Where We Went Wrong

by Andi Holloway

  “A witness? To Matthew’s murder? That’s impossible,” I say, and if Hannah’s said otherwise, she is lying.

  Pulling out of the parking structure, I nearly side-swipe another vehicle because I’m rightfully distracted. The phone sits between my shoulder and ear, threatening to fall each time I turn the wheel. The law is hands-free but I won’t call myself particularly law-abiding, at least not lately.

  “I don’t know what to tell you other than whatever he’s found out, it’s enough.”

  “Enough for what?” I ask, though I’m afraid I already know the answer.

  “For the judge to have signed the warrant.”

  The air goes out of me in a single breath.

  This is it, the end.

  Of all the things that have been missing from evidence, a primary crime scene played most in our favor, and now even that will be against us. I am at a loss, petrified how the next few hours might go. Scared not only for you, but for myself, for what might come out, forensically and otherwise, should a crack team of investigators descend upon the house.

  I want to hang up, to call and warn you, because I have a feeling Deon hasn’t, but I’m betting there isn’t time. I’m panicking, and the last place I should be right now is behind the wheel, but I can’t stop because I need to help you—us. “What do I do?” I ask, because there has to be something to prevent this.

  “Whatever you do,” Deon says, “do not go home!”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  I HAVE TO BELIEVE DEON’S intentions for keeping me away at the exact moment a search warrant was being executed upon our house were pure. He didn’t want me to see this, and though I tried, I don’t know why I ever thought I could stop this when Vern latched onto you as a suspect from day one.

  A line of police vehicles extends the length of our driveway. Lights swirl. News vans are undoubtedly en route. I can only pray we’re all gone before they get here, but nothing about a full-home search is quick. Fingerprints will be taken. Items collected then marked and catalogued accordingly.

  Two uniformed officers lead you outside wearing nylon basketball shorts and a loose-fitting T-shirt that is likely to be exchanged for a prison-issue uniform within the next few hours. Your belongings, assuming you have any on you, will be locked away. Everything, down to your underwear, will be swapped for something less flattering, less comfortable. Anything to make you part of the masses. You’ll be strip searched. Humiliated. Even more disgraced than you are right now, though I doubt you can imagine that. If you could see yourself through my eyes in this moment, you’d feel pity. Your posture is slumped, and your hands are cuffed behind your back, twisting your posture into an unnatural position that alters your gait. You’re staggering, squinting into the sunlight. An unshaven wreck. When your mug shot hits the front page, your deteriorated appearance will undoubtedly add to the assumption of guilt.

  At least your perp walk isn’t being recorded.

  Vern talks to a crime scene analyst, a skinny kid who doesn’t look a day over twenty-one but who might well be as many as five years older, standing on our front porch. I can’t imagine what he’s seen in this line of work or what he’s found here, but it’s clear from how animated he is, how at-length he is speaking, that he has found something.

  Vern’s expression is smug.

  He’s got you, he thinks.

  I don’t know how to tell him, and you, that he’s wrong.

  “Bert!” I run toward you, but can’t get within fifty feet.

  You’re professing your innocence, borderline resisting arrest.

  You claim to have no idea what’s happened.

  I don’t doubt that’s true.

  A third officer comes from out of nowhere to manage me, the hysterical wife. I cringe as he approaches, terrified the handcuffs will be slapped on me next.

  “Please, let me talk to my husband.” I need to remind you to be absolutely silent while I find the criminal defense attorney we have thus far put off hiring. Only now, when we need one, do I see how stupid a decision it was to wait, to make any of this about money. It’s going to take everything we have and more to bring you home again.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. You are going to have to step back.”

  “Please! One minute!”

  I search the crowd for a familiar face—anyone who might help us—but find none. We are friendless. Vern’s undoubtedly made sure of this.

