The Couple Next Door(28)

“Why not? We can say that we never check it, or that we thought it was broken, or that the battery was dead. We can say we thought it didn’t work and it was just for show.”

“Just for show—to scare thieves away. When it’s so well hidden that the police didn’t even see it.” She drops an earring into a mirrored jewelry box on her dressing table. She shoots him an annoyed look and mutters, “You and your fucking cameras.”

“You enjoy watching the films, too,” Graham says.

Cynthia doesn’t correct him. Yes, she enjoys watching the films, too. She enjoys watching herself having sex with other men. She likes the way it turns her husband on to see her with them. But what she enjoys even more is that it gives her permission to flirt with and have sex with other men. Men more attractive and more exciting than her husband, who has proved to be a bit of a disappointment lately. But she didn’t get very far with Marco. Graham had hoped she would be able to give Marco a proper blow job, or that he would lift up her skirt and fuck her from behind. Cynthia knew exactly how the camera was positioned to get the best angle.

Graham’s job was to keep the wife occupied. That was always his job. It was tedious for him, but it was worth it.

Except now they have a problem.





TWELVE


It is Sunday afternoon. There have been no new leads. No one has called claiming to have Cora. The case appears to be at an impasse, but Cora is still out there somewhere. Where is she?

Anne walks over to the living-room window. The curtains are drawn shut for privacy, filtering the room’s light. She stands to the side and holds the curtain open a little to peek out. There are a lot of reporters on the sidewalk, spilling over onto the street.

She is living in a fishbowl, everyone tapping on the glass.

Already there are indications that the Contis aren’t turning out to be the media darlings the press had hoped for. Anne and Marco haven’t welcomed the media; they clearly see the reporters as an intrusion, a necessary evil. They are not particularly photogenic either, even though Marco is handsome and Anne was pretty enough, before. But it’s not enough to be handsome—one should preferably have charisma, or at least warmth. There is nothing charismatic about Marco now. He looks like a shattered ghost. They both look guilty, beaten down by shame. Marco has been cold in his interactions with the media; Anne has said nothing at all. They have not been warm to the press, and so the press has not warmed to them. This is, Anne realizes, probably a tactical mistake, one they may live to regret.

The problem is that they had not been home. It has come out that they were next door when Cora was taken from her crib. Anne was horrified when she saw that morning’s headlines: COUPLE NOT HOME WHEN BABY TAKEN, STOLEN BABY WAS LEFT ALONE. If they’d been sound asleep in their own house while their child was kidnapped from her room, there would have been a much greater outpouring of sympathy, from the press and from the public. The fact that they were attending a party next door has scalded them. And of course the postpartum depression has also been made public. Anne doesn’t know how these things happen. She certainly didn’t tell the press. She suspects Cynthia might have been the source of the leak about their leaving the baby alone in the house, but she doesn’t know how the media found out about her depression. Surely the police would not have leaked her private medical information. She has even asked them, and they say it didn’t come from them. But Anne doesn’t trust the police. Whoever is responsible for the leaks, they have only damaged Anne further in the eyes of everyone—the public, the press, her parents, her friends, everyone. She has been publicly shamed.

Anne turns to look at the steadily increasing pile of toys and other colorful debris collecting on the sidewalk at the bottom of their front steps. There are bouquets of wilted flowers, stuffed animals of all colors and sizes—she can see teddy bears, even an outsize giraffe—with notes and cards stuck on them. A mountain of cliché. Such an outpouring of sympathy. And of hate.

Earlier that day Marco had gone out and brought an armful of the toys and notes in to her, to cheer her up. That was a mistake he won’t make again. Many of the notes were venomous, even shocking. She read a few of them, gasped, balled them up, and threw them to the floor.

She twitches the curtains with her fingers and looks out again. This time a thrill of horror slides down her back. She recognizes the women coming single file down the sidewalk toward the house, pushing their baby strollers: it is three—no—four women from her moms’ group. The reporters fall away to let them through, sensing impending drama. Anne watches in disbelief. Surely, she thinks, they have not come to visit her with their babies.

She sees the one in front, Amalia—mother of cute, brown-eyed Theo—reach beneath her stroller and grab what looks like a large container of prepared food. The other women behind her do the same thing, applying the brakes to their strollers, reaching for covered dishes in the baskets beneath the seats.

Such kindness, and such thoughtless cruelty. She can’t bear it. A sob escapes Anne as she turns abruptly from the window.

“What is it?” Marco says, alarmed, coming up to her.

He pushes the curtain aside and looks out the window at the sidewalk.

“Get rid of them!” Anne whispers. “Please.”

? ? ?

On Monday morning at nine o’clock, Detective Rasbach requests that Marco and Anne come to the police station for formal questioning. “You are not under arrest,” he assures them as they stare back at him, dumbstruck. “We would like to take a statement from each of you and ask a few more questions.”