The Innocent Wife

by Amy Lloyd

  Dennis considered her for a moment, his glasses shielding his eyes.

  ‘You OK?’

  Sam nodded. ‘Yes!’

  ‘You’re being weird,’ Dennis said.

  She ignored him, though she knew she should say something. The part of her that wanted to survive this told her what she needed to do; it urged her to get her shit together, just until morning, and then to run like hell. But there was a sadness and disappointment so deep she wanted to die. When she thought of how betrayed she felt it made her want to tell him everything. She wanted to tell him she hated him, she wanted him to hit her to the ground and press her throat until she was dead. But the thought of those hands on her skin made her feel sick. All that time she’d longed to be held by him, kissed, touched. Had she been pressing herself into the grasp of a monster? How hadn’t she known?

  ‘I was just about to call Carrie,’ Sam said with her phone in her hand.

  ‘Tell her I say hey,’ Dennis said.

  Sam paused to see if he would leave and give her privacy but instead he sat next to her on the sofa and started looking through his own phone. Outside, Sam could see Lindsay standing on the porch, the tip of her cigarette glowing in the dark.

  Why hadn’t she just called the police when she had the chance? Suddenly it became very real. It was no longer a case she was following from a computer screen, or love letters that arrived on yellow legal-pad paper. The story the Polaroids told wasn’t one she was supposed to know.

  Whatever she decided to do, she wanted Carrie to be a part of it. She owed her that much.

  ‘Actually,’ Sam said, ‘it’s late. I think I’m just going to text her and say we’ll speak tomorrow.’

  ‘Sure,’ Dennis murmured. He was distracted, tapping out an email in his slow, determined way.

  Sam texted. ‘Hey Carrie. We need to talk. Free tomorrow morning? Will call around 10. X’.

  Almost immediately, Carrie replied. ‘Sure! Everything OK?? We need to talk is NEVER good … x’.

  Sam tried to find the right balance. She didn’t want to worry Carrie but she also needed her to expect her call. Now she realised how much she’d isolated herself since moving to Florida. If something were to happen to her that night, how long would it take for anyone to notice she was gone? All she had left was Carrie. ‘Just need to talk to someone. Will explain tomorrow morning. Dennis out then so can talk properly! Speak then xx’.

  She sent it and sat back, feeling the weight of Dennis beside her on the sofa and trying not to draw his attention to her. She was scared of the moment he might turn, like a cat bored of being stroked, and attack.

  Lindsay sat with them for some time; the TV was on but everyone stared down at their phones. Sam felt the photographs beneath her. She saw the girls; she saw the marks on their bodies. Bite marks, that was what they were. On thighs, on breasts: little purple indentations and broken skin. Sam bit into her own hand and looked at the pattern her teeth left behind. Still so far from breaking the skin.

  Had he held them? Had he kissed them up and down until they ached? Did he bite their skin and make them gasp and then bite harder until they screamed? Did he break the bones in their necks when he strangled them? Did they close their eyes? Had they loved him like she did?

  Sam wondered how much Lindsay knew. How much she had always known. But when she stood and stretched and said she was going home Sam almost didn’t want her to leave. It felt safer with her there. Lindsay, who had survived when all these other girls had not.

  At midnight, Sam switched off the TV and said she was going to sleep. Dennis lay down with her and pressed against her back. She tried to control the urge to pull away. Lying still, she pretended to drift off. After some time, he whispered to her, ‘Are you awake?’ But Sam stayed still, breathing softly, eyes closed. All night she was rigid with fear, waiting for him to stir.

  As the sun came up he was still next to her, letting out a small sigh now and then as he exhaled. Her body ached from a night of tensed muscles and clenched teeth. Sam pushed herself up and watched him for a while. His eyelids twitched as he slept, and there was the slightest wheeze from a nostril as he breathed. He seemed, almost, human.

  ‘You didn’t sleep,’ he said, his eyes still closed.

  ‘I did a little,’ she said. Her body fizzed with fear again, and she felt stupid, caught out.

  ‘You didn’t sleep,’ he said again, opening his eyes. ‘I can tell.’

