A Good Marriage

by Kimberly McCreight

  “A writer.”

  Zach searched my eyes for a second.

  “A writer sounds … very, um, creative.” Zach smiled. “I’m glad you’re happy. I’ve thought about you over the years, wondered how you were. It’s good to see it all worked out.”

  It didn’t. None of it worked out.

  I looked down at the table in silence. We needed to get back to the point.

  “Where is your son?”

  “He’s at sleepaway camp in California with his best friend.” Zach smiled weakly. “Amanda didn’t want him to go, but we moved here in the middle of the school year, and he missed his friends. Amanda was good that way. She always made the choices that were best for Case, even when they were hard on her. I can’t tell Case on the phone about what’s happened—that would just be so … But he needs to know about Amanda.”

  “What about your mom?”

  He looked confused for a moment. “Oh, she passed away.”

  “I’m sorry. Maybe the parents of Case’s friend should tell him, then?” I suggested. “Do you think they’d go get him from the camp?”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Zach said quietly. “To be honest, I don’t really know them. The friend’s name is Billy, I think.”

  “I could call and ask the camp,” I offered. “I’m sure they’d know how to reach Billy’s family.”

  “That would be great, thanks,” Zach said. “But I don’t even know the camp’s name. Amanda handled all that.” He paused. “That probably makes me sound like an asshole, doesn’t it? I bet you aren’t rushing home to put a hot meal on the table every night for Richard.”

  I laughed a little too loud.

  “No, but every marriage is different,” I said, and my judgments aside—because I was judging it—it didn’t make Zach a bad person if he had a traditional marriage, provided that’s what his wife also wanted. “Is the information on the camp at your house somewhere?”

  “I’m sure it is. There’s a small desk in the living room where Amanda kept her papers. All the forms and information for the camp should be in there.”

  “Does somebody in the neighborhood have a key to the house?” I asked. “That would be much faster than me trying to track down yours in inventory here.”

  “There should be one under the planter out front,” he said. “Amanda kept it there for Case, for emergencies.”

  “You have a key to your house under a plant in front of your door?” I asked. “In New York City?”

  “It does sound stupid now,” Zach said. “Honestly, I never thought about it before. Park Slope feels so safe.”

  “We should make sure the police know about the extra key. It opens up potential suspects,” I said. “Is there anybody else I can call for you? Extended family, friends? Somebody from work?”

  Somebody, for instance, who Zach had actually seen in the past eleven years? At a minimum, he must have had whole teams of employees who would be clamoring to step up to the plate.

  Zach looked down again, shook his head. “The people in my life now, they don’t really know me.” He motioned to his injured face. “I can’t have them seeing me like this.”

  I nodded. “I understand.”

  But did I? Was there really no one he was close enough to? And what was that little flutter in my chest? Was I flattered that I was apparently an exception?

  “You and I,” he went on, answering the question I hadn’t asked, “I always thought we were kind of kindred spirits, you know? I never felt like you judged me.”

  “I didn’t,” I said. “I wouldn’t.”

  Zach looked up at me, his one eye glassy. He hadn’t just gotten better looking, he’d softened, too.

  “Anyway, I know the front door was locked when we left for the party because I locked it. But the alarm was malfunctioning. Amanda had an appointment to get it fixed—one of the last things I did was complain that she hadn’t done it yet. Nice, right?” He closed his eyes for a moment as if in pain. “Anyway, Amanda would have locked the door behind her once she got home, too. She was like that: nervous.”

  “Nervous how?” If there was a reason, maybe it pointed to something, or someone, other than Zach.

  He shrugged. “She was from a really small town, and her family was poor, like going-hungry poor. She didn’t like to talk about it, but sometimes I think she got overwhelmed by these neighborhoods we lived in, the people. Even the wives who don’t work are impressive: fancy educations, community involvement. Amanda was smart, but she didn’t even go to college. I think she worried about being found out. It made her jumpy. Maybe I pushed her too hard to be something she wasn’t.” He looked up at me. He seemed genuinely regretful. “But she was more capable than she realized. I just wanted her to be her best self, you know?”

