The Wife: A Novel of Psychological Suspense

by Alafair Burke

  “I know, and I didn’t call. And yet here you are on a Sunday afternoon. What am I missing, Detective?”

  “If you’re called in to a grand jury and asked what you know about your husband, what are you going to say, Angela?”

  “That’s a strange question.”

  “Do you want us to subpoena you? I know you don’t believe me, but I really am trying to help you.”

  “By asking me whether I want to testify about my husband in front of a grand jury? That’s an odd form of assistance.”

  “I know you had your friend Susanna send a hint to the DA’s office. If you have something to say and want the cover of a grand jury, I can arrange that. If you’re afraid of Jason—”

  “I’m not afraid of my husband.”

  “Maybe not now. Now that he’s moved out.”

  Angela’s face fell as she realized the implication of Corrine’s statement. “You were watching us?”

  “You might think this is over, but it’s only just beginning. Kerry Lynch has been missing for four days now. She left her dog, her ID, her credit cards—everything. Based on other evidence at the house, I don’t think she left of her own accord. If Jason wasn’t here Wednesday night, we need to know that.”

  “I have nothing else to say to you, Detective.”

  “You told me he was home having dinner with you and watching movies that night, like any normal couple. But now he’s moving out. Something’s not right here.”

  “Leave, Detective, or I’ll report you for harassment.”

  “All right, but like I said, call me whenever you want.”

  50

  I didn’t bother with a hello. “What did you do?”

  When Susanna asked what I was talking about, I could tell immediately she was feigning confusion.

  “You’re the one friend I can trust right now, and you’re lying to me. Stop it. That detective was here again, saying you sent some kind of hint to the district attorney. Something about me testifying in front of a grand jury. What did you do?”

  “I’m trying to protect you, Angela.”

  “By sending a cop to my door? By forcing me to go to court?”

  “I asked you point-blank yesterday whether you would lie for Jason if you got subpoenaed. You promised me that you wouldn’t.”

  I had hoped my suspicions were somehow wrong. “And so you tried to make that happen. I can’t believe you did that to me.”

  “For you, Angela. I did it for you, not to you. All I did was ask Eric to make a call to see if they were opening a grand jury. Frankly, it wasn’t easy for me to ask that jerk for a favor.”

  “Don’t make it sound like I should be grateful to you for this. You stabbed me in the back. You have no idea the kind of danger you’re putting me in.”

  “Danger? Are you kidding me? Do you know the ethical compromises I’ve made over and over again since this happened, completely out of loyalty to you? I work for the news division of a major network, and I’m keeping company with an accused rapist, one whose career I helped launch. Then you go and falsify an alibi for him to the police. Never once have you acknowledged the position that puts me in.”

  I was furious at her for trying to manipulate the situation, but even I could see she had a valid point. This entire time, I had been leaning on her for support, knowing that she would put our friendship over her job. I tried to set aside my own emotions to thank her now. I also apologized for only thinking about myself.

  “I wouldn’t be upset if you were actually looking out for number one,” she said, “but you’re not. You’re protecting Jason, at your own peril. Spencer’s too. So, yes, that’s why I tried to get you back on track with that call to the DA’s office. I thought that if they opened a grand jury to look into Kerry’s disappearance, it would give you a chance to come clean.”

  “He moved out today,” I said suddenly. “Jason. He went to Colin’s. And I served him with divorce papers last night. So you can stop trying to take care of us. I’m doing what I need to do. I made the decision on my way back from your house yesterday, so you had already helped, Susanna.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I don’t think I was ready to say it out loud yet, and it’s all moving so fast. We packed what he needed for now. We’re going to sell the house.” I still couldn’t believe I was in this situation, and the drastic steps I’d need to take to get out of it.

  “You’re doing the right thing.”

  “I know,” I said quietly.

  “I’m sorry about the call to the DA. I was just so frustrated when you left yesterday.”

  “It’s okay, Susanna. I understand.”

  “I won’t ever stop trying to run your life, you know.” Her voice was softer now. “We’re okay?”

  “Of course.”

  “So, at the risk of prying again too soon, is this breakup for real, or strictly on paper?” She had been the one to suggest a technical divorce, if only to protect us financially.

  “He told her he would leave me for her.” The words surprised me once they were out of my mouth.

  “He admitted that to you?”

  “No, to his lawyer.” Now that I’d opened that door, I owed her a more complete explanation. “I’ve been reading his e-mails. All that nonsense about her company and kickbacks and whatever? He told Olivia he thought Kerry was pissed because he hadn’t left me yet.”

  “So she framed him for a sexual assault?”

  “Apparently.”

  “So you still think he’s innocent?”

  “Of that? Yes.” When I first saw the police reports Olivia sent to Jason, I believed he was guilty. It was the photographs of her wrists that convinced me. Her description of the way he suddenly seemed like a different person. With that one e-mail, I became convinced that he had done to her what he had done to me, and she was willing to label that as rape, precisely as Susanna had argued. That was why I had kicked him out of the house that night.

  “But how can you be sure?” Susanna asked.

