Lie to Me

by J. T. Ellison

  He wanted to say no, but he didn’t know what was to come.

  So he walked out onto the falling-down porch and signaled to the Realtor, whose face lit up like a candle from within when she saw the rectangle of paper in his hand, mirroring his wife’s delighted visage.

  They moved in a few weeks later, having painted the living room a soft dove gray and installed a sofa bed. They were planning to do most of the renovations themselves, but had found a local carpenter-cum-handyman who was going to do the detail work.

  Days of scraping and painting and gutting bathrooms ensued. When they weren’t working on the house, they were working on their books, individual islands of words, adrift in the chaos around them. Their breaks consisted of runs to Home Depot and Porter Paints. They lived on takeout until the appliances arrived: the massive Sub-Zero they had to knock down part of a wall to fit in, the double convection oven that just barely slid into the wall space Ethan had designed, the Bosch dishwasher that made no noise when it was running. And then it was time to pick the counters, and Sutton fell in love with that bloody gorgeous marble, and the fighting began.

  It was a stupid thing to fight over, a large slab of marble. But fight they did, and the house must have fed off the negative energy, because suddenly everything started going wrong. The paint peeled in the living room, they found asbestos in the attic that the inspectors had missed, a family of mice took up residence in the bedroom, partying and carrying on at all hours of the night. The crack in the damn Doric column gave way, and the porch crashed to the yard below, ruining $500 of plants and shrubs they’d put in the day before.

  There were tears and arguments and cold shoulders, and when Ethan began to worry they wouldn’t find their way back, he gave in on the marble. Like a hurricane’s passing, life suddenly calmed. The fights ended. The house came together. They moved the furniture in from the storage unit, and then they were happy. So happy. Sitting together at the kitchen table over their cereal bowls, that big bloody slab of marble glowing gently under the soft white lights, their days were finally unencumbered by the specter of renovation.

  Words, all they wanted was words. The two of them, heads bent over laptops, making, creating, in their perfect, customized new home.

  How was he to know where things were headed?

  It was all his fault. It really was.

  He’d gone on a trip. Speaking to a library association. The hotel was small and intimate, the bar cozy. He’d gotten drunk. He only fucked her once, but when he missed his usual good-night check-in, Sutton had known immediately, and when he got home, they’d had the row to end all rows. The house—the goddamn house, that goddamn marble—took her side.

  No matter what they did, no matter how they tried, they couldn’t get her blood out.

  TELL ME YOUR SECRETS

  Now

  Ethan sat at the counter in the kitchen, elbows parked in defeat on the wide slab of Carrara marble. The female police officer stood opposite him, notebook out, pen poised above the paper, a quizzical smile on her face.

  “Mr. Montclair? Are you all right?”

  “I’m sorry, Officer. Yes, of course. You were saying?”

  “When was the last time you saw your wife?”

  He traced a gray vein in the white. That damn marble. He could never escape the unhappiness it reminded him of. He hadn’t wanted it, knew it was going to be ruined within a week, stained with wine or etched by the endless amounts of lemon juice Sutton poured into her water. He lost the battle, as he had so many others.

  If forced, he’d grudgingly admit it had kept up surprisingly well, with only one real stain. Mulberry red, near the Sub-Zero. Sutton told their friends it was from the skins of blueberries left overnight.

  They’d been at it for two hours now. Joel had said nothing, just sat in the corner owlishly watching the proceedings, coughing every once in a while, which Ethan took to mean stop talking, fool. After the first round of questions, Sergeant Moreno asked to see Sutton’s computer, and Ivy showed him where Sutton’s office was while Officer Graham grilled Ethan. She was looking at him sideways already, he could tell. Everything he said was being measured and weighed. Joel had warned him this was how things were going to go. They always looked at the husband. Everything he said sounded weak, insincere. He realized the interview was going badly. Very badly.

  “Sir? Mr. Montclair? I know we’ve been over it once before, sir, but let’s run through it again. You never know what you might have forgotten or omitted, even accidentally.”

  He glanced at Robinson, who inclined his head in a brief go ahead nod.

  “I’m sorry. I saw Sutton Monday night, before she went to bed. Before we went to bed.”

  “Did you go to bed together or separately?”

  “Separately, but at the same time.”

  Graham looked up from her notebook. Apparently he hadn’t mentioned this the first time around. “You don’t share a bedroom?”

  “We’ve been having some issues lately.”

  “Right. You mentioned that.” The notebook lowered. The cop was young, thin, flat-chested in her patrol uniform. White-blond hair, practically colorless, cut in a pixie, eyebrows the palest shade of blond he’d ever seen. Looking closer, he wondered if it was natural. It looked natural. Striking, as Sutton would say. Her name tag read H. Graham, the silver rectangle perched over the pocket of her uniform, which lay nearly flat against her ribs. Bigger breasts would have made the pocket rise away from her... Jesus, Ethan. Stop already. Just look at her face. Meet her eyes. They’ll think you have something to hide if you keep looking away, or that you’re a creep if you keep staring at her tits.

