Fifty minutes later, Hathaway’s English class was over. The bell rang, the door flew open, and a flurry of shoes landed on the sparkling waxed floor. Natalie waited until the classroom was empty before she ventured inside. Ethan Hathaway looked as if he hadn’t slept in weeks—dark circles, pasty complexion, veiny eyes.
“I’m here to talk about Daisy,” she told him.
“Of course. Whatever I can do to help.” He began to erase the blackboard.
Natalie closed the door behind her. “Have a seat.”
He put down the eraser and clapped the chalk off his hands. “The whole town’s in shock,” he said. “She was a special person … kind, generous, talented. An inspiration to these kids.”
Natalie showed him photocopies of the love sonnets. “We found these at Daisy’s house. Do you happen to know anything about them?”
He stared down at the pages while sunlight filtered in through the blinds. He sat heavily behind his desk and dropped his head in his hands. “Oh God.”
“Ethan … may I call you Ethan?”
He nodded, looking up.
“Did you write these love sonnets to Daisy? Are you Tristan?”
“Yes,” he admitted.
That was easy. Natalie felt a rubbing numbness travel through her nerve endings. It was one thing to speculate about love triangles, but quite another to validate the truth. If Daisy had been lying about her marriage, what else was she lying about?
“I appreciate your honesty,” Natalie told him. “So what happened?”
He held the pages in his caffeine-shaky hands. “She was a force of nature. I fell in love with her. I couldn’t help myself.”
“Did Brandon know you were writing love letters to his wife?”
“No.”
Natalie handed him the paperback, Tristan and Isolde. “How did she get this?”
Ethan put down the photocopies and cradled the book in his hands. “I gave it to her,” he admitted.
“So, in your eyes, you saw yourself as Tristan, and Daisy was Isolde.”
“That’s right.” He took a shaky breath. “It happened so gradually, we hardly noticed. It started in the faculty lounge. We’re both avid readers, and we were just chatting about books. I loaned her Cathedral by Raymond Carver. I wasn’t sure she’d like it, but she did.” He rubbed his face hard. “The next thing you know, we were meeting for coffee after hours, sort of an informal book club. We used to joke about it. The binary book club. Then one thing led to another.”
“Led to what?” Natalie asked.
“This unspoken whatever-the-hell-it-was. Whatever-the-heaven.” He smiled, then winced. “God, that was corny. But Daisy didn’t mind my sentimental side. She thought it was cute.”
“When did you both realize you were in love?”
“At a student dance. Brandon was working late. We were chaperones.”
“And after that, it was no longer platonic?”
Tears brimmed in his eyes, and he brushed them away. “We were careful to keep it hidden from everyone else. Not even Grace knew about us. It was a dilemma, because we never intended to hurt anyone. Daisy struggled with it. She wanted to do the right thing. We tried ending the relationship a few months ago, but … we couldn’t help ourselves.”
“And Brandon knew nothing about it? You’re positive?”
Drained of all feeling, his voice had become mechanical. “Like I said, we were discreet. We ignored each other at school functions. No phone calls, no emails—except for Daisy’s hidden account.”
“What hidden account?”
He looked up and flinched. “Tristan dash Isolde seven nine two at-Yandex dot com. Password blackink.”
Natalie jotted it down in her notepad. “Blackink?”
“A line from Shakespeare. ‘That in black ink my love may still shine bright.’”
Natalie couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. By every measure, it looked like he was telling the truth. But looks could be deceptive. “Where were you this past Wednesday between four and six P.M.?” she asked.
He stiffened. “Why do you need to know that?”
“If you two were having an affair, then you automatically become a person of interest. We need to verify your alibi before we can cross your name off the list.”
“God, I didn’t kill her,” he said with alarm. “I loved her. Living through this … it’s like a bad dream you can never wake up from.” His eyes grew dull with pain. “It’s terrible. Just terrible.”
She nodded sympathetically. During an interview, sometimes it was best to kick back and relax. Breathe. If you kept yourself perfectly still, the subject of the interrogation might keep talking, just to break the silence.
“What was your question?” he asked. “Where was I on Wednesday between four and six? Well, let’s see. There was an after-hours meeting for the student newspaper. I stayed until four fifteen, and then I went home.”
She jotted it down. “Do you live alone?”
“Yes.”
“Did you make any phone calls? Emails? Order a pizza?”
“No, I make my own meals,” Ethan explained. “I’m a pretty good cook. I spent the evening correcting papers. But listen, we’d split up by then.”
She paused with her pen hovering over her pad. Finally, an explanation for the books Daisy had ordered online. The Breakup Bible and Getting Past Your Breakup.
“Daisy ended it about a month ago.” He exhaled. “Less than a month ago. After she knew for certain she was pregnant. She decided to recommit to her marriage.”
“So she broke it off with you … just like that?”
“Yes.”
“How did that make you feel?” Natalie asked.
“Awful. But I accepted it.”
“You did?”
He nodded. He was sweaty and pale. He didn’t look so accepting. He wiped his mouth and licked his dry lips.
“Did you and Daisy keep in touch after she broke up with you?”
“I emailed her a few times.” He folded his trembling hands on his desk.
“And how did she respond?”
“She never answered back. She avoided me at work. When she finally closed her Yandex mail account, that’s when I knew it was truly over.”
“And you were okay with that?”
“No,” he quietly admitted. “I felt deeply saddened by it.”
“Saddened or betrayed?”
He gave her a pained look. His body made no movement.
“How did you cope?” Natalie went on. “After the breakup? Long jogs in the morning? Booze? One-night stands? Weight lifting? More books?”
“Well, look,” he said, angry now. “This was exactly not what I wanted to happen. Emotionally I was torn apart. But I’m not into self-pity.”
“So you pulled yourself up by the bootstraps?”