  “Because I read the explanation he gave to his lawyer. Just trust me, Susanna. It all makes sense. She set him up. I’m sure of it.”

  Normally, she would have pressed me for details, but she let it go, no doubt sensing that she had pushed me far enough for the day.

  “Are you okay? Do you want me to come over?”

  “No, I’m fine. I’m actually looking forward to being on my own for a while. You know I’ve never lived alone before? Not once. This might be good for me.”

  Spencer called me that night. I couldn’t believe how much had changed in the two weeks since I drove him to camp.

  “How’s the arm? Still there?”

  “Yeah. It’s actually getting better already, but don’t tell Kate. She’s been, like, super nice to me. It was sort of her fault I got it. She was all, ‘That stuff looks like poison ivy, but it’s not.’ That’s worse than not noticing in the first place, right?”

  “Are you doing okay up there otherwise?”

  “Other than getting poisoned by nature under a counselor’s watch? Yeah, I’m fine. It’s pretty fun up here.”

  “It’s only another week, huh?”

  “Um, is it? You mentioned before it might be six weeks instead of three.”

  I shut my eyes and took another drink of wine. I couldn’t believe I had ever thought that this would all be over by then. “No, unless of course you want to stay.” I’d have to put the rest of the fees on a credit card.

  “I’m actually kind of ready to come home, but I like it here too. Mom, what’s going on? Did Dad’s thing get taken care of? Is it over?”

  I closed my eyes, searching for an honest response. “It’s going to take longer than we thought, and Dad’s going to stay at Colin’s for a while. After what happened, we thought we’d have a better chance working things out if we lived apart for a while.”

  “You kicked him out.”

  “No—”

  “Mom, he cheated on you, and you need a
break. You can tell me that.”

  “It’s more complicated, but, yes, we’re on a break.”

  “Good.”

  “He’s still your father.” They had finally talked Friday night when Spencer called, the first time since Jason told him about the affair.

  “I know, and I’ll be fine with him someday. But he’s the one who screwed up, not you. You can stop protecting me.”

  “I didn’t want you to spend your whole summer hearing bad things about your family.”

  “Well, the stuff I’ve been imagining is probably way worse than what’s really happening.”

  I couldn’t believe how smart my kid was.

  “Mom?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you want me just to come home? I can handle it. I promise.”

  I sucked in my breath. I had given myself so many pep talks about finally living on my own. I didn’t need Jason. I didn’t need anyone. “You don’t mind?”

  “Definitely not. Everyone’s starting to stink up here. We take showers, and somehow we get smellier every day.”

  My laugh was more of a snort. I missed my kid. I told Kate I’d be picking Spencer up tomorrow.

  51

  Corrine woke up Monday morning to a call out at Columbia University. What was her early morning was the middle of the night for a college student. For all the headlines about college responses to sexual assaults on campus, universities seemed to be getting worse, not better, in their procedures. By the time Corrine arrived, the victim had already spoken to three friends, a student residence adviser, a faculty mentor, a student services counselor, and a university health clinic nurse. Only the nurse had encouraged the woman to call the police department. From what Corrine could gather, the rest of the crew spent that time convincing the woman that the police would arrest her for using Ecstasy with the suspect the night before, that she could file a complaint through the university system, and that criminal charges could ruin the suspect’s life.

  By the time Corrine got to SVU, it was a little after noon. She found a thick mailing envelope on her desk chair. It was from the Pittsburgh Police Department. She opened it to find the reports she had ordered when she first learned that Angela Powell had once been Angela Mullen, the girl recovered after police fatally shot Charles Franklin near the Canadian border.

  Corrine flipped through the pages. Photographs of the house that had been Angela Powell’s prison for three years, including two unmade twin beds and a crib with soiled linens. A doctor’s report, describing Angela’s refusal to let anyone else hold the baby until her mother showed up. An FBI agent’s report, detailing Daniel and Virginia Mullen’s threat to sue if their daughter and grandson weren’t released to come home immediately. Background on Charles Franklin: one arrest for indecent exposure outside a public restroom, but no conviction; child pornography found in the house; the typical statements from neighbors saying he seemed so “normal.” A printout of a photograph of him on a gurney, his face already gray and bloated, blood clotted in his dark brown hair.

  Even in death, Charles Franklin exhibited physical traits Corrine recognized from photographs of Angela’s son, Spencer: the dark hair, wide nose, low forehead. She hoped that there was some part of Angela’s brain that protected her from seeing the resemblance.

  Toward the bottom of the pile, she found the documents describing the discovery of the second victim, the one Angela had been instructed to call Sarah after Franklin brought her back to the home two years earlier. Franklin told Angela he finally got lucky on a trip to Cleveland when a girl “even dumber than you” accepted the offer of a ride home while waiting for a bus across the street from a shopping mall. He threatened to kill them both if they spoke a word of their previous existence under his roof, but Angela remembered Sarah telling her once that the only thing worth seeing where she grew up was the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. She was fourteen years old when Franklin abducted her, making her about sixteen when it was all over.

