The Ex(29)

I stepped over a tipped stack of books on the floor. “Believe it or not, this is restrained. I had a client your age who was suspected of selling prescription Tylenol at school, and the police tore open the upholstery on the family sofa.”

“That’s bullshit. Sorry. I cuss. Dad says I must get it from Charlotte, because he’s like Flanders on The Simpsons. Totally G rated—he actually says ‘pluck a duck’ when he’s mad. Mom was, too. They started a swear jar when I was nine, but gave up when it was clear I didn’t have that many quarters.”

Jack and his fake cuss words. Cheese and crackers. Monkey flunker. And, yes, Pluck a duck. I thought it was endearing when we first got together. By the end, I wanted to stab him in the hand every time he’d dismiss my “cursing” as an “uncreative vocabulary.” I think being able to use one little four-letter word to convey a hundred different thoughts is pretty f*cking creative.

Buckley used the toe of her hot pink Doc Marten boot to gather the shards of a vase that had fallen from the media table onto the hardwood floor. “So where should I start?”

We were here so Buckley could give me a better idea of what police had seized from the apartment yesterday. They were required by law to file an inventory, but they also had a skill for vagueness. Bloody clothing matching the precise description of the clothes worn by an assailant became “three items of apparel.” A drug dealer’s journal, filled with customer names, numbers, and quantities, was a “spiral notebook.”

“Just try to picture the way things were and fill in what’s missing.” Chances are, I wouldn’t get trial discovery for months. The GSR on Jack’s shirt was bad enough. I didn’t want any other bombshells at this afternoon’s bail hearing.

“The only problem will be Dad’s room. Like, I don’t really go in there other than to put laundry on the bed.”

“What about his office?”

“We sort of share it.”

“Good, start there. If it’s okay with you, I’ll look around, too. Sometimes it also helps to know what police have left behind.”

“You said that like you expect to find something, like Dad’s guilty.”

“That’s not what I meant, Buckley.” Or hadn’t it been? I’d been thinking about cases where police tore apart a living room only to miss the loose floorboard beneath the sofa. Or, more commonly, they overlooked evidence if they didn’t realize its significance. So, yes, I must have entertained the possibility that there might be something to find. I told myself this was a good sign; I was letting my instincts as an attorney take over, even though I was dealing with Jack. But that’s not what I told Buckley. “If I can compare what they took to what they left behind, it can help me figure out what the police might be thinking.”

I wasn’t sure the lie made any sense, but she seemed placated and began reshelving books, one by one.


I LEFT BUCKLEY TO HER work in the living room and gave myself a tour of the apartment. Prewar. Three bedrooms. Probably close to eighteen hundred square feet. A palace by Greenwich Village standards. A console table in the hallway was identical to one I’d bought for our offices two years earlier.

When I reached Jack’s bedroom, I closed the door behind me. The half of the bed closer to the door was more rumpled than the other. That was Jack’s side when we were together.

Dresser drawers had been left open. I picked up some socks and T-shirts from the floor and tossed them on the bed. I moved on to the closet. Clothes on hangers, shoes neatly arranged on the floor.

Scanning the two-page property receipt again, I confirmed that no apparel had been taken.

The shelf above the hanging rod was too high to reach, but it looked like items had been pulled off and then shoved back into place haphazardly. I recognized a white square in the middle as a bread machine, the kind of storage that made sense only in New York City.

In the far corner of the room, a nightstand drawer was partially open. Half tubes of night creams and lip balms, an old bottle of Chanel No. 5 layered in dust. How do you throw out your dead wife’s perfume? On the other side of the bed, Jack’s nightstand was close to empty—reading glasses, loose change.

I found a small step stool in the back corner of the closet, stepped up cautiously, and began pulling down bins and boxes, placing them on the bed. I even checked inside the bread machine. Empty.

A canvas bin contained nothing but baseball hats and T-shirts—a crab shack on the Cape, “NOLA Proud,” Mickey Mouse. Most of them were tiny, probably Buckley’s souvenirs from before she talked like a sailor. I felt like I was watching Jack’s life on fast-forward.

I reached the final container: a faded Cole Hahn shoe box. Two different kinds of packing tape hung loosely from the box top. Inside were old birthday cards, ticket stubs, a cardboard coaster from a Parisian café. I pulled out all the photographs mixed into the pile and began flipping through them. I paused three pictures in. Owen and Jack, windblown hair and tanned faces, their matching green eyes smiling at the camera, sun-sparkled ocean water in the background. It was Montauk. Junior year for me and Jack. First year on the job for Owen. Things were still good then, before the engagement. We were happy, and everything seemed easy. That, to me, was the first time I felt anything I was willing to call love. They surfed. I picked up lobster rolls to go from Cyril’s Fish House. And I took this picture.