Never Look Away (29 page)

THIRTY-FIVE

Sam didn't sell me out. As best as I could tell, the city desk had not had their way with the story. It hadn't been jazzed up, slanted, or twisted. It was a factual, direct, straightforward account of what had been going on for the last two days. It didn't ignore the fact that the police had been talking to me at length about Jan's disappearance, but it did not go so far as to name me as a suspect. Neither Detective Duckworth nor anyone else with the Promise Falls police had said anything as direct as that.

Sam had also managed to get into her story the discovery of a woman's body in Lake George. An astute reader would put it together, that maybe I'd killed Jan and buried her up there, but the story didn't spell it out. The police had not identified the body as Leanne Kowalski's, at least not by Sam's Sunday night deadline. I was betting, however, that that information might be on the website version of the story by now, but I wasn't able to check, considering that the police had taken our laptop when they'd searched the house the day before.

I had a lot to do that Monday, and needed to get Ethan up and over to my parents' house. I woke him shortly after eight, sitting on the edge of the bed and rubbing his shoulder.

"Time to get moving, sport," I said, pulling back his covers. The inside of the bed was littered with cars and action figures.

"I'm tired," he said, grabbing one of the toy cars and drawing it toward his face like it was a teddy bear.

"I know. But soon you'll be starting school. You'll be getting up early almost every morning."

"I don't want to go to school," he said, turning his head into the pillow.

"That's what everyone says, at first," I said. "But then once they start going, they really start to like it."

"I just want to go to Nana and Poppa's."

"Yesterday you didn't even want to be there," I reminded him. He buried his face in his pillow, an interesting debating strategy. "You'll still see lots of them. But you'll get to see other people, too. And lots of kids your own age."

He turned his head, coming up for air. "What's Mommy making for breakfast?"

"I'm making breakfast. What do you want?"

"Cheerios," he said, then added, "and coffee."

"I don't think so," I said. "Although it might be just the thing to wake you up."

"What does it taste like?"

"Pretty awful, most of the time."

"Then why do you drink it?"

"Habit," I said. "You drink it enough times, you stop noticing how bad it is."

"Get Mommy."

I left my hand on his shoulder, rubbed it softly. "Mommy's still not here," I said.

"She's been away for ..." He closed his eyes for a few seconds. "She's been away for two sleeps."

"I know," I said.

While he gathered together his bed toys, he asked, "Did she go fishing?"

"Fishing?"

"Sometimes people go away fishing." He looked at Robin, smoothed out his cape. "Poppa goes away fishing sometimes."

"That's true. But I don't think your mom has gone fishing."

"Why?"

"I don't think fishing is really her thing," I said.

"Then where would she go?" He had Robin in one hand, Wolverine in the other. They were facing each other, about to engage in combat, or just shoot the shit. It was hard to know.

"I wish I knew," I said. "Listen, I need to talk to you about something."

Ethan looked at me, his face all innocent, like maybe I was going to tell him we were out of Cheerios and he was going to have to eat toast. He still had the action figures in his fists, and I pushed them down to get his full attention.

"Even though you're going to be at my parents' house, you still might hear some things, maybe on TV or on the radio, or maybe from someone coming by their place, about your dad that aren't very nice."

"What kind of things?"

"That I was mean to your mother." How did you tell your son that people might think you killed his mother?

"You aren't mean to her," he said.

"I know that and you know that, but you know how, sometimes, your friends will tattle on you, even though you didn't do anything?"

He nodded.

"That's kind of what might happen to me. People saying I did bad things to your mom. Like the TV news people, for one."

Ethan thought a moment, then reached out and patted my hand. "Do you want
me
to talk to them and tell them it's not true?" he asked.

I had to look away for a moment. I made as though I had something in my eye, both of them.

"No," I said. "But thank you. You just have a good time with your grandparents."

"Okay." Now he was thinking about something else. "That's like what Mom told me."

"What do you mean?" I asked. "What did she tell you?"

"She said that people might say awful things about her, but that she wanted me to remember that she really loves me."

I remembered that.

"Is everybody going to start saying bad things about me, too?" he asked.

"Never," I said, leaning in and kissing Ethan's forehead.

When I walked out the door with Ethan, Craig, my neighbor to the right, was getting into his Jeep Cherokee to head off to work. Since moving in three years ago, I'd never known Craig not to say hello, comment on the weather, ask how we were doing. He was a friendly guy, and when he borrowed your hedge trimmer, he always returned it the minute he was finished.

I saw Craig glance my way, but he said nothing. So I said, "Morning."

Not even a grunt. Craig got into his car, put on his seatbelt, and turned the ignition without looking my way. He backed out and took off briskly.

While I was getting Ethan buckled into the back seat, I heard a car that had been driving up the street slow down as it reached the end of my driveway.

I looked up. A man in a Corolla had put down his window and shouted as he drove by, "Who you gonna kill today?" Then he laughed, stomped on the gas, and disappeared up the street.

"What did he say?" Ethan asked.

"It's just like I told ya, sport," I said, snapping his strap into place.

After I had dropped him off at my parents', I drove to the newspaper. I had time to pop in before my appointment with Natalie Bondurant.

I went up to the newsroom first. As I walked through, what few people were there stopped whatever they were doing to watch me. No one called out, no one said anything. I was a "dead man walking" as I proceeded to my desk.

