by Megan Goldin
‘Well, call me old-fashioned, detective, but I found that very curious, now that you mention it. You see, Mrs West wasn’t ever pregnant.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
Julie
Matt’s late. Again. I don’t know why. He hasn’t bothered to tell me. He treats me like a housekeeper. Like I have no right to know about his comings and goings. Like he owes me nothing.
I call. His cellphone rings and rings. He doesn’t pick up. The next time I call, it goes straight to voicemail. I try his office. There’s no answer. He’s left me no messages on my cellphone or the home phone. He hasn’t bothered to call or text.
Come to think of it, he doesn’t need to tell me anything. I already know where he is. He’s at Emily’s apartment, no doubt decorated with black-and-white photographs of ballet dancers and colourful cushions thrown on her student sofa. And Matt in her bed, under her organic cotton sheets.
I feel incredibly sad. And angry. I thought this business with Laura might bring us closer. Instead, Matt is more remote than ever. It’s as if Laura’s died all over again and he’s back in mourning. Except this time he has a chance to bring her back to life through her clone, Emily.
He said nothing to me on the drive back from his mother’s house last night. He was in one of his strange, intense moods. Not a single word passed his lips. From the moment Matt switched on the car engine, we sat in an uncomfortable silence until he turned up the radio loud enough to cover the awkwardness. The only sound other than music was the gentle hum of Alice’s breathing, asleep in the back of the car.
Since then, nothing much has changed. We step around each other like strangers sharing the same house.
I open the fridge. There’s half a bottle of milk in the door, and three-quarters of a loaf of bread. I pour the milk down the drain. I push the remaining bread into the garbage disposal in the sink until there’s nothing left except the plastic bag.
‘We’re going for a drive, Alice,’ I announce as I snatch my car keys from the kitchen counter. She’s sitting on the floor in her pyjamas, bent over her sketchbook. ‘Put on your slippers and a dressing gown so you don’t get cold.’
‘Where are we driving to, Mommy?’ She looks up at me expectantly, holding a marker in her hand.
‘We’ve run out of milk and bread,’ I tell her. ‘I need to swing by the supermarket. Otherwise there won’t be anything to eat tomorrow for breakfast.’
I know the way to Emily’s apartment without having to use the GPS. It’s on a street corner, two blocks from campus, in a four-storey building with distinctive red-flecked bricks. There’s a willow tree on the front lawn and an entryway flanked by neatly trimmed hedges.
I park outside the building. The windows of Emily’s apartment are dark. Nobody’s home. Or maybe they’re in the bedroom. My stomach churns. After a minute of staring at Emily’s dark windows, I drive along the street looking for Matt’s parked car. I don’t see his Lincoln. That doesn’t mean much. He probably parked it around the block. Or left it on campus, which is only a ten-minute walk away. Matt is nothing if not discreet.
I turn the car around and stop on the opposite side of the road. Now there’s a light in Emily’s living room. Through the closed blinds, I see two silhouettes. I watch Matt and Emily’s shadows flicker through the blinds until Alice’s high-pitched voice cuts through like a sharp knife.
‘Mommy! When do we get to the shops?’
‘In a couple of minutes,’ I tell her as I turn on the car engine. I drive to a shopping strip with fast-food joints and cafes set around a paved square. It bustles with students hanging out. A busker holding an acoustic guitar on his knee plays sixties music at one end of the plaza. A silver-painted mime artist collects money in a black fedora hat. On the other side of the square, hip-hop music blasts from a street performance that I can’t see because of the crowd.
We head into an all-night store where I buy milk and bread to replace what I threw out. On the way home, I slowly drive past Emily’s apartment again. This time the lights are off.
When I arrive home, Matt’s in the hallway checking the mail. His car keys are still in his hand.
‘I was wondering where you two were,’ he says, scooping up Alice in his arms.
‘We ran out of milk,’ I say, carrying the grocery bag into the kitchen.
‘You should have asked me to pick up milk on the way home.’
