For Better and Worse

by Margot Hunt

  I managed to reach the Calusa County Sheriff’s Office without crashing into anything at roughly the same moment as the detectives. I didn’t have time to take in much about the inside of the building, other than that it looked a lot like every other government building I’d ever been in. It could have been the Department of Motor Vehicles, except for the fact that the receptionist was a uniformed police officer sitting behind what I assumed was bulletproof glass.

  “We’ll take you right back,” Monroe said. He and Reddick flanked me on either side, as though they were worried I might make a run for it.

  Should I run for it? I wondered. Why the hell did I agree to do this?

  Reddick nodded at the police officer sitting at the front desk and he buzzed us through. The two detectives walked me back to an interview room, which had a table, chairs and camera equipment.

  “You don’t mind if we record this interview,” Monroe said. He’d affected a chummy demeanor that did not fool me.

  I tried—and failed—to remember from the one and only criminal law class I took at Tulane if they had the right to insist on recording the interview.

  “I guess not.” I shrugged.

  “Good, good,” Monroe said.

  “Although I’m not sure what I can possibly tell you that will help your investigation.”

  “Hold on. Let’s just get everything situated. Go ahead and sit right there and we’ll get the tape rolling.”

  “It’s not a tape, old man,” Reddick said as he fiddled with the camera. “It’s all digital these days.”

  “What can I tell you? I’m set in my ways,” Monroe said. He grinned at me. “Hear him? ‘Old man.’ These kids, with their digital this and smartphone that.”

  I tried to smile back, but it felt forced.

  “Hey, you need anything? Coffee, soda?” Monroe asked.

  “No, thanks. We should get started,” I said. “This is the middle of the workday for me.”

  “Right, and you guys bill by the hour,” Monroe joked. “What do you pull in? Three, four hundred dollars?”

  “Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?” I asked. “My hourly billing rate?”

  “Nah, but it’s not a bad life, huh? Certainly better than being a cop. Pays for the nice house, the pretty wife.”

  “My wife is an attorney, too.”

  “Right, right. She didn’t want us to interview your son,” Monroe said.

  “I didn’t, either.”

  “Okay,” Reddick said. “We’re live.”

  Both of the detectives sat down across the table from me. The interview had officially begun. I could feel the sweat begin to seep from my forehead, armpits, back.

  “Do you know,” Monroe said, back to his chummy, conversational voice, “that of all the parents we interviewed...and we talked to, what?” He looked at Reddick. “It must have been close to a hundred parents, right?”

  “At least,” Reddick said.

  “There were only two families that wouldn’t let us talk to the kids,” Monroe continued. “Yours, and the Swain family. Do you know the Swains?”

  The Swains were Tate Mason’s foster family. I knew that.

  “Sure,” I said. “Their kids go to Franklin. It’s a small enough school that everyone knows everyone, at least enough to say hello.”

  “The Swains had a beef with Robert Gibbons. Do you know anything about that?”

  I nodded and shrugged at the same time. “Not firsthand, obviously. But yes, of course I heard about it. Tate’s accusation. Like I said, it’s a small school. News travels quickly. Hell, it’s a small town.”

  “No fucking kidding,” Monroe said. He chuckled. “I take my kid out for dinner the other night, and my ex-wife and her new husband were in the next booth over. That kind of shit only happens in small towns, right?”

  “Right,” I said. My mouth felt weirdly dry. I wished I’d accepted their offer of soda. I thought about asking for one, but that might tip them off to how scared I was.

  “Anyway, Tate Mason already gave a statement when they first came in to press charges against Robert Gibbons, and his parents—his foster parents—didn’t want him to go through that again. Which I can kind of see.” Monroe spread his hands in front of him. “What’s less clear is why you’d stop us from talking to your kid.”

  “My wife is a criminal defense attorney. She doesn’t believe in talking to the police.”

  Monroe laughed at this. “And yet here you are.”

  “I don’t have anything to hide,” I said.

  “Well,” Monroe glanced at Reddick. “That’s not strictly true.”

  “We checked your alibi,” Reddick said. “Two of the three people you said you were with the night Gibbons died told us they didn’t know what you were talking about. That they hadn’t been with you.”

  “Yes.” I hesitated. “I was at Rockbar Oysters, but... I was there alone with Jaime Anderson that night.”

  “So we gathered,” Monroe said. He chuckled again. “I can’t say I blame you. She’s a good-looking woman.”

  “I didn’t want to talk about it front of my wife for obvious reasons,” I said. “Jaime and I were having an affair. It’s over now, but still. I didn’t want Nat to find out. She wouldn’t take that well.”

  “What wife would?” Monroe gave a wry smile. “I’ve been married three times, so I have a bit of experience with marital relationships. I’ve yet to meet a woman who’d be okay with her husband dating someone else.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “That’s exactly it.”

  “So you were out having a romantic dinner with your girlfriend on the night Robert Gibbons died,” Monroe said.

  I shrugged, hoping I looked more relaxed than I felt. Sweat was trickling down my back. “I don’t know anything about when Robert died, but yes, I was out with Jaime on that Friday night.”

