Now
Monday, August 16
Woodstock, New York
Mrs. Haywood. Are you Mrs. Haywood?”
I jolted at the sight of the woman in front of me, standing out amid the chaos, the flash of the crime-scene photographer’s camera, the blood still on the ground, remnants clinging to my own hands, to my pants, the paint that looked like blood on the walls around me. And people, so many people. Paramedics, police, and photographers.
Chaos, all around me. Chaos, and carnage.
I blinked twice, trying to pull myself back to the present. It had all happened so fast. Finding George. Scrambling to get my hands on my phone. Dialing 911 with bloody fingers. Telling the dispatcher everything I knew. Waiting by his body, feeling for his pulse, for breath coming from his mouth. Knowing my husband, Alex’s father, was dead. Knowing nothing would ever, ever be the same again. Then the sound of the siren and all the people invading this place. People who asked me questions and took evidence off my body. People who looked at me like this was all my fault.
“Mrs. Haywood?” the woman said again.
“Yes,” I said finally. “Mary.”
“Detective Morales,” she said.
My eyes widened, taking in her glossy dark-brown hair and Elizabeth Taylor eyes. The sort of posture that made her medium height seem taller. I hadn’t taken her for a detective, and yet, of course she was. Because here I was, my dead husband’s blood on my hands. Of course there would be a detective. And of course she’d want to talk to me.
“Perhaps we can go somewhere a bit quieter?” she prompted.
I nodded, then followed her, the click of her heels leading us into a kitchen, cabinet faces off, glossy tiles half-applied on one wall, and to a small table surrounded by four chairs.
“We’ll need your shirt and pants to go in here.” She opened a large zip-top plastic bag with EVIDENCE printed across it and set it on the table, gesturing to my blood-spattered jeans.
“What do I—”
“There are some sweats in here,” she said, placing a shopping bag on the table as well. “Should tide you over for now.”
“Okay,” I said cautiously. I scanned the kitchen, looking for a door to a bathroom, but the detective only turned around, clearly waiting for me to undress right then and there.
Cooperate, I thought. Just cooperate. Don’t make this look worse than it is.
Carefully, I slipped off my sandals, then slithered out of my jeans and tank, tucked them into the evidence bag, and grabbed a pair of oversized sweats and a large T-shirt that read Woodstock Police Annual 5K.
When I was done, I cleared my throat, and Morales turned around. She grabbed the evidence bag, pressed the top shut, and pulled out a notebook instead. “Tell me everything that happened, then.”
“I already talked to one of the officers.”
“I know,” she said, all business. “But I want to hear it myself.”
I nodded, my heart thumping loud in my chest, the cacophony of sound still banging on in the front room. “Can I sit?”
Morales didn’t say no, and I sank into the chair, spent. She didn’t take a seat herself, making the power dynamic even more off, but there was nothing to do about it now.
“Start from the beginning,” she said. “What was the plan this morning?”
“George was going to come over to my place. He was supposed to get there around eleven or noon.”
“And what about the hours leading up to that? What did you do?”
I bristled, knowing the implication. She wanted an alibi. My god. “I had a meeting, at a preschool on the edge of town. Woodstock Kids Academy. The woman there, the director—Janice, I think—she showed me around. We met at ten. I left a little before eleven.”
“Yes,” Morales said. “I know Janice well. We’ll speak to her. And before that?”
“I was at my rental,” I said. “Tidying up. Unpacking. Making coffee, you know.”
“So no one else saw you then?”
A chill ran down my arms. “No.”
“Right,” she went on. “Back to the meeting. Why were you and your husband staying in separate places? Neither of you live here, correct?”
“Oh,” I said. “Sorry. I figured someone would have said. We’re separated. I was planning on moving up here, and I came to look at possible rentals, daycares. That’s why I was at the preschool.”
“So why was Mr. Haywood here, then?”
“He wanted to reconcile. He . . .” My voice trailed off, briefly. “He wanted us to give the marriage another chance.”
“And you didn’t?” Morales raised an eyebrow.
“We’ve been apart since February. I guess I thought it was time to move on.”
The detective didn’t ask why, only made a note. “But you agreed for him to come over. Why?”
My heart thumped heavily as I thought of my conversation with George last night. The way he’d insisted he’d actually wanted to change. Was it real, or was it another game of his? I would never know, and I ached with the grief of it. Tears filled my eyes, and I felt, almost, like I would never know who my husband really was.
“He was going to bring over some jewelry,” I managed, swiping away the tears. Morales tossed a pack of travel tissues on the table between us, and I took one.
Then she took a seat herself, on my level now. “What jewelry?” she asked gently.
