Lies She Told

by Cate Holahan

  “I don’t consent to this search,” I shout.

  David shoots a scowling glance over his shoulder. Wasn’t that what he wanted me to say? I’m disoriented from the events of the past thirty-six hours and my pounding brain. I’m not sure that I can trust the images in front of me.

  Behind Detective Campos are two uniformed cops. They stand in the hallway, thumbs in the pockets of their suit pants, leaning back on their heels as though they have all the time in the world for David to scrutinize the document—as though, no matter what my husband does, they will be coming into our home.

  I hover behind David in the doorway, reading the warrant over his shoulder. It doesn’t say much. It includes our names and address. A superior court judge whose signature I’d never be able to transcribe has signed the lower half of the document. The officers have permission to search the premises for evidence as well as seize any firearms and locked gun boxes.

  The hairs stand up on my limbs like a sudden burst of static. They want my Ruger! But it’s not here. I don’t know where David put it.

  “Everything checks out,” Detective Campos says.

  David hands back the warrant. He rubs beneath his nose like the men in the hallway have activated an allergy. “May I see the affidavit?”

  Campos pats his pockets for show. “It’s with the court clerk.”

  Cops usually don’t mock the innocent-until-proven-guilty. I expect David to put Campos in his place with some obscure legal argument. Instead, he motions with his head for me to step back.

  I retreat into the living/dining area. The officers follow me inside, their strides wide from the weight of the gear on their hips. Before I can apologize for the mess, Detective Campos is commenting on it from the center of my living room. “What happened here? A bomb went off?”

  I look to David, hoping he has an excuse ready. His head hangs like a chastised puppy. This is not the right time for him to fall apart. I can barely see at the moment. “Excuse the mess.” I pull my hand away from my temples and feign an embarrassed smile. “We are in the midst our annual preautumn purge. Time to put the summer suits in storage to make way for fall and winter gear. You know small New York apartments. It’s impossible to fit everything.”

  Under the circumstances, I’m amazed by the ease with which the falsehoods roll off my tongue. Though I guess I shouldn’t be. Creating believable fiction is my craft. I’m dedicated to it.

  “The gun lockbox is in the bedroom closet.” David points down the hallway. Either he is pretending that he didn’t take the Ruger to hide his involvement in Nick’s murder, or he’s forgotten bringing it to his office amid the stress of the past twenty-four hours.

  One of the uniforms follows my husband back into our bedroom. I slump against the living room wall feeling as powerless as a chained dog. In moments, they will all realize the gun is missing. What will I say?

  I buried it. Beth’s voice shouts over the pounding in my skull, like a rock singer screaming over drums. I press my fingers into my temples to silence her. My character hid her gun in a hole. My Ruger must be in David’s desk drawer (providing he didn’t toss it in the East River along with Nick’s body).

  I cannot cast aspersions on my husband. When they ask, I’ll tell the officers that I must have misplaced it. Sergeant Perez thinks he saw me at the police academy range recently. I can say that I took it there to practice and may have left it in a locker.

  Detective Campos circles the living room, taking mental inventory of our furnishings and the items scattered on the hardwood floor. He walks into the kitchen. I hear a cabinet open. The thought of this stranger rifling through my belongings makes me panicky. Quickly, I return to the foyer, where I have a direct view into our galley kitchen. What could he possibly be looking for?

  He wants to see if you have champagne tastes on a beer budget. Beth answers in the matter-of-fact way that I imagine her using when talking to other reporters. Financial problems could give David a reason to, say, get rid of a law partner who’d discovered that he was spending clients’ investigation budgets on his housewares. I push her suggested motive from my head. David was not a spendthrift.

  Show the detective he isn’t bothering you, Beth counsels. You have nothing to hide, right? I’ve created a character that would be far more adept in this situation than I am. I need to think like her.

  “Would you like a glass of water?”