  “Except that Jaime Anderson said you left early that night,” Reddick said. “You left before dinner was even served.”

  Why had she told them that? I wondered. Was this her revenge for my cooling things off with her? I’d worried about it, sure, but I still couldn’t believe she’d go through with it.

  “I thought I saw someone Nat and I know in the restaurant,” I said. “I panicked. I wanted to get out of there before they saw me.”

  “Who did you see?” Reddick asked.

  Shit, I thought. This was exactly why you don’t talk to the police. If I lied about who I supposedly saw, I’d just be digging a deeper hole.

  “I thought I saw Dan and Mandy Breen. Mandy is Nat’s best friend, so obviously it would be huge problem if she saw me out with Jaime. But as I was walking out, I looked again, and realized it wasn’t Mandy, after all. It was just a woman with similar hair.”

  “But you didn’t return to your dinner date?”

  “I didn’t want Jaime to know that I was panicking. She wouldn’t have liked that. Actually,” I said, warming to this story, “that night is what made me realize that I had to end the affair. I have too much to lose. I couldn’t keep risking everything.”

  “Ms. Anderson was under the impression that your wife called you and asked you to come home,” Monroe said.

  Natalie had called me. From her disposable phone. And then texted me...and then I’d called her back. None of this would be an issue, except that Robert had used that same phone to call Michelle Cole and left her a message. If the police had that piece of information, they could directly link me, and possibly Natalie, to Robert on the night he died. Nat had been convinced that Michelle Cole wouldn’t go to the police, that she wouldn’t want anyone to know she’d been involved with Robert.

  I hoped she was right. Our future freedom now depended on it.

  “I did tell Jaime that, but it was a lie,” I said. “Nat didn’t call me that night.”

  “You lie a l
ot to the women in your life,” Reddick commented.

  “Who can blame him,” Monroe said, with another chuckle. “He has a lot on his plate.”

  “I made a mistake. I cheated on my wife, and...that was a huge mistake. I know that now.”

  “Uh-huh.” Reddick tilted his head to one side. The way he looked at me made me feel like he could see straight into my thoughts if he wanted to. It scared the shit out of me. “Wanna know what I think?”

  I looked at him, waiting.

  “I’m pretty good at reading people,” he said. “I can tell when they’re bullshitting me. It comes in handy with the job, as you might imagine. And I’m pretty sure that right now, you’re bullshitting us.”

  “Why would I make up that I am—or was—having an affair?”

  “I don’t think you’re lying about that part,” Reddick said. “But I do think you know more than you’re telling us. You want to start over? Tell us what really happened? We’ll even give you a few minutes to think about it. To come up with a better story.”

  I stood up abruptly, only realizing as I did that my knees were shaking. “I’m leaving.”

  “Hey, wait, don’t do that,” Monroe said affably. “We just have a few more questions to ask you. It won’t take long.”

  But I did remember this part from criminal law class. “Unless I’m under arrest, you can’t keep me here. I’m going now.”

  * * *

  I sat in the living room on one of the uncomfortable velvet club chairs, waiting for Nat and Charlie to get home after Charlie’s karate class. My tie was loosened, and I had poured myself a glass of bourbon. I knew I was going to have to cut back on booze eventually...but today was not the day. My trip to the sheriff’s office had deeply rattled me. I still had an unpleasant task ahead of me. At this point, the bourbon was medicinal.

  I was going to have to tell Nat about my affair. I didn’t want to, but I didn’t see any way around it at this point. I fervently hoped the police would assume I’d lied about my alibi because of the affair, and would lose interest in pursuing me as a suspect. But now they knew I’d left my dinner with Jaime early that night...that Jaime had told them I’d left after getting a call from Nat...and Nat had refused to let them question Charlie. Taken apart, none of those facts were particularly damning. But Detective Reddick had all but told me he knew I was lying about something. It was entirely possible, maybe even probable, that the police would continue to focus on me as a suspect. It was finally time, past time really, that Nat knew everything.

  I didn’t know how she would take the news that I’d had an affair. I’d justified it—both to myself and to Jaime—by how distant Nat and I had become. The space between us had stretched until I didn’t know how to reach back over it to her. But maybe that was bullshit. Maybe I’d had the affair because my life had become so routine, so monotonous, drab, I needed something to give it color, life again. I had no idea if Nat had ever experienced that feeling, much less acted on it. Even if she had, I doubted she’d be sympathetic.

  No, Nat was going to be angry. Angry at me for straying. Angrier that it was coming out now, of all times. Especially since it was possible that my affair was going to be the trip wire that brought us down, that kept us from getting away with murder.

  The truth was, I didn’t even know who Nat was anymore. I didn’t know what she was capable of. Was it possible that once she found out I’d been unfaithful, she would turn on me? Tell the police I had killed Robert—which, of course, I had—but leave out her own participation? Was it possible she still had the pillow I used to smother him or some other piece of evidence they could use to convict me?

  No, I thought. She would never do that to me.

  At least, I didn’t think she would.

