Lie to Me

by J. T. Ellison

  He couldn’t take this. He couldn’t stand it anymore.

  So he poured a drink. And then another. He walked around the house for some exercise, looked at pictures of Dashiell, and for one long, odd moment, stood in Sutton’s closet and smelled her scent and masturbated.

  What else was a trapped man supposed to do? It’s not like he could open his laptop and write, could he? Could he? Yet a little voice said, You’re a selfish man, Ethan Montclair. Might as well take advantage.

  How in the name of God it happened, he didn’t know, but when he opened the manuscript that had lain dormant for the past two months, the words just started to flow.

  THE FIRST BREAK

  The call came very late that evening, while Ethan Montclair sat in his lonely house, contemplating whether he should go searching for his wife or continue to allow the inertia and ennui to consume him. Get lost in a bottle, or possibly stumble across his dead wife’s body?

  An easy, unsurprising decision. He’d poured a drink and continued to type.

  Officer Holly Graham, though, had already gone to bed. When her cell phone rang, she fumbled with the phone—who wouldn’t, that late? When she finally got it to her ear, there was silence. She feared the caller had hung up. They hadn’t.

  “Officer...Graham, is it?”

  The voice was female, deeper than normal, but feminine. Graham glanced quickly at the caller ID—private. That could be anything from a blocked number to a pay phone.

  “Yes. Who is this?”

  “You need to look closer at Ethan Montclair.”

  “Who is this?” Graham had asked again.

  “A concerned friend. Sutton Montclair is my friend. I’m afraid, we’re afraid, Ethan’s hurt Sutton.”

  The voice was clear and confident, though Officer Graham could hear a waver in the very last words, as if the caller were scared.

  Graham did everything by the book.

  “Ma’am, I’d appreciate it if we could make this official. Can you meet me at the station, give a statement?”

  “No. I won’t help if you make this official.”

  “How did you get this number?”

  “Look closer at Ethan. He’s not what he seems. The baby... It’s not what it seems.”

  “You’ll have to give me more to go on, ma’am. What am I supposed to be looking at?”

  The voice, now a vicious hiss: “Everything.”

  IN WHICH WE RECEIVE A CLUE

  The intensity of the voice sent Holly’s heartbeat ticking up a notch. She called Sergeant Moreno directly, as he’d instructed.

  “Sorry to call so late, sir. Can someone dump the LUDs on my cell phone? My personal phone, not my work phone. I just got an anonymous call about Ethan Montclair. Said to look closer at him, and at the baby’s death.”

  “How’d they get your personal cell phone number?”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does, but we’ll worry about it later. I’ll have a trace run, see if we can nail it down.” He yawned. “Damn, it’s late. But I’m awake. Might as well take the time now to update me. Where are you on the case?”

  “Everything Montclair told us is checking out. Sutton was committed to Vanderbilt on an emergency psychiatric hold six months ago. I called the doctor, but they won’t talk to me without a warrant in hand, so all we have is the court filing. It checks out, everything Ethan said shows up there—suicidal ideation, psychosis. He’s telling the truth about her breakdown.

  “The baby’s death was ruled SIDS, the autopsy showed no signs of trauma. Baby was well nourished and taken care of, no signs of neglect, nothing to indicate he was purposefully suffocated or given something that stopped his heart. It really looks like a terrible tragedy, and not one of their making. There are about 3,500 idiopathic SIDS deaths in the country every year. It seems Dashiell Montclair is a statistic.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  “It is. Very sad.”

  “What else?”

  “Multiple domestic calls. We’ve been out to the house four times in the past year. Mrs. Montclair declined to press charges, so there was nothing we could do.”

  “He was abusing her?”

  “That’s the odd thing. All four times, she swears she didn’t make the call. That yes, they were fighting, and yes, it was bad, but she hadn’t called the police.”

  “Nine-one-one have the records?”

  “The calls came from her cell phone.”

  “Sounds like buyer’s regret to me. Pretty typical.”

  “Yeah. There’s not a lot to go on here, that’s for sure. Clearly there were problems, clearly she’s bailed. The question is, did she leave of her own volition, or did he help her along?”

  “How do you propose to answer that?”

  “Time, sir. It’s going to take more time for me to sort through it all.”

  “Get some sleep. Hit it fresh in the morning. That’s an order.”

  “Yes, sir.” They hung up. But she couldn’t sleep. She lay in her comfortable bed, thinking about the photos she’d seen at the Montclairs’. They seemed so happy. So settled and content. The three of them, beautiful and glossy. And then tragedy struck, the baby died, and their whole world collapsed. Anyone’s marriage would fall apart under those circumstances. Anyone’s.

  So why did she feel like she was missing something?

  VOICES, I HEAR VOICES

  Me again. How’re you getting along? Me, I’m a bit annoyed.

  I have to ask, was that bad of me, the call? Should I not have turned the screws on Ethan so soon? It’s only been a day, and the cops are heading in the right direction, yes, but they’re so sloooow.

  I want to see him twist.

  I want to see him hurt.

  I want to see him bleed.

