Now
Monday, August 16
Woodstock, New York
I stared down at my now-clean hands, no hint of George’s blood left. I was sitting in a hard plastic chair that was half-cracked and clicked anytime I so much as breathed, in an empty room in the Woodstock police station—an interview room.
Once Morales was done with her questions, a baby-faced officer who’d never even told me his name had driven me off the scene, not back to my rental, as I’d hoped, but instead to the police station several miles outside town. He’d asked me to put my phone and purse in a clear plastic bin up front and then deposited me in this room, swiped the inside of my cheek for DNA, insisting that since I’d been at the scene, the only way to rule me out was to have access to that information, and I’d been too afraid of looking even more guilty to object. Then he’d carefully cleaned my hands with alcohol wipes before taking my prints on a digital reader. When he was done, he’d asked me to go over everything again, for a statement, and I’d told him what I’d told Morales, and what I’d told the officers who’d first arrived to the scene before that, careful to say it all in the same order, to not mess up any details, already scared I was somehow flubbing it up, knowing how it would look if I made even one mistake. The officer had typed everything up on a dinosaur of a laptop, then left me alone in the interview room.
Now I looked up at the ticking clock, askew on its hook on the wall. It was four thirty. I’d been sitting here, alone, for a half hour now, nothing to do but return, in my mind, over and over again to George’s dead body. To realize that nothing on earth would ever bring him back, would ever let me know if he really was sorry, if he really had wanted to change. And wondering, too, just how much trouble I was in. If I was truly a suspect, or if this was all a formality? My sweet little boy had lost his father. He was going to grow up now on a completely different trajectory, to live with the knowledge his whole entire life: My dad was murdered. My dad is gone. Was there a chance, even small, that Alex would lose not only his dad, but his mom, too?
Should I be calling a lawyer already? And who would I call anyway? Ron Davis and his associates couldn’t even manage to pass on the initial divorce offer before George told me himself. I had no money for someone else. I barely even had the money for him. There was George’s life insurance, but that would probably take forever to pay out and would only serve to count as another mark against me. Real motive. I could call Rachel or my mom, but they hardly had a few dimes between them, Rachel content to work in retail, my mom saddled with a slew of medical bills from her recent fall. No, the only ones in my life who had money—and quick access to it—were the Haywoods. And what would they think? Had an officer already informed them that their onetime daughter-in-law had called the police with their son dead in the room and blood literally on her hands?
God, had they already told Alex?
He needed me now, more than ever.
I needed him, too.
The door clicked, then burst open. The baby-faced guy was back. He eyed me, then crossed his arms, a power stance. Oh god, I thought. They’re going to do it now. They’re going to charge me with my husband’s murder.
I could only think of Alex. How badly I wanted to see him, to squeeze him, to kiss his chubby cheeks and smell the distinct powdery scent of his Buzz Lightyear Pull-Ups. To brush Cheerio crumbs off the bottom of his lip and feel the quick pulse of his heartbeat on mine, delight in the way he said, “Mama, don’t go.” Would the next time I see him be in some jail cell? God, would Ruth and Frank even bring him to visit if they thought I’d killed their son?
The officer’s arms uncrossed. “You’re free to go now. But you need to stay in the area. Detective Morales will want to talk to you again.”
Relief flooded through me. They weren’t arresting me. They weren’t going to keep me from Alex.
The officer leaned against the doorjamb. “Do you have someone you can call to come get you? We were going to have an officer drive you back, but he just went out on a call. I can take you at the end of my shift, but it’s not for a couple of hours still. Unless you want to wait.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head almost viciously. “I don’t want to wait. But I don’t even have my phone.”
“It’s up at the front with your other things. I’ll leave you to it, then. Got work to do. And like I said, stay close.”
I wandered into an empty hallway, retraced my steps until I was back at the front, the beeping of walkies, the shuffling of papers, the symphony of sound an eerie mundanity when everything in my world was falling apart.
“Excuse me,” I said to the woman up front. “I think my things are up here.”
“Mary Haywood?” she asked.
I nodded, and she pushed the bin toward me. I grabbed my purse, my keys, my phone, tapping the last to life. The battery was nearly dead, but I opened a car service app. I set my location, tried to call a ride, but the closest car was forty-five minutes away. I checked another app. No cars on there at all.
I looked up at the woman. “Is there a taxi service in Woodstock?”
“Not really,” she said matter-of-factly. “There are some by the train station, but that’s across the river in Rhinebeck, they won’t come get you out here. You can try the apps, but it can take a while for a car to show up.”
“I tried them. There’s nothing.”
She shrugged, as if this wasn’t remotely her problem, and I suppose it wasn’t. “One of the officers can drive you, but not until the shift change at seven. There’s no one you can call?”
No, I thought. I didn’t know anyone in town. Henry was probably gone by now, and he wouldn’t help me anyway.
Only I did know someone. Someone who’d asked me to help her only last night.
A shiver ran up my spine. I wanted nothing to do with her, her and her lies. But I wasn’t about to sit here for two hours, either.
So with shaking fingers, I tapped into my contacts, found her name. A name that wasn’t really her name at all.
It rang only twice and then there she was. “Hello,” she said, her voice warm, yet surprised. “I didn’t think I’d hear from you, not after last night.”
I struggled to find the right words.
“Mary,” Willa said. “Is everything okay?”
“No,” I said. “No, it isn’t. Listen. I’m at the Woodstock police station. I need you to pick me up.”
“What . . . what happened?”
“It’s George,” I said, my voice choking with emotion. “It’s George. He’s dead.”
A pause, a distinct one—or was I imagining it?—and then Willa gasped. Immediately, I heard a shuffling in the background. “Oh my god,” she said. “Oh my god.”
More tears came down then, and I found myself struggling to catch my breath.
“It’s okay, Mary,” Willa said. “I’m only ten minutes away. Just hang tight. I’ll be right there.”