My Lovely Wife(74)

“I can prove Owen has not killed anyone in the last five years. I came all the way back here to make sure everyone understands that my brother is dead.” Jennifer holds up a piece of paper and says it is Owen’s death certificate, signed by a coroner in Great Britain and stamped with an official seal. She says it again. “Dead.”

The medical examiner steps to the microphone and confirms what Jennifer has said.

Dead.

Next comes the chief of police, who goes on and on about how it was unavoidable that his police department had zeroed in on Owen, but they had been misled. He also confirms Jennifer’s claim.

Dead.

We are all clear now. We believe her. Owen is dead, and the police are going back to the evidence to see what they missed.

But first, Jennifer has one more thing to say, “I am sorry for the families. Sorry that so much time has been wasted focusing on my brother instead of looking for the real killer. An old friend contacted me about what was going on here in Woodview. When she begged me to come back, I knew I had to do the right thing.”

Jennifer motions to someone behind her, and the medical examiner steps to the side. The camera zooms in on the friend.

My head spins so fast I almost lose consciousness.

The woman who called Jennifer Riley is plump and blond, and has a smile that lights up the screen.

Denise. The woman from behind the counter at Joe’s Deli.





Fifty-three




The GPS tracker sits on the dashboard of my car. I flip it over on one side, then the other, and start all over again. It is the same thing I have been doing in my mind after the woman from Joe’s Deli, Millicent’s new favorite lunch spot, appeared on TV.

Denise. The same woman who served Jenna and me.

This is a coincidence. It must be. The fact that Owen is dead does not help Millicent and me. It hurts us.

And if Joe’s was an organic bistro serving roast beef from cows raised on organic grass, it would never occur to me that this is not a coincidence. But Joe’s is not. It is a deli where organic is a word from another language.

If I could ask Millicent about this new affection for cheap deli sandwiches, I would. But I am not supposed to know. This is information I acquired by spying on my wife.

I’d never done it before. Thought about it, but never did it. Not even back when Millicent was working with a man who liked her as more than a colleague. It was obvious from the moment I met him. Cooper. The one-time frat boy who never married and didn’t want to. What he wanted to do was sleep with Millicent.

Cooper was the one who went with Millicent to the conference in Miami. The weekend Crystal kissed me.

I was convinced Cooper had done the same thing to Millicent.

When they came back, that belief almost made me spy on both of them. I did not. At least not on her. But Cooper, I watched him long enough to figure out he wanted to sleep with every woman. It wasn’t just Millicent.

And as far as I could tell, they had not slept together.

Now that I have spied on my wife, I see the problem with it. I cannot do anything with the information. The tracker is on my dashboard, and I am sitting in the parking lot of the club staring at the gadget, because spying only leads to more spying. If I had known it was such a vicious circle, I would never have done it.

As I go back and forth, Millicent texts me.

Chicken pho for dinner?

Sounds good.

I wait for another text, one that says date night or has some reference to the news today, but my phone stays dark.



* * *



? ? ?

When I get home, Millicent’s car is already in the garage. I think about putting the tracker on it again but don’t.

She is making chicken pho in the kitchen. I start to help her, slicing vegetables while she adds fresh onion and ginger to the broth.

The kids are not around.

“Upstairs,” she says before I ask. “Homework.”

“Did you see the news?”

She purses her lips and nods. “He’s dead.”

“They only said it a thousand times.”

I smile a little. She does, too. We cannot change the fact that Owen is dead.

We are silent for a few minutes, working on dinner, and I try to come up with a way to mention Denise. The kids show up before an idea does.

I reiterate that they shouldn’t pay any attention to everything going on in the news. “Nothing is going to happen to you.”

This directly contradicts what I told Rory the other night, when I said it was too dangerous for him to sneak out, but Rory is not beating up kids with rocks. Jenna is.

Still, he notices. He rolls his eyes at me. We haven’t said a lot to each other since our talk in the backyard. I am not sure if he is angry because he was caught sneaking out or angry because I asked if he used drugs. Probably both.

When no one has anything else to say about Owen, the conversation turns to Saturday. Rory is playing golf. Jenna has a soccer game, and it is Millicent’s turn to go. I am working. We will all meet for lunch.

Owen does not come up again until later, after dinner is over and the dishes are done and the kids have gone to sleep. Millicent is in our bathroom, getting ready for bed, while I watch the news and wait for her. She comes out wearing one of my T-shirts from the club and a pair of sweats, her face shiny with lotion. She rubs it on her hands while staring at the TV.