  And I want it to happen now.

  Lest you think I’m some sort of mustache-twirling villain, let me assure you, Ethan deserves every moment of torture he’s receiving. He is a bad man. A tin man. A man without honor, without a soul, without a heart.

  Forgive me. Or don’t. But I really don’t think people are taking this seriously enough. My friends are such a disappointment. I mean really, one confrontation, that’s all? That’s the best they can do? I teed them up and made sure they had all the ammunition they needed, and not one of them has had the guts to come forth and point the finger.

  I have to move things along.

  I wasn’t planning on doing this quite so soon, but now I don’t know that I have any choice.

  I’ll give the cops another day to put it together. But time is running out.

  Tick tock. Tick tock.

  ANOTHER DAWN IS DAWNING

  Six in the morning, the sun’s weak light radiated through the windows. Holly rubbed her eyes, stretched, felt a pleasant series of pops down her spine. She’d been up too late, hunched over the computer after trying and failing to sleep. The call ate at her. The hissing voice, the animosity. Someone truly hated Ethan Montclair.

  She knew the couple better now. There was so much information online about the Montclairs. They were—had been—literary darlings for several years. The death of their child and the subsequent fall from grace had been documented in alarming detail. It made Holly uncomfortable. People did so love a tragedy.

  She was trying to pin her mind on the something she was missing, the something that wasn’t quite right about the house on Third Avenue and the stories of the people within. Her scattered dreams had been infused with horror scenes: women, covered in blood, screaming; children walking through walls, beckoning to her to follow.

  She shoved a pod into the coffeemaker, stood watch as the dark liquid purled in the cup. Took it and a granola bar into her small study, booted up her lapt
op.

  She lived in the house she’d grown up in. The study was an annex off her bedroom, still filled with the detritus of her teenage years. Her parents had taken a maintenance-free condo in downtown Franklin a few years earlier, leaving the house to Holly and her sisters. Holly was the only one who wanted to stay in town. She wanted to be a part of the community. To change lives. To protect people. Her sisters got the hell out of Dodge the first chance they had, running to New York and LA, respectively, both pursuing acting careers, one on the screen, one on the stage, but Holly stayed. She was that kind of girl. The kind with staying power.

  She was stuck, so she took a lesson from her dad’s playbook. Drank her coffee, cleared her mind, and started over.

  The first step was a global search for Sutton Montclair. The results came immediately, by the thousands. These were public people. There were as many articles online about the “incident,” as Ethan Montclair had referred to it, as there were reviews and stories about the baby’s death. There were a number of stories about Ethan Montclair and his stratospheric rise to the top of the literary world, and the subsequent disappointment of his canceled novel. The rise and fall of ages, the push and pull of celebrity; it was a fickle beast.

  Holly chose to focus on Sutton’s fall from grace.

  She pulled out her notes from the night before. In a nutshell, Sutton Montclair, historical fiction author, had received a one-star review on a popular review site and had gone ballistic. It started simply, asking for the review to be changed, arguing that the review had no merit, and then, when the reviewer went public, saying she felt like she was being threatened, that she didn’t feel safe and was scared, it all devolved. The attacks moved on to Montclair herself, who was disparaged in the most horrible ways. Her books were loaded up with one-star reviews, and she was forced to abandon all of her social media accounts. A trade magazine had done a huge piece on the situation, ascribing her actions to the phenomenon they called “Authors Behaving Badly.”

  There was a single quote in the piece from Sutton Montclair, taken from the blog on her website. A paragraph of denial.

  This entire incident is a sham. My accounts have been hacked. Nothing you’ve seen with my name on it in the past forty-eight hours came from me. I know that sounds like an excuse in the aftermath of bad publicity, but I assure you, I would never, and have never, threatened a reviewer for not liking my books. I fully encourage open and honest reviews, and have never tried to censor anyone’s opinion of my work, nor will I ever do so.

  People hadn’t bought it. There were nearly five thousand comments, where the battle had raged on for weeks.

  Holly clicked further. Found a magazine article that mocked Sutton Montclair as a lunatic who stalked her reviewer. The article claimed the reviewer had been forced to take out an order of protection against the author.

  Bingo. Finally, something to go on. Something Ethan Montclair hadn’t mentioned.

  Holly switched to her law enforcement database and began the search for the order of protection. It had been taken out in Kentucky, by a woman named Rosemary George. Holly found the order with ease on the first try. Reading it, she wondered again about Sutton Montclair’s state of mind following the death of her son.

  According to Rosemary George, Sutton had come to her house, knocked on the door, then fled, leaving a bag of canine excrement—that’s how the order parsed it, canine excrement—aflame on the porch. She then proceeded to call the complainant at her place of business, demanding that she take down the offending review. When George hung up, Sutton had called George’s boss and claimed the woman was using the computers in the office for personal activities during business hours, which got George in all sorts of trouble. George consequently went online and told the world Sutton Montclair was insane and had threatened her livelihood, which started the brouhaha up all over again.