“Why do I detect sarcasm, Detective Lockhart?” he asked her sharply.
“I’m simply trying to figure out how you coped with such a loss.”
“Good grief. How did you cope with your own breakup?”
Something stirred inside Natalie—a fresh awareness that Grace and perhaps even Daisy had spoken to other people about her relationship with Zack. But this was Burning Lake, and people talked. She decided to try a different tack. “Ethan, let me ask you, did you ever witness any of Riley’s threatening behavior toward Daisy?”
He took a steadying breath. “No, but we discussed it. I was concerned for her safety. Adolescent boys can be pretty aggressive. I told her to report him, but she insisted she could handle it. Nobody was expecting this. Least of all me. It’s horrible what happened,” he said. “Makes me physically ill.”
She paused—there was no delicate way to put this. “When you found out about the baby … did you think it might be yours?”
The anguish showed on his face. “I knew it was a possibility.”
“So Daisy didn’t know who the father was?”
“No.”
“Just to clarify—she had sex with you and with Brandon around the same time?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.” He wiped his sweaty upper lip. “But around the time when she might’ve gotten pregnant … three months ago … Daisy and I had a falling-out. She was torn with guilt. She didn’t want to destroy her marriage. We … For lack of a better term, we split up. She never told Brandon about me. She just wanted things to go back to the way they were before. This was three months ago, for a few weeks, but … it didn’t stick.”
“So—around three months ago—she recommitted to her marriage? Meaning she broke up with you, and presumably slept with Brandon … only Brandon didn’t know about the affair or any of this?”
“I believe so.”
“Do you think she was sleeping with Brandon the whole time? Regardless of whether you’d ‘split up’ or not?”
He shrugged and said coldly, “I have no idea.”
“You two never discussed it?”
“No.”
“She couldn’t make up her mind? Between the two of you?”
“Not until last month—when we split for good.” His jaw muscles clenched. “She said it was final.”
“Did you try talking her out of it?”
“We had a few heated discussions.”
“How heated?”
“Arguments. I was upset. I was in love with her.”
“Did you drive over to her house on Wednesday afternoon?”
“No,” he said, eyes widening. “I told you. I was at home grading papers.”
“And it didn’t bother you that she could’ve been carrying your baby?”
“Of course, it bothered me.”
“Did you ask for a paternity test?” Natalie asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
Ethan shrugged. “Because it’s her body.”
“But it could’ve been your baby. Didn’t that kill you—not knowing?”
His face grew red. “She wanted to believe it was hers and Brandon’s.”
“And you accepted that?”
He balled his left hand into a fist and looked away.
“Ethan, I’m sorry to ask such blunt questions. But it’s vital to the investigation.”
He gave her a defeated look. “Ultimately, it was her decision.”
Natalie frowned. “Is there anything else you can tell me about Daisy? Were there any other problems at school? Any other issues with her marriage?”
“Only…” He hesitated. “I noticed an abrupt change when Brandon hired Lindsey Wozniak to do their landscaping. Daisy became depressed and circumspect. It was odd, seeing this change in her. I couldn’t figure it out at first. But then…” He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, eyes darting.
“What?” she asked.
“Did you know Brandon and Lindsey hooked up in high school? Daisy told me about it once. Apparently the two of them had a fling years ago, and now here was Lindsey, working with Brandon on an extensive landscaping project. It upset Daisy quite a bit.”
“Why would Brandon do that? Hire Lindsey, if it upset Daisy?”
“I’ve asked myself the same question.” Ethan fingered one of the folders on his desk. “To be fair, Lindsey is the top-rated landscape designer in town. And this happened more than two decades ago. But Daisy told me the whole story once.… Were you aware that Brandon impregnated Daisy in high school? She decided to get an abortion without consulting Brandon. She only informed him about it after the fact, when it was too late. She said she’d never seen him so angry.”
“How angry?”
“Emotional abuse, she called it.”
“Did he hurt her physically?”
“No, but he came close.” He ran his finger along his lower lip. “In retaliation, Brandon slept with Lindsey. God, it sounds like a soap opera, when you say it out loud. Anyway, Daisy took it hard. That’s when she attempted suicide.”
“Right, I noticed the scars on her wrist.”
Ethan sighed. “Anyway, Brandon ended his affair with Lindsey, they all went away to college in the fall and, then, a few years later … Brandon and Daisy got married.”
“Given this history, why do you think Brandon hired Lindsey?”
“I don’t know. I thought it was pretty manipulative and controlling of him.”
Natalie wondered if Brandon was punishing Daisy for not wanting to move to the farm in Chippaway. Or perhaps there was some other reason. “Did you know about the farm in Chippaway?”
Ethan shook his head. “What farm?”
“Brandon wanted to move his family to Chippaway.”
“No, she never mentioned it.”
“Did Daisy ever complain about Brandon being abusive?”
“Physically, no. He had two switches, according to Daisy—happy and not happy,” Ethan explained. “When Brandon was happy, everything was fine. But when he was unhappy, he drank. He became a loudmouth jerk who passed out on the sofa. That’s what she told me.”
“How did that make you feel?”
“I’ll always wonder why she picked him over me.”
There was an impatient knock on the glass-paneled door. A handful of students.
“My next class,” he apologized.
“I’d like you to come down to the station for an official interview and a polygraph, if that’s okay,” Natalie said. “Since you don’t have an alibi, this is the only way we’ll be able to clear you.”
He swallowed like a drowning man. “Sure, but I can’t this afternoon. I’ve got commitments for the rest of the day. We’re rehearsing the school play and…”
“How about five o’clock? Are you free then?”
He nodded. “For an hour.”
“Good. Just the interview then,” Natalie said. “We’ll schedule the polygraph for some other time.” She stood up. “See you at five.”