  Thirty-seven

  Sam had spent the sleepless night planning her moves for the next morning. It was stupid to have taken the Polaroids, she realised. It was risky and she needed to play it safe. As soon as Dennis went for his morning run she would go down into the shelter and put them back. She had to get them back before Dennis found out they were gone. If she told Carrie or the police and they didn’t believe her she could live with that, just so long as she could survive this.

  But Dennis didn’t go for his run. ‘Listen to this,’ he said, bending and straightening his leg. His knee clicked and popped as it moved.

  ‘All my joints do that,’ she said. ‘It’s nothing.’

  Dennis wasn’t convinced. He made breakfast and Sam showered quickly, rushing to get back to the sofa, feeling like a nesting bird guarding her eggs. Every time Dennis left the room she braced herself for the squeal of the storm-shelter door and each time he returned she was flooded with a powerful relief. She was safe, for a few more minutes, another half-hour; she would be OK.

  Lindsay arrived just before ten, and Sam watched her and Dennis have some kind of exchange on the front lawn, at the end of which Dennis put his arms around her and squeezed, Lindsay holding on just a beat too long after he let go.

  ‘You ready to go?’ he said to Sam.

  ‘I might stay here,’ she said, rubbing her ankle. ‘My foot’s hurting a lot …’

  ‘But you were bugging me yesterday about coming with us,’ Dennis said.

  ‘Yeah, but I’m in a lot of pain today, I feel like I should just rest it.’

  Dennis looked at her. ‘I think you should come with us,’ he said. ‘I think it would be good for you to get out of this house.’

  ‘I don’t think—’

  ‘If it’s that bad, maybe I should stay with you, just in case. I mean, if Howard were to come back,’ Dennis said.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘Honestly, I’m just not feeling up to it.’

  ‘Then I should stay,’ he said again, taking a step towards her.

  Sam looked at the time on her phone. She could call Carrie when they got to the store. And once she was out, in public, she reasoned that she didn’t have to come back.

  ‘You know what,’ Sam said, starting to push herself up off the sofa. ‘You’re right, I’m spending too much time here. I’m just being lazy. I’ll come.’

  Dennis was confused, turning between Lindsay’s idling truck and Sam, who stood smiling. ‘So … you’re coming?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, eager to get out, still unsure what she would do when she did so. ‘But I need to grab some things first.’

  He sighed. ‘Well, hurry up, we’re already later than I wanted to be.’

  She limped to where her crutch was propped against the wall and looked through the window to see Dennis sitting in the passenger seat, door open, talking to Lindsay. She dropped her crutch and crouched to the floor, crawling back to the sofa. She was shaking violently, acting instinctively. She took the Polaroids from the sofa cushion and crawled to her bag. She put them into the zip pocket that ran across the back, which contained some spare coins and used tissues and empty pill packets. She crawled back and picked up her crutch, trying to calm herself as she walked out of the house.

  Dennis hopped out of the truck as she approached, helped her into the seat and held her bag and crutch while she shifted over to Lindsay, who stared straight ahead and kept her hands on the wheel. Sam took her bag and put it between her feet on the floor. They drove in silence, the radio off, glass bottles clinking e
very time they hit a pothole.

  Beside her, Dennis looked serene, watching the road through the open window. Sam looked for traces of evil on his face but she saw only the man she had loved. Somehow it made it worse. She hugged her bag to her chest and she thought of all the girls in the photographs. Whatever Dennis truly was beneath the veneer, only they knew.

  When they reached the main street Dennis asked Lindsay to stop. ‘I need to get something in the hardware store.’

  Sam looked down the road to the police station.

  ‘I’ll stay here,’ Lindsay said.

  ‘So will I,’ Sam said, leaning back.

  ‘Fuck it.’ Lindsay threw the door open. ‘Fine. I’ll go with Dennis.’

  ‘How long will you be?’ Sam called through the window.

  ‘I don’t know, ten minutes? Tops?’ Dennis sounded irritated with her again.

  Sam watched them disappear into the store and called Carrie but it went straight to voicemail. Irritated, she tried twice more before giving up. It was past ten and Carrie should have been expecting her call, so why wasn’t her phone switched on? Sam fought the urge to scream. Fine, she thought, I’m on my own.

