Dear Wife(28)
“Clearly not.”
“Well, go upstairs and change. We’re due at the police department in thirty minutes. The detective has an update.”
My heart bangs a slow, heavy beat. An update could be anything. Her car, found wrapped around a tree. Her body, found rotting in a field of soybeans. Her killer, on the loose or locked behind bars.
“What kind of update?”
“I don’t know, Jeffrey. He wouldn’t tell me anything other than he had some news.” She chews on a corner of her lips, which are already red and cracked. Her eyes are fat pink pillows. “What if he—”
She stops herself before she can finish, and I don’t touch it. A detective calling with news he wouldn’t share over the phone can’t be good. I turn and head upstairs for a quick shower.
Nine and a half minutes later I’m crammed into the passenger’s seat of Ingrid’s Acura, barreling south toward the police station. Traffic is light, but on the other side of her windshield, it’s gearing up to be another blistering day. I turn the air-conditioning to high and aim the vents at my face. Trevor’s news last night lit me on fire, and I’ve been burning up ever since.
“I suppose you knew about the baby.”
Ingrid stares straight ahead, hands at ten and two, but she nods. “Sabine and I—”
“Tell each other everything. I know.” I glare out the side window at the storefronts flashing by and wish I’d thought to bring sunglasses. “What else have the two of you been keeping from me?”
“She’s been talking to a lawyer. She was going to ask you for a divorce this weekend.”
The news hits me like an anvil; not that Sabine was planning to leave me—Trevor already told me as much—but at the implication she saw a lawyer. Something that’s easy to verify. I don’t need to be a detective to know how it makes me look—like I have a motive.
I snort. “That’s convenient, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“The timing. Sabine disappears, pregnant with another man’s child, right as she’s about to file for divorce from a husband who once—and only once, so help me God—lost his temper. If I were the detective, I’d be calling me in for questioning, too.” I twist on my seat, turning to face Ingrid. “Is that what this is? Is that why you came by the house, to haul me in for questioning? Did he send you to lure me to the station?”
“I’m pretty sure the detective can haul you in himself if he wants to.” She gives me the same guilty side-eye Sabine does, right before she admits to having ruined my favorite sweater in the laundry. “But to be perfectly honest, I came to get you because I can’t do this alone. Sit in some sterile room at the police station while the detective tells me something awful has happened to my sister. I’m terrified. And I couldn’t bring Mom. She wouldn’t understand, and even if she did, I can’t deal with her and bad news at the same time. As much as I hate to admit it, I need you there.”
“Why didn’t you call Trevor?”
She presses her lips together.
“You did call him. He wouldn’t come.”
“He’s a mess.” She punches the gas to make it through a light, then merges into the far-left lane. “And he was right. Having him there would only make everything worse. At least I won’t have to take care of you.”
I’m not quite sure how to take that. Her mother would be too clueless, Trevor would be too emotional and I would be my usual asshole self. I choose to focus on the words she doesn’t say: that I’m strong, solid, sensible. No matter what the detective has to tell us, at least I won’t go apeshit.
But is she right? I think about what I’d do if the detective tells me Sabine is dead, or asks to swab the inside of my cheek. What will my reaction be then? I look over at Ingrid, at her pointy features and shiny profile, and think I really don’t want to do this alone, either.
“It’s ironic,” I say, turning back to the traffic.
“What is?”
“That it took Sabine disappearing to make us actually want to be in a room together.”
BETH
For a boulevard named after a former peanut-farmer-turned-president, it’s nothing like I expected. A magnolia-lined avenue, maybe, or a winding country road slicing through rolling green fields would be fitting, not this six-lane thoroughfare that packs the Buick Regal on all sides with bumper-to-bumper traffic. I cling to the far-right lane, keep a safe distance between my car and the guy riding the brakes in front of me and search the storefronts for Las Tortas Locas.
I spot it up ahead, a giant margarita glass jutting above the rooftops like a crown jewel. I swerve into the turn lane and head toward the building, a riot of flashing neon lights squeezed between a strip mall and a drive-through bank. I pull into the lot, and mariachi music rattles the Buick’s tinted windows.
The inside is even worse. Music blares from the ceiling speakers, mixing with the din of a full house of diners and the hard chinks of porcelain and glass. The hostess has to cup a palm around her ear when I yell at her who I’m here to see, and then she points me to a table at the far end of the restaurant.
“Are you sure?” I shout, squinting at the man across the room. Even from here, from clear across the room, the man doesn’t match the name. “I’m here for Jorge. Jorge.”