  He shouldn’t have noticed the officer’s breasts. That was wrong of him. Especially because his wife was missing, and H. Graham looked like a towheaded child, fresh out of the Academy.

  Moreno came back into the kitchen, silently watching.

  “So nothing in the past few weeks to indicate she could be in any sort of danger? You believe she left of her own accord?” Officer Graham asked, but it was more than a question. An indictment.

  Focus. “I thought so at first. Like I said, we had a fight Monday afternoon. Nothing important, the usual, just sniping. I know how it sounds, but it’s not what you think. I haven’t hurt my wife. If I had, I wouldn’t have called you.” He laughed, a hearty ho-ho. Graham took an involuntary step back, and Robinson closed his eyes.

  Brilliant, well done. Could you sound any guiltier? Stow the fucking charm already.

  Ethan held up his hands. “I’m sorry. This isn’t funny. I’m embarrassed. She’s left before. Things are a bit...rocky right now.”

  “And the note? Where did you find it again?”

  “It was left on the counter, where I wouldn’t miss it. When I read it, I knew something was wrong. If it’s real, I wanted to respect her wishes, which is why I’ve waited until now to call you. But things have been so strange lately... I got worried. I called her friends and her mother to see if they knew anything, but no one did.”

  Officer H. Graham picked up the note and read it aloud. She’d already done this once. Every word felt like an accusation. She set it gently on the marble. “Not exactly benign, this note. It feels very final. You say she’s left before. She was clear in her note that she didn’t want you to look for her. This seems rather straightforward. So why call us? What really has you worried?”

  He took a deep breath. He knew exactly how this was going to sound. “She’s never left a note before.”

  “Okay.”

  He heard the inquiry in her tone. “It’s not just that. Like I said, she left her phone, her keys, her purse, all her clothes. Her laptop is still in her office. She hasn’t used her email—she lives on email. Nothing on her social media accounts. She left the note, and then she disappeared. Yes, she’s left before, but only for a few
days, and she goes to stay with friends, or gets a hotel room, and lets me know that’s where she’s going to be. And she always comes back. Always. She’s never disappeared without her things. She’s a writer. She’s working on a book.”

  “A book about what?”

  “Novels. She writes novels. Very good ones.” He paused. “I do, as well. We’re both in the industry. She had a spot of bother recently, with a reviewer. It was embarrassing for her, for me. The publisher was upset, and canceled her contract. Maybe she ran off to lick her wounds, but without her things...” He trailed off. He was babbling and the more he spoke, the more words that came from his mouth, the guiltier he sounded.

  He realized he was genuinely upset for Sutton. Despite how the day had gone, with everyone attacking him, Sutton had been going through hell for a while. He had been concerned about her for many months, concerned about her mental state after what happened to Dashiell, after what happened with the reviewer. Sincerity, Ethan. You need to actually sound concerned.

  He did manage to look H. Graham in the eye then. “Listen, we can keep talking and go over it a thousand times, but none of it will change the fact that no one’s heard from her since she left. Her agent, her mother, her friends. She’s very good at keeping people up-to-date. She’s been in touch with no one, and now we’re all worried.”

  The older cop was more direct. “No sign of anyone breaking into your house? Neighbors didn’t report anything odd? Strangers hanging around?”

  “No. Nothing. Not that I’ve noticed.”

  “What was the—” Graham glanced at her notes “—spot of bother with the reviewer?”

  “It was just a fuss. An online thing. Sutton received a bad review. She’d had a terrible day, she responded, and the whole thing blew up.”

  “Blew up, how?”

  He hesitated.

  “If it’s online, I’ll be able to find it. Why don’t you just tell me now and save us both some time? Was she in danger?”

  “No, she wasn’t in danger, just embarrassed. People can be cruel. She took pride in her work, and when she responded, she was very...blunt. Told the reviewer to shove it. It seems innocuous, ill-mannered, yes, but in the scheme of all that happens online, it wasn’t such a horrible thing to say. But a blogger picked up on it and wouldn’t let it lie. He started hassling her.”

  “You mentioned this in your 9-1-1 call. What sort of blogger, and what sort of hassling?”

  “Have you ever heard of a website named Stellar Reads?” She shook her head.

  “No?” He knew he sounded incredulous. Who couldn’t have heard of Stellar Reads? Apparently Officer H. Graham, who was staring at him with a raised brow.

  “I don’t spend a lot of time online, sir.”

  “Right. Well, it’s a site where people can rate books, leave reviews. When Sutton popped off, the blogger wrote an essay about it, posted a one-star review. Instead of just staying out of it, Sutton responded, tried to justify the choice—something writers aren’t smart to do. It always backfires. And it did here, too. The blogger called out all of his friends and they attacked the hell out of Sutton. Really nasty stuff, tore her work apart, gave her hundreds of one-star reviews even though they hadn’t read her books. Some of her loyal readers got into it and they were attacked, as well. Put Sutton through the wringer, claims of authors behaving badly, all of that.

  “Anyway, there was a reporter from one of the trades who wanted to interview her. Sutton took the call, told the reporter she hadn’t been involved and all of it was a smear designed to make her look bad. Saying my account has been hacked, no one ever believes that. They just think you’re trying to cover your arse.