  The way he said “best self” set my teeth on edge. But then Zach had always been big on self-improvement, even for himself. And it was hard to argue with his results.

  “Sure, yeah,” I said, because Zach seemed to be waiting for me to agree. “That makes sense.”

  His face darkened then. “I went to do the CPR, you know, but Amanda was ice cold. And the blood, when I stepped in it, was so thick, like glue. And I—” Zach pressed a hand to his mouth. Hadn’t he said on the phone that he had done CPR? I could have sworn that he had, but maybe he’d misspoken. Or maybe he was ashamed to admit the truth. “The police made something of that when they came, like ‘Why didn’t I have more blood on me?’ ‘Had I changed my clothes after I killed her?’ ‘Did I not even bother to do CPR because I didn’t love my wife?’ ‘Which was it?’ It had to be one or the other, according to them. But she was so cold, that was the explanation, and I—people think they know how they’ll act. But you don’t know until something like that happens to you. It’s much worse than you think.”

  It was. I knew that firsthand. Only last week, I’d woken to find Sam passed out on our living-room floor with a gash to his head. There had been so much blood. On Sam’s hands and shirt, smeared under his head on the hardwood floor. I’d rushed over, sure he was dead. But he moaned when I touched him, the alcohol radiating off his body. I could not imagine what it would have felt like if he’d been cold to the touch.

  “You’re right,” I said. “No one does know what they’d do.”

  Nonetheless, Zach’s clean clothes were a problematic fact that the police had already demonstrated could be used to their advantage in multiple ways. Though presumably they hadn’t yet located another, bloody set of Zach’s clothes—otherwise he’d surely be under arrest for murder.

  “I don’t know what happened to Amanda, Lizzie. I wasn’t home when she died,” Zach went on. “But she might be alive if I was a better husband.”

  Whatever that meant, Zach needed to never say it again. It was tantamount to a confession.

  “Um, I wouldn’t—”

  “I left her at that party, texted her after I was already gone. Because that’s what I do: leave. Leave it to Amanda to explain me. Leave it to her to build our life. And she always does.” He paused, sucked in some air. “Did. She always did. I probably never once said thank you, either.”

  “No one is perfect,” I offered. “Especially no one who is married.”

  He gave a grim smile. “We didn’t argue. I’ll give us that. We were not fighters. Our home life was pleasant. Case is a great kid. Were Amanda and I exceptionally close?” He shook his head. “Honestly, I always looked at marriage as a practical arrangement. And now my wife is dead, so that’s going to be the reason I did it, right? Because I’m detached? Unemotional? The asinine part is that I didn’t even have to leave that party. I left because I got bored. I went to go take a walk on the—”

  My hand shot up like a traffic cop’s. “No, no. Don’t get into specifics.”

  “But my story isn’t going to change, Lizzie. Because it’s not a story. It’s the truth.”

  “It doesn’t matt—”

  “I was on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. Walking. By myself. The water, th
e lights of Manhattan. I used to go walking when we were in Philly all the time, remember?” Did I? I wasn’t sure. I was sure Zach was going to make for a frustrating client. He didn’t listen. “Anyway, I already told the police that’s where I was. I told them everything they wanted to know about the golf club, too. They were like, ‘Is that yours?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s—’”

  “Zach!” I shouted so loud this time he flinched. “Seriously, stop it. This isn’t helping your situation.”

  “But it was my house, of course it was my golf club,” he said defiantly. “I didn’t kill Amanda; why should I have to lie about anything?”

  Ugh, admitting ownership of the alleged murder weapon to the police was a statement against penal interest. Admissible hearsay. I made a mental note to tell whatever attorney I eventually secured about the statements—dealing with them would need to be near the top of his list. I needed to get out of there before I did any more damage. I just needed enough information to get Zach a lawyer and to get that lawyer started on the bail appeal.

  “Can we get back to the physical altercation with the officer? The alleged assault.” This, any lawyer would want to know about before taking Zach’s case.

