Hard Feelings (25 page)

“Somewhere in the Sixties.”

“Can’t you be any more specific?”

“Sorry. Can’t we just concentrate on my wife?”

“That’s what I’m trying to do, Mr. Segal. I know this is hard for you, but if you could just bear with me.” He turned a page on his notepad. “So you and your wife take a walk at around eight o’clock, and this is when a construction worker beats you up.”

“That’s right,” I said.

“I thought construction workers break at five.”

“I don’t really know if he was a construction worker,” I said. “He could have just been a guy hanging out near a construction site.”

“Got it,” Himoto said skeptically. “So after you take this walk you return to your apartment at around eight-thirty. When was the last time you saw your wife?”

“It must have been about eleven o’clock,” I said.

“That late?” Himoto asked.

“I went out,” I said. “I had a couple of drinks. When I came home Paula was in bed.”

“Did you have a couple of drinks or were you drunk?”

If Himoto had spoken to my doorman he already knew I was drunk. I decided that there was no point in making up any more stories.

“Let’s put it this way—I had a couple of drinks too many,” I said.

“Doug Pearson said you were drunk that night. He said you came home from work drunk and then you had an argument with your wife.”

“How the hell would Doug Pearson know what happened?”

“He said your wife called him at approximately nine P.M. What I’m wondering about is if you came home from work drunk, when did you and your wife take this walk you said you took? Were you drunk when you took the walk?”

“Doug is lying.”

“Lying about what?”

“Everything. I’m telling you the way it happened. I had a drink or two after work, but I wasn’t drunk. I came home, took a walk with Paula, then I went out drinking alone.”

“And you didn’t have a fight with your wife?”

“It wasn’t a fight, it was an
argument
—a minor argument. You know, if I were you I wouldn’t pay much attention to anything Doug Pearson says. He was having an affair with my wife and he just wants to make me look as bad as possible.”

“What makes you say Doug Pearson was having an affair with your wife?” Himoto asked. There was a strange tone in his voice—I didn’t know if he was suspicious or just curious.

“His fiancée . . . I mean, his
ex
-fiancée called me up at work and told me.”

“According to what Mr. Pearson told me, he hadn’t been having an affair with your wife at all.”

“He’s lying,” I said. “He has something to do with this and he’s trying to cover for himself.”

Himoto seemed unconvinced and I couldn’t help wondering myself if maybe I’d been wrong about Paula and Doug— maybe they weren’t having an affair after all. It had been stupid of me to take Kirsten’s word for it.

Himoto turned to a new page on his notepad and said, “Mr. Pearson also told me that the first time your wife came to his apartment was about two weeks ago, after you pushed her into a wall—I guess that was during one of your ‘minor arguments.’ Then, on this past Tuesday night, Mr. Pearson says your wife called him again, apparently afraid you were going to become violent, and Mr. Pearson told her to come to his apartment right away. She declined the offer and said that she was going to go out to take a walk and get some fresh air.”

“I don’t believe this,” I said. “You actually think . . . I told you, my wife was home when I came home from drinking.”

“I’m just telling you what Mr. Pearson told me. Chris Dolan, your wife’s boss, also called the precinct today, and he also raised some concern about you. He said your wife came to work a couple of weeks ago with a bruise on her cheek—”

“She fell in the shower.”

“That’s what Mr. Dolan said your wife claimed happened, but there were fears in her office that domestic violence might have been involved.”

“Come on, I would never hurt my wife,” I said. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“Excuse me?”

“Accusing me of something like that. You have to be crazy to—”

“All right, let’s calm down,” Himoto said.

“No, you calm down,” I said. “My wife is missing and your job is to find her, so just find her, damn it!”

Himoto shifted on the couch.

“I’m just trying to get a sense of your wife’s whereabouts on Tuesday night,” he said, “what she might’ve been thinking about, what her emotional state was, and then I’m going to try to piece all of this information together and reach a logical conclusion. This is the way I run my investigations—I’m sorry if you have a problem with that.”

“Just find her,” I said. “That’s all I care about. Find her.”

Himoto was looking into my eyes again. I became uncomfortable and I had to look away.

“So you’re telling me that the last time you saw your wife was on Tuesday evening in bed at approximately eleven P.M.”

“That’s correct,” I said. “When I got into bed she was there next to me.”

“Are any of your wife’s belongings missing?”

“No,” I said. “At least not that I’m aware of.”

“Did she take any money with her, credit cards . . .”

“She left her pocketbook,” I said.

Himoto’s eyes widened.

“Does she usually leave home without her pocketbook?”

“No, not usually. But I suppose she could have just taken some money and left—if she was in a hurry.”

“Do you think your wife was suicidal, Mr. Segal?”

“Paula? No way.”

“She never talked about wanting to kill herself—even a time when you thought she might not be serious?”

“No, I—well, that’s not really true. Actually, several days ago, she was telling me about problems she had when she was a teenager. Anyway, she said she once went into her parents ’ car inside a garage and turned on the ignition. But she was very depressed at that time and I don’t think she would ever try something like that
now.
”

“The only reason I’m suggesting this,” Himoto said, “is you’re telling me you had an argument the other night, and according to Doug Pearson the idea of divorce was mentioned. Perhaps it’s not such a leap to imagine her becoming overly distressed about the situation.”

I tried to imagine the scene—Paula leaving the apartment and taking a cab to the Brooklyn Bridge. I saw her standing on the bridge’s railing, looking down at the pitch-black East River with a crazed expression.

“Maybe it’s something to look into,” I said, “but I don’t think so—not Paula.”

