The ringing phone was Joel Robinson. Ethan had programmed specific rings into his mobile so he’d know when the calls were important and could ignore the rest. Joel was Judas Priest’s “Breaking the Law,” Bill was Dvorˇák’s “New World Symphony,” Officer Graham was the Darth Vader theme from Star Wars.
“We may have a problem,” Joel said. “I need for us to have a little talk. You around?”
“I am.”
There was heavy knocking on the back door. “Is that you?”
“It is. Hurry up and let me in before the vultures see me.”
Ethan had almost forgotten the tribe of newspeople camped in his front yard. He was rather surprised the Franklin Police hadn’t shunted them off; from what he could see, they were practically blocking traffic coming off the circle onto Third Avenue.
Ethan unbolted the back door. Joel slipped inside. He was disheveled and sweating. He’d clearly run over.
“What’s going on?”
“Like I said on the phone, we have a problem. Several, actually. A witness has come forward.”
Ethan felt a spike in his heart rate. He tried to keep his tone even. “They found her?”
“You should sit down.”
Sit? Ethan felt like collapsing in a heap, throwing a tantrum, screaming, and beating his fists against the custom wide-planked rough-hewn white oak floors. You’re better than that. You need to stay cool.
“Tell me,” he said, steel in his voice.
“No, they haven’t found her. But this witness is claiming you killed Sutton. That you were systematically abusing her. They claim you killed the baby, too. The police are reopening Dashiell’s case.”
There were many things he was expecting Joel to say. This was not one of them.
“Dashiell?”
“Yes. The witness claims you poisoned him with an overdose of diphenhydramine. That Sutton discovered this, and you killed her to keep her quiet. It’s a very tidy story, and the police are all over it.”
Ethan felt the bottom of his world falling, slowly spinning away, until he was left standing in very thin air. Wind whipped his hair, lightning flashed. The storm blew in so quickly he didn’t know where it had come from. Rain began to pelt him, and he was quickly soaked to the bone.
To the bone.
To the depths of his soul.
Joel was screaming at him, pulling his arm. Ethan realized the storm was real. He was standing in the middle of the street, exposed on Third Avenue, surrounded. The newspeople were shouting at him, cameras were clicking. A sharp flash of lightning and an immediate rolling thunderclap shook the ground, and everyone gasped and scattered, seeking cover.
Joel tugged at him, finally got his feet moving, towed him onto the porch. Shouted in his ear, “We need to go in, Ethan. It’s dangerous out here.”
“No.” Ethan wrenched his arm away, sat hard on the porch swing, ran his fingers along the metal chain that bound it to the ceiling. Started to rock. The wind played along, helping him move. Movement was his friend. Joel stood in the front door, arm on the jamb, watching, calling, but Ethan stayed planted on the swing. Inside the news vans, he knew video was being shot, knew photos were being taken. He raised a middle finger toward them, held it long enough for everyone to get a good view.
When the storm abated, he went inside. Joel had made tea. They sat at the kitchen table, unspeaking.
Finally, Ethan said, “When will they arrest me?”
Joel shook his head. “I don’t know.”
* * *
Ethan wrote. He hid away from it all, the condemnation and the accusations he knew were flying, sat by himself at the long driftwood desk in the big old house on Third Avenue, with the ghosts of his wife and child, writing every word he could conjure. The story was already taking shape. He had always been able to write quickly once his idea was settled; this was no different. Thousands of words poured from his fingers. He ignored the ever-ringing doorbell. He ignored the constantly ringing phone.
He ignored the fact that no one he cared about was reaching out to help.
It had been the same when Dashiell died, come to think of it, minus the words, of course. People had kept their distance. He understood it was hard to approach them, hard to say the words. I’m so sorry your child died.
They’d say everything else. I’m sorry for your loss. I’m sorry about your pain. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
But no one could bring themselves to utter the words they really needed to hear.
He mostly didn’t care. It wasn’t like there was anything anyone could do. Sutton’s friends had hung around the first few days, bringing casseroles, changing sheets. Ivy had made Sutton shower and dress every morning. But even Ivy had eventually been drawn away, off to a conference in Rhode Island, and then it was just the two of them, Ethan and Sutton, alone in the house with the gaping maw of death surrounding them.
Ethan didn’t have many friends. Generally, he liked hanging out with Sutton. He’d been a hell-raiser in his youth, a lunatic ladies’ man, an excessive drinker and partier, but once he’d married her, his wild ways had departed, and he’d become a devoted husband. And for a little while, a doting father, as well. Oh, he had a number of men around, people to have a beer with, or a pickup game at the gym, but he wasn’t the type to go out with the boys, instead preferring to watch from the sidelines.
He was a classic introvert, and observation was his superpower. It’s what made him such a good writer, everyone said so.
He’d gone online once, earlier, after the storm, after Joel left. His meltdown was intricately documented. He’d given them quite the show. He’d made headlines nationwide. He didn’t need to read the stories. What he observed, right now: the whole world was entranced by the idea of a beautiful woman disappearing off the face of the earth. And the media bought in. They dug and pawed and scrabbled for information, sharp nails clawing for the viewer’s attention, clambering over each other in an attempt to solve what had turned into a genuine, bona fide mystery.
As for the rest of them, he ignored it all. He needed to separate himself from his reality. He ignored the strings of Dvorˇák and the crashing of Judas Priest. Turned off the internet, unplugged the router.
He returned his fingers to his lonely keyboard. Allowed the pent-up anger and lust and love and hate to explode forth onto the page. In the back of his mind, he wallowed, thinking about all the ways he’d done her wrong.
If only he hadn’t switched out her birth control pills. If only he hadn’t planned to get her pregnant. If only he’d worked harder to convince her how their lives would be enhanced by a baby, if only she’d agreed to that choice. If only, if only, if only.
He went on like this for hours, until the pads of his fingers were bruised and aching.
The catharsis of losing wife and finding words was not lost on him. The visions of her dead would not recede, and instead made their way into his story. They dripped with sarcasm, redolent of his early work, the voice he’d long lost found again.
He finished one Scotch and poured another. Wrote and wrote and wrote. Got hammered as hell.
And still he wrote.
It wasn’t until he noticed the sun had gone down and it was dark as sin that he realized his hands hurt too much to go on.
With a gentle smile, he gingerly hit Save. Stood and stretched. Played back the messages, increasingly urgent, from his agent, his lawyer, the cop.
They were looking at him now. A small flutter of something—excitement, fear? He didn’t know—coursed through him. It was time.
You knew this would happen, Ethan. Why are you acting surprised? You need their help. Pick up the phone, put it back on the hook. Call Joel, have him help prepare a statement.
You fool. You actually thought you could get away with it, didn’t you?