  “Obviously, I wasn’t the one who started it,” Zach said, motioning to himself, presumably to his slight stature, which, while significantly more solid than it had once been, still did not make him seem especially likely to pick a fight with a cop.

  “The officer did?” I asked.

  “I don’t know what you consider ‘starting it,’ but there was this one police officer who got in my face after the crime scene people got there, pointing at the golf club: ‘You hit your wife with that club, didn’t you? Why? She nagging you? Cheating? Maybe you grabbed one of your clubs to scare her. You swung it and next thing you know she’s down. You panic.’ He wouldn’t let up. And then somebody else started in, calling me a liar, saying that I was making up that I was out taking a walk. That it was a stupid lie. ‘You stupid?’ he kept saying over and over again.” This seemed exaggerated, but not totally impossible. Rattle the suspect by screaming at him: it was a thing that was done. “Anyway, then that plainclothes detective came over to my one side and was like, ‘Come on, let’s go outside to talk more about this.’ And I said, ‘I’m not leaving my wife.’ Then somebody on my other side grabbed my arm, and I jerked back. Hard, definitely. But it was a reflex.” He lifted his elbow and swung, demonstrating. “Anyway, I guess there was another officer behind me, and I ended up hitting him in the face.”

  “And then they arrested you?”

  “There was some back-and-forth first. An EMT looked at the cop’s nose, then everybody calmed down and it seemed like they were going to drop it,” Zach said. “Then the guy in the suit talked to the plainclothes detective—I didn’t hear what he said. But a minute later they arrested me for assaulting an officer.”

  “But not murder?”

  Zach shook his head. “Only the assault. I think even the cop I hit wanted to let me go, and he was the one bleeding. He kept saying, ‘The guy’s wife is dead.’ But I got the feeling the guy in the suit was looking for a reason to arrest me.”

  Which, of course, would make sense. If you have reasonable cause to hold a murder suspect, you do. Period.

  “Did you tell all of this to the lawyer who represented you at the arraignment?” I asked. “The public defender.”

  Zach frowned uncertainly. “I’m not sure. Like I said, I wasn’t very clearheaded at the time.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I can track down your public defender and ask him. Do you know his name?”

  “Um, Adam,” he said. “Roth something. He has a new baby and lives on Staten Island. We talked about the ferry.”

  I could picture a nervous junior public defender—the kind assigned to pick up cases at arraignment—going on and on about his personal life with a half-catatonic Zach.

  “I’ll find him. If he’s already spoken with the DA, he may have a better lay of the land.”

  “Does that mean you’ve changed your mind? That you’ll take my case?” Zach reached forward and gripped the small edge of the plexiglass frame in front of him.

  “I am sorry, Zach,” I said, more firmly, but I hoped with kindness. “You really do need someone with extensive state felony experience. Murders, specifically. Someone who knows DNA, crime scene forensics, blood typing, and fingerprints. I know forensic accounting. I also don’t know any of the players in the Brooklyn DA’s office. A lot of what you need in these cases is back channel.”

  “What I need is a fighter, Lizzie.” Zach’s eyes were fiery now. “My life is on the line.”

  “I’m not a partner. I cannot bring in my own clients at Young & Crane. Period.”

  “I can pay the fees, whatever they are.”

  “You could probably buy our whole firm if you wanted to,” I said. “These decisions aren’t about fees.”

  “Ah.” Zach nodded and sat back. “They don’t want their name associated with an accused murderer. I get it.”

  “You know how these firms are. Their morality is arbitrary.”

  “Hey, I wouldn’t want my company associated with any crime, much less a violent one. Beyond reproach, that’s the goal.”

  “Five minutes remaining,” a voice over the loudspeaker called. “Visiting hours will conclude in five minutes. Please proceed to the nearest exit.”

  I stood and lifted my pad. “I’ll make some calls. I’ll find you a fantastic defense lawyer, and I’ll get them up to speed. The priority is obviously getting you out on bail.” I studied his bruised face and damaged eye. “Anyway, I wouldn’t know who to ask at Young & Crane about taking on a case.”

