole thing, that’s understandable, but if there is something you’re holding back, I’m sure you know that it’s important you let me know now—” he pauses “—rather than later.”
“I appreciate that. There’s nothing to tell,” I say. I don’t know if playing the “old pal” card back to him and feigning friendliness will help, but I know what he is, and I can’t bring myself to pretend with him. I may have done something wrong, but only one of us standing here is a criminal.
“Well.” Joe tips his hat, smiling. “Thanks for your time, Melanie.” He carries with him none of the Southern charm promised by the singsong way he shapes his words, and I hate the way his lips form around my name. I give a quick, sharp nod back and watch him open his patrol car door. Before he sits, he pauses, holding the top of the door with both hands, looking as if he’s going to say something else, but then he looks up at me at the top of the porch stairs. I have my arms crossed, defensively, and I don’t welcome any other questions, so he closes the car door and drives off.
When the car is out of sight, I exhale and collapse onto the stairs beneath me. I want to scream. My fingernails have made moon-shaped impressions in my palms from unknowingly clenching my fists. I look to Claire, who leans over the side of her chair and spits. A translucent thread of saliva clings to her lip and stretches near the wooden slats of the porch floor. I like to think it’s because she knows the kind of man Joe Brooks is and is disgusted, but I know she can’t possibly know that. I’m grateful, anyway, that she can’t tell anyone he was here. Collin can’t know. This fire I’ve created grows with each lie I throw on the flame. I am a liar.
20
AFTER I HELP CLAIRE into her bed to nap, I pace the kitchen floor and try to steady my breath. My eyes land on a picture on the fridge, one that Ben drew. It’s our family in periwinkle-blue stick figures. We stand in a line across the bottom of the page, holding hands. One straight vertical line for each of our bodies, with a horizontal line for our arms, a few more strokes at the end of our stick arms to represent four disproportionate fingers on each of us. I’m the only one he drew hair on. Just a butter-yellow swipe, curved up at the end. A red crayon paints a smile on each of our circle faces. Our house, a messy square, stands behind us. And little Ralph is a brown, scratchy circle, curled up next to it. I told him that he was going to be a famous artist one day and he squealed with delight. He drew this just before I met Luke. I pull the paper from underneath the magnet holding it to the side of the fridge. The last months have been so dense with chaos, I scarcely remember what the comfort of prosaic, routine life feels like. I long to go back to that.
Am I causing more damage by concealing my relationship with Luke? If there are no suspects, and it comes out that I was having an affair with him and lied to the police about knowing him, about being at his house, if there is evidence that I found him, if the person texting me saw me there, I could be a prime suspect for murder. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t do it. Circumstantially, I fit the bill, and if no one else does, if I’m the only one who lied and covered up evidence, it’s very possible that I could be found guilty.
What would they say my motive is? That he threatened to leave me and if I couldn’t have him, no one could, so I snapped? That he was going to tell my husband about us and so I had to silence him? It probably wouldn’t be too difficult to come up with something that
fit if all the evidence pointed to me. But now...it’s too late. I already threw away evidence and covered up lies with more deceit and evasion. I thought it was the only way to protect my family, but now I wonder if I’ve made this so much worse. I’ve been telling myself that it’s not possible for them to arrest or convict an innocent person, but now I am not so sure. I need to find out who would want to hurt him. I can’t just sit here and wait for my deception to catch up with me.
Who knows how many lovers he’s had over the years, who knows if other failed writers think he stole their ideas, or if he had enemies for any other myriad of reasons. There are so many possibilities to explain his death.
Suddenly, in one crystalizing instant, it hits me. My stomach tightens at the thought: Joe knew him; or, at least, he’d met him more than once, and Lacy was briefly seeing Luke. When she’d talked about Luke to me, she’d spoken as if she’d met “the one.” Maybe she flaunted that to Joe, too, on one of the many occasions he stopped by for a quickie, and she thought she had leverage—a way to say no to him. No matter how dismissive and cruel Joe Brooks is with her on the surface, I know he treats her like his property in private. He would not accept rejection in any form. That, I am certain of.
He seems to feel that he can use his badge to get away with anything he wants. What if he found out about them together? If he’s capable of rape and physical abuse, is he capable of more? Maybe in a drunken state or jealous rage, or probably both? I need to see Lacy and mine her for information—find out if Joe knew about her relationship with Luke, if she knew where Joe was the night Luke was killed.
It’s only 10 a.m., but I remember that Lacy works at the strip club again and may have been up all night. But I can’t afford to wait; I need her to meet me, to help clarify things.
Such a Good Wife Page 16