  The girl’s decomposed body had washed up near the Pennsylvania-Ohio state line nearly two weeks after Franklin dumped her in Lake Erie. Two bullet wounds at the base of her skull. Putrefication had taken its toll. She was unrecognizable. A tattoo approximately three inches by two on her right hip was unidentifiable, too, other than the fact of its existence.

  The most recent document in the file was written almost a year and a half after Franklin was fatally shot during the rescue. The police and FBI had searched all missing-person reports from Ohio and the surrounding states, but nothing matched the description they were able to provide of “Sarah.” The case, for all practical purposes, was closed. As far as Corrine could tell, no one had ever come forward to claim Sarah as their child. The parents who had allowed a fourteen-year-old to get a tattoo must not have looked especially hard when she disappeared.

  Corrine felt empty when she had finished reading. Death wasn’t a good enough punishment for a savage like Charles Franklin.

  Corrine started to carry the file to the shredder, but stopped herself. She found space at the back of her bottom desk drawer. She’d keep it there for a while, just in case she needed it.

  52

  Two Days Later

  “The Long Island Press has the story.” It was Brian King on the phone. Corrine didn’t need to ask which story he meant. “They called me to see if I consider Powell a suspect in Kerry’s disappearance.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “That any questions concerning Ms. Lynch should be directed to the police department where she lives.”

  “Very diplomatic.”

  “Except the reporter’s no idiot. Her follow-up was whether we were still prosecuting Powell.”

  “And?”

  “I said the case was on hold, pursuant to a court order.”

  “So why are you calling me?”

  “Who else am I supposed to vent to? Don’t you want to know what I found out?”

  Of course she did.

  “That guy you met out there is still the lead: Netter. He said Tom Fisher refused to answer any questions—about the affair, about where he was last Wednesday night, about Kerry’s work for the company, about Oasis’s international operations. Blanket invocation of the Fifth. And the realtor who was going to list Kerry’s house said Kerry wasn’t interested in looking for a new place. She said she wanted to—quote—‘take her money and get out of Dodge.’”

  “But why would she leave without her stuff, or even her dog? And what’s Fisher hiding?” Kerry had been missing for a week.

  “Exactly. So I called Janice Martinez, who said she was about to contact me, because the same reporter had reached out to her. She wouldn’t give me exact conversations with Kerry, but she said Kerry had been missing long enough that she was willing to share information she believed I needed. Apparently, Martinez notified Olivia Randall on Wednesday that Kerry was amenable to settling the civil case—with an eye toward dismissing the criminal case—if the price was right.”

  “She was going to take a payoff, just like we suspected.”

  “Exactly. But Martinez was also working out a settlement with Oasis, negotiating directly with Tom Fisher, not his counsel. In theory, it was to settle potential discrimination claims arising from Kerry’s affair with Fisher, but the settlement would include a blanket nondisclosure agreement as to all matters involving her work at Oasis. Martinez said she got a feeling from both Kerry and Fisher that there was some subtext she was missing.”

  Corrine filled in the blanks. “Kerry would keep her mouth shut about the company’s kickbacks. She was basically shaking down two different men—one for sexual assault, one for whatever’s been going on at that company.”

  “Except now it’s starting to look like one of the men is innocent. Jason Powell has been trying to convince us the whole time—telling us about Fisher, even sending us his movie rental receipts. Meanwhile, Fisher’s the one invoking. So if one of them is responsible for whatever happened to Kerry, I know where I’d put my mon
ey. Maybe Fisher decided her price was too high, or thought Kerry would keep coming back for more.”

  “When are they running their story?”

  “Any second. They’ll go online first. Front page tomorrow. The other news outlets will follow. I sat down and took a fresh look at it all. The fact of the matter is this: If I had known at the outset everything I know now, I never would have charged Powell.”

  “So what should you do about that?”

  “I know what I should do—dismiss this case immediately, at least until they find Kerry. What I’m allowed to do by my boss is another question.”

  Corrine finished the next paragraph of the supplemental report she’d been writing, but couldn’t stop thinking about what she had learned about Tom Fisher. Nick Lowe, the restaurant delivery guy, said he’d seen Jason and Kerry together at her home months ago, in which case Powell was telling the truth about their affair, and yet there were no text messages or e-mails to suggest a romantic connection. According to him, Kerry was paranoid about her phone and computer usage because she thought her company was looking for an excuse to fire her. But what if she had other reasons for concern?

  She opened her browser and searched for “Oasis Water Africa.” She learned from press releases on the company’s website that Oasis had been granted contracts in Tanzania and Mozambique a little more than three years ago—which would have been around the time Kerry was dating her boss.

  Corrine picked up her phone and called Netter. “I was wondering if that might be you when I saw the number,” he said once she identified herself. “I spoke to your ADA not an hour ago.”

  “Sounds like you’re making progress with Fisher.”

  “That’s overly generous. He’s not talking.”

  “I assume you’ve got Kerry’s financial records by now?”

  “Yep. No recent large withdrawals. It’s looking less and less like she left voluntarily.”