“What about enemies?” Himoto asked. “Was there anyone who was angry at her for any reason?”

“No,” I said. “Nobody.”

“What about you?” Himoto asked.

“What about me?” I asked, wondering if he was accusing me again.

“Do you have any enemies?”

Thinking about the e-mails, I said, “No. No one.”

Himoto closed his notepad.

“Let us know if anyone tries to contact you,” he said, “although, to be quite honest, given that approximately forty-eight hours have elapsed since your wife disappeared and you haven’t heard anything, it doesn’t seem likely that kidnapping for ransom could have been the motive. But you never know.”

“So what’s the next move?” I asked.

“Ideally?” Himoto said. “Ideally your wife walks through the door and you two live happily ever after. In the meantime, we’ll do whatever we can to locate her, which reminds me— do you have a recent photograph of your wife?”

I went into the bedroom and returned with a picture of Paula that I had taken during our weekend in Stockbridge. I remembered how Paula had given the Jersey police a picture of me from the same packet of photos.

As Himoto put the photo away in the inside pocket of his sport jacket I said, “I wish you wouldn’t pay attention to anything Doug Pearson says about me. I don’t know if he was having an affair with my wife or not, but I do know that he
wanted
to be with her. He called here last night, asking if I knew where Paula was and, if you want my opinion, he sounded obsessed. He told me ‘You’re never gonna get her back’ and ‘It’s over between you two.’ I don’t want to accuse the guy of anything—I mean, I hardly even know him—but maybe you should be asking
him
where my wife is.”

For the first time, I had the sense that Himoto was on my side.

“Is the doorman who’s on duty now the same doorman who was on duty Tuesday night?” Himoto asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Maybe we should go down and ask him a few questions.”

I went down with Himoto to talk to Raymond. Raymond said that someone had come to visit Paula the night she disappeared.

“He was in a suit,” Raymond said. “He had dark hair.”

“That must have been Doug,” I said.

But Raymond said he couldn’t remember what time the man arrived at the building, how long he had stayed, or if he had left alone or with Paula.

“I only take a good look at the people who are coming into the building,” Raymond said, “not at the people who are going out.”

Himoto asked Raymond some more questions, but Raymond could offer no further help. Raymond suggested that Himoto might want to call the building’s security company to view the footage from the lobby’s camera. After Himoto took down the name and phone number of the security company, I said, “See, I told you Doug has something to do with this.”

“But you said your wife was home when you came home from drinking.”

“She
was
home,” I said, “but Doug was here that night and he didn’t tell you that when you talked to him, right? That could mean he’s trying to hide something, right?”

“It definitely raises some suspicion,” Himoto said.

“So are you gonna talk to him again? Find out if he knows anything?”

“Don’t worry, we’ll follow up every lead we have ASAP,” Himoto said. “I’ll let you know if there’s any news, and if you hear anything I hope you’ll do the same.”

After Himoto left, I remained in the lobby for a while, talking to Raymond about Paula.

“I’m sure she’s okay,” Raymond said. “She’ll probably come home tonight. You’ll see.”

“I hope you’re right,” I said. My eyes were starting to tear. “If something happened to her, I don’t know what I’d do.”

“She’ll be okay,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

Back in my apartment, I broke down crying. All the stress of the past few days had built up and become unbearable. I kneeled on the floor in the foyer, sobbing uncontrollably.

Later, as I started to recover, I was thinking about Doug, wondering if he was really capable of hurting Paula. I remembered how intense he had been on the tennis court, grunting like a madman every time his racket made contact with the ball. It wasn’t such a stretch to imagine him as a psychopathic murderer.

Pacing the apartment, I imagined what had happened on Tuesday night. Paula had called Doug around nine o’clock. She was very upset, so Doug had insisted on coming over to see her, whether she wanted to see him or not. Doug stayed for a while, trying to get Paula to come home with him. Feeling guilty for having an affair, Paula turned Doug down and Doug left alone around ten o’clock. Then when I came home, around eleven—drunk, smelly, and beaten up—Paula was so repulsed that she decided to go to Doug’s place after all. Then something happened. Maybe Paula and Doug had some kind of fight. Paula decided to break it off with him and Doug became jealous and enraged. I saw Doug, his face red and intense, beating up Paula, then killing her.

I was clenching my fists so tightly my fingernails were cutting into my palms. I wanted to find out where Doug lived and go confront him, but I knew this was exactly what he wanted me to do. He’d already told lies about me to Himoto, and he’d probably been sending the e-mails to me too. Paula had probably told him that the police had questioned me about a murder, so he came up with the brilliant idea of harassing me.

Then I thought of
something
I could do.

I went into my office in the spare bedroom and tossed Otis out into the hallway. I still hadn’t cleaned up his piss and shit from the floor and the entire room stunk.

I booted up my computer, then dialed into my PC at work and accessed my e-mail account. I retrieved one of the threatening messages and replied:

FUCK YOU DOUG.

I clicked SEND then turned off the computer. After I cleaned up Otis’s mess, I took a long, cold shower.

Throughout the evening, I checked my work e-mail several times, but I had no new messages. Around midnight, I took Otis down for his walk. He was better behaved than he had been recently, but he seemed a little sad.

“I know,” I said. “I miss Mommy too.”

The apartment seemed noticeably empty and quiet without Paula. To create some noise, I turned on the TV in the bedroom, but this only made the atmosphere more depressing. I wondered if this was a preview of the rest of my life, if I’d always be alone, in an empty apartment, with a TV going in the background.