She handed me a photograph. I knew exactly what I was going to see.
Of course, I was aware that I’d lost Sean’s mother’s ring. But because I’d gotten out of the habit of wearing it, several days had passed before I noticed it missing. And the funny thing was I didn’t care. It had only belonged to my sister for . . . I didn’t want to think how long. Before that, it had been mine for a while. And before that, it had belonged to Sean’s mother. Now, when I thought about the ring, I heard Sean’s mother’s maddening voice, whining and complaining about her life as she did the dinner dishes in that smelly, beastly kitchen.
I’d told myself not to worry about where I lost the ring. There were plenty of places it could have been beside the spot where I pushed a dead man’s car into a ravine. It seemed unlikely that the ring would be there, especially because I had worked so hard to convince myself (and Stephanie) that the whole thing had never happened. No crime, no consequences.
I must have taken off my gloves after we finished pushing his car. But I didn’t remember doing that. A lot of things about that day were blurry, difficult to recall with any certainty. I’d done my best not to think about it, and until now I’d succeeded.
“Funny thing,” said Detective Meany. “My partner has a phenomenal—superhuman—memory for details. So when this image came up on the screen, this ring . . . my partner remembered a similar ring in the autopsy report. When they found the corpse that they thought was yours.”
We both looked at Detective Fortas as if to see what wondrous kind of human being would have mental powers like that. But all we saw was a rather dull-looking fellow with a spray of pimples on his forehead and a wispy blond mustache.
He said, “The ring that they found in Michigan and, we understand, they gave your husband, in the case—”
“I know which ring you mean.” I heard myself talking through clenched teeth. The cops were smart enough to remember a picture of a ring they saw months ago but not smart enough to realize in advance that the “corpse” they’d mentioned was my suicided sister. My beloved twin. Only now, too late, they got it. Detective Fortas blushed an unattractive pink.
“We’re sorry for your loss,” said Detective Meany.
“That’s all right,” I said. But it wasn’t. And they knew it.
“The funny thing is,” said Detective Fortas, “I remembered the first time we interviewed your husband. And your friend. And they were describing you. And both of them mentioned this ring.” He jabbed at the printout. “We’re pretty sure it’s this ring.”
It was crucial not to hesitate. Not to flinch. Not to falter.
I said, “My husband gave it to me when we got engaged. Later, my sister stole it to pay for drugs. Which is how it turned up in the lake.”
Were they sorry for my loss? I was sorrier than they were.
I said, “Let me ask you something. When you talked to my husband, in the midst of that . . . misunderstanding about my disappearance . . . you said you talked to him and a friend . . . Stephanie.”
“That’s right, Stephanie,” said the memory prodigy, Fortas.
“Well, did you know that she subsequently moved in with my husband? Did you know that they planned to get married? Do you know that he gave her his mother’s ring, my ring, and that they both felt just great about that? They thought that my husband giving my ring to my best friend was something I would have wanted. Can you believe that?”
“My God,” Detective Meany said, sounding horrified by my husband and my best friend’s treachery. “I assume you have this . . . Stephanie’s current contact information.”
“Her number and her address,” I said. “I can tell you that without even needing to look it up. And if you need more information about her relationship with my husband, I can give you a link to her blog. My impression is that he’s dumped her by now, but that’s no longer of any interest to me, as you can well imagine.”
The police could well imagine. They wrote everything down. They had Stephanie in their sights.
I was remembering another thing that the poker champs told me about the fish. You know the fish is going to lose, but not when. You never know which hand is going to catch the fish and leave it flopping, gasping on the ground.
If the police had been less incompetent, less bumbling, they would have arrested me right then and there, on suspicion. Or at least they would have asked me to come in to answer more questions. Instead they left—hot on Stephanie’s trail, I imagined—and politely asked me not to go too far. I promised that I wouldn’t.
After the police left, I waited a little while. I took several deep breaths to clear my mind. Then I went into Nicky’s room and took out some of his things and began to pack. It was time to leave. It was time for Nicky and me to head into the sunset, or sunrise, whichever. To go off the grid for a while. We would take a break, see what happens.
I got Nicky’s passport and both of mine—the fake passport and the real one—just in case we needed them. Maybe we would visit Sean for a few days. Maybe I’d toy with him. Torment him. Maybe I could be the cat again—with yet another mouse.
I’d been expecting this. Planning this. Preparing for something like this, for a very long time. For my whole life, you could say.
I’d never been less scared. I felt young and excited and brave.
I felt happy to be alive.