The Couple Next Door

by Shari Lapena

  He shrugs, averts his eyes. “I don’t know. Just be careful. Don’t let them get to you.”

  She nods, but she is more worried now, not less.

  At that moment Detective Rasbach approaches them. He doesn’t smile. “Thank you for coming. This way, please.”

  He leads Anne to a different interview room this time, the one they’ve been using for Marco. They leave Marco alone in the waiting area. Anne stops at the door of the interview room and turns to look back at him. He smiles at her, a nervous smile.

  She goes in.

  TWENTY

  Anne sits down in the seat offered to her. As she sinks into it, she can feel her knees give way. Jennings offers her a cup of coffee, but she shakes her head no, because she doesn’t trust herself not to spill it. She is more anxious this time than the last time she was interviewed. She wonders about the police, why they’re so suspicious of her and Marco. If anything, the police should be less suspicious of them after they received the onesie in the mail, and after the money had been taken. Obviously, someone else has their baby.

  The detectives take their seats across from her.

  “I’m so sorry,” Detective Rasbach begins, “about yesterday.”

  She says nothing. Her mouth is dry. She clasps her hands in her lap.

  “Please relax,” Rasbach says gently.

  She nods nervously, but she cannot relax. She doesn’t trust him.

  “I just have a few questions, about what happened yesterday,” he tells her.

  She nods again, licks her lips.

  “Why didn’t you call us when you got the package in the mail?” the detective asks. His tone is friendly enough.

  “We thought it was too risky,” Anne says. Her voice is unsteady. She clears her throat. “The note said no police.” She reaches for the bottle of water that has been placed on the table for her. She fumbles with the cap. Her hand is shaking slightly as she moves the bottle to her lips.

  “Is that what you thought?” Rasbach asks. “Or is that what Marco thought?”

  “We both thought so.”

  “Why did you handle the onesie so much? Any evidence it might have offered us has been contaminated, unfortunately.”

  “Yes, I know, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I could smell Cora on it, so I carried it around with me, to have her near me.” She begins to cry. “It brought her back to me. It was like I could almost pretend she was in her crib, sleeping. That none of this ever happened.”

  Rasbach nods and says, “I understand. We’ll run whatever tests we can on the garment and the note.”

  “You think she’s dead, don’t you?” Anne says woodenly, looking him directly in the eye.

  Rasbach returns her look. “I don’t know. She may still be alive. We will not stop searching for her.”

  Anne takes a tissue from the box on the table and presses it against her eyes.

  “I’ve been wondering,” Rasbach says, leaning back casually in his chair, “about your babysitter.”

  “Our babysitter? Why?” Anne asks, startled. “She didn’t even come that night.”

  “I know. I’m just curious. Is she a good babysitter?”

  Anne shrugs, not knowing where this is going. “She’s good with Cora. She obviously likes babies—and a lot of girls don’t really. They just babysit for the money.” She thinks about Katerina. “She’s usually reliable. You can’t blame her that her grandmother died. Although—if only she hadn’t, we might still have Cora.”

  “Let me ask you this: If someone wanted to know whether you’d recommend her, would you?” Rasbach asks.

  Anne bites her lip. “No, I don’t think so. She tends to fall asleep with her earbuds in, listening to music. When we get home, we have to wake her. So no, I wouldn’t recommend her.”

  Rasbach nods, makes a note. Then he looks up and says, “Tell me about your husband.”

  “What about my husband?”

  “What kind of man is he?”

  “He’s a good man,” Anne says firmly, sitting up straighter in her chair. “He’s loving and kind. He’s smart and thoughtful and hardworking.” She pauses, then says in a rush, “He’s the best thing that ever happened to me, other than Cora.”

  “Is he a good provider?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because it’s true,” Anne snaps.

  “But isn’t it also true that it was your parents who set your husband up in business? And you told me yourself that your parents paid for your house.”