“George was holding on to jewelry that belonged to his brother’s wife. Henry and Cassandra. They’re caught up in a messy divorce,” I said, blotting beneath my eyes. “George and I had been arguing about it. I thought he should give it back to her, but he kept taking Henry’s side. Until last night. He called me, said that he wanted to give it back, that he”—more tears, more blotting—“that he wanted to change a lot of things, start actually listening to me.”
“Was it valuable jewelry?” Morales asked.
“Yes,” I said, nodding. “Yes, very valuable. And then George didn’t show up, and I tried calling a bunch of times, and at one thirty, I decided to come over here instead, and I got here, and I knocked a bunch of times, and I looked through the window in the front door, and I saw—it looked like blood—I guess it was paint, but I didn’t know.” I gasped to catch my breath. “I saw the graffiti first when I opened the door, and I thought it was another break-in, but then I turned—” I paused, the tears gushing forth now. “I turned and I tripped,” I blubbered. “And I fell, and—it was him.”
Morales nodded gently, then glanced at my hands, red still caked into the creases of my skin.
“It was from the fall,” I said. “I called 911 right away, I promise you. Then everyone got here. And now here I am.” I sniffled, grabbed a new tissue, crumpled the other one in my palm.
“Yes,” Morales said. “Here you are.” She paused, then flipped a page in her book. “Did you find the jewelry, when you arrived?”
I shook my head almost viciously. “No,” I said. “No, of course not. I saw him, and I completely forgot all about it.”
She cleared her throat, obviously changing tack. “Okay, then. Did your husband have any enemies?”
“No,” I said quickly. “But Henry did. He was always arguing with people online. And then all his properties were getting broken into, and there was graffiti at all of them. And this is his place. Someone could have mistaken George for Henry. They look a lot alike.” My voice cracked. “But I don’t know why someone would kill him. It’s only ever been break-ins before. Nothing—” George’s dead eyes flashed again to my mind, and I felt like I might throw up. “Nothing like this.”
Morales raised an eyebrow. “Things do escalate. We will look into the break-ins. Speak to the rest of the Haywoods.”
“Henry was here Saturday. I don’t know if he’s still in town or back in Brooklyn. George’s parents are in Montauk. My son is there, staying with them. They don’t even know—should I call them? I didn’t even think to . . .”
“We’ll send an officer to inform them today. Make sure they know before the news gets hold of it.”
News, I thought. I imagined vultures pouncing. Descending on the most obvious of obvious suspects—me. The estranged wife, tied up in a bitter custody battle. This was bad. Very bad.
“I didn’t kill him,” I said, my voice earnest, desperate, tears streaming down my cheeks. “No matter what was going on with our separation, I couldn’t—I wouldn’t—kill him. He’s the—he was the—the father of my child. He said he wanted to change—actually work things out between us.”
Morales’s eyes caught mine, and I couldn’t tell if she believed me. I knew, deep down, that there were so many reasons not to.
“What about anyone close to him?” she asked. “Was there another girlfriend, an affair partner?”
“No,” I said, rearing back. “God, no. Our separation had nothing to do with that. George wasn’t a cheater. I’m not, either.”
“What about since the separation?” she pressed. “If that was in February, then it’s been six months already. Was Mr. Haywood dating? Seeing anyone? Anyone at all, even if it was only casual?”
My shoulders seized up, and I crumpled the tissues even tighter in my hand, like if I could turn them into the smallest ball possible, somehow, this would all go away.
The thought of George with someone else had never seriously occurred to me, he’d always been so desperate to win me back. After all, who threatens to go for full custody solely to force someone to return if they’re distracted and newly in love, if they’re living up a single, bachelor life?
But now, the idea was like a flashing neon sign, one that couldn’t be turned off. I inhaled, feeling foolish, because suddenly it seemed clear. George and all his efforts to get me back had cooled off a bit, hadn’t they? Right around the middle of June. He’d seemed less desperate, more . . . distracted. Then in early July, he’d become so much more reasonable. He’d agreed to joint custody. Agreed for me to come up here. Encouraged me to book the place in Woodstock to get it all sorted. He and I had spoken less from that point on, knowing things were on the way to finally resolving.
But then, this. Something had changed between then and now. Something that had caused him to go back on everything we’d agreed to. To want me back more than ever, to go to any lengths to stop me from leaving.
Had he met someone this summer? Had things gone wrong between them, somehow?
Was there a woman, out there, who hurt my husband?
“Did you think of something, Mrs. Haywood?” Morales prompted.
“No,” I said automatically. “I mean, I guess I don’t know.” I swallowed back a rising feeling of dread in my chest. “If George was seeing someone, I never met her.”
I took a deep breath, then used the crumpled ball of tissues to pat my eyes one more time.
“I never knew anything about her at all.”