Have You Seen Me?(54)

“Why did that feel like a trick question?”

I look away without meaning to.

“It was so out of the blue, and besides, how would I know? It was like this detective thought I might respond, ‘Yes, that’s exactly what happened. I took Jaycee from her yard to play with her in the woods and when she started to cry, I just wanted to get her to stop, and I ended up smashing her head with a rock.’ I can see why innocent people confess to crimes they didn’t commit. The police lay all these traps for you when you’re already nervous and confused just from being there.”

Erling steeples her hands and taps them lightly against her lips a few times. I’m familiar with most of her gestures, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen this one before. Does it mean something?

“What was your response to her?” she asks.

“That there wasn’t any excuse. And there isn’t, not for hurting a child. It’s been hard to even think about the whole thing again. That little girl being brutally attacked and dying and stuffed under a pile of leaves.”

She leans forward and her expression shifts from neutral to sympathetic.

“It does sounds like the interview was very stressful,” she says. “What if you looked at it another way? That the detective was probably just trying to do her job, covering her bases, and that it doesn’t mean she really thinks you could have been the one who hurt Jaycee?”

“That’s what Roger said. But what if the police want to see me again? And oh, you should have seen Hugh’s reaction when I told him what I’d done back then. For a split second he looked totally wigged-out, like he’d just noticed I had one of those suicide belts strapped around my waist and was going to detonate it any second. Then he asked if I might have been in a fugue state at the time. Not with concern. More like—I don’t know, like he was interrogating me. So much for the idea of Hugh and me talking more.”

“What do you think was really going on in Hugh’s mind when you shared your revelation with him?”

I gnaw on my thumb, considering. To me he came across as unsympathetic, judgmental even, but I know she’s wondering if there was something below the surface.

“I guess part of him was scared,” I say finally, “because what I was telling him didn’t fit with how he views me as a person.”

I realize as the words tumble from my mouth that this is the first time I’ve formed this idea into a thought I can articulate.

“How so?”

“I think part of the reason Hugh was drawn to me—besides the physical attraction—was that he saw me as a together, responsible person, someone who’d been smart about her career and her life. He’s always been pretty buttoned-up himself, and he knew he could count on me, that I was never going to drop the ball with what matters. And now I’ve become this kind of wild card. I came unglued, and he’s wondering if it’s not the first time—or even the last.”

In some ways it’s a relief to spell it out, but at the same time, I have no idea where I go from here.

“So what the hell does this mean for the future?” I ask before she can respond.

“Sometimes it simply takes people a while to process the turmoil a partner is going through and become more accepting. The more time you and Hugh spend talking, the better.”

“But I did make time to talk to him, and look what happened. . . . I’m sure part of why he’s so bothered is the mystery of it all.”

“The mystery?”

“Me showing up at Greenbacks. Being gone for two whole days. Oh, that reminds me of something else I wanted to tell you. The detective told me yesterday that I was apparently roaming around the East Village on at least one of those days I was gone.”

“The detective in Millerstown said that?” Erling’s brow furrows in a rare expression of confusion. “How would she know?”

“Oh, sorry—no, not her. I’m talking about Kurt Mulroney, the private detective I’m using.”

She still looks confused. “You hadn’t mentioned you were hiring anyone,” she says.

“Sorry, I guess I decided to hire him since I saw you last. It just seemed like the smart thing to do since my memory refuses to budge, and this way, I’ll at least know where I was. He’s obtaining as much video footage as he can, and so far, he’s been able to determine that I was in the East Village on Wednesday.”

“Why that neighborhood, do you think?”

I explain I have no idea, that the last time I spent any real time there was when I took that night class. I find myself telling her how I liked to have dinner after class in the garden of this little restaurant on East Ninth Street. I’d bring a notebook to scribble in and daydream about life, or sometimes just sit and people-watch.

Erling smiles. “It sounds like the time you spent down there was meaningful to you.”

“Yes,” I say, nodding. “But it was so long ago. And the restaurant I used to eat at closed down.”

“Why don’t you give some thought tonight to what it was like to eat there? Think about the experience of sitting at the table, enjoying your food, watching the other diners, and why you liked it so much.”

“Okay.”

“Have you learned anything else from the investigator?” she asks.