My eyes linger at the top of one of the bookcases where I can see a framed photo of David and me at our wedding. A fine patina of dust covers it like a death shroud and I wonder if it is there due to some conscious effort on David’s part or if it’s so much a part of the background that he’s totally unaware of its presence.
I move toward David’s chair and settle into it, hearing the leather creak comfortably. David’s skinny little ass has carved a slight depression in the seat in the shape of his cheeks. My derriere, being somewhat…fuller, shifts uncomfortably trying to find a fit. A smell, one that I have come to associate with David, wafts up to me: a mix of old leather, Ivory soap, and a tinge of pipe tobacco.
The pipe is David’s one and only vice…if you don’t count his penchant for playing hide the snake with someone other than his wife. He keeps a pipe along with a small pouch of tobacco at the back of his middle desk drawer and sometimes at night, after everyone has gone home, he’ll take it out, light it up, and indulge himself. I’ve been allowed the privilege of being in his presence during this little ceremony on a few occasions. I smile at the memory and feel an aching tug of nostalgia for what we once had, for the dreams and hopes that now seem gone forever.
I open the middle drawer as far as it will go, reach toward the back of it, feel the pipe and the little leather pouch, and grab them both. I’ve always loved the smell of a pipe. In fact, it is one of the things that drew me to David. When I first caught the scent of it on him I found it both oddly familiar and surprisingly comforting, though I had no idea why at the time. Later, my mother told me that my father had smoked a pipe.
After tossing the pipe back in the drawer, I unroll the pouch to get a better whiff and a business card falls out of it onto my lap. It’s for a Mike Halverson, owner and manager of Halverson Medical Supply. I’ve heard of the place before; it’s one of a handful of local supply companies that provide stuff to both the hospital and the doctors’ offices. For David to have the card is not unusual, but finding it wrapped up inside his tobacco pouch strikes me as a bit odd.
I hear the squeak of the back door opening and quickly roll the tobacco pouch back up, tossing it in the drawer next to the pipe. I ease the drawer closed and then throw my legs up on David’s desk, leaning back to stare at the ceiling, trying to look nonchalant. When I realize I’m still holding the business card, I slip it into my slacks pocket.
David walks in a second later and stops short when he sees me.
“Mattie.”
“In the flesh,” I say. “Not that you would remember what my flesh looks like.”
It’s a low blow, one I didn’t intend to make, and the effect on David is instant. He winces as if I’ve slapped him.
“I suppose I deserve that,” he says.
“I suppose you do.”
He sighs heavily; it’s a gesture I know well and it irritates me. “Sorry to bother you,” I say with a hint of sarcasm, “but I need to talk to you about Karen Owenby.”
His face flushes red and he looks away, over toward the bookcase with the wedding picture. “It’s terrible. A terrible thing.”
“Yes, it is. What do you know about it?”
He looks at me then, his expression a mix of sadness and suspicion. “What do I know about it? Not much. Just what the cops told me.”
“Which was…”
“That someone killed her. Shot her. In her own home.”
“Did you tell the cops that you’re sleeping with her?”
“I’m not sleeping with her.”
“That’s right, you were wide-awake and standing up as I recall.”
David has the good grace to look embarrassed and his gaze shifts to his shoes. “I told the detective about that one incident,” he says sheepishly. He raises his head and looks at me in earnest. “Which is the last time anything happened between me and Karen, Mattie. I broke it off with her that night. After seeing the look on your face, I knew I’d made a terrible mistake. I wanted to take it all back, to make it go away. I never meant for it to happen. I never meant to hurt you.”
I’m ready to hit him with another one of my snappy comebacks, but he sounds so sincere and looks so pathetic that I lose my enthusiasm for the kill. He’s rolling over and showing me his vulnerable underbelly, and a part of me wants to get up and go to him, to try to regain what we once had. Another part of me wants to take advantage of his foolish acquiescence and disembowel him. I do neither.
“What else did you tell the cops?” I ask him.
He shrugs. “Wasn’t much to tell.”
“Really? Did you tell them that you and Karen had a heated argument at your house just hours before she was killed? A fight that had her so angry she slapped your face?”
“No,” David says, his expression turning worried. “I didn’t think—” He stops and looks at me, a dawning awareness replacing the concern on his face. “How do you know about that?”
“I saw it. I looked through the front window and saw the whole thing.”
“You looked through the window,” he repeats, sounding momentarily dazed. Then the significance of it registers and his voice grows angrier. “The front window? Wait a minute, you were spying on me?”
“I didn’t mean to,” I lie. “I needed to get some things from the house and when I saw another car parked in the driveway, I thought it might be prudent to find out who was there before I went in. So I looked in through the window. And I saw the whole thing.”
David turns away; his jaw clenches, his eyes narrow, and the muscles in his cheeks jump and twitch. I watch him, trying to guess what is going on in his mind. I realize then that I am putting one hell of a lot of trust in my own judgment, banking on David’s innocence despite what I’ve seen. But what if I’m wrong? What if the man I’ve been married to all these years is a sociopath?
“Did you tell the cops what you saw?” David asks.
I debate my answer for a second, wondering if I should lie for the sake of insurance. But my gut still says David could not have done this. I want to believe that. For some reason, I need to believe that.
“No, but only because they haven’t really questioned me yet. I saw Detective Hurley snooping around outside the house this morning and he found the wheelbarrow I was standing in still parked beneath the window. I think he might have guessed that I was there.”
“So, lie. Don’t tell him you were there. Or if you want to tell him you were there, don’t tell him what you saw. Make something up.”
“Make something up? Why? What are you hiding, David?”
He looks me straight in the eye then. “Do you actually think I could have killed Karen?”
I stare back at him, back at those eyes that can change from gray to blue in the flash of a second. And in them I see the blank page that is my future and the emptiness that is now our past.
“No, I don’t,” I say finally. “But I do think you know something. Something you’re not telling me.”
“Nothing important,” he says. “Believe me, if I thought I knew something that could shed some light on this tragedy, I’d say so.”
“What were you and Karen arguing about that night?”
He looks at me for a long second, then turns away. I know him well enough to know I’ve just been weighed, considered, and found lacking.
“It was nothing really. She was just upset that I didn’t want to pursue a relationship with her.”
He’s lying. I’m certain of it. But all those years of being married to him taught me that stubbornness is one of his strongest suits. I know I’ll never get him to budge.
“Fine,” I say, feeling cross, hurt, and once again betrayed. I push out of his chair and head for the door, but he grabs my arm as I pass by.