  It was petty, stupid, tit for tat, and it got them both into trouble. The reviewer lost her job, and Montclair lost her publishing contract. According to the trades, Sutton delivered a day late and the publisher terminated the contract, which was atypical, but in this situation, Holly assumed it was an easy out.

  Sutton hadn’t shown in court to defend herself against the stalking charge, the order of protection had been put into place, and life continued on.

  The stories had petered out in the past couple of months. Ethan Montclair was truthful there. He’d said things were calmed down, back on track.

  But now Sutton Montclair was gone.

  Holly sat back in the chair. To her, this was looking more and more like an unsettled young woman who’d been pushed over the edge. It was a shame, but there wasn’t a crime here. She didn’t think Ethan Montclair had hurt his wife, either, even if there was something else at play.

  The phone rang. Moreno’s name on the caller ID, no preamble when she greeted him.

  “Missing Persons will be sending you a report shortly. They’ve found nothing. Sutton Montclair hasn’t used her credit cards or passport. I’m afraid things aren’t pointing in a good direction for her.”

  “Good morning, sir.”

  “Right. Morning. Talk to the husband again. We may mount a search, but a lot will depend on what he says. Maybe he’ll crack.”

  “Roger that. I’ll head there shortly, see if his story has changed at all. Has he done any media?”

  “Not a lick. He’s been holed up in the house since we left him yesterday. There’s enough media to sink a ship out there, but he’s not having any of it.”

  “Weird. You’d think he’d want to make a plea for her safe return, all that.”

  “You’d think. People react strangely. Anything you have pointing to the husband?”

  “Honestly? No. It looks like Sutton Montclair was relatively unstable. And I get it. First her kid dies, then her career implodes. She’s fighting with the husband. By all accounts, she’s a complete head case, falling apart, total self-destruction. People have offed themselves for much less.”

  “Very true. I hear a but coming.”

  “But...”

  Moreno laughed. “You’re okay, Graham. I take it the call from last night is bugging you?”

  “Yes, it is. It was so vehement. So completely convinced that Ethan hurt Sutton.”

  “You’re right to be concerned. It was a burner phone. It will take more resources than we have to trace its origins. It could have been bought anywhere. Have you talked to her friends?”

  “We have a coffee date late this morning. At the Starbucks they all hang out at, on the square.”

  “My advice? Bump it up. Get with them now, get with them individually. See if you recognize a voice.”

  “All right. I’ll do that. The online situation is really the most interesting. The blogger who did the majority of the stories on Sutton, his name is Wilde, Colin Wilde. He spends his time doing Page Six–esque reports on authors and publishers. Silly stuff, faux-scandals. I didn’t realize writers were such divas. His readership is rather large, considering, so he has enough of a platform to make trouble for people.”

  “Could he have something to do with this? Maybe he’s trying to create his own news event?”

  “It’s possible, though violence seems to be a big leap. He strikes me as a creep but not one who has the guts to actually do anything, if you know what I mean.”

  “Keep on him.”

  “I read through Sutton’s responses to the online accusations, and she doesn’t seem hysterical to me. She seems rather cold, actually. Practical, I guess that’s the word I’m looking for. Her verbiage is very precise.”

  “Could a PR flack have prepared it for her?”

  “Sure, I guess so. I need to find this Wilde character. So far, there’s no information on his whereabouts outside of a PO box. I was going to start digging into him this morning. And now you’re up to speed.”r />
  “Keep me in the loop. And, Graham? Good job. If this gets any bigger, I’ll partner you up with one of my detectives, give you some more brainpower.”

  She hung up half-flushed, happy for the praise, hoping she’d made a good impression, and grateful she might get a chance to work with someone who would assure she didn’t leave any stones unturned.

  She grabbed her notebook and dialed the first number on her list, Ivy Brookes. Ivy answered on the first ring.

  “Officer Graham? Did you find her?”

  “We haven’t yet, ma’am. I know we’re scheduled to talk later in the morning, but could I come by now? I have a few questions I’d like to clear up.”

  “Sure, it will be good to talk. You know how it is with a bunch of women, you’ll never get what you need. But can you give me an hour? The markets are about to open and I need to make a few calls before things get heated up.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll see you soon.”

  She hung up and called the next. Phyllis Woodson. Ethan had called her Filly. Phyllis was more than happy to accommodate.

  “Oh, yes, please. Come over right away.”

  Holly got the sense Phyllis needed to unburden herself. She promised to be there in thirty minutes. Maybe this would all break open and things would resolve themselves today.

  Two of the four was a good start. It was nearly seven now. She’d reassess after the chats.

  She shot the coffee, put her gun on her hip and a fresh notebook in her pocket, and headed to the car.

  LIFE AS WE KNOW IT HAS ENDED

  Drunk on words, on accomplishment, on the very idea of communicating the thoughts that had been logjammed in his head lo these many months, Ethan stumbled to the kitchen, made tea, and flipped on the television. A mistake. Sutton’s face stared out at him from the screen. The crawler below said Have You Seen This Woman?

  He turned up the volume. He counted back, trying to ascertain what day it was. Thursday? No, it was only Wednesday.