  “No. Thank you.” Detective Campos peers around the half wall separating the kitchen from the living/dining area. He looks toward the hallway leading to the bedroom. Not seeing anyone coming, he crouches and opens the double doors beneath the kitchen sink. His lackadaisical search must be meant to make me squirm. Surely he doesn’t think I store jewelry behind the dishwashing detergent.

  The detective opens the cupboard to the right of the sink. It contains a fancy dining set gifted at our wedding. The pressure in my head builds.

  Beth suggests that I make him laugh. An innocent person would want the police to rule out her and her husband as soon as possible so that they could get to the real investigation. She wouldn’t be on the defensive.

  “We should have never put those fancy plates in there on the wedding registry.” I force a chuckle. “I guess everyone does that when they get married right out of college. They ask for all these things they think grown-ups should have: champagne flutes, pretty cheese boards, serving bowls. Then they realize that stuff only comes out at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and it’s taking up half the kitchen.”

  Detective Campos snorts. It’s not a guffaw, but it’s better than nothing. He closes the open cabinets and goes for one above the range. “You give any more thought to my recommendation of getting your own lawyer?”

  My back stiffens. The detective would like nothing better than for me to get an attorney and relinquish spousal privilege, to spill my marital secrets. But I won’t. David is my husband. He proposed by a driftwood fire in the freezing cold because my best friend told him that I’d always wanted to see the Montauk lighthouse at night. He told my mother over and over how beautiful she was when the chemo had made her bald and bloated and she couldn’t stomach her own reflection. He held me when she’d died. He supported my failing writing career, paying all the bills while I penned novel after novel that barely moved the financial needle. Someday, I pray, he’ll be the father of my child. Whatever David did to Nick, I will not turn on him.

  “David would never hurt Nick.” I say it with as much conviction as I’ve ever said anything in my life. “He loved him like a brother. So while I appreciate you trying to figure out who did this, being here is a waste of time.”

  “You write crime novels?” Campos’s head is behind a cabinet door. His voice rises at the end, though, so I can tell he’s asking a question.

  “Romantic suspense.”

  He’s rummaging through my cheese boards and serving platters. Wood is knocking against ceramic. He’d better not chip any of my good bowls. “But you went to the police academy writer’s workshop, right? So you know how warrants work.”

  Clearly, my sergeant friend has shared details about me with the detective. But why? To explain how he knew me? Idle conversation?

  My stomach twists. Maybe there’d never been a woman asking about Nick at that bar. Perhaps the sergeant fed me that information to see how I would react.

  But that would mean I was the suspect. Not David.

  Run. The command comes in Beth’s voice. Get what you need and get out of here. It was what I was going to have her do in the next chapter.

  “I’ll spell it out.” The detective speaks while slowly removing and examining each knife from the wooden cutlery block on the adjacent counter. “To get a warrant for your gun, I have to prove to a judge that there’s probable cause that the firearm was used in the commission of a crime. So the fact that we’re here means that both I and a judge believe this search is probably not a waste of time.”

  The detective’s sarcasm leaves little doubt that I am on t
he potential perpetrator list. Beth is repeating that I must leave. Run. But walking out the front door in the midst of a police investigation would only lend credence to Officer Campos’s ridiculous suspicions. I didn’t have any reason to hurt Nick. He resented me for taking away his best friend, and I disliked being resented. So what? That’s something to complain to my girlfriends about. It’s not a motive for murder.

  Though I can’t flee the apartment, I don’t have to stay in front of the detective as he tries to push my buttons either. I leave the room for the living area. The air suddenly feels jungled. The headache is giving me a hot flash—or maybe it’s the hormones. I fling open the French doors and step onto the Juliet balcony. The sun has nearly set, leaving an eggplant sky in its wake and a string of brake lights below. It’s cooler out here. I can smell water. I place my hands on the railing and look east, toward the river.

  My head swims. I jump back toward the safety of the open patio door, afraid that I could tumble to the street below. Once in the doorway, I put my hands on my knees and take in air in short gasps.

