I can’t sleep. I keep seeing Carter’s frightened face and wondering why he would be afraid. Of what? I realize I never called Will back. I feel like an asshole. I can’t imagine what I’d say. It’s not exactly regret I’m feeling. It was actually really nice to be close to him like that again. Surprising, and...exceptional, if I’m honest. But the weight of the guilt is too heavy. Besides, I still have to work with him, and I’m acting like a middle-schooler right now.
Ellie calls at 8:00 a.m., so I finally get up, without sleep, and trudge to the kitchen to put a pot of coffee on—a Kona Liam had shipped from Hawaii, convinced it’s the best in the world and worth the sixty bucks a pound plus shipping. I don’t tell her about Will, or going to Becky’s, and of course I don’t say anything about going to see Carter. She tells me about the Santa head Hannah made out of cotton balls and a paper plate, about Ned’s snotty cold, and her turkey recipe for Christmas dinner, which I’m required to attend. We make plans for drinks next week, but I already think I’ll probably cancel.
When we hang up, I sit in the window seat and watch the happy people buzz around. Saturday brunch and preholiday shopping. There’s no progress. After encounters with Becky and Carter, I feel like I’m back where I started. I need to know when Calvin Lang left for those few days—when he found out about Becky and Liam. It could change everything, and no one else is asking.
If I go back to her house, maybe there is a way I could get her to say more. Appeal to people’s greed. It’s the most effective way to get the result you want. I didn’t see many toys in the trailer for the kid. Also, they both clearly like to drink. I can’t say that I blame them. A case of beer and an expensive toy may get me in the door. It seems kind of cheap, but I need to know, and I was in shock I guess last time or I would have thought to ask. What do I have to lose at this point?
With a case of Bud Light and a Paddington Bear in the backseat, I drive back to the trailer park. As soon as I pull up, I see her car and I’m relieved, but I also feel instantly stupid having such shameless bribes. I can’t carry a case of beer to the door and be taken seriously. I’ll knock first and see if she’s willing to talk. If she slams the door in my face or something, I’ll embarrass myself with plan B.
When I knock, I hear footsteps. The trailer visibly shifts with the movement. A guy quickly whips the flimsy door open and stares at me. He stands in sweatpants and a stained white tank with a cigarette hanging from his lips.
“Yeah?” he barks. I freeze for a moment, then stutter.
“Oh. Um...shit. Is... Becky here?” I ask, ready to run.
“No.” He leans against the doorway, not seeming to mind the frigid air. He looks me up and down.
“Okay. Thanks.” I turn to go.
“You’re the wife,” he says. I stop cold and turn back around.
“Yeah.”
“I know who you is. Cops were here asking about you,” he says, surprisingly calmly. “You wanna come in? Maybe I can help you.” He’s not exactly the raging lunatic I was expecting, but of course I shouldn’t go in. He may be thrilled right now to be luring his prey in so effortlessly. But again, what do I have to lose. This may be my shot.
“I brought beer,” I say, for lack of anything else coming to mind.
“For real?” He smiles. I nod and he watches me go over to the car and retrieve the case.
Inside, we sit across from one another in the same dingy living area and drink cans of Bud Light at 11:00 a.m.
“I heard what happened to your...” He gestures as if to indicate husband, I guess. “That sucks. I’m sorry.” This is far more civility from him than I ever imagined, which is actually putting me on edge, because it doesn’t make sense. Becky made it sound like he’d lose his mind if anyone mentioned Liam around him.
“Thanks,” I say. “I...um, I thought you might be a little upset to see me.” I probe a bit, wondering if it will unnerve him.
“Eh. I’m over it. I was pissed as fuck, but since nothin’ happened, I guess I gotta get over it.” He stops and then laughs suddenly. “Or kick the bitch out, but we’s got a kid now, so.”
“I’m sorry, what do you mean?” I ask, totally confused.
“Well, I mean she could go live with her stupid cow friend, Lacy, who started the whole damn thing up, if I didn’t get her pregnant. Kinda stuck now.”
“I mean—no, what? You said ‘since nothing happened.’ What does that mean?”
“You know, they never bumped uglies or nothin’.” He cracks another beer and hands me one. I take it. I don’t plan to hide my visit with Becky, since he’s acting like he doesn’t care.
“I talked to Becky. She...apologized for it. I asked why she pursued him, and she never said ‘nothing happened.’ What are you talking about? That’s what she told you, so you believe it?” I’m raising my voice and talking too fast. I need to stay in control.
“Whoa. You gotta slow your roll for a second. She was trying to get back at me, but it kinda backfired, that’s all it was.”
“I need to know what happened. I don’t know what you’re saying!” I yell, then stop. “Sorry. This—this is very important. I don’t know if you know, but they’re still trying to figure out what happened to him, and—” He interrupts me.
“I lost my ma last year. All of a sudden,” he says, but I don’t respond. I’m desperate for him to keep talking. “There’s a lot unsaid, and so I get it. I mean, I feel like I can relate a little. I’m not a total dick. I don’t mind giving you what you want to know. I just don’t have all that much info. All’s I know is she was all over him, and he told her to fuck off.”
“What?”
“Stupid cow, Lacy, was telling her to get back at me just cause her husband cheated and she had a revenge fuck. I walked in on her tellin’ Becky to go after this guy who was at her bar all the time—that he must like her if he’s there alone so much.”
“He’s a critic. He was working,” I say.
