The Other Mrs.(87)

I’ve no sooner found my feet than I go to the heater, dropping to my knees before the oscillating fan.

“Officer Berg,” I just manage to say, lips sluggish from the cold. My back is to the woman. “Officer Berg, please.”

“Yes,” she says, “yes, of course,” and before I know what’s happening, she’s screaming for him. She graciously reaches past me to turn the space heater to a higher speed, and I press my hands to it, burning from the cold.

“There’s someone here to see you,” she says uneasily, and I turn.

When he appears, Officer Berg says nothing. He walks quickly because of the screaming, because of the edge in his secretary’s voice that warns him something is wrong. He takes in my pajamas as he moves past me for the coffeepot. He fills a disposable cup with coffee and extends it to me in an effort to warm me up. He helps me rise to my feet, pressing the cup into my hands. I don’t drink it, but the heat off the cup feels good to touch. I feel grateful for it. The storm perseveres outside, the entirety of the little building shuddering at times. Lights flicker; the walls whine. He reaches for a coat on a coatrack and wraps me in it.

“I have to speak with you,” I tell him, the desperation and fatigue in my voice palpable.

Officer Berg leads me down the hall. We sit side by side at a small expandable table. The room is bare.

“What are you doing here, Dr. Foust?” he asks me, his tone thoughtful and concerned, but also leery. “Heck of a day to be outside,” he says.

I find myself shaking uncontrollably. For as much as I try, I can’t warm up. My hands are wrapped around the cup of coffee. Officer Berg gives me a nudge and tells me to drink up.

But it’s not the cold that makes me shake.

I start to tell him everything, but before I can, Officer Berg says, “I received a call from your husband a short while ago,” and my words get stuck in my throat. I’m at a loss, wondering why Will called him after we’d agreed that we’d come see him together.

“You did?” I ask instead, sitting upright, because these aren’t words I expected to hear. Officer Berg nods his head slowly. He has an uncanny way of maintaining eye contact. I struggle not to look away. I ask, “What did he want?” bracing myself for the officer’s reply.

“He was worried about you,” Officer Berg says, and I feel myself relax. Will called because he was worried about me.

“Of course,” I say, softening in the chair. Perhaps he tried to call me first, and when I didn’t answer the phone, he called Officer Berg. Perhaps he asked Officer Berg to check on me and see if I was all right. “The weather. And the ferry delay. I was upset the last time we spoke.”

“Yes,” he says. “Mr. Foust told me.”

I start, again sitting upright.

“He told you I was upset?” I ask on the defense, because this is personal, not something Will needed to tell the police.

He nods. “He’s worried about you. He said you were upset about some washcloth,” and it’s then that the conversation shifts, because it’s patronizing the way he says it. As if I’m just some stupid ninny running off at the mouth about a washcloth.

“Oh,” I say, and I leave it at that.

“I was getting ready to head to your house and check on you. You saved me a trip,” he says. Officer Berg tells me the afternoon commute will be messy because the local schools weren’t called off ahead of the storm. The only saving grace is that the snow is to slow in the hours to come.

And then Officer Berg begins to pry. “You want to tell me about this washcloth?”

“I found a washcloth,” I tell him slowly, “covered in blood. In my laundry room.” And then because I’ve said that much already, I go on. “I found the knife buried in my backyard.”

He doesn’t so much as blink. “The knife that was used to kill Mrs. Baines?” he asks.

“I believe so,” I say. “Yes. It had blood on it.”

“Where is the knife now, Doctor?”

“It’s in my backyard.”

“You left it there?”

“I did.”

“Did you touch it?”

“No,” I say.

“Whereabouts in your backyard?” he asks, and I try to describe it for him, though I imagine that by now the knife is engulfed in snow.

“And what about this washcloth? Where is that?”

“Under the washing machine. In the laundry room,” I tell him. He asks if there’s blood on that still, too, and I say yes. He excuses himself and leaves the room. For nearly thirty seconds he’s gone, and when he comes back, he tells me that Officer Bisset is going to my home to retrieve the washcloth and knife. I say to him, “My son is home,” but he assures me that’s all right, that Officer Bisset will be in and out quickly. That he won’t bother Otto.

“But I think, Officer,” I start and then just as soon stop. I don’t know how to say this. I pick at the rim of the disposable cup, pieces of foam coming with me, gathering in a pile on the tabletop like snow.

And then I come right out and say it. “I think maybe my son murdered Mrs. Baines,” I say. “Or maybe Imogen did.”

I expect more of a reaction. But instead he goes on, as if I didn’t just say those words aloud.