  The scare works like electrodes, shocking away the rest of my migraine. My breathing normalizes and the pressure in my head begins to drain. Before it’s fully gone, I hear one of the officers call me. “Ma’am, would you come back inside?”

  “I have a headache. Fresh air helps me feel better.”

  “We’d appreciate if you were inside while we search.” I look over my shoulder to see a younger officer with a pale-blond buzz cut, a grimace twisting his small mouth. He steps toward me, arms out, hands open in an imploring fashion. “Please.”

  Reluctantly, I retreat into the living area. Heavy footsteps sound in the hallway. David enters the room, followed by one of the uniformed officers. The glow from the balcony doors makes his skin look jaundiced. His eyes appear glazed with confusion.

  “Liza, the lockbox is empty. The officers tore apart the closet and couldn’t find your gun.”

  Years of criminal defense keep David from stating anything more than the facts. He doesn’t ask me whether I know the location of the weapon because he knows that my suggestions will provide grounds for another search warrant. Still, his eyes seem to beg me for an answer. Does he really not remember taking it?

  “Do you know where your gun is, Ms. Cole?” Detective Campos emerges from the kitchen. He is no longer hiding his distrust.

  I snap my fingers as though a thought has only now occurred to me. “I used it recently at the police academy range. Sergeant Perez has let me in a few times to practice when I’m working on scenes with guns. I’m sorry for not saying so earlier. I forgot. I’m on fertility hormones, and they mimic the first trimester of pregnancy. I’ve got mommy brain without the baby.”

  The detective gives me a wan smile.

  “There are lockers at the academy where I could have left it.”

  “Anyplace else?” Though the detective asks, I can see from David’s face that he fears what I might say.

  I look at my husband, signaling with my sustained eye contact that I won’t help the cops get to him. “That’s all I can think of now. Again, I’m sorry for misplacing it. These hormones would make me lose my head if it weren’t attached to my body. But I’ll look around for it, definitely.”

  “And we’ll continue to look here.” I swear I catch the detective scrunch his nose so that he nearly winks at me. David seems to notice too. Something changes in his eyes.

  Get out. Get your things and go. It might be that the migraine is over, but Beth’s voice sounds stronger. My purse is in the foyer with my laptop inside. I walk over to it and slip my arm into the handles.

  “I have an editorial meeting that I really need to get to,” I say. It’s a lie, but a plausible one. Better than saying that I need to get back to writing. A chapter can always be put off for a few hours. Editorial meetings, on the other hand, are on Trevor’s schedule and involve multiple people. I can’t change them as I see fit. David knows this.

  I grab the door handle and tell David that I will call him later. Detective Campos asks me to wait a minute and approaches the exit. He removes a pencil from a belt pouch and uses it to press back the lining of my shoulder bag so that he can peer inside. Satisfied that all I have is my computer, he tells me that I am “free to leave.”

  I am sure that this last act was to antagonize me for David’s benefit. My spouse stares at me, jaw open, dumbfounded that the police could think I had something to do with Nick’s death. “You’re really not going to find anything,” I say, directing my words at David. “No one here had any reason to hurt Nick.”

  The detective smiles, a cat-got-the-canary grin. “You might be surprised.”

  The streetlamps are coming on as I exit the building. It’s doubtful that many people will be in my publishing house at 7:00 PM on a Monday, but I decide to head there anyway. The police could be following me. If I’m pulled into an interrogation room in the next week, I want to be able to claim that I had mixed up a meeting time and was surprised to find my editor gone for the evening.

  I take a cab downtown to the Park Avenue building. There are officers on nearly every street corner, but no one seems to take an interest in me. A good detective wouldn’t be obvious, though.

  I pull back the building’s heavy front door and walk through a shiny lobby to a security guard manning three turnstiles. I hand over my driver’s license, providing a record of my appearance, and then head to the elevator bank. As I approach my publisher’s offices, I hear the distinct whirr of a vacuum cleaner. If the cleaning staff is already here, there’s no way people are still working. I debate whether or not to hang around for an hour until my tail—if one exists—tires of me. Then I see Trevor.