‘I tried. Twice. I couldn’t get hold of you, Matt,’ I respond defensively. I’m still furious he abandoned us for the evening without the slightest explanation.
‘I was in a meeting.’ He unpacks the shopping bag and puts the milk in the fridge.
‘You didn’t answer any of my calls. Or my text messages.’
‘I forgot to turn on my phone.’ He gives me an apologetic shrug that riles me even more.
‘What was the meeting about?’
‘We’re working on the course syllabus for summer school and we ran over,’ he says. ‘I told you this morning that I’d be late.’
‘No, you didn’t,’ I tell him, but he’s already deep in conversation with Alice as he carries her up the stairs to bed. I stand in the upstairs landing listening to him reading her a bedtime story. He makes her laugh by using difference voices for each character.
I return to the kitchen and reheat his meatball dinner in the convection oven. I take a handful of washed vegetables from the crisper and cut them into a salad with my chef’s knife. The crunch of carrots being sliced on the chopping board is so loud that I don’t hear Matt approach.
‘I missed you,’ he says, wrapping his arms around my waist. I put down the knife with a clatter and turn to face him. I remind myself his affection is an act. Deceit is etched into his face.
‘You look exhausted, Julie.’ He gently pushes the hair off my forehead.
‘I guess I’m sleeping badly these days,’ I say looking up at him. ‘With everything that’s going on and all.’ I want to tell him his constant shifts in mood from hot to cold throw me off balance, but I’m afraid he’ll say it’s my imagination. Or that I’m being insensitive to his emotional needs after Laura’s body was found.
‘You need to sleep properly,’ he says firmly. ‘You haven’t stopped taking your meds, have you?’
‘Of course not,’ I say, looking at a tiny crack on the wall behind him so he won’t notice that I’m lying.
‘If you’re not sleeping properly, you probably need something to help you sleep. Or maybe we need to increase the dosage.’
‘No, Matt.’ I try not to sound as if I’m begging. ‘I want to go running in the morning.’ He knows that when I take my meds I struggle to get out of bed the next day.
‘Not after what happened last time you went running,’ he says firmly. ‘You still have the bruises from the fall. Use the treadmill if you want exercise. Or go to the gym. Julie, we’ve discussed this before, I don’t want you running alone anymore. It’s dangerous. There are bad people out there. Plus it’s not good for you to be so isolated. You need to mix more with other people.’
‘I will. I promise,’ I say. I’ll tell him whatever he wants to hear if it means he won’t bother me with talk of medication. Tomorrow, when Matt’s at work, I’ll go running.
We eat dinner at the kitchen table. I prattle on about Alice and whatever else comes to mind as I desperately try to recreate normality between us. Matt makes the requisite responses. I can tell his mind is somewhere else too.
After dinner, I go upstairs and dress for bed. On a whim, I put on a cute satin-lace set that I bought at Victoria’s Secret ages ago and never had the nerve to wear. It’s ivory and ridiculously sexy. When Matt comes upstairs, he shows precisely zero interest in my skimpy lingerie. I might be wearing a paper bag for all the attention he gives me.
He hands me a glass of chilled water and two capsules he tears from an aluminium strip. ‘The doctor says it does more harm than good when you skip doses,’ he tells me when I make a face. He doesn’t leave me with any choice
but to swallow the capsules, which I do in one reluctant gulp.
‘I’ll drop Alice at school tomorrow morning so you can sleep late,’ he says as he leans forward to kiss my temple. ‘It’ll be good for you, Julie. Sleep in. Pamper yourself. You deserve it.’
‘You know, Matt,’ I tell him later as I lie my head on my pillow, punch-drunk from the meds. I’m making a mistake by saying anything but I can’t control my tongue. ‘I keep dreaming of the car accident. And the driver. He told me something very strange. It frightened me.’
‘What was it?’ Matt asks.
‘I don’t remember.’ I slur my words as I’m overcome by a wave of exhaustion so great that I feel incapable of moving.
