Just the Nicest Couple(64)

“Had you and your husband been fighting before he went missing, Mrs. Hayes?” he asks.

I don’t answer. “Are you married, Officer Boone?” I ask instead, but he just looks at me; he doesn’t say whether he’s married or not. “If you’re married, then you know. Couples fight. Everyone does. It’s natural. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Did you think he was going to leave you, Mrs. Hayes?”

“Is that what you think happened?” I ask. “That Jake left me.”

“Can you answer the question, please?”

I feel like I’m the one under suspicion, that I’m being blamed for what happened to Jake. “I’ve been entirely candid, Officer. I said from the start that it’s possible Jake left me. But that was before I knew he wasn’t going to work. I just don’t see why, if he was leaving me, he would walk out on his job too. His work means everything to him.”

“Did you ever think that he might be having an affair?” he asks.

“Was he?” I ask, wondering if Officer Boone knows something I don’t know.

“That’s what I asked you.”

“How would I know if Jake was having an affair?”

“Did you ever consider that he might be?”

Had I? Yes. I never had any evidence that he was. It could just have been that Jake was falling out of love with me. It might not have had anything to do with another woman, but I could feel Jake’s distance from me, those nights when I would reach for him and he would pull away from me in bed, turning his back to me.

“Do I have to answer that?” I ask.

“No. No, you don’t have to answer it, but it would be helpful if you did. Is there a reason you don’t want to answer the questions, Mrs. Hayes?”

“It’s just that what you’re asking is personal and it has no bearing on where my husband is now. I wish you would focus your efforts on that, on finding my husband, and not whether he and I had fought or whether I thought he was having an affair. Which acquaintances of mine told you that there was strife in my marriage?” I ask.

“I don’t particularly like to reveal where I get my information.”

“You won’t tell me?”

“I’d rather not. But I will tell you, it wasn’t just one person. It was a common theme.”

I wonder what Jake had been telling his parents and his brother about me.

I stare at Officer Boone. He stares back. The silence goes on and then, because of it, I ask, “If those are all the questions you have for me, can I go?”

Officer Boone slowly nods. “Yes, Mrs. Hayes,” he says, “you’re not being held here. You can go whenever you’d like.”

I consider his words. I stand up. I slip my purse over my shoulder but before I can leave, he says, “Hypothetically speaking though, if Dr. Hayes was having an affair, how would you feel about that?”

“Excuse me?” I ask.

“Would you be surprised? Would you be upset?”

“Of course I’d be upset,” I say. “What woman wouldn’t be upset if she found out her husband was cheating on her?”

I watch then as Officer Boone sizes me up, as if trying to ascertain if I would be upset enough to do something to Jake.

He says, “In your missing person’s report, you said that you and Dr. Hayes had an altercation right before he disappeared. What were you fighting about?”

I don’t answer his questions. Instead I ask, “Are you suggesting that I did something to my husband, Officer?” I don’t give him a chance to reply. I go on, saying, “In all the time that he’s been gone, I’ve been the only one looking for him. And now someone has broken into my home. This is more than just some marital spat. I wish you would do your job, and that you would find my husband.” I look at my watch. “I have to go,” I say, “or I’ll be late to work.”

I turn and walk away from him, thinking how what Jake and I were fighting about is none of his business.

As I put my head down and walk quickly to my car in the parking lot, I realize that I’ve somehow just become the prime suspect in my husband’s disappearance.



CHRISTIAN


I go out to start Lily’s car for her in the morning while she’s finishing up her breakfast. It’s slow to start. The engine doesn’t turn over at first. I blame it on the weather, because it got cold overnight, colder than it usually is in the Midwest this time of year. Last night it dipped beneath forty, and they’re saying in the coming nights, it could freeze. I try to start it again, and this time it starts.

“Let the engine run for a couple minutes to warm up,” I say to her when I come back in the house. Lily stands at the sink, rinsing out her coffee mug. She overslept this morning because last night, she didn’t sleep. She was up for much of the night, like me, because the news didn’t say anything other than that a body was found. The rest was left to our imagination, and an active imagination fuels insomnia. I didn’t fall asleep until after two. The 5:00 a.m. alarm came as a rude awakening.

I come to stand behind her. I rub her back. I say, “Try not to think about it, babe. Where’s your coat? It’s cold out.”

“On the hook,” she says. There’s a pulse to Lily’s voice. She’s crying. She sets her mug in the sink and then wipes at her nose with the back of a hand.