“Text Valerie the screenshots,” Collin said the other night, as we sat on the kitchen floor in the small hours of the morning. “Tell her you’re not giving her any more fucking money and that not only is she guilty of blackmail, but she was sleeping with someone else while she was still married, that doesn’t look good for her. That, coupled with that text about meeting Joe before the charity event puts a big hole in her alibi. Tell her to leave you the hell alone.”
We were lying on the kitchen floor by then, hammered, my body draped over his, and so I texted her all of it, right there.
Now, hiding from the morning light, under the covers, my phone buzzes on the nightstand. I keep my head covered as I feel around with one hand and pull my phone in. She replied.
“What?” Collin asks, a pillow pressed over his head.
“Fuck.”
Valerie has responded. No text, just the video that blooms open on my screen and shows me tiptoeing away from Luke’s place. She’s not going away without a fight. Collin peers over my shoulder and sees a snippet of the video before I click it off and sit up, outraged. I throw my phone into the downy comforter and suppress a scream. Collin lies on his back and stares at the ceiling. After a few minutes, I lie back next to him, not knowing what else to do, and we stare at the ceiling together, side by side in our own separate pain.
“There’s that house in Panama,” Collin says, breaking the silence after several minutes.
“What?” I ask.
“The one we vacationed in, said maybe we’d buy it, retire there one day.”
“The kids.” I roll over into the fetal position and face him. “Ben’s school is doing wonders and Rachel is at the worst age to rip her out of the only school she’s known.”
“I know all of that, but they can adapt. This is survival.”
“How would we do that?”
“We sell the house, we—”
“Claire can’t make that trip.”
He can’t argue against that defense—her well-being. It’s not that I wouldn’t love to run away to an idyllic beach community and start over, but it’s not the solution. At least not yet.
“She could if we absolutely had to. She—”
“And you don’t know that you can get work there. We could be screwed,” I add.
He rises from the bed, goes quietly into the bathroom and turns the shower on without another word.
We spend the next few days exchanging remorseful, miserable looks. Part of me hates him for what he’s done, but I’m the one who put him in the situation. My part was not an accident; it was calculated and planned. His was a moment, a hot flare of anger, an understandable reaction to taunting by Luke, then a mutual fight that ended in a push that was too hard. I put it all in motion. The days pass in a slow fog. We sit close together on the couch in the evenings and let Ben choose the movies to watch while Rachel taps mindlessly on her iPad in the recliner. We share popcorn, and Collin squeezes my hand tightly. Every incoming text makes us jump. We fall hazily into a light tease of sleep at night but can’t surrender to its pull. We move around each other on autopilot, but the haze of anxiety is palpable, and we’ve exhausted talking about the situation. Mostly, we just wait for a knock on the door to take one of us away.
After another week goes by, we start to let ourselves relax ever so slightly and think, just maybe, Joe and Davis had been satisfied with my story.
Then, one evening as cooler weather creeps in, just before dinner, I take a break from cooking and sit in the kitchen window seat, staring at a puckered ring of frost outside the window, drinking a glass of wine and waiting for the rice to cook. I see a police car making its way slowly down our road again. For a very brief moment I’m so lost in my own consuming thoughts that I forget, and I think nothing of it, the way I would before we were criminals, but it only takes a second for me to stand up anxiously and murmur a prayer that it’s just an everyday patrol of the area. But then it pulls into our drive and Detectives Davis and Brooks exit their respective squad car doors and walk up to my door. Which one of us are they here for?
I walk to the front door before the kids hear the bell. I see Collin as he walks down the stairs and freezes before he reaches the bottom. We look at each other, fear in our eyes. I crack the door just a slit and peer out with one eye, looking as unwelcoming as I can manage.
“My kids are home. I don’t want to scare them by having cops in the house. What’s this about?”
“Evening, Melanie.” Joe tips his hat. He’s clearly going to waste my time with pleasantries. “You remember Detective Davis.”
“What can I do for you?” I ask.
“Well, we’d like to ask you to come down to the station with us and answer a few questions.”
“The station? I thought I answered your questions.”
“We have some additional questions. You’re not under arrest or anything like that, but your cooperation would help us out.”
“Why not ask me here?”
“I thought you were worried about your kids getting spooked.”
“Well, on the porch, then.”
“Look, Mel, we need the interview recorded, official. You understand. You don’t have to come down, but it would make this easier. I’m sure you could just clarify a few things and be on your way.”
I don’t know what else they would want to ask me, but I’m relieved that they didn’t come for Collin. I look to him to see what he thinks we should do, if I should go. He nods, and I understand because not cooperating would look worse and make them dig more. I open the door wider and tell them I’ll get my things.
“Evening, Mr. Hale,” Davis says to Collin when the open door reveals him still rooted on the stairs. Collin nods and comes to stand next to me.
“What’s this about?” he asks, pretending he didn’t eavesdrop.
“We just have a few more questions for your wife about the Luke Ellison case. No need for alarm.”
“Can I go with her?”