There were several phone messages--most from the same media outlets that had already tried to reach me at home. One call, which I was unable to determine whether it was a joke--was from the
Dr. Phil
show. Did I want to come on and give my side of the story, let America know that I had not killed my wife and disposed of her body?

I erased it.

When I tried to sign in to my computer, I couldn't get it to work. My password was rejected.

"What the fuck?" I said.

Then, a voice behind me. "Hey."

It was Brian. When I spun around in the chair, he said to me, "I didn't expect you to come in today, what with, you know, all you got to deal with at the moment."

"I'm just popping in," I said. "You're right, I have a lot on my plate right now."

"Got a sec?" he said.

Once we were both inside his office, he closed the door, pointed to a chair. I sat down and he settled in behind his desk.

"I really hate to do this," he said, "but I--we're--I mean, they're putting you on suspension. Actually, more like a leave. A leave of absence."

"Why's that, Brian? Did you think I wanted to write a book?" It was a reporter's usual reason for taking a leave.

I knew what was going on, and understood it, but even in my current circumstances it was hard to pass up an opportunity to make Brian squirm. Particularly when I considered him to be a first-class weasel.

"No, not anything like that," he said. "It's just, given your current predicament, being questioned by the police about your wife, it kind of compromises your ability as a journalist at the moment."

"When did the paper start worrying about its journalistic integrity being compromised? Does this mean we've fired our reporters in India and plan to send our own people to cover city hall?"

"Jesus, Dave, do you always have to be a dick?"

"Tell me, Brian. Was it you?"

"Huh?"

"Was it you who got into my emails?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"You know what? Forget it. Because even if it was you, you'd just have been doing Madeline's bidding."

"I really don't know what this is about."

"So, am I on a paid suspension or unpaid?"

Brian couldn't look me in the eye. "Things are kind of tight, Dave. It's not like the paper can afford to pay people for not doing anything."

"I've got three weeks' vacation," I said. "Why don't I take that now? I still get paid, but I'm not writing. If my problems haven't gone away in three weeks, you can suspend me then without pay."

Brian thought about that. "Let me bounce that off them."

"Them" meaning Madeline.

"Thanks," I said. "Do you want me to ask
them
myself?"

"What do you mean?"

I stood up and opened the door. "See you later, Brian."

On the way out of the newsroom, I went past the bank of mailbox cubbyholes, scooped three or four envelopes out of my mailbox--one of them my payroll deposit slip. I wondered whether it would be my last. I stuffed the envelopes into my pocket and kept on walking.

From there, I went to the publisher's office. Madeline Plimpton's executive assistant, Shannon, was posted at her desk just outside Madeline's door.

"Oh, David," she said. "I'm so sorry...." She struggled. Sorry that my wife was missing? Sorry that the cops liked me for it? Sorry that the publisher wanted to help me through my difficult time by bouncing me from the payroll?

I went straight past her and opened the door to Madeline's oak-paneled office despite Shannon's protests.

Madeline sat behind her broad desk, looking down at something, a phone to her ear. She raised her eyes and took me in, not even blinking.

"Something's come up. I'll have Shannon reconnect us shortly." She cradled the receiver and said, "Hello, David."

"I just dropped by to thank you for your support," I said.

"Sit down, David."

"No thanks, I'll stand," I said. "I saw Brian, found out I'm on the street for the duration."

"I'm not without sympathy," Madeline said, leaning back in her leather chair. "Assuming, of course, that you had no involvement in your wife's misfortune."

"If I told you I didn't, would you even believe me?"

She paused. "Yes," she said. "I would."

That threw me.

"I've heard the whispers," Madeline said. "I've asked around. I know people in the police department. You're much more than a person of interest. You're a suspect. They think something has happened to your wife and they think you did it. So I feel doubly bad for you. I feel badly that something may have happened to Jan. My heart goes out to you. And I feel sick at the witch hunt whirling around you. I think I know you, David. I've always thought you were a good man. A bit self-righteous at times, a bit idealistic, not always able to see the big picture, but a man who's always had his heart in the right place. I don't know what's happened to Jan, but I would find it hard to believe you've had anything to do with it."

I sat down. I wondered whether she was being sincere or playing me.

"But it's not possible for you to work as a reporter at the moment. You can't be doing stories when you are a story."

"I asked Brian if I could take all the vacation that's owed to me."

She nodded. "That's a good idea. Of course, do that."

"I have to ask you something else, and I need an honest answer," I said.

She waited.

"Did you go into my emails, find one from a source offering to tell me about Star Spangled payoffs to council members, and pass it on to Elmont Sebastian?"

She held my stare for several seconds. "No," she said. "And, when and if you get back to work, if you get something on him or anyone whose votes he's allegedly buying, I'll see that it makes the front page. I don't like that man. He frightens me, and I don't want to do business with him."

I got up and left.

When I walked into Natalie Bondurant's office and she came around from behind her desk, I was expecting her to shake hands with me. But instead, she reached for a remote and turned on the television that was recessed into the far wall.

"Hang on," she said. "I just had it cued up here a second ago. Okay, here we go."

She hit the play button and suddenly there I was, making my way through a small media scrum, denying that there was any need for me to take a lie detector test.