The Woman in the Window(47)

“Not enough to hallucinate.”

She nods. “Okay. And the pills . . .”

I grip the blanket on my lap, wring it. “I met Jane. Two times. Different days.”

“Right.”

“I saw her with her family in their house. Repeatedly.”

“Right.”

“I saw Jane bleeding. With a knife in her chest.”

“It was definitely a knife?”

“Well, it wasn’t a fucking brooch.”

“I’m just— Okay, right.”

“I saw it through my camera. Very clearly.”

“But you didn’t take a photo.”

“No, I didn’t take a photo. I was trying to help her, not . . . document it.”

“Okay.” She idly strokes a strand of hair. “And now they’re saying that no one was stabbed.”

“And they’re trying to say that Jane is someone else. Or someone else is Jane.”

She coils her hair around one long finger.

“You’re sure . . .” she begins, and I tense, because I know what’s coming. “You’re definitely sure there’s no way this is all a misunderst—”

I lean forward. “I know what I saw.”

Bina drops her hand. “I don’t . . . know what to say.”

Speaking slowly, as though I’m picking my way through ground glass. “They’re not going to believe that anything happened to Jane,” I say, as much to her as to myself, “until they believe that the woman they think is Jane—isn’t.”

It’s a knot, but she nods.

“Only—wouldn’t the police just ask this person for, like, ID?”

“No. No. They’d just take her husband’s—they’d just take her ‘husband’s’ word. Wouldn’t they? Why wouldn’t they?” The cat trots across the carpet, slinks beneath my chair. “And no one’s seen her before. They’ve barely been here a week. She could be anyone. She could be a relative. She could be a mistress. She could be a mail-order bride.” I go for my drink, then remember I haven’t got one. “But I saw Jane with her family. I saw her locket with Ethan’s picture in it. I saw—she sent him over here with a candle, for Christ’s sake.”

Bina nods again.

“And her husband wasn’t acting—?”

“As though he’d just stabbed somebody? No.”

“It was definitely him who . . .”

“Who what?”

She twists. “Did it.”

“Who else could it be? Their kid is an angel. If he was—were going to stab anyone, it’d be his father.” I reach for my glass once more, swipe at air. “And I saw him at his computer right beforehand, so unless he just sprinted downstairs to cut up his mom, I think he’s in the clear.”

“Have you told anyone else about this?”

“Not yet.”

“Your doctor?”

“I will.” Ed, too. Talk to him later.

Now, quiet—just the ripple of flames in the hearth.

Watching her, watching her skin glow copper in the firelight, I wonder if she’s humoring me, if she doubts me. It’s an impossible story, isn’t it? My neighbor killed his wife and now an impostor is posing as her. And their son is too frightened to tell the truth.

“Where do you think Jane is?” Bina asks softly.

Quiet.



“I had no idea she was even a thing,” says Bina, leaning over my shoulder, her hair a curtain between me and the table lamp.

“Major pinup in the fifties,” I murmur. “Then a hard-core pro-lifer.”

“Ah.”

“Botched abortion.”

“Oh.”

We’re at my desk, scrolling through twenty-two pages of Jane Russell photographs—pendulous with jewels (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes), dishabille in a haystack (The Outlaw), swirling a gypsy skirt (Hot Blood). We consulted Pinterest. We scraped the trenches of Instagram. We scoured Boston-based newspapers and websites. We visited Patrick McMullan’s photography gallery. Nothing.

“Isn’t it amazing,” Bina says, “how according to the Internet, some people might as well not exist?”

Alistair is easier. There he is, sausage-cased in a too-tight suit, from a Consulting Magazine article two years old; russell moves to atkinson, the headline explains. His LinkedIn profile features the same photograph. A portrait in a Dartmouth alumni newsletter, hoisting a glass at a fundraiser.

But no Jane.

Even stranger: no Ethan. He isn’t on Facebook—or Foursquare, or anywhere—and Google yields nothing beyond assorted links to a photographer by the same name.

“Aren’t most kids on Facebook?” Bina asks.

“His dad won’t let him. He doesn’t even have a cell phone.” I roll one sagging sleeve up my arm. “And he’s homeschooled. He probably doesn’t know many people here. Probably doesn’t know anyone.”

“Someone must know his mother, though,” she says. “Someone in Boston, or . . . just someone.” She walks to the window. “Wouldn’t there be photographs? Weren’t the police at their house today?”

I consider this. “For all we know, they could have photographs of this other woman. Alistair could’ve just shown them anything, told them anything. They’re not going to search their house. They made that very clear.”