On Frank’s first visit to the hospital, Nancy had a tube down her throat. But Frank stayed for a long time, holding her hand, comforting his children.
“Your mother’s alive,” he told the children. “Nothing else matters. Her shattered face can be reconstructed. Her body will heal.”
The words felt surreal as he said them. The sound of his own voice was like something straight out of a dream. But what else could Frank have said? Ever since his affair—ever since he had started embezzling from his boss, Richard Raley—he’d been afraid of getting tangled up in his own lies. That’s what had driven him toward Billie Earl Johnson. But Billie had failed, and the fear that Frank felt now cut more deeply. The more he talked, the more overwhelmed he became. It was as if he’d been swept overboard in some storm, and it was all he could do to tread water—keep his head above the surface until help arrived.
What help would look like, Frank didn’t know. All he could do was keep lying for now.
“I’ll stay right here by your mother’s side,” Frank said. “There’s nowhere else I’d want to be.”
For the next twenty minutes, Frank did his best to convey the notion that nothing could tear him and Nancy apart. That nothing ever had, or would. He’d gone home earlier that day, fetched his things, had all that he needed right there at the hospital. Now he would sleep in the armchair right at Nancy’s feet, holding her hand for however long it took until the doctors told him they were out of the woods.
But just outside of Nancy’s room, on his way to the bathroom, Frank found himself face-to-face with a Carrollton police officer. Startled, he couldn’t help but take a step back. The police officer looked startled too. The Howards were friends of his, fellow parishioners at First Baptist Church.
How could this have happened to them?
Frank didn’t know. Couldn’t know. But, of course, he understood that the officer did have to ask him some questions. Nancy had finally fallen back asleep again, and if there was anything at all the officer thought Frank could help with, well then, he would bend over backward to help.
“Basic questions,” the officer explained. “Anything you might have seen or heard around the neighborhood. Suspicious characters. That sort of thing.”
“There’s nothing,” Frank said. “Nothing I can think of that would have led to this.”
“Any break-ins that you’re aware of?”
“There was that break-in over on Fairfield Drive, by the Parkway. But you know about that. And I don’t know what that would have to do with Nancy. You’re saying that none of the neighbors heard or saw anything at all?”
“It was raining pretty hard, Frank. Everyone was inside. Maybe someone will come forward. But at the moment it doesn’t look like much more than an aggravated assault.”
“Aggravated assault?” Frank asked, arching his eyebrows. Trying his best to look puzzled, he hoped the officer hadn’t noticed his lips curl up into a smile. Anything that pointed the police away from him was a good thing, Frank reasoned.
“A botched robbery attempt or something of that nature. Maybe she came home and startled a burglar.”
“Jesus. You saw what they did to her?”
“I wasn’t there on the scene, Frank. But I want you to know that we’re going to catch whoever did this. Now, I’m sorry to have to ask, but is there anything you can think of that Nancy herself could have done…”
“You know how Nancy is. She’s so kindhearted, who knows who she might have answered the door for.”
Frank’s friend, the officer, nodded thoughtfully. Then, almost as an afterthought, and just for procedure’s sake, he asked one last question:
“You weren’t home when Nancy was shot?”
Frank shook his head: no.
“Okay, then. So, where were you?”
Frank hesitated. He’d told Nancy that he’d been in Florida. But lying to his wife was one thing. Lying to the police, in the wake of a shooting, could turn into something much worse. Weighing the word for a moment, he finally said, “California.”
“Okay, Frank. That’s fine. Of course, we’ll have to interview you in a more formal setting, down at the station.”
“Of course,” Frank said. “Of course.”