  Down the street was the police station. She tried to picture herself inside, introducing herself, I’m Dennis Danson’s wife and I found these pictures in his memory box and I need your help. She tried to picture her life after this: the police interviews, court, the influx of hate she would receive for her part in getting him out.

  Then she imagined another path: getting back to the house and going into the shelter, returning the photos. Making excuses and leaving or sneaking away while he was out running, and going back to a life she didn’t want. It didn’t seem like much of a choice. She was consumed with self-pity, and disgusted by the lingering flutter in her chest when she thought of Dennis.

  Three of the ten minutes had passed and she knew she had to act now. It was obvious to her she wouldn’t be able to sneak the photographs back, not now. Dennis would likely be in the house all day, working on whatever he was planning inside the hardware store. If she chose not to move, Dennis would discover what she’d taken and he would act on it. All night, the terrifying consequences of this scenario had played behind her eyelids.

  She got out of the truck. Ahead of her was the station. As she limped towards it she started to lose her nerve. What the fuck would she say? How was any of this happening? The world seemed to tilt and whirl and the heat began to close in on her. She found herself veering into the nearest store, a bell ringing above the door as she pushed it open. In the cooler air she tried to gather her thoughts. A woman with grey hair and a kind smile said good morning and Sam nodded, trying to smile back, while the cool air cleared her thoughts.

  ‘Excuse me,’ a man said as he brushed past Sam, making her jump. She turned and faced a shelf, closed her eyes and tried to calm herself, counting her breaths. You will get out of this, she told herself. Just breathe.

  ‘Can I help you?’ the woman at the counter said.

  ‘I’m just looking,’ Sam said. ‘Thanks.’

  The woman furrowed her brow. ‘Let me know if you need anything,’ she said.

  Sam looked at the shelf ahead of her but it was empty. She felt herself blush. At the end of the shelf there was a pen attached to a chain. She looked around the small store: bare walls and plastic chairs lined up along the back. Where the fuck am I? she asked herself, disorientated.

  The sign above the counter read ‘Post Office’. An idea started to form and before Sam could think better of it she was approaching the counter.

  ‘Do you have any envelopes?’ she asked.

  Back at the shelf she pulled the Polaroids from her bag and slipped them into the envelope as swiftly as she could, as though the girls in the pictures could cry out in the open air. She sealed them in, pushing hard across the top of the envelope to ensure it was stuck closed and the girls couldn’t slip free.

  She started to write the address but the pen had run dry. She scribbled and pressed but nothing came out. She looked at the clock on the wall and saw another minute was already gone. If he found her in here, if he saw the envelope … she stopped herself short and limped back to the counter.

  ‘I need a pen,’ she said.

  The woman’s smile had long departed and she visibly tensed at Sam’s approach. Sam was aware she was sweating, that she was breathless and rude and confused, but these things no longer mattered. She wanted the girls to go away so she could think clearly. One thing at a time. First she would escape; then she would deal with the girls. So she wrote the address as quickly as she could and slipped the envelope to the woman, always looking back at the door behind her, waiting for Dennis to catch her in the act.

  When it came time to pay the coins spilled from her purse and scattered on the floor but she left them at her feet and handed the woman a note. When the woman began to fish in the cash register for change Sam waved her away. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, already at the door. ‘Keep the change, it’s fine.’

  Back out on the street, blinking in the sun, Sam hoped she’d made the right decision. By taking the Polaroids from Dennis, she had changed her life. And it still hurt, the memory of those first weeks together, of the interviews and gifts and celebrity dinners. She’d never be special or enviable again. In a world where no one was allowed to make mistakes she had made a big one: she had backed the wrong man. It would ruin Carrie, too. They would be figures of hate, the kind of women who lavished praise on a man who killed girls. It was worse than being a killer themselves.

  At least the time it would take the Polaroids to arrive would give her space to think and speak to Carrie. After a moment’s thought, feeling stronger, she decided to walk to the police station. When inside, she would tell them that she and Dennis had had a fight, that she was scared and didn’t want to stay with him. She would insinuate he had hit her but not confirm this, merely ask them to help retrieve her passport so she could stay with a friend for a while. Dennis would have to hand the passport over when the police came to the house, and when he realised the pictures were missing he would have to keep it to himself. By then, Sam told herself, she would be far enough away that he could not hurt her.

