Before She Knew Him(59)
Mira knew that her downstairs neighbor—she lived in the converted attic of a three-story house—heard what was happening. She knew because Matthew Dolamore was always attentive and chatty when she ran into him on her own, but he never acknowledged her if Jay was there. He must have known that if he’d said hi to her when she was with Jay that Mira would suffer for it. He was protecting her, in his small way, but the gesture seemed enormous to Mira. Once, to thank him, and knowing that it was an enormous risk, she invited him to her room for tea while Jay was away at a squash meet. They talked about everything except relationships. He was somewhat stiff, but one of those incredible listeners. Even as she told him the most banal stories, she felt his eyes on her, his entire attention on her.
After the afternoon tea date he’d asked her—only once—if she wanted to come to his apartment for coffee. She declined, saying that her boyfriend was back in town and it wouldn’t be appropriate, hoping that he’d understand that nothing could change between them, that if he saw her with Jay he’d still have to pretend that he didn’t know her. He clearly got the message, because the next time Mira and Jay passed Matthew—they were returning from the grocery store, and Matthew, backpack slung over one shoulder, was heading out—he entirely ignored Mira, only briefly nodding at Jay.
Despite this, Jay asked, “What do you know about that guy downstairs?” later that evening, after Mira had put away all the groceries.
“My neighbor?” she asked.
“Yeah. The one we passed tonight, the one you’ve obviously been thinking about.”
“I don’t even know him, Jay,” she said. “I’ve never talked to him.”
It got steadily worse, the conversation finally ending with Jay pushing Mira’s head against the headboard of the bed, digging his fingers into her scalp, while he screamed at her. She considered just telling him then and there that she’d had Matthew up to her apartment for tea, just to get it over with. He’d kill her, of course, but then it would be over. And if he didn’t kill her, would he leave her? Unlikely, but it was a possibility.
But before she could get up the nerve to confess to him, he finally left. Mira lay on the bed, weeping for a while, then listening to the house, wondering if Matthew had heard that evening’s entertainment. He’d clearly been going out to the library when they saw him earlier. Was he back now?
The only good thing about the fight was that Jay would be nice to her for a few days, at least. He’d be contrite, unless, of course, he ever found out that she really did have a relationship (of sorts) with her downstairs neighbor. No, she told herself, he must never know. It isn’t to protect me, but to protect Matthew.
One week later—a week during which Jay had been contrite (even buying her white roses)—a police officer arrived at Mira’s door on a Wednesday morning, asked her if she was Jay Saravan’s girlfriend, then reported that Jay was dead. He’d been found in his BMW—his most prized possession after Mira—parked a few miles away down a dead-end street. He’d committed suicide by attaching a pipe from his exhaust pipe in through his window. He hadn’t left a note.
During the next few weeks, a surreal period in which she was treated as a grieving girlfriend but felt like a fortunate survivor, Mira didn’t see Matthew once. It didn’t matter. Down deep she knew that her downstairs neighbor had something to do with the death of Jay Saravan. It wasn’t just that he was the only one who had witnessed the true nature of their relationship, or that she knew for a fact that an egotist like Jay would never have taken his own life; it was that a few days before Jay’s death she’d looked out her bedroom window and seen Matthew and Jay talking in the parking lot. Jay was showing off his car, and Matthew was enthusiastically asking questions. Mira understood now that that was how Matthew had worked it. He’d shown interest in Jay’s BMW, then on the night of Jay’s death, he must have caught him as he was leaving the apartment, maybe said something like, “Hey, wanna go for a ride in your car?” Jay would have said yes, and then somehow Matthew overpowered him, set it up to look like a suicide.
Still, when she next saw Matthew, after Thanksgiving break, he’d approached her with such a look of concern that she began to doubt herself. Could that soft-spoken history major have actually planned a murder and then gotten away with it? She began to change her mind. Maybe Jay, beneath his narcissism and his ego, had actually been so ashamed of his abusive behavior that he did kill himself. It was what she told herself to keep her going, especially after she and Matthew became an item, dating for the remainder of their college years, then getting married soon after graduation.
And now, all these years later, she was thinking about it again, wondering if Matthew really had killed Jay Saravan.
Of course he did. You knew it as soon as it happened.
It wasn’t the first time in their marriage that she’d had doubts about her husband. For all his normalcy, Matthew had had a twisted childhood. He didn’t talk about it much, but when he did, Mira realized just how much listening to Jay abuse her in the apartment above him must have triggered thoughts about his own parents.
And there were other sides to Matthew’s personality. Most of the time he was just a regular all-American guy, a dedicated teacher, a trustworthy husband, but sometimes he was childlike and needy. And sometimes he was distant, scarily so, looking at Mira almost objectively, sizing her up.