  He notices me as soon as he exits the glass office doors. “Liza?” He tilts his head as though I may be an apparition. Maybe editors, like writers, also suffer from thin realities.

  “Hey, Trev. I am sorry to show up like this. Um . . .” Tears suddenly fill my eyes. I look at the tiled ceiling and blink rapid fire, shooing them with my lashes. “The police found Nick’s body. They are searching our home. I think, maybe . . .” My throat closes up. I can’t say that the officers suspect me. How would I even begin to explain that?

  I feel the weight of Trevor’s hand on my shoulder. He gives it a squeeze and shakes his head, as though disappointed. “They suspect David?”

  The fact that he has zeroed in on David calms me. Maybe I am imagining Detective Campos’s attitude. Any suspicion of me is insane, after all. I didn’t want Nick dead. I expel the tears with a long exhale. “Thriller editors.” I sniff. “Always trying to guess the plot.”

  He doesn’t smile. “Come with me to dinner.”

  I’d like nothing more than to go out with a friend at the moment. But dinner might give anyone following me the wrong impression. “I’m not that hungry. The idea of strange men going through my drawers has kind of sapped my appetite at the moment.”

  “Drinks?”

  Heading to a bar with Trevor will look worse than going out to dinner. “Coffee?” I suggest. The hour is wrong for it, but editors and writers can always use more caffeine.

  “I know a quiet local place.”

  I follow him an avenue over to a ritzy espresso bar. It’s the kind of shop with decorative bookshelves stocked with European literature and unabridged Shakespeare collections, a place where people hang out to seem well-read and artsy whether or not they actually are. The inside is nearly vacant despite half a dozen leather booths and a long zinc bar set with stools on each side. I’m shocked more people aren’t hunched over laptops. Writers love to “work on their novels” in places like this. Makes us seem legit.

  When I see the menu on the chalkboard above the bar, I understand the emptiness. A fifteen-dollar latte is too expensive for anyone without a slew of bestsellers. I gesture to the chalkboard with the artisanal bean selections and outlandish prices. “Let me guess: all organic beans picked by Buddhist monk–trained monkeys.” The joke
isn’t great, but it’s all I have. Humor is the only lid against the well of tears in my chest. I don’t want to cry in front of my colleague any more than I already have.

  Trevor cracks a smile. “My treat.”

  I order a black coffee on the principle of not paying triple the Starbucks price for something with milk in it. Trevor orders an Earl Grey tea because he’s unafraid of being a walking British stereotype. We slide into a booth and comment on what Manhattan eateries charge while waiting for the waitress to bring us our bland beverages. I, for one, don’t want to be in the middle of saying “murder” when the barista shows up.

  My drink arrives too hot. Though I’d like an excuse for silence, I can’t sip this without burning off my lips. Instead, I hold the bowl-sized mug at chin level and blow onto the steam. It smells bitter.

  Trevor pushes his tea to the side and leans his elbows on the table. “Are you concerned about this investigation?”

  “I’m sure it’s all routine.” I try to steady my voice as I say this. I am positive it is anything but routine.

  “What are they looking for?”

  “My gun.”

  Trevor blanches.

  “I’m not sure where I left it last,” I say, pretending that my absentmindedness, not David’s forgetfulness (or willful deceit), is the reason it is missing. “It wasn’t in the lockbox in the house. I might have left it at a gun range that has lockers . . .” I put down my mug and gesture to my head. “These fertility hormones I’ve been on—I might have mentioned that I’m taking new ones—they’ve made the past month a bit hazy.”

  “Did David have access to your gun?”

  “He has access to everything. We’ve been together twelve years. He knows all my combinations. He has my e-mail password.”

  Trevor raises his eyebrows as though I’ve just confessed to posting my social security number on an unsecured web page.

  “If I didn’t tell him them, I’d probably forget.”

  Trevor nods, shaking the instant camera film in his brain. I don’t like the picture he’s forming. I want him thinking that David is innocent—as he very well might be.