  If he couldn’t get the photographs back, then what choice did he have but agree to her terms? Unless, she thought, fingers of dread creeping up her spine, he didn’t care. Perhaps he would find and kill her anyway, wherever she went.

  She was nearly at the end of the street when he called her name and she heard the slap of his shoes on the sidewalk. She stared at the police station, took another step, and stopped, feeling – suddenly – cold.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Dennis asked, his voice low, almost as if he knew what she was planning.

  ‘I was thirsty. I was going to buy a bottle of water,’ she said weakly.

  ‘And? The store is back there.’

  Sam looked again at the police station.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said, and put one hand gently on her back to guide her. When she didn’t move he put his other hand on her elbow and she moved with him though she couldn’t explain why. As she looked towards the opposite end of the street she saw there was a man packing his car and stores were open. If she screamed then someone would hear her, but that seemed to stop her, as if screaming was only for the dark, a secret thing, when no one else was around.

  ‘My ankle,’ she protested.

  ‘The faster we get to the car, faster we get to sit down,’ Dennis said quietly.

  If anyone were to look at them they would see a woman on a crutch, being helped into a car by a handsome man, another woman waiting to drive them home.

  Dennis pushed her into the truck, both hands on her buttocks. Sam almost fell into the seat, her head hitting Lindsay’s leg. Then Dennis pushed her further into the truck, sat down beside her and slammed the door.

  ‘Home,’ he said to Lindsay.

  ‘What about Walmart?’ Lindsay asked, a hint of fear in her voice.
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br />   ‘Forget it.’

  They drove back to the house in silence. Sam could hear the clicking of Lindsay’s jaw as she chewed her gum and the rattle of the plastic dash as Dennis bounced his leg up and down. No one asked why she was crying.

  At the house, he told Lindsay to leave.

  ‘Dennis?’ Lindsay asked, not looking at Sam. ‘Maybe I should just hang out front a while?’

  ‘Go,’ he repeated.

  ‘Please don’t go,’ Sam said, but Lindsay turned away.

  Inside, Dennis pushed her on to the sofa and stood in front of her. ‘Where were you going just now?’ he asked.

  ‘What do you mean? I was getting water,’ she said again.

  ‘You were going to the police station,’ he said. ‘And you’re acting like …’ He stopped and looked at her again. ‘You’re afraid of me now.’

  ‘You’re acting crazy,’ Sam said. ‘You are scaring me.’ It felt like a relief to be honest and for a second it looked as though he had believed her.

  ‘Something’s changed,’ he said. ‘The way you look at me. It started last night.’

  ‘You’re being ridiculous,’ Sam said. She didn’t say, You sound like me.

  Then his eyes moved to the left of her, the sofa cushion that she’d left crooked on the seat, the zipper that she hadn’t fully closed.

  ‘Don’t move,’ he said when he noticed her looking. He picked up the cushion and ran a hand underneath, like he was looking for lost quarters. Then he unzipped the cover and reached inside. When he pulled his hand out he was holding a single picture and Sam felt her stomach drop.

  Dennis looked from the photograph to Sam and she saw a flash of what the girls must have seen, just for a second, when his face changed and he looked like a stranger.

  ‘Don’t move,’ he said again, in barely more than a whisper, though it felt to Sam like the low growl of an angry wolf.

  Dennis went to the kitchen, Sam heard him take a bottle of water from the fridge, and the pause while he drank it. Footsteps. She heard the rusted coil on the back door, and sobbed with force. Out front, she saw Lindsay leaning against the truck, smoking. So she hadn’t left. For that, Sam was grateful. Sam noticed Lindsay flicked the ash from the tip of her cigarette too frequently and that she tapped one foot compulsively. She heard the clang as the storm-shelter door fell back, silence while she waited for what she knew was coming, the bang as the storm-shelter door was slammed shut, the thud of feet on the rotten wooden steps, and finally the crack of the box as it hit the wall behind her head.