The Other Mrs.(12)

Officer Berg dismisses this as an accident. He turns to me now. “But not you, Doctor?” he asks. “You haven’t noticed anything out of the ordinary?” I tell him no.

“How did Mrs. Baines seem the last time you spoke to her, Doctor?” Officer Berg asks me now. “Was she...?” he begins, but I stop him there and explain that I don’t know Morgan Baines. That we’ve never met.

“I’ve been busy since we arrived,” I say, apologizing, though there’s really no need to. “I just never found the time to stop by and introduce myself,” I tell him, thinking—though I don’t dare say it; that would be insensitive—that Morgan Baines also never found the time to stop by and introduce herself to me.

“Sadie’s schedule is fast and furious,” Will interjects, so that the officer doesn’t judge me for not making friends with the neighbors. I’m grateful for this. “She works long shifts, nearly every day of the week, it seems. My own schedule is the opposite. I teach only three courses, which overlap with Tate’s school schedule. It’s intentional. When he’s here, I’m here. Sadie’s the breadwinner,” Will admits with no indignity, no shame. “I’m the stay-at-home dad. We never wanted our children to be raised by a nanny,” he says, which was something we came up with long ago, before Otto was born. It was a personal choice. From a financial standpoint, it made sense that Will would be the one to stay home. I made more money than him, though we never talked about things like that. Will did his part; I did mine.

“I spoke to Morgan just a couple of days ago,” he says, answering the officer’s question for me. “She seemed fine, well enough at least. Their hot water heater was on the fritz. She was waiting on a repairman to see if it could be fixed. I tried to fix it myself. I’m handy enough,” he says, “just not that handy.

“Do you have any leads?” Will asks, changing topics. “Any signs of forced entry, any suspects?”

Officer Berg flips through his tablet and tells Will that he can’t reveal too much just yet. “But,” he tells Will, “what I can say is Mrs. Baines was killed between the hours of ten and two last night,” and there, on the arm of the sofa, I sit up straighter, staring out the window. Though the Baineses’ home is just out of view from where I sit, I can’t help but think about how last night as we were here, drinking wine and watching TV, she was there—just beyond my viewpoint—being murdered.

But that’s not all.

Because every night at eight thirty in the evening, the last ferry leaves. Which means that the killer spent the night among us, here on the island.

Officer Berg stands up quickly, startling me. I gasp, my hand going to my heart.

“Everything all right, Doctor?” he asks, gazing down at me, trembling.

“Fine,” I tell him. “Just fine.”

He runs his hands down the thighs of his pants, straightening them. “I suppose we’re all a bit jumpy today,” he tells me, and I nod my head and agree.

“Anything Sadie and I can do,” Will tells Officer Berg as he walks him to the front door. I rise from my seat and follow along. “Anything at all, please let us know. We’re here to help.”

Berg tips his hat at Will, a sign of gratitude. “I appreciate that. As you can imagine, the entirety of the island is on edge, people fearful for their lives. This kind of thing doesn’t bode well for tourism either. No one wants to visit when there’s a murderer on the loose. We’d like to get this wrapped up as quickly as we can. Anything you hear, anything you see...” he says, voice drifting, and Will says, “I understand.”

The murder of Morgan Baines is bad for business.

Officer Berg says his goodbyes. He hands Will a business card. He’s about to leave, but before he does, he has one last inquiry.

“How’s the house treating you?” he asks off topic, and Will replies that it’s been all right.

“It’s dated and, as dated things go, has issues. Drafty windows, a faulty furnace that we’ll need to replace.”

The officer grimaces. “A furnace isn’t cheap. That’ll run you a few grand.”

Will tells him he knows.

“Shame about Alice,” Officer Berg says then, meeting Will’s eye. Will echoes his sentiment.

It isn’t often that I broach the subject of Alice with Will. But there are things I find myself wanting to know, like what Alice was like, and if she and I would have gotten along if we’d ever had the chance to meet. I imagine that she was antisocial—though I’d never say that to Will. But I think that the pain of fibromyalgia would have kept her at home, away from any sort of social life.

“I never would have pegged her for the suicide type,” Officer Berg says then and, as he does, I get the sense that my instinct was wrong.

“What does that mean?” Will asks, a hint of defensiveness in his voice.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Officer Berg says, though clearly he does because he goes on to tell us how Alice, a regular at Friday night bingo, was affable and jolly when he saw her. How she had a smile that could light up a room. “I guess I just never understood how a person like that winds up taking their own life.”

The space between us fills with silence, tension. I don’t think he meant anything by it; the man is a bit socially awkward. Still, Will looks hurt. He says nothing. I’m the one to speak. “She suffered from fibromyalgia,” I say, realizing Officer Berg must not know this, or maybe he’s one of those people who think it’s more of a mental disorder than a medical one. Fibromyalgia is highly misunderstood. People believe it’s made up, that it isn’t real. There is no cure, and, on the surface, a person appears to be fine; there’s no test that can be used to diagnose fibromyalgia. Because of this, the diagnosis is based on symptoms alone—in other words, widespread pain that can’t otherwise be explained. For this reason, a large portion of physicians themselves question the credibility of the condition, often suggesting patients see a psychiatrist for treatment instead. It makes me sad to think about, Alice in so much pain and no one believing it.