  I panic. Rather than bickering over everything to do with money and career, I should have been honest. I should have prepared you for this, but it’s too late. One of the officers leads you to a cruiser, opening the back door and ducking your head. Time’s almost up, and I’m as close to you as I’m going to get, so I shout, “Bert! Don’t say a word!” I don’t care who hears me or what they think. I care that you keep your mouth shut.

  The door, which I know doesn’t open from the inside, closes. You leer at me from the back seat with the piercing stare of a wrongly accused man.

  Crime scene tape is erected. Photographs are taken. Several of our belongings move past me, including our butcher block, a square of drywall, and a piece of hallway carpeting. The carpet is the same color throughout our house, but upstairs is more well-worn, flattened and discolored by commercial shampoo.

  Fucking forensics!

  My stomach cramps, and I double over.

  “I need to get inside,” I say to no one in particular, rather to whoever might be listening and is capable of facilitating this. My bowels turn to liquid, and I’ve heard of this happening but have never had this reaction to stress, myself. “I need to get inside!”

  One of the uniformed officers waves his hand.

  Vern appears, disposable booties covering his shoes, and hands me our copy of the paperwork.

  “Please,” I say. “I have to—” The words stick in my throat, bodily fluids threatening to erupt from either end.

  Vern looks satisfied, if not delighted, with my predicament. I am at his mercy. Me, the woman who invoked an attorney she’d yet to produce. “Have to what?” he asks.

  I won’t give him the pleasure. “I need my things.”

  Our house will remain closed for investigation until the police release the scene, but if I’m lucky, if I’m careful, Vern might give me five minutes inside.

  Nothing I can do once I’m in there will change the turn this case is about to take. All I need is an overnight bag and a bathroom to help me preserve a shred of dignity.

  “You’ll agree to talk to me afterward?” Vern isn’t about to grant my passage for nothing in return.

  “I will.” I clench to keep from shitting my pants or throwing up on Vern’s shoes.

  “Counsel or no?” Vern signals for an escort, and a pair of officers respond while others clear the way for the car coming through, your free ride to the police station. In this critical moment, nothing else matters. Not Hannah. Not the baby. Certainly not the book deal or our pit of debt.

  I tally the strikes against you: your whereabouts the night of the murder, the unexplained payoffs, a bleak financial position, a life insurance policy about to expire, the estrangement, the phone calls, the fight between you and Matthew, with whom you claimed not to be speaking. The gun. Hannah’s baby. Matthew’s threats. Vern doesn’t know everything, but he knows you’ve lied. I’ve misjudged him as overzealous and inept. This mistake has probably cost me.

  “Harper? Are we speaking with or without your attorney present?” he asks.

  The patrol car pulls out of view, and I say, “Without.”

  In the presence of hard evidence, I have to launch a preemptive strike. To get ahead of whatever you might say to protect yourself. It’s time for a little damage control.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  I’M BACK IN THE INTERROGATION room. Same stiff plastic chair. Same rust-flavored water. It’s like déjà vu, only this time you’re not coming home. You’re being processed: fingerprinted and photographed. Assigned a cell and a roommate, who I hope for your sake is also
innocent. Whether or not I’m right behind you depends on whether I can convince Vern I was elsewhere the night of Matthew’s murder. There have been several misunderstandings and omissions, but there’s nothing beyond explanation.

  Vern unbuttons his jacket, adjusts his tie, and takes the seat across from me, tossing onto the table the folder which has doubled in size. A photograph of Matthew, or rather Matthew’s body under a thin cover of leaves, slides out. I glimpse the pallor of death, the expressionlessness of his face, and the opacity of his cornea. I see signs of insect activity and bloat.

  Vern tucks the photograph out of sight but doesn’t apologize.

  I wait for him to offer me a tissue from the box within his reach or to ask if I need a minute, but he doesn’t. He folds his hands and says, “We found evidence of blood on the upstairs hall floor and wall of your house.”

  Undoubtedly a significant amount.

  The kind of bleeding that accompanies a dozen or so stab wounds and a struggle. Castoff patterns and the phantom pool that six attempts with the shampooer couldn’t get out.