‘Go to sleep, sweetheart,’ Matt sighs. His face turns into an unrecognisable blur as I drift off.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Mel
Joe and I arrived at Matthew West’s office at the university at the tail end of an open-office session. There was a printed sign stuck on his door instructing students to take a seat and wait patiently. Every student would get ten minutes only.
By my count, the student in his office had more than used up the ten-minute slot. Joe shifted about in his seat restlessly as the meeting ran way over. Eventually, his office door opened and a pretty girl with long hair and a short skirt walked out. She gave a nervous smile before striding down the corridor swinging a leather satchel in her right hand.
I knocked on the office door and immediately walked inside.
‘Office hours are over,’ Matthew West said, lifting his eyes briefly from his laptop screen as he spoke from behind his desk. ‘Come earlier next time.’
‘I hope you have a few minutes for me at least, Professor West,’ I said with a touch of amusement that he’d taken me for a student. Yes, I am petite, and I admit I keep my makeup to a minimum, mostly because I don’t have time, but it had been quite a while since I was taken for a twenty-year-old.
‘Of course, detective,’ he said, as recognition dawned. ‘Take a seat.’
‘This is my son, Joe.’ My eldest son followed behind into the office with fake nonchalance and a desperately bored expression. ‘Joe’s doing a work experience day with me,’ I said dryly. I handed Joe my phone and indicated with a tilt of my head that he should wait outside. ‘Take a message if anyone calls, ok?’
‘Sure, Mom.’ He took the phone and slumped back to his seat in the corridor.
Professor West looked at his watch with an expression that told me he was behind schedule and wasn’t sure how much time he could spare. The stubble on his unshaven face and crisp shirt pushed up to his elbows gave the impression of an investment banker closing a high-stakes deal rather than a tenured university professor cocooned in an academic bubble.
‘What do you need to know, detective?’ His tone was cooperative but there was an underlying warning in his voice that told me to tread carefully. He obviously didn’t like me turning up unannounced. I ignored his irritation. It’s my job to make people feel uncomfortable.
‘Laura didn’t give birth to your daughter? Though she is listed on the birth certificate as Alice’s biological mother?’
‘The two things are not mutually exclusive,’ he snapped. His face took on an angry flush.
‘No,’ I conceded. ‘They are certainly not. But I would like you to provide more information. Anything could be relevant to our investigation. Also, as you know, we used Alice’s DNA to identify Laura’s body, so this issue is important to clarify.’
‘We used a surrogate,’ he said flatly. ‘Laura was not able to carry a baby to term. She’d had several miscarriages. The doctors said there was a weakness in her uterus. A surrogate was the only way we could have a child.’
‘How did you find the surrogate?’
‘The usual way. We went to a clinic,’ he said, writing on a sticky note. ‘This is the doctor’s name. They harvested eggs and semen from us and found the surrogate. Nine months later, we had a baby. It was straightforward. Expensive but uncomplicated. And one hundred per cent legal.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ I said. ‘Is there anything else that might be relevant to my investigation that you’d like to mention?’
‘What do you mean?’ His blue eyes met mine without flinching.
‘As far as I know, the original detective had no idea you used a surrogate to have your child. Is there anything else from your past, Laura’s past, no matter how minor, that might help me find the killer?’
He contemplated my question. ‘I can’t think of anything,’ he said. ‘And frankly I don’t think the surrogacy had anything to do with Laura’s murder.’
‘Perhaps,’ I said. ‘But if I’m to do my job then I need you to be open with me. For example, I was able to obtain the hotel bill from your visit to Charlotte on the weekend your wife disappeared. At 10 p.m. on the Saturday night, you ordered from room service a grilled Atlantic salmon, an entrecote steak, two side dishes and a rather expensive bottle of white wine. That sounds awfully like a romantic dinner for two.’
Irritation flicked in his eyes though the rest of his expression didn’t change. I passed him a stapled photocopy of the three-page hotel bill. ‘As you’ll see on page two of the bill, the following morning an order of two continental breakfasts was brought to your room.’
‘I don’t recall why I would have ordered dinner at all,’ West said as he paged through the bill. ‘I’d eaten at the conference dinner. Maybe the hotel mixed up another room’s order with my room? And as for the breakfast, the hotel might have assumed there were two people staying that night given that it says here on the bill that the room rate was for a twin-share.’