  “Just a minute,” Anne says. “My parents did not ‘set my husband up in business,’ as you put it. Marco has degrees in computer science and business. He started his own company, and he was very successful on his own. My parents just invested in it, later on. He was already doing very well. You can’t fault Marco as a businessman.” Even as she says this, Anne is faintly aware of the financial information she came across on Marco’s computer the other day. She hadn’t looked deeply into it at the time, and she hasn’t asked Marco about it; now she wonders if she’s just lied to the police.

  “Do you believe your husband is honest with you?”

  Anne blushes. And then hates it that she’s given herself away. She takes her time answering. “Yes. I believe he is honest with me”—she falters—“most of the time.”

  “Most of the time? Shouldn’t honesty be an ‘all of the time’ thing?” Rasbach asks, leaning forward slightly.

  “I heard you,” Anne confesses suddenly. “The night after the kidnapping. I was at the top of the stairs. I heard you accusing Marco of making out with Cynthia. She said Marco came on to her, and he denied it.”

  “I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that you were listening.”

  “I’m sorry, too. I wish I didn’t know about it.” She looks down at her hands in her lap, clutching the bunched-up tissue.

  “Do you think he made sexual advances toward Cynthia, or do you think it was the other way around, as Marco says?”

  Anne twists the tissue in her hands. “I don’t know. They’re both at fault.” She looks up at him. “I’ll never forgive either one of them,” she says rashly.

  “Let’s go back,” Rasbach prompts. “You say your husband is a good provider. Does he share with you how his business is doing?”

  She shreds the tissue into small pieces. “I haven’t taken a lot of interest in the business these days,” Anne says. “I’ve been absorbed with the baby.”

  “He hasn’t been telling you how the business is going?”

  “Not recently, no.”

  “Don’t you think that’s a bit odd?” Rasbach asks.

  “Not at all,” Anne says, thinking as she does that it is odd. “I’ve been really busy with the baby.” Her voice breaks.

  “The tire tracks in your garage—they don’t match your car,” Rasbach says. “Someone used your garage shortly before the kidnapping. You saw the baby in her crib at midnight. Marco was in your house with the baby at twelve thirty. We have a witness who saw a car driving down the lane away from the direction of your garage at twelve thirty-five a.m. There’s no evidence that anyone else was inside the house or yard. Perhaps at twelve thirty Marco took the baby out to an accomplice who was waiting in a car in your garage.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Anne says, her voice rising.

  “Do you have any idea who that accomplice might be?” Rasbach persists.

  “You’re wrong,” Anne says.

  “Am I?”

  “Yes. Marco didn’t take Cora.”

  “Let me tell you something,” Rasbach says, leaning forward. “Your husband’s business is in trouble. Deep trouble.”

  Anne feels herself go paler. “It is?” she says.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “To be honest, Detective, I don’t really care if
the business is in trouble. Our baby is gone. What does either of us care now about money?”

  “It’s just that . . .” Rasbach pauses, as if changing his mind about what he’s going to say. He looks at Jennings.

  “What?” Anne glances nervously back and forth between the two detectives.

  “It’s just that I see things in your husband that you may not see,” Rasbach says.

  Anne does not want to take the bait. But the detective waits, letting the silence expand. She has no choice. “Like what?”

  Rasbach asks, “Don’t you think it’s a bit manipulative of him not to be honest with you about the business?”

  “No, not if I didn’t show any interest. He was probably trying to protect me, because I’ve been depressed.” Rasbach says nothing, just regards her with his sharp blue eyes. “Marco is not manipulative,” Anne insists.

  “What about the relationship between Marco and your parents? Marco and your father?” Rasbach says.

  “I told you, they don’t like each other. They tolerate each other, for me. But that’s my parents’ fault. No matter what Marco does, it’s never good enough. I could have married anyone, and it would have been the same.”

  “Why do you think that is?”