  Vern’s directness comes as a shock, but I’ve wiggled out of too much and he wants me to be afraid. If I’m scared, I’ll talk. Tears come without me working at them not only because I’m sad—I never meant for any of this to happen—but because I’m genuinely terrified for my future.

  “There has to be some mistake,” I say.

  Vern raises an eyebrow. “Does there?”

  This feels either like the time to confess or the perfect “out,” and I’m not sure which Vern is encouraging. He slides a sheet of paper across the table, a line item highlighted in the same fluorescent yellow as the phone bill he’d earlier presented me with.

  Marriott.

  Someone on his team, undoubtedly believing themselves an investigative genius, has identified, among a slew of charges, the hotel room I booked at the last minute. I have no way of knowing if they’ve determined check-in time or if this is as far as they’ve gotten. Perhaps they arrived at a conclusion and stopped.

  For once, something’s gone my way. My best-laid plans took no one else into consideration, because this crime and our lives don’t occur in a vacuum. I didn’t count on Vern hating you as much as he does or resenting you, which is probably more the case. I didn’t know about Hannah, this baby, or the lie we had been living for the better part of a decade. I thought two years’ estrangement was enough space to shield us from suspicion in Matthew’s death rather than provide motive for murder, but since it isn’t, I’m operating on the fly, which isn’t my strong suit.

  “What were you doing at a hotel?” Vern asks.

  “Avoiding paint fumes.” The paint, by the time I checked into the Marriott, had been a day old and dry, but I blame it anyway. For the record, the two had nothing to do with one another—Matthew’s death and the paint—insofar as it wasn’t a cover-up. I painted the master bedroom, as I said, because you always hated the color. I couldn’t have known what might come next.

  Vern scans his notes and says, “When I first questioned you, you said you had been home that night.”

  “I shouldn’t have, but I knew I had to talk to Bert about our finances sooner than later and I didn’t want him blaming me for overspending. The hotel wasn’t exactly necessary or cheap.”

  I sense immediately that I went too far.

  “Really?” Vern asks, thumbing through a stack of statements. “One credit card charge of a hundred and fifty bucks?” He flips through several pages, rattling off a chain of frivolous purchases. “Victoria’s Secret, two hundred dollars. Macy’s, two-sixty. The Shoe Depot, four hundred. The room cost less than all of those things.” I hang my head, embarrassed. I need this information to have been dragged from me, for Vern to have to work at this, and he does. He slides the tissues in my direction and says, “I can’t protect you if you lie to me.”

  I nod, take a tissue from the box, and wipe my nose. I crumple the tissue and press my hands between my thighs. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Did Bert tell you to say that you were home?”

  The hotel room removes me as a co-conspirator, casting me as the innocent wife who potentially lied to the police at her husband’s behest, though I won’t confirm for Vern that you asked me to.

  “No, and I already explained why I said I was.”

  “Because of the hotel bill.” Vern rolls his eyes. “And what time did you check out?”

  “The following morning around nine, in time to get the house cleaned up for Bert coming back from his signing.”

  “Was he there when you returned home?”

  “No.” You weren’t, and wouldn’t be for hours.

  “And when you went into the house, nothing seemed off to you?” Vern asks.

  I shrug.

  “You didn’t smell cleaners?”

  Carpet shampoo? Bleach?

  “Nothing but paint fumes.” I refuse to create so elaborate a story I can’t remember the details of it later. “I aired out the house and waited for Bert.”

  “To come home from the city?”

  “Yes, from the loft.”

  “This doesn’t look good. Not for you or your husband. Blood evidence doesn’t come out of thin air, and I can’t help you if you won’t cooperate.”

  What Vern means is that he can’t support me as innocent if I won’t testify that you’re guilty, but even without an attorney present I know better. Vern is asking for details I cannot confirm, making forensically unproven assumptions, and until they are, I won’t.

