Since She Went Away(32)

“Should or shouldn’t, people do ask these things when someone disappears. It’s the same as you being a suspect. It’s natural.”

“Natural?”

Jenna sipped her water. “Maybe I’ve been a fool. I’ve been going around ever since Celia disappeared telling everyone who asks what a great marriage the two of you have.” She watched Ian’s face. It didn’t change as she spoke. “I just told that to Detective Poole again today. But do I really know that? Did I even really know Celia anymore? I certainly don’t know you well.”

“Jenna—”

“I don’t want to be made a fool of anymore. I’ve been doing that well enough on my own. Tell me, Ian. Why was Poole asking about your marriage that way?”

He held her gaze a long time. Then he said, “You do know Celia very well. That’s true. You’re her best friend. I know her well too. But that doesn’t mean I knew everything.” He didn’t look away as he spoke, so Jenna saw in his eyes the effort the words were costing him. Each one that emerged from his mouth added a layer of pain. “It wasn’t the first time,” he said. “This most recent one. The one going on right when she disappeared.”

Jenna felt as if she’d fallen behind in the conversation. Had she missed something? Ian seemed to be talking in code, one that implied something about Celia.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I’m assuming you didn’t know this, or you would have had the good sense to tell the police. Tell me you didn’t know about this, Jenna. Celia said you didn’t.”

“Know what?”

And then the picture started to clear. Ian’s hints, his inability to say it directly.

“About three years ago there was a guy. He wasn’t from the country club. She met him—” He cleared his throat, lifting his fist to his mouth. “They met through a group she belonged to at church, of all things. It never got serious, I don’t think. It’s funny that in some ways that makes it worse. I mean, maybe it would be easier to swallow if they really loved each other or something, but this was apparently only about sex.”

Jenna looked down at the nearly empty salad bowl. The remains of her lunch, greens and a few vegetables sitting in oil, looked so unappealing she couldn’t stand to think she’d just eaten most of it.

“It ended,” he said. “I found out when we bought new phones. She still had the texts right there. Times to meet and all that. I can tell you don’t believe me.”

“She never said a word. . . .”

“Did her behavior change three years ago, in the summer? Did you notice anything different about her?”

Three years. Around the time Celia and Ian joined the country club, around the time Jenna and Celia started seeing less of each other. Did their drifting apart begin in the summer? She couldn’t say. She didn’t answer Ian’s question.

“We got it together after that. Mostly.” The look in his eyes seemed far away. “I thought we were moving in the right direction at least. For a while, we spent more time together. We went away on that trip. You remember?”

“Europe. Ursula stayed with your mother.”

“We were fine. Good, even. We were getting somewhere, I thought.”

“And then?” Jenna asked.

“Then she disappeared.” He said the word casually, without any special emphasis or hesitation. Disappeared. It was a fact of life for both of them. “I never knew for sure about the most recent affair. I suspected it in the weeks leading up to her disappearance, but I didn’t know with certainty. The police brought it up again over the last few days. They keep turning the same earth hoping something new appears. I’m sure that’s why Poole tracked you down and asked you the marriage question again. I can even see the smug look on her face when she asked you, like she was the all-knowing schoolteacher leading a precocious student toward a lesson.”

“That is what she looked like.”

“I don’t know what they’re thinking. They won’t say, which seems ridiculous to me. I should be able to know as much about my wife’s case as I can possibly know. Maybe they’re so desperate for a lead they’re just shaking the trees to see what falls out. The guy . . .” His voice dripped with distaste. “Some dentist who lives about twenty miles away from here, in Youngblood or someplace like that. I didn’t listen much to the details. They hurt too much. Talk about getting kicked in the balls. But she’d been involved with him for a little while. A month or so, at least from what they can tell.”

“So this guy, this dentist, he might be—”

“They cleared him. I asked the same thing. He has an alibi for that time. It’s rock solid. He was with a group of his friends in a bar. Twenty people saw him. I wish it was different. . . .”

“I’m sure the cops wished it went that way too. But maybe one of these guys was following her. . . .”

“They’ve been through it all, Jenna. It’s humiliating. Try having to go over your wife’s two affairs with the cops.”

“Ugh,” Jenna said. “But if this is true about Celia and this dentist . . . how did you not know about it when it was happening?”

Ian smiled again, the same weak, wistful smile. “Celia could have been in the CIA apparently. They used some kind of throwaway cell phones, the ones drug dealers use. No paper or electronic trail. I worked a lot. We’d drifted some.”