Dear Wife(15)

I’m silent, and also a little shocked. Ingrid’s knowledge of her sister’s business, all the particulars and detail. Sabine didn’t tell me any of this—or maybe she did. Maybe I just wasn’t listening. What else have I missed?

Detective Durand consults Ingrid’s notes, taps the page with his pen. “This Lisa O’Brien will be able to tell me his name?” He’s no longer directing his questions at me.

“I’m sure she can,” Ingrid says. “In fact, if I had her number, I would have already called to ask. Can you, I don’t know, look her up in your system or something?”

“I’ll contact Ms. O’Brien, absolutely. I’ll also drive by the development and see if anything looks out of the ordinary. I’m not saying it will be—I just want to be sure, to cover all the bases. If I do find any signs of foul play—” the words make me twitch like a spider “—I’ll put a trace on her phone and contact you immediately.”

“Can’t you do that now? Trace her phone, I mean. Because if something’s happened, if she’s hurt or...” Ingrid shakes her head, swallowing. “I just don’t think we should waste any more time.”

“I’m not going to waste any time, I assure you. A missing person is about as high priority as you can get. And I’m sorry to have to ask this, but has your wife been receiving any threats? Is there anyone out there who might have wanted to hurt her?”

“No!” I beat Ingrid to the answer this time, but I can’t look at her. I keep my gaze, sure and steady, on the detective. “Absolutely not. Everyone loves Sabine. She goes out of her way to be friendly to everyone. Partly because that’s her job, but mostly because that’s just how she is. Friendly and helpful. She’s never met a stranger.”

Ingrid clears her throat. “It’s true. Sabine is a lovely, lovely person.”

The detective offers up a smile, but it’s neither friendly nor comforting. “Okay. I’m going to start by checking the standard places—hospitals, medical centers, jails. I want the two of you to take a look at anything that might give us some insight as to her movements yesterday. Emails, texts, social media pages, mutual bank statements and credit cards, things like that. Compile a list of everything you find and send it to me.”

Detective Durand slaps a card to the table, pointing to the number at the bottom. “Call me the second Sabine shows up, or if you think of anything else that might be relevant to where she could be. We’ll regroup later today.”

I nod, mainly because I don’t know what else to do. That’s it. Interview over. The detective lets himself out and the two of us sit stunned, staring at each other with wide, horrified eyes.

Across from me, Ingrid starts to cry.

  Now that the detective is gone, I shove Ingrid out the door and put on a pot of coffee. I make it extra strong, the kind that bubbles out opaque and is thick as molasses. Not that I think I’ll need the caffeine. Despite my sleepless night, I’m not the least bit drowsy, my veins humming with adrenaline and purpose. If Sabine doesn’t show up soon, if somebody doesn’t figure out where she went and what happened to her, Ingrid won’t be the only one who thinks I had something to do with my wife’s disappearance.

The detective told me to comb through Sabine’s social media and bank accounts, but I was one step ahead of him, already thinking about where Sabine left her laptop. It’s an ancient Acer, a thick chunk of plastic and metal as manageable as a cinder block, and just as heavy. Its bulk is a big part of the reason why she doesn’t usually lug it to work. The other part is that she’s got a slick new desk computer at the office, and her iPhone is permanently attached to her palm.

But in order to see what she’s been up to, I need her log-in credentials, the ones she keeps in an unprotected Excel file on her desktop. Usernames and passwords for pretty much anything you need a username and password for. Email accounts. Bank records. Credit card statements. Things that will give me a road map to wherever she is, or at the very least, which way she’s gone.

I start upstairs and work my way down, moving from room to room looking for her computer, double-and triple-checking everywhere I can think of. The problem is, Sabine is not logical. She treats her laptop like an old sweater or pair of shoes—as an afterthought, an item to leave lying around wherever she pleases, half-hidden under the bed or the couch. I concentrate my search around the places where Sabine tends to sit. On our bed, the laptop resting on her stretched-out thighs. The left end of the couch, her legs curled under her like a cat. The desk in the study and the chaise by the window in the den. I peer on shelves and under tables, sift through stacks of papers and books, lift bed skirts and blankets. No laptop.

Typical.

In each room, before moving on to the next one, I stand in the middle of the floor and call her cell. Even though wherever she is, chances are her phone is with her and not here at home. I hit her number and then I hold my breath and listen for the familiar melody, or if it’s on silent, the muffled buzzing of it vibrating under a pile of pillows or some clothes. But the only sound is the four lazy beeps, right before it goes to voice mail. I hang up and move to the next room.

After an hour, I end up back where I started, in the kitchen, empty-handed.

I pour myself a cup of thick, black sludge and sink onto a bar stool.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe yesterday was one of the rare workdays that Sabine needed her computer, to search the MLS system or draw up a contract from a coffee shop between showings, in which case I’ll have to go to her office to fetch it. That is, assuming she left it there, and it’s not sliding around her trunk or on the floorboards of her car. I often see it sticking out of that canvas tote she lugs around, the one I’m forever tripping over when she chucks it by the garage door to search for her keys.