  Zach pulled his chin back. “Wait, but you could ask someone? You haven’t already been told no?”

  Shit. I looked down and exhaled in a long stream. Why, why, why had I said that? Then again, maybe it wasn’t the worst approach—Young & Crane would certainly say no. Paul had once specifically said something about associates not being able to take on their own cases. After he officially said no, I would officially be off the hook.

  “I guess I can ask,” I said finally. “But they will say no.”

  “Sure, yeah. Okay,” Zach said, but I could tell he wasn’t listening.

  “Zach, I’m serious,” I said. “It won’t change anything.”

  “I understand, I do. And thank you.” His stare lingered. He smiled slightly.

  “Visiting hours have now ended!” came a louder, more insistent voice on the intercom. “Please proceed to the exit immediately!”

  “I’ve got to go,” I said. “I should have a lot more information by end of day tomorrow if you call then. Let’s say seven p.m.? Here’s my cell.” I wrote out the number and held it up so Zach could copy it down correctly. “I’ll be sure to pick up.”

  “Thank you, Lizzie,” Zach said. He pressed a hand flat against the dirty plexiglass, looked at me imploringly. “Thank you.”

  I hesitated before pressing my hand up to meet his. It was a weirdly intimate gesture, even though we weren’t physically touching.

  “Try not to worry,” I said, and pulled my hand away.

  “Because there’s nothing to worry about?” he asked. “Or because it won’t help?”

  “Both,” I said, before heading for the door.

  I was breathing hard as I made it up the stairs to our fourth-floor walk-up. I’d googled Amanda on the way home. There was nothing specifically about her death, but there had been stories in the Post and the Daily News about a murder in Park Slope over the weekend: “Peril in Park Slope” and “Slope Slay” were the headlines, respectively. Both stories featured a nearly identical photo—an ambulance parked outside a brownstone, a half-dozen police cars, police tape. Both had also been very light on detail, with no mention of Zach’s or Amanda’s names: “Pending notification of the family,” the papers demurred. They did not mention a cause of death either, but did indicate that an arrest had been mad
e and that the police did not believe there was any risk to public safety. Sam and I had been at an old friend’s house at the Jersey Shore for the July Fourth weekend, so I’d missed the entire thing.

  My searching did unearth lots of other pictures of Amanda and Zach elsewhere online—charity events, profiles of Zach. Amanda was beautiful. Hauntingly so. Thin and gazelle-like, with long, thick blond hair. She was the opposite in every way of my dark features and sturdy, capable frame. I couldn’t find mention of her age anywhere, but she looked young. Very young.

  I was trying to imagine just how young as I stepped inside our apartment, the quiet and that familiar stuffiness greeting me. It was late, almost eleven. But Sam was usually up. Please don’t be out, I thought. Please don’t be out.

  I dumped my bag in the hallway and worked my way out of my high heels, before stopping in the kitchen for a glass of water and something to eat. I grabbed a handful of Twizzlers out of the huge bag I kept tucked, pointlessly, out of sight. As I pulled the Brita from the refrigerator, I saw tomorrow’s lunch already packed for me. Oh, Sam, if only there existed enough turkey sandwiches in the world to make up for everything.

  From the doorway to the dim living room I saw him, dead asleep on the couch. And I was pretty sure asleep and not passed out. He was curled on his side, the Yankees–Red Sox game on, sound muted.

  I approached quietly and leaned over him. He didn’t smell of alcohol—that’s what we were reduced to, me smelling him—and on the coffee table was a bottle of seltzer. I lowered myself onto the edge of the table and watched him sleep. He looked so perfect like that, sandy blond hair tousled over his angled cheekbones. Sam’s deep-set, bright blue eyes were lovely, but so troubled these days. Asleep, he was only beautiful.

  He was trying, too. So hard. I did love him for that. Sam had stopped drinking cold turkey for two whole months after the car accident. Since I’d joined Young & Crane four months ago, there’d been the occasional beer at a baseball game, or a glass of wine at a friend’s dinner party. But he hadn’t been drunk again—certainly not passed out, bleeding drunk—not until last week.