  “Sutton tried to calm the whole situation by posting on her Facebook fan page explaining that she had never been in touch with the reviewer, hadn’t left the comments, that someone had impersonated her. She explained about losing our son, and you’d be amazed at the things people said. Horrible, appalling stuff. We closed the account and tried to walk away. Thank heavens, someone else came along and did something stupid, became the flavor of the week, and the fervor died down. But after everything that happened... She couldn’t handle it, had a bit of a collapse. It broke something in her.”

  He paused. “It was out of character, actually. Her reaction, I mean. Sutton usually took reviews of her work with a grain of salt. Believe the bad, you have to believe the good, and all that. For some reason, this one upset her tremendously. Hit her at the wrong time, I guess. Most of it’s been taken offline now. Stellar Reads even sent apologies.”

  Enough, you don’t need to tell them everything. This is irrelevant.

  “Has the situation been resolved?”

  He shook his head. “Sutton has at least twenty new hate emails this week alone. So, no, I’d say it hasn’t been.”

  “We’d like to take the computer with us, let our forensic technicians go over it. Are you okay with that?”

  Robinson cleared his throat. “I would think, if you want my client to hand over information related to his wife’s disappearance, a warrant would be in order.”

  Ethan wanted to climb inside the bloody marble and disappear. Now he was Robinson’s client? Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  “Coming, right after we leave here. Unless Mr. Montclair—”

  Ethan had to get this back under control. “You don’t need a warrant. Feel free to look at anything in the house you want. I’ve done nothing wrong. You’re welcome to take the computer with you.”

  He tried to block a vision of his wife, his very private wife, her face drawn in shock, allowing him to let the police walk away with her computer.

  You’ve given me no recourse, wife.

  “Ethan,” Robinson warned, but Ethan held up a hand to stop him.

  “Seriously. Look at the computer. Then you’ll see. I have absolutely nothing to hide.”

  WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON HERE?

  The female cop nodded. “Okay. This is very helpful information. I’m going to need names and dates. But before we do all of that, would you categorize your relationship with your wife as volatile, Mr. Montclair?”

  “Never. We just didn’t always see eye to eye.”

  The cop glanced at the older one, who nodded slightly. “We have a number of domestic calls to this address.”

  Ethan took a deep breath. “I know how that looks. Sutton and I fight. We argue. We’re very passionate people. Sometimes we argue on the porch, or in the backyard, and neighbors take it the wrong way.”

  “So your wife hasn’t called the police? It’s only been the neighbors?”

  “Yes. No one will admit who made the calls, but you’ll see in every incident, no charges are filed. There is no evidence of abuse, no physical altercations. Just some nosy neighbors who don’t like to mind their own business. It’s been hard on us, since the baby...”

  Graham looked around the kitchen. “Where is the baby, sir?”

  Beams of light pouring in the kitchen, the small crystal Sutton had hung in the window above the farmhouse sink catching the sun, suddenly spinning, shooting fractured light through the room. It looked so homey, so normal, except for the albino cop standing across from him.

  He took in a breath. The cop’s head had cocked to the side, like a spaniel. Now she was really paying attention.

  “You don’t know? I just assumed, but no, you’re so young, so new, I suppose you wouldn’t know. Our son, Dashiell, died. SIDS. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. He wasn’t even six months old. It was headline news for a few weeks, raising awareness for the condition, all that. Sutton didn’t handle it well.” Ethan’s voice cracked. “Neither of us did.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss. When did he pass away?”

  “Last year. It was in April. Tax day, April 15. We went to check on him, and he wasn’t breathing.”

>   He choked a little on the last word, suddenly having difficulty catching breath himself. God, he’d wanted that baby. When she fell pregnant, he was ecstatic. After all he’d done to help her get pregnant, after all their arguments, his cajoling, begging, her final agreement to have the child, to lose him in an unexplained death sometimes felt like punishment.

  He knew Sutton had grown to love Dashiell. He’d seen the joy on her face when she didn’t think he was looking. And now he was gone. His perfect son had been taken from him. And his wife was missing.

  Your wife is missing, your wife is missing.

  “So she disappeared on the anniversary of your son’s death?” Moreno asked.

  It hadn’t hit him, the significance. He’d been too caught up in his own unique brand of self-flagellating mourning to realize, and too worried about where she might be to look at the calendar. He hated to think back to that day. There was no such thing as an anniversary with grief this new, this raw. It was a daily, visceral, animal thing that ate at him constantly. He didn’t think in terms of dates, or months since, years since. There was just Before, Dashiell, After.

  “Yes, that’s right. The anniversary.”

  H. Graham looked to the older officer, then closed her notebook and stuffed it into her back pocket, like a professional golfer. “We’ll put together a report, sir, be on the lookout, check everything we can. But I think it’s safe to say your wife isn’t in any danger. I bet she comes home anytime now. People deal with grief in different ways. Sounds to me like things were just too much for her. An anniversary like this, it’s difficult. Add in complications from work? Sounds like she’s been having a really rough go of it.”

  He felt relief. They believed him. They didn’t think he was involved.