‘Was Laura with you at the hotel?’
‘No,’ he sighed. ‘I wish she had been.’
‘Then who was in the room with you, Professor West?’
‘Nobody.’ He spoke a little too quickly for my liking. ‘You have a vivid imagination, detective. All based on a hotel bill. Do you have any idea how many mistakes hotels make in their billing?’
‘Tell me about Laura’s rings.’ I changed the subject abruptly.
‘What rings?’
‘Her wedding ring and her engagement ring,’ I said. ‘Do you have photographs of those rings?’
‘I have our wedding photos. I doubt there are any close-ups of the rings, though.’
‘What about for insurance purposes? Presumably the rings were insured. Insurance companies often require photographs for valuation reports.’
‘I don’t recall,’ he said after a moment’s thought. ‘I’d have to look through my old papers.’
‘Did you make an insurance claim for the jewellery?’ I asked. ‘After Laura disappeared.’
‘You know, detective,’ he said quietly, his tone offended, ‘the thought never entered my mind.’
‘Laura disappeared wearing $40 000 worth of jewellery and you never filed an insurance claim?’ I exclaimed in exaggerated shock. ‘Why?’
‘Maybe it was my way of hoping that she’d return,’ he said sadly. ‘An insurance claim has a finality to it. Once Laura disappeared, all I had left was hope.’
I felt a pang of guilt for dredging up a subject that was palpably painful for him. I kept going, though. You have to have skin like an elephant in my line of work.
‘You met your current wife not long after Laura disappeared?’ I waited to see if he’d rise to the bait.
‘It was a year,’ he corrected me. ‘One long, extremely lonely, and very dark year. I mourned Laura every day, detective. I still do. But the world keeps turning. I needed to rebuild a life for myself and for Alice and I won’t apologise for it.’
‘I wouldn’t expect you to,’ I said. ‘I understand, Professor West, that your professional area of interest is human memory?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve written a number of papers on the subject.’
‘What’s your expert opinion on how much a detective should rely on the memories of people such as yourself when investig
ating a case that’s six years old?’
‘Not a lot,’ he said. ‘Memories are far more fluid than people realise. So much of what we remember is coloured by our perception. If you’re relying purely on recollection, mine or anyone else’s, then you may never find Laura’s killer.’
Professor West rose from his desk. ‘I’m sorry to have to cut this conversation short, but I have a faculty meeting in ten minutes on the other side of the campus. You’re welcome to walk with me if you have more questions. Or otherwise we can schedule another meeting.’
‘There’s no need,’ I said as I rose from my seat. ‘I’ll be in touch if I have more questions.’
I left the office and walked with Joe down the corridor to the elevator. ‘You had a call, Mom,’ he said. ‘Someone by the name of Samantha. From an events company.’
I called Samantha back as we walked to the car. She was the office manager of the events company that had organised the psychology conference Matthew West attended the weekend Laura West disappeared. I’d contacted them to see if they had video from the conference or anything else that might help me create a timeline for Matthew West’s movements on the day his wife disappeared.
Samantha told me that they routinely videotape conferences. ‘It’s part of the package. We keep the footage on hard drives in our office.’ She couldn’t guarantee they still had footage from a conference six years ago, but she’d have a look and get back to me.
‘Mom,’ said Joe when I finished the call. ‘Did you notice that photo on his desk?’
‘What photo?’ I asked as I climbed into the car.
‘The dude you just spoke with, Professor whatever,’ said Joe. ‘There was a photo on his desk. I saw it from the doorway. You didn’t notice it?’
‘Yes, I saw it, Joe.’ It was in a prominent position on his desk. You’d have to be blind to miss the photo. ‘The blond woman in the photo is his second wife, Julie, and the little girl is his daughter. Why the interest, Joe?’
‘I just noticed it,’ he said sullenly as he clipped in his seatbelt. ‘You know what’s weird, Mom?’