  “I don’t know. That’s just the way they are. They’re overprotective and hard to please. Maybe it’s because I’m an only child.” She has reduced the tissue in her lap to crumbs. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter about the business, not really. My parents have a lot of money. They could always help us if we needed it.”

  “But would they?”

  “Of course they would. All I’d have to do is ask. My parents have never denied me anything. They came up with five million dollars just like that for Cora.”

  “Yes, they did.” The detective pauses, then says, “I tried to see Dr. Lumsden, but apparently she’s away.”

  Anne feels the blood drain from her face but forces herself to sit up straight. She knows he can’t have talked to Dr. Lumsden. Even after she returns, there is no way Dr. Lumsden will talk to the detective about her. “She won’t tell you anything about me,” Anne says. “She can’t. She’s my doctor, and you know it. Why are you toying with me this way?”

  “You’re right. I can’t get your doctor to breach doctor-patient privilege.”

  Anne leans back in her chair and gives the detective an annoyed look.

  “Is there anything you’d like to tell me, though?” the detective asks.

  “Why would I talk to you about my sessions with my psychiatrist? It’s none of your goddamned business,” Anne says bitterly. “I have mild postpartum depression like lots of other new mothers. It doesn’t mean I harmed my baby. I want nothing more than to get her back.”

  “I can’t help thinking it’s possible that Marco might have had the baby taken away to cover up for you, if you killed her.”

  “That’s crazy! Then how do you explain our getting the onesie in the mail and the ransom money being taken?”

  “Marco might have faked the kidnapping, after the baby was already dead. And the empty car seat, the hit on the head—maybe that was all for show.”

  She gives him a disbelieving stare. “That’s absurd. And I did not harm my baby, Detective.”

  Rasbach fiddles with his pen, watching her. “I had your mother in for an interview earlier this morning.”

  Anne feels the room begin to spin.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Rasbach watches Anne carefully, fears she might faint. He waits while she reaches for the bottle of water, waits for her color to return.

  There is nothing he can do about the psychiatrist. His hands are tied. He hadn’t gotten any further with the mother, but Anne is obviously afraid that she’d said something. Rasbach is pretty sure he knows what she’s afraid of. “What do you think your mother told me?” Rasbach asks.

  “I don’t think she told you anything,” Anne says sharply. “There’s nothing to tell.”

  He considers her for a few moments. Thinks how different she is from her mother—a very composed woman, busy with her social committees and charities and much more canny than her daughter. Certainly less emotional, with a clearer head. Alice Dries had come into the interview room, smiled icily, stated her name, and then told him she had nothing to say to him. It was a very short interview.

  “She didn’t tell me she was coming in this morning,” Anne says.

  “Didn’t she?”

  “What did she say?” Anne asks.

  “You’re right, she didn’t say anything,” Rasbach admits.

  Anne smiles for the first time in the interview, but it’s a bitter smile.

  “I have, however, spoken to one of your old schoolmates. A Janice Foegle.”

  Anne goes completely still, like an animal in the wild sensing a predator. Then she stands up abruptly, her chair scraping the floor behind her, taking Rasbach and Jennings by surprise. “I have nothing more to say,” she tells them.

  Anne joins Marco in the lobby. Marco notices her distress, and puts his arm protectively around her. Anne can feel Rasbach’s eyes on them, watching as they leave. She says nothing as she and Marco walk out of the station. Once they’re on the street and hailing a cab, she says, “I think it’s time we got a lawyer.”

  • • •

  Rasbach is putting pressure on them, and it doesn’t look as if he’s going to let up. It has come to the point that even though they haven’t been charged, they know they’re being treated like suspects.

  Marco is anxious about what happened in the interview between Anne and Detective Rasbach. There was panic in her eyes when she came out. Something in that interview had rattled her enough to make her want to get a lawyer as soon as possible. He tried to find out what it was, but she was vague, evasive. What is she not telling him? It’s putting him even more on edge.