“Well, Lacy the cow says to fuck this guy out of revenge, but the difference is, I didn’t cheat on Becky. I beat off to some chick over Skype. That’s not the same thing. Right?” he asks.
“What makes you think nothing happened?” I ask urgently.
“’Cause she said. And there was a text from him.” I have never seen his texts, of course, because his phone was gone, and the police had some forensic expert decoding it. I know from my research that that can also take a long time. Also, they may not tell me what they find. “It basically told her to fuck off, the text.”
“What did it say, exactly?” I practically beg. He stops chugging his beer and looks at me sympathetically.
“You didn’t know any of this.” He says this not as a question, but as a statement, realizing. “Something like he doesn’t want to have to report her and have her lose her job, but he’s not interested and basically to leave him alone,” he says, and I lose my breath. I put my beer down and stand up. One, two, three, four.
“I mean, she didn’t want nothin’ to do with me since the kid. Says she’s all stretched out. What’s a guy gonna do? I don’t think internet beat offs is the same, though. Come on, right?”
“Right,” I agree softly. Keep him talking.
“She just wanted the attention ’cause she was all depressed. But you can’t go try to screw a real person, though. I mean, Jesus. She told me the rejection made her crazy, and she got obsessed and wouldn’t leave him alone. I said I wanted a divorce, but anyhow. She eventually stopped being a fucking nutcase.” He rubs his beard. I look at the floor, noticing a dirty toenail sticking out of a hole in his sock. I feel like I might throw up. I doubted Liam. I betrayed him by not trusting him.
“Did she go to his office?” I ask, trying to make sense of it all.
“I’m sure she fucking did. She done lost her mind with baby depression and revenge.” His phone makes a sound. He pulls it out from his hip where he’s been half sitting on it and taps on the shattered screen, then rolls his eyes and puts it back down.
“So you and Becky fought. About Liam.”
“Fuck yeah, we did. I flipped the fuck out on her. Wouldn’t you? Tellin’ me I ain’t as good as him, all that shit. But it’s all the postmortem depression, that’s what the doctors say. Well, not a doctor, but her cousin Angie who wants to be a nurse. It’s real shit though. I looked it up. After chicks have babies and stuff.” He lights another cigarette, and the smell is not helping my sudden nausea. I read somewhere that smoke curbs nausea, but I guess that’s not true. It’s so strange to think of these two strangers having knock-down, drag-out fights over my husband. Just a guy who was the subject of a bartender’s crush at the wrong time.
“So you never actually met Liam? You never went down there to see him, talk to him?” I try to confirm that he never threatened him, to gauge his reaction to the question.
“I started hanging out at her bar every night, that’s for damn sure, but I never saw him. He only came in now and again for an event or somethin’. But what the hell was I gonna do with him anyway? He told her to fuck off every chance he got. It’s Becky and Cow I got the problem with.”
“I’m sorry, when was this exactly? When did you find all this out?” I ask.
“February, I remember ’cause it was Valentine’s day when I started checking her phone.” It was just before the accident.
The small trailer is cloudy with smoke that stings my eyes, and I really can’t think what else to say. I’m simultaneously comforted and heartsick by what he’s said. Then I remember something that I can’t get past.
“But Liam gave her money. Like six thousand dollars. That doesn’t make sense,” I say, starting to doubt his whole story.
“Oh, yeah. You ain’t gettin’ that back. Sorry. Been spent.”
“I don’t want it back. I just want to know why he’d do it.”
“Oh. ’Cause she said I beat her and she was trying to get away from me. He tried to help her out. She said she needed money to move and shit. I think he was too nice, and she got even more crazy over him.”
“Oh my God.” It’s such an enormous relief. “Really?”
“For the record, she’s a lying bitch. I throw things sometimes, but I don’t beat my wife. She loves being the victim. I’m sure she told a great fucking story.” He throws an empty beer can across the room, and it hits the wood-paneled wall and falls into a small pile of laundry. I’m sure the shock and confusion on my face is visible.
“Thanks for talking to me,” I say, standing to go.
“Well, I believe in the first amendment, so...” he says. I have no idea what he means, but I just nod and set my beer on a dusty end table.
“I appreciate it.”
“You don’t gotta go. We got all these beers to drink.” He follows me the four feet to the front door. Part of me considers staying in case there’s more to get out of him, but what else could there be? That’s the story. All the pieces have come together and, unless he’s crafting a complex alibi, which I doubt he’s smart enough to do, it’s clear, and it sounds exactly like Liam to kindly dismiss her until he had to get firm. It made sense he wouldn’t tell me, brushing it off as trivial especially compared to what I was going through with Carter.
I wonder why Len would tell me all of this and waste my time leading me down a road that goes nowhere. I wonder again about his behavior and if there’s more to him than I know.
“It’s all yours,” I say. He seems beside himself with joy.
“Whoa. Really? You—all of it?” His thin frame looks almost skeletal standing in the doorway as I walk to my car. “Thanks!”
“Least I could do.”
When I get on the main road back to the city, my mind is reeling. Those messages I saw from her make sense in context.
You looked really good last night.
Your smell is still lingering, what is that cologne?
The cucumber martini I bought you is my new favorite drink. You should stop by so I can make you one.
I miss you. I wish you’d come see me.
It wasn’t a romance. It was her frantic attempt to seduce him. She “bought” him a drink, meaning she gave him one on the house to try to get his attention. It was good to see him because he was there sporadically when an assignment sent him there, and she was flirting or harassing relentlessly. From the other side of the bar. How could I have ever doubted him?