“It’s okay,” I say to him. “Please, just stay with the kids. Watch the rice. Dinner is in the oven. Just take it out when the buzzer goes off.”
We both observe the other, forcing a calm demeanor. He kisses my cheek as I pull on my coat, and I hold a flat hand up to say goodbye.
The room they question me in isn’t like the interrogation rooms on TV. There is no naked light bulb hanging above a shadowy metal table in a dark room. It’s unpleasant enough though; it’s cramped, with a rectangular fluorescent light recessed into the ceiling panels and plastic chairs, but I keep repeating to myself in my mind, I don’t have to be here. I can leave at any time.
I breathe and think about Panama. It’s starting to sound like a good idea.
When Joe comes in, he doesn’t sit on his chair backward or pound his fists like in the TV shows either. He just sits across from me, crosses one leg over the other and pushes his notepad and pen away as if he doesn’t need them. The look on his face says, We’re old friends here. No need for all that.
“Let’s just talk,” he says.
“Okay.”
“It’s been reported to me, from a reliable source, that you were involved with Mr. Ellison. Romantically.”
“What? What source?”
“I’m not at liberty to say. Anything you want to tell me about that?” he asks.
That bitch. She took my money and told him about me and Luke anyway. I don’t believe it.
“No,” I say firmly.
He looks me up and down even though he thinks he’s being subtle. He even licks his lips a little.
“Now, Mel. If you had something going on the side, that’s not a crime. It’s best if you just tell me about it. You’re a beautiful woman, I’m sure men pursue you. If that’s what happened and there was an indiscretion of some sort, now’s the time to come clean.”
I’m pretty
sure that if the interview weren’t being recorded, he would have taken his dick out right then and there when he talked about men pursuing me.
“So, one person tells you they think I was involved with him, and you bring me down here? Anyone can say anything they want. Did you look into their motive for telling you that?”
“So, your statement remains that you were not involved, romantically, with Mr. Ellison.”
I don’t know whether to admit it or not. It disgusts me that he’s probably getting off on the visual of it right now, but maybe saying that I was will be enough. Collin can be my alibi, saying I was home with him that night. Clearly, they have nothing on him. I think. But I just don’t know, so I sit, silently.
“There’s one other thing,” he says, and moves to take something out of a bag near his feet. I sit up straighter, straining to see. I feel a mist of sweat break out on my chest. He drops my Saints ball cap on the table and looks to me for my reaction. I look at it blankly, so he flips it over, showing the word HALE written in Sharpie.
“This was found in Luke’s truck. It wasn’t until later the writing on the inside of the rim was noticed. Is this yours?”
“I left it in his truck that day I told you about—when I grabbed a book out of the back and got his info. I remembered later that I set it down on the seat. So what?”
“What if I told you that I had video evidence of you leaving Luke Ellison’s residence late at night?”
That absolute bitch. She handed it all over. All of it.
“What if I did have an affair with him?” I ask, I cannot believe this monster has the power to interrogate me about an affair while he has dozens himself.
“Like I said, that’s not a crime. But you need to be honest. The evidence is there. Unless you’d like to offer another reason you were running from his house, carrying your shoes, with your dress unzipped.”
I hate him in this moment more than I can describe. The way his lips curl when he talks about it—in this wry, amused way. Suddenly, I know what I need to do. I stand up.
“I’d like to leave now,” I say, and he counters my movement to the door, standing so close I can feel the heat from his chest.
“That’s your decision, but we’ll probably have to bring you back in. I hope it’s not with a warrant next time. You sure you don’t want to talk?”
I shove past him and walk down the corridor that leads to the parking lot. Once outside, I lean against the door and suck in the fresh air. I could barely handle an hour in that claustrophobic nightmare. I can’t go back there. I can’t let Collin become even a blip on their radar. I have to preserve my children’s innocence in all of this mess.
He has video evidence, does he? I can play that game too. I’ll show him what video evidence should look like. I know what I have to do.
31
I DON’T TELL COLLIN about the ball cap. It’s one of those details that will edge into his thoughts and place me even more vividly in Luke’s arms, and the fact is, they know about the affair, so I leave it alone. The video and ball cap are just logs on a fire already burning too hot inside of him. His eyes are swollen from grief and the unconvincing smile he wears around the kids is transparent even to them; his words don’t match the look in his eyes when he assures them everything is fine.
“I didn’t admit to anything,” I tell him. “But they know.”
I wonder what will come next. If they bring me in on a warrant, they can check my computer and phone. Can they fingerprint me? I’m sure they can, and then it will be all over. It will lead to Collin, surely. The jealous husband theory will not be magically overlooked. Using the messages between Joe and Valerie isn’t enough in the situation I find myself. When I truly thought he was involved, it was a revelation. Now it will look like a desperate attempt at revenge. I need more.
Next Saturday night, Ben and Rachel will be staying the weekend at my mother’s house in Baton Rouge, and Collin will be at his friend Kenny’s house for poker night. At least that’s the plan, but Collin seems to be falling into a depression, so I’m not surprised when he tells me he doesn’t feel up to going. But he has to.