  I drank some more bourbon, comforted by the warmth as it slid down my throat.

  The front door swung open just after six o’clock. Rocket had been lying on the floor by my feet, and he gave out a sharp bark, running over to greet Charlie and Nat. They were in the middle of a tense-sounding conversation.

  “I just want you to think about it for a few days,” Nat said. “We don’t have to make a decision right now.”

  “I’m not going to change my mind.” Charlie’s tone was churlish. “I’m not going back, and you can’t make me.”

  “I’m not making you do anything. I’m just asking you to think about it. That’s all,” Nat said soothingly.

  “I don’t need to think about it! And I’m not going back there!” Charlie shouted. He ran up the stairs, his feet thudding on each step.

  Nat walked into view, moving down the hall, one hand pressed over her face. I was struck by how distraught she looked. All this time, I’d thought she was the one who was holding it together, while I was slowly falling apart.

  “Hi,” I said.

  She started. “Jesus. I didn’t see you sitting there.”

  “What’s going on with Charlie?”

  “I don’t know. He got in the car after karate, said he hated it and never wanted to go back. But he won’t tell me what happened.”

  “He loves karate.”

  “I know, but there’s no reasoning with him at the moment. I asked him if one of the other kids was mean to him or if something happened that upset him, but he absolutely refuses to discuss it.”

  “Do you want me to talk to him?”

  “Be my guest. Maybe you’ll have better luck than I did.”

  “Okay. But I need to talk to you about something first.”

  Natalie looked at me sharply. “What happened?”

  “You’d better sit down.”

  Nat walked into the living room and sat on the couch across from me. She was composed again, but her expression was grim. She sat very still, her back erect, and folded her hands together. “What’s going on?”

  “The police questioned me today. They showed up at my office, asked me to go to the sheriff’s office for an interview.”

  “What? Why didn’t you call me? You didn’t speak to them without a lawyer present, did you? Because I know you’d never do anything that stupid, especially after all the times I warned you about it.”

  “Apparently I am that stupid.”

  “Jesus, Will!” Nat exploded. Then she glanced up the stairs, aware of Charlie’s close proximity. She lowered her voice to a hiss. “What’s happened? What did they ask you? What did you tell them?”

  “I think it went as well as could be expected.”

  “Did they question you about Robert’s death?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “My alibi didn’t check out,” I said.

  “Your alibi? Wait... For where you were earlier that evening? You said you were out with a few of the other partners.”

  “I did say that. It wasn’t true.”

  I couldn’t read Nat’s expression as she stared at me. Maybe it was the early-evening light, but her eyes looked darker than usual, almost a navy blue.

  “Who were you with that night?” she asked in a deadly calm tone.

  I hesitated. The moment that I’d been dreading was finally here. And now that it was, I was surprised to realize just how much I didn’t want to destroy my marriage.

  “There’s something I have to tell you,” I said.

  Part Three

  Natalie

  Chapter 28

  I watched Will as he talked and talked and talked, droning on like he always did when he was nervous, and thought about how much I’d like to punch him right in his smug, aging frat boy face. The words he spoke flowed over me—I didn’t mean for it to happen... I was unhappy... Jaime was just there—without penetrating my wall of rage.

  Our son had been sexually abused.

  While Will was out fucking a coworker.

  They might seem like unrelated
events, but were they really? Maybe if Will had put more energy into being present when he was with his family, none of this would have happened. In fact—and this just occurred to me at that moment—if he’d gone on that camping trip as a parent chaperone, Robert wouldn’t have gone near Charlie. It was clearly a crime of opportunity. But no, Will was too busying flirty-texting with Jaime fucking Anderson to bother going camping with his son and protect him from the pedophile who targeted him.

  In that moment, I hated my husband more than I’d thought possible.

  “Would it help if I said I’m sorry?” Will finally asked.

  “Are you seriously asking if I’ll accept your apology before you’ve even bothered to make it?”

  “No, of course not.” Will stared down at the floor in front of him, momentarily contrite. “But we really need to talk about what happened today.” He looked up. “I’m worried the police wanted to interview me again. The younger one seemed particularly suspicious. But maybe he’s always like that? What do you think?”

  “I think you’re a fucking idiot for talking to them without having a lawyer present.”

  Will reared back as if I’d slapped him. “I didn’t have a choice. They knew my alibi was bogus.”

  “You always have a choice. And it’s always better not to tell the police a goddamned thing, than give them one false nugget of information that they can use against you.”

  The sight of Will’s face, his expression shifting from boy-like guilt to indignation at my angry tone, made me feel physically ill. I stood abruptly and stalked into the kitchen. I opened the refrigerator and stared inside, not even sure what I wanted. Then I saw an open bottle of chardonnay. I grabbed it and poured a hefty amount into a wineglass.

  Will, clearly not grasping the degree to which I didn’t want to be near him, followed me into the kitchen.

  “I think I did the right thing,” he insisted.

  “You’ll have to be more specific. Are you referring to the part when you put your penis inside Jaime Anderson or when you lied to the police in the middle of a murder investigation?”