  When they arrive home and have fought their way past the reporters into the house, Anne suggests they invite her parents over to discuss hiring a lawyer.

  “Why do we need to have your parents over?” Marco says. “We can find a lawyer without their help.”

  “A good lawyer will expect a hefty retainer,” Anne points out. Marco shrugs, and she calls her parents.

  Richard and Alice arrive soon after. It comes as no great surprise that they’ve already been looking into the best lawyers money can buy.

  “I’m sorry it’s come to this, Anne,” her father says.

  They are sitting around the kitchen table, the early-afternoon sunlight slanting through the kitchen window and falling across the wooden table. Anne has made a pot of coffee.

  “We think it’s a good idea to get a lawyer, too,” Alice says. “You can’t trust the police.”

  Anne looks at her. “Why didn’t you tell me they had you in for questioning this morning?”

  “There was no need, and I didn’t want to worry you,” Alice says, reaching out and patting Anne’s hand. “All I told them was my name, and that I had nothing to say. I’m not going to let them push me around,” she says. “I was only in there for about five minutes.”

  “They questioned me, too,” Richard says. “They didn’t get anything from me either.” He turns his eyes on Marco. “I mean, what can I possibly tell them?”

  Marco feels a jolt of fear. He doesn’t trust Richard. But would Richard say anything to the police to stab him in the back?

  Richard tells Anne, “They haven’t charged you with anything, and I don’t think they will—I don’t see how they can. But I agree with your mother—if you’re represented by a top defense lawyer, maybe they’ll stop pushing you around and calling you in for questioning all the time and start focusing on who really took Cora.”

  Throughout this entire meeting at the kitchen table, Richard has been colder than usual to Marco. Richard barely looks at him. They have all noticed it. No one has made more car
eful note of it than Marco. How stoic he’s being, Marco thinks, about my losing their five million dollars. He hasn’t mentioned it once. He doesn’t have to. But Marco knows what Richard is thinking: My useless son-in-law screwed up again. Marco imagines Richard sitting around in the lounge at the country club, drinking expensive liquor, telling his rich friends all about it. About what a fuckup his son-in-law is. How Richard has lost his beloved only grandchild and five million of his hard-earned dollars, all because of Marco. And what’s worse, Marco knows that this time it’s true.

  “In fact,” Richard says, “we’ve taken the liberty of putting one on retainer, as of this morning.”

  “Who?” Anne asks.

  “Aubrey West.”

  Marco looks up, clearly unhappy. “Really?”

  “He’s one of the best goddamned criminal lawyers in the country,” Richard says, his voice rising a notch. “And we’re paying. Do you have a problem with that?”

  Anne is looking at Marco, pleading with him silently to let it go, to accept the gift.

  “Maybe,” Marco says.

  “What’s wrong with having the best lawyer we can get?” Anne asks. “Don’t worry about the money, Marco.”

  Marco says, “It’s not the expense I’m worried about. It just looks like overkill to me. Like we’re guilty and we need a lawyer who’s famous for big, high-profile murder cases. Doesn’t that lump us in with his other clients? Make us look bad?”

  There’s silence around the table as they consider this. Anne looks worried. She hadn’t thought of it that way.

  “He gets a lot of guilty people off—so what? That’s his job,” Richard counters.

  “What do you mean by that?” Marco says, slightly menacing. Anne looks like she’s going to be sick. “Do you think we did this?”

  “Don’t be absurd,” Richard says, reddening. “I’m just being practical here. You might as well avail yourself of the best lawyer you can get. The police aren’t doing you any favors.”

  “Of course we don’t think you had anything to do with Cora’s disappearance,” Alice says, looking at her husband instead of either of them. “But you’re being vilified in the press. This lawyer may be able to put a stop to that. And I think you’re being persecuted by the police, who haven’t charged you and keep bringing you in under the guise of voluntary questioning—it’s got to stop. It’s harassment.”