Marcus’s eyes grew nervous.
“I didn’t kill her, Marcus. I love her more than life, she’s the air that fills my lungs when I wake, she’s the warmth I feel when I’m happy. I would give anything to trade places with her right now, to give my life for hers, to bring her back.”
“I know you didn’t do it,” Marcus said with true compassion. “You’re confused right now, it’s all right.”
The two sat there quietly.
Marcus finally turned around and picked up the phone. “I’m going to call Mitch, I think you should talk to him.”
“He won’t get here in time.”
“Time for what?”
“They’re going to arrest me in-” Nick reached into his pocket and pulled out the gold watch, flipping it open.
“Where did you get-”
“In thirteen minutes.” Nick closed the watch and tucked it away.
“What? That makes no sense,” Marcus said as he shook his head in doubt. “They’re not going to arrest you.”
“ Shannon and Dance.”
“What?”
“Detectives Shannon and Dance. The two detectives in my house right now will make the arrest.”
Marcus had greeted the two detectives when they drove in the driveway, introducing himself, leading them to Julia’s body. They told Marcus it would be best if he stayed over at his house until they were done. They asked about Nick and said they’d need to talk to him when they completed their preliminary investigation. They finally gave their names as Marcus headed out the front door: Detectives Shannon and Dance.
“You know them?” Marcus asked in confusion.
“I’ve never seen, or should I say, saw them, until they come over here to cuff me.”
Marcus stared. “You’re telling me you know what’s going to happen?”
Nick nodded.
“Okay.” Marcus fell silent. He put down the phone and took a seat in the leather wingback chair next to Nick. The sympathy in his eyes grew tenfold. “I don’t suppose you can tell me what they’re wearing?”
“Dance is in a blue, cheap blazer.” Nick didn’t miss a beat as he rattled off their attire. “White shirt, wrinkled tan pants. Shannon ’s an asshole with steroid arms bursting a girl-sized, too-small, black polo shirt and faded jeans.”
Marcus tilted his head, taking a deep breath as he digested what Nick had said. He got up from the chair, walked to the window, and looked through the slatted wood shutters toward Nick’s house. He could see the vehicles, a perfect, clear view of Nick’s driveway where the cops had emerged from their cars. Nick could easily have been watching their arrival, but Marcus didn’t want to challenge his friend in his current state of mind.
“Listen to me,” Nick said, his words growing impassioned. “I’m not crazy. The Yankees-”
“Why are we talking about the Yankees?” Marcus grew concerned.
“The game going on right now, they win in the bottom of the ninth, off…” Nick’s voice trailed off as he realized how silly he sounded, his head bowing in defeat.
The two friends sat silently for a moment, frustrated.
But then Nick looked up in revelation. “His ring finger… Dance’s ring finger on his right hand, it’s missing below the second knuckle.”
Marcus remained silent.
“You know there’s no way I could see that from your window,” Nick said, alluding to Marcus’s doubt. “And ask him about the fun he had at the Jersey Shore.”
MARCUS WALKED OUT the side door of his house into the late summer sun of the day. His heart was broken for his friends. Julia had been as close to him as anyone in his life. She knew his heart and had helped him heal time and time again; she knew his mind and how prone it was to jump to conclusions; she knew his mistakes and misgivings, his weaknesses and suffering, and had never once turned away.
Julia and Nick shared a bond, a love that he could only dream of. They were the touchstone which he judged each of his marriages, making him realize even before he said “I do” that the promise of love till death do us part would never come close to what they shared. They were like one, it was always Julia and Nick, Nick and Julia; rarely were they referred to in the singular. They spent their free time together and each always put the other first.
Seeing her dead on the floor, so heinously robbed of life, so violated, was an assault on all reason. Who could commit such an act, who could rob an innocent of life, who could rob a husband of his reason for living?
And while Julia was dead, it was as if the bullet had also struck Nick. His mind had collapsed, falling into denial, fantasizing about changing the past, about saving Julia. It was the fantasy of a wounded heart, of an insane mind.
Marcus had been in his garage looking through a file box in the trunk of his car when he’d heard the gunshot. It sent a chill down his spine, as it came from the Quinns’ house. He ran as fast as he could, cutting through their open garage door, through the open mudroom door, to see Julia lying askew around the rear stairs. Half her face was gone, and it took every ounce of his energy to hold his stomach together as he became overwhelmed with grief and shock. And when he finally stepped over her body, he saw Nick sitting on the floor beside her, stroking her leg like a child uncomprehending of the reality of death.
Marcus crossed his expansive side lawn, approaching Nick’s house, but this time there was no reason to run; nothing was going to bring Julia back.
The coroner’s truck and two unmarked cop cars, a Taurus and a Mustang, sat in the driveway. Normally a murder in a town that hadn’t seen a murder in twenty-five years would result in an overwhelming response by half the force, but the rest of the department, every policeman, desk clerk, secretary, and receptionist, was at the crash site. Every fireman, EMT, councilman, and doctor from the town had responded. There had never been a plane crash in Byram Hills, or the county, for that matter, but the well-off community responded as if it specialized in disasters. Every able body was out at the field working with the NTSB in whatever capacity they could. Whether it was helping the families of the deceased, searching for wreckage and body parts, or handling administrative details, the entire town of Byram Hills was out in force at the scene of the tragedy just three miles away. As a result, there were only two cops available to deal with Julia’s death.
NICK AND JULIA’S house sat on three acres, one of the few properties that hadn’t been subdivided. Their house dated back to the 1890s, with additions in 1927, 1997, and 2007. The former main house of what was once expansive farmland was five thousand square feet and could truly be called a home. Every room was filled with pictures and mementos speaking to the character of their owners. Far from a museum showcase, as so many large houses had become, it was a home designed for family, a house that Marcus knew one day would be filled with children. But now, as he slipped under the yellow crime tape that wrapped the walk, as he opened the side kitchen door and stepped into the large white kitchen, Marcus knew not only would children’s voices never be echoing the walls but Nick would probably never come home again.
As Marcus cut through the dining room, he could hear the detectives’ voices in the front hall and stopped. He took a moment to backtrack, feeling himself pulled by some unseen force. And though he couldn’t bear to look at Julia’s body again, he craned his neck toward the mudroom where her body lay.
The white-haired coroner leaned over the black body bag, zip-ping it up, pulling out a dark marker and writing on the bag’s label, an action as devoid of emotion as if he was filling out a grocery list. The man’s black eyebrows stood in sharp contrast to his white hair, his hunched frame and weathered skin putting him no younger than seventy-five. Marcus imagined more than a few doctors, medical examiners, and coroners had been pulled from retirement today to deal with all of the death in Byram Hills.