“I get the picture. Mr. Clean. But you say that changed while you were still together?”
“It started when he fell off the wagon.”
“Ah.”
“When I met him he said that he hadn’t taken a drink for over two years. He was proud of it. He thought that his thirst — he always called it that — was evil, and being on the wagon made him feel like a real person. Then, after we started having problems, he started drinking again. Never in front of me, and he always washed his mouth out before he came home. I never smelled alcohol on him, but he was a different person from then on. And he started yelling at me all the time. He called me horrible names and made threats. He said that I didn’t love him, that I was just trying to use him.”
“I have to ask,” I said, being as delicate as I could, “but was there someone else?”
“For me? God, no!”
“What set him off? From his perspective, I mean. Did he say that there was something that made him angry or paranoid?”
“Well…I think it was his health.”
“Tell me.”
“He started losing weight. He was never fat, not even stocky. David was very muscular. He lifted a lot of weights, drank that protein powder twice a day. He had big arms, a huge chest. I asked him if he was taking steroids. He denied it, but I think he was trying to turn into one of those muscle freaks. Then, about a year and a half ago he started losing weight. When he taped his arms and found that his biceps were only twenty-two inches, he got really angry.”
“David has twenty-two inch biceps?” Christ. Back in his Mr. Universe days, Arnold the Terminator had twenty-four inch arms, fully pumped. I think mine are somewhere shy of fifteen, and that’s after three sets on the Bowflex.
“Not anymore,” said Mrs. Skye. “He lost a lot of muscle mass. Really fast, too. I was scared, I told him to go to a doctor. I thought he might have cancer.”
“Did he go to the doctor?”
“He said so…but I don’t think he did. He kept losing weight. After six months he didn’t even have much definition. He was kind of ordinary sized.”
“Was he drinking by this point?”
“I’m sure of it.”
“That when he started putting his hands on you?”
“Yes. And he became paranoid. Kept trying to make it all my fault.”
“How long did this go on?”
“Well…after the first time he, um, hurt me, I gave him a second chance. After all, he was my husband. I figured he was just scared because of his health. But then it happened again. The second time he knocked me around pretty good. I couldn’t go out of the house for a few days.”
“Was that when you left?”
It took her so long to answer that I knew what her answer would be. I’ve done too many interviews of this kind. If self-esteem is low enough then victimization can become an addiction.
“I stayed for two more months.”
“How many times did he hurt you during that time?” I asked.
“A few.”
“A few is how many?”
Another long pause. “Six.”
“Six,” I said, trying to put no judgment in my tone. “What was the straw?”
She looked at her hands, at the clock, at the snow falling outside. If there’d been a magazine on my desk she would have picked it up and leafed through it. Anything to keep from meeting my eyes. “He choked me.”
“I see.”
“It was in the middle of the night. We were…we were…”
I almost sighed. “Let me guess. Make-up sex?”
She nodded, but she didn’t blush. I’ll give her that. “He’d been sweet to me for two weeks straight without getting mad or yelling, or anything. He acted like his old self. Charming.” She finally met my eyes. “David has enormous charisma. He makes everyone like him, and he always seems so genuine.”
“Uh huh,” I said, wondering how that charm would work on a blackjack across his teeth.
“We sat up talking until late, then we went to bed. And in the middle of the night…things just started happening. You know how it is.”
I didn’t, but I said nothing.
“I was, um…on top. And we were pretty far into things, and then all of a sudden David reaches up and grabs me around the throat. I thought for one crazy moment that he was doing that auto-whatever it’s called.”
“Autoerotic asphyxiation,” I supplied.
“Yeah, that. I thought he was doing that. He talked about it once before, but we’d never tried it. He’s really strong and I’m pretty small. But…I guess I thought he was trying to change things, you know? Create a new pattern for us. A fresh start.”
Naivety can be a terrible thing. Jesus wept.
“But it wasn’t sex play,” I prompted.
“No. He started squeezing his hands. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. It was weird because we were so close to…you know…and David kept staring at me, his eyes wide like he was in some kind of trance. I tried to pull his hands apart, but it just made him squeeze tighter. That’s when he started calling me names again, making wild accusations, accusing me of destroying his life.”
“How did you get away?”
Her eyes cut away again. This was obviously very hard for her.
“I threw myself sideways and when I landed I kicked him in the, um…you know.”
I smiled.
“Good for you,” I said, but she shook her head.
“I grabbed my clothes and ran out. Next day I drove past the house and saw that his car was gone. I had a locksmith come out and change the locks and change the security code on the alarm. I hired a messenger company to take a couple of suitcases of his clothes to the club. Next day I rented a storage unit and had a moving company take all of his stuff there. I used the same messenger service to send him the key.”
“I’m impressed. That was quick thinking.”
“I…I’d already looked into that stuff before. Until that last stretch where he was nice I was planning to leave him. I’d already talked to my lawyer, and I filed for divorce by the end of that week.”
“What did David do?”
“At first? Nothing except for some hysterical messages on my voicemail. He didn’t try to break in, nothing like that. But after a while I started seeing his car behind mine when I was going to work.”
“Where do you work?”
“I’m a nurse supervisor at Sunset Grove, the assisted living facility in Jenkintown. Right now I’m on the four to midnight shift. I’ve spotted David’s car a lot, sometimes every night for weeks on end. I’ve seem him drive by when I’m going into the staff entrance, and his car is there sometimes when I get back home, cruising down the street or parked a block up.”
“What makes you think he’s planning to do more than just harass you?”
“He’s said so.”
“But—”
“He didn’t say or do anything at first…but over the last couple of weeks it’s gotten worse. About three weeks ago I came out of work and stopped at a 7-11 for some gum, and when I came out he was leaning against my car. I told him to get away, but he pushed himself off the car and came up to me, smiling his charming smile. He told me that he knew who I was and what I was and that he was going to end me. His words. ‘I’m going to end you’. Then he left, still smiling.”