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you Bert was someplace he wasn’t. You want me to incriminate my husband for a crime I’m sure he didn’t commit. Bert wouldn’t hurt, let alone kill anyone, least of all his son.”

  “The poorly cleaned-up crime scene says otherwise.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  VERN REPHRASES HIS question on your whereabouts a dozen ways, but once I’ve committed, I’m unwavering in my response. Nearly three hours later, he releases me from custody for what feels like the last time. The information he needs to arrest me is there, if he can see past whatever grudge he has against you.

  An officer escorts me out the back of the police station. I’m surprised to see my car, which is in your name, covered under the warrant Vern executed, hasn’t been impounded. It’s a temporary oversight, I’m sure, but I get in, and after verifying no one is looking, reach across to check that the glove compartment is still locked.

  I have precious little with me: some clothes, no underwear, a blow dryer, no brush or spray, and winter pajamas that for some reason were near the front of my closet. I’m going to need more than that for the foreseeable future, so I drive to a nearby Wal-Mart for provisions. As I enter the store, my newly adopted criminal-on-the-run persona shies from the security globe dangling from the ceiling. I appear on the monitor regardless, and am shocked to see how genuinely awful I look. Haggard, like you did when you were arrested. I don’t want to look half as unhinged when my mug shot goes public.

  I head to the cosmetics section, planning to buy the bare minimum—some make-up and moisturizer—but am distracted by the hair dye aisle, overcome by a sudden urge to be as inconspicuous and unidentifiable in a crowd as possible. Unable to match any existing description Vern or one of the other detectives might give of me. I grab a box of Clairol and some scissors before purchasing the least expensive computer and a week’s worth of clothes. I need to become someone who wears Wal-Mart over Dior. Who has short hair instead of long. Who isn’t Harper Stone, but someone else. Anyone else, really. If Marjorie is at all to be believed, these sorts of things happen all the time, though I know little to nothing about assuming a new identity. To pull it off warrants me performing a damning Internet search—accumulating browser history that, when reviewed during my trial, will support an assumption of guilt, mark me as a flight risk, and guarantee I’m not awarded bail.

  I’m thinking too far ahead. Right now, all I need is power, Wi-Fi, and a place to sleep
.

  I head to the ATM and withdraw the maximum daily amount, five hundred dollars, from our dwindling savings. I take another five hundred as a cash advance, exhausting the credit limit on one of three nearly maxed-out cards. This will be my last time using traceable money. If I know nothing else, I know this: my digital financial footprint is a roadmap to my location. I pay for my order with cash, wishing I had a better plan, more money, advanced warning—any advantage that might lessen the severity of my predicament—and drive north to a family-owned motel.

  Even at sixty dollars a night, the room isn’t exactly affordable, but after a brief disagreement with the clerk over incidentals, and after paying a hundred-dollar refundable deposit as a show of good faith, I check in under an alias I hope makes it harder to find me.

  Walking into my room, I feel this is the last place anyone would look.

  I strip down to my bra and jeans, and prepare the hair color as per the box’s directions. It’s hard to cover brunette hair. My only choice is to go darker and shorter, and I carefully cut inches off my length because there’s no point in wasting the dye when there hardly seems enough to begin with. Twenty minutes later, I’m not unrecognizable, but I can look at myself again in the mirror. Maybe that’s what this was about—not running or hiding, but being able to stand my own reflection.

  I’ve done so many unforgivable things to this point that I can’t begin to make restitution.

  I wrap my hair in a towel, slip into a pair of cotton shorts and a T-shirt, and sit on the bed in silence, which is how I prefer to work. I turn on the computer, skip all of the registration screens, and open an Internet browser that creeps along at a pace one might expect from free Wi-Fi.

  Web-based e-mail has my list of important contacts, your important contacts, and I fire off a message to your intellectual property lawyer inquiring about local defense attorneys. My explanation as to why I need one is brief, but unless he’s been living under a rock he knows what’s happened.