When Saturday rolls around, my plans are all laid out. I could tell him another lie, say I’m going to meet friends. I don’t know why I can’t bring myself to tell such a small lie, which is nothing compared to what I’m about to do. Somehow simply not telling him my plan feels less of a betrayal than another outright lie.
He’s more deflated than I’ve seen him since the kids left for their grandparents’ last night. Like they were the only thing bolstering him up enough to function these last weeks. At 10:23 a.m., he’s still in bed. I bring him a cup of coffee and scooch over to sit next to him.
“You should go tonight.” I stroke his hair.
He sits up and takes the coffee.
“I don’t know.”
“You go every month. If you start retreating from usual things, it won’t look good in the long run. We need to keep up appearances.”
He holds his coffee in both hands and stares ahead. His sigh indicates he agrees with me, but he doesn’t say anything.
At 8 p.m., he lingers on the couch, slipping on his Converse sneakers slowly. He pulls a sweater over his T-shirt and rubs his eyes. He sits with his elbows resting on his knees, still contemplating whether he really has the mental energy to move. I know he’d rather be in bed. We both want to sleep until Sunday night when the kids get back and then take them and disappear, but we can’t.
He hugs me like a soldier going off to war before he clicks open the garage door and pulls down the drive. I spring into action once his taillights disappear down the lane. I go into the bedroom and pull out the black miniskirt I haven’t worn since I dressed up as Madonna for a costume party years ago. Then I squeeze myself into a skintight red tank top. I smooth my hair with a flat iron until it hangs, sleek and glossy, down the middle of my back. I apply an excess of lipstick and false lashes I’d almost forgotten how to put on. I finish the look with alligator-skin stilettos and head to the first of the two places Lacy assures me Joe Brooks will be on any given Saturday if he’s not working.
I confirmed his schedule already, with Lacy’s help, and now it’s either Bourbon and Spits or the strip club. I hope to God it’s the first because explaining my presence at the strip club again will be more difficult. I’ll drive to every bar in town and his house if I need to, but this is his spot, normally, and she says if he does go to the club, it’s usually late, after he’s already gotten drunk at Spits, so I drive out to the bar, ready.
I hadn’t been back since that first night I met Lacy by witnessing her sexual assault in the parking lot. I suck in a deep breath and park. Inside, country music blares and the place is bursting at the seams. I belly up to the bar and sit on a gummy bar stool with duct tape holding the torn, faux-leather seat together. I order a chardonnay that I plan to nurse slowly so I can play drunk but keep my wits about me. I scan the bar to find him perched on a stool near the pool tables, holding a bottle of Coors between his knees as he uses his arms to tell some animated story to a few drunk buddies standing around him. He’s here. My stomach turns over; I watch.
One guy nudges him and pushes a pool cue his way for his turn to shoot. His unsteady gait as he moves to the pool table exposes his level of intoxication, which is exactly what I was hoping to see. I don’t act right away. I observe him in his group of friends. One guy, whom I vaguely remember from school and who wears a T-shirt that says Dad Bod, brings another tin bucket of beers to the high-top table they hover around. They jab at each other like high school boys. Dad Bod puts another guy in a playful headlock and rubs a knuckle on his scalp when he misses a shot. They laugh too loudly and have wide stances and folded arms most of the time, asserting their dominance, taking up space.
A couple of them leave an hour later; the dads of the group, I assume. I’m still watching between staving
off fumbling, stammering cowboys who elbow their way to the bar for a drink and stay to make passes at me through slurs and spit. When the two remaining friends strike up a conversation with two college-aged girls at an adjacent table, Joe finally comes up to the bar. He’s graduated from beer to hard liquor, and turns to his left only after he feels my stare. He doesn’t try to hide the shock on his face. Maybe because he’s never seen me dressed like this, or in a bar like this, but probably because I’m a married woman not wearing a ring who he’s currently trying to prove had an affair.
“Mel.” He stands up straight and tries to appear sober.
“Hey, Joe.”
He can’t help himself. He looks directly at the triangle of space a short skirt leaves between crossed legs, hoping to see more.
“What are you doing here?” he asks, and I shrug.
“Needed some time away, I guess.”
“Well, let me buy you a drink, shit.” His words are slow and labored. The last thing he needs is another drink.
“Thanks.”
And just like that, we move to a small table across the room since there is no extra stool next to me at the crowded bar.
“You look really good. I’m surprised to see you here.”
“Moms need some fun every now and then too, ya know. Off the record, right?”
He laughs and moves his chair in. I see him notice the pale circle on my finger where a wedding ring should be.
“I don’t judge you, ya know. I mean...”
“Surprised you want to talk to someone you’re suspecting.”
“Listen, Mel. I’m just doing my job, but I don’t think you did anything wrong. Sex ain’t a crime.”
“Exactly.”
“Exactly,” he repeats, and leans back with a laugh, one elbow around the back of his chair, taking me in.
“I do a lot at home. I can go out sometimes. No one owns me.”
“I like that. God, Mel. You seem so different.”
Such a Good Wife Page 24
