‘Like the cat box,’ said Boney.
‘Yeah, clean the cat box, get some groceries, call a plumber to fix the drip that drove her crazy.’
‘Wow, that sounds like a real happiness plan there. Lotta yuks.’
‘But my point was, do something. Whatever it is, do something. Make the most of the situation. Don’t sit and wait for me to fix everything for you.’ I was speaking loudly, I realized, and I sounded almost angry, certainly righteous, but it was such a relief. I’d started with a lie – the cat box – and turned that into a surprising burst of pure truth, and I realized why criminals talked too much, because it feels so good to tell your story to a stranger, someone who won’t call bullshit, someone forced to listen to your side. (Someone pretending to listen to your side, I corrected.)
‘So the move back to Missouri?’ Boney said. ‘You moved Amy here against her wishes?’
‘Against her wishes? No. We did what we had to do. I had no job, Amy had no job, my mom was sick. I’d do the same for Amy.’
‘That’s nice of you to say,’ Boney muttered. And suddenly she reminded me exactly of Amy: the damning below-breath retorts uttered at the perfect level, so I was pretty sure I heard them but couldn’t swear to it. And if I asked what I was supposed to ask – What did you say? – she’d always say the same: Nothing. I glared at Boney, my mouth tight, and then I thought: Maybe this is part of the plan, to see how you act toward angry, dissatisfied women. I tried to make myself smile, but it only seemed to repulse her more.
‘And you’re able to afford this, Amy working, not working, whatever, you could swing it financially?’ Gilpin asked.
‘We’ve had some money problems of late,’ I said. ‘When we first married, Amy was wealthy, like extremely wealthy.’
‘Right,’ said Boney, ‘those Amazing Amy books.’
‘Yeah, they made a ton of money in the eighties and nineties. But the publisher dropped them. Said Amy had run her course. And everything went south. Amy’s parents had to borrow money from us to stay afloat.’
‘From your wife, you mean?’
‘Right, fine. And then we used most of the last of Amy’s trust fund to buy the bar, and I’ve been supporting us since.’
‘So when you married Amy, she was very wealthy,’ Gilpin said. I nodded. I was thinking of the hero narrative: the husband who sticks by his wife through the horrible decline in her family’s circumstances.
‘So you had a very nice lifetstyle.’
‘Yeah, it was great, it was awesome.’
‘And now she’s near broke, and you’re dealing with a very different lifestyle than what you married into. What you signed on for.’
I realized my narrative was completely wrong.
‘Because, okay, we’ve been going over your finances, Nick, and dang, they don’t look good,’ Gilpin started, almost turning the accusation into a concern, a worry.
‘The Bar is doing decent,’ I said. ‘It usually takes a new business three or four years to get out of the red.’
‘It’s those credit cards that got my attention,’ Boney said. ‘Two hundred and twelve thousand dollars in credit-card debt. I mean, it took my breath away.’ She fanned a stack of red-ink statements at me.
My parents were fanatics about credit cards – used only for special purposes, paid off every month. We don’t buy what we can’t pay for; it was the Dunne family motto.
‘We don’t – I don’t, at least – but I don’t think Amy would—Can I see those?’ I stuttered, just as a low-flying bomber rattled the windowpanes. A plant on the mantel promptly lost five pretty purple leaves. Forced into silence for ten brain-shaking seconds, we all watched the leaves flutter to the ground.
‘Yet this great brawl we’re supposed to believe happened in here, and not a petal was on the floor then,’ Gilpin muttered disgustedly.
I took the papers from Boney and saw my name, only my name, versions of it – Nick Dunne, Lance Dunne, Lance N. Dunne, Lance Nicholas Dunne, on a dozen different credit cards, balances from $62.78 to $45,602.33, all in various states of lateness, terse threats printed in ominous lettering across the top: pay now.
‘Holy fuck! This is, like, identity theft or something!’ I said. ‘They’re not mine. I mean, freakin’ look at some of this stuff: I don’t even golf.’ Someone had paid over seven thousand dollars for a set of clubs. ‘Anyone can tell you: I really don’t golf.’ I tried to make it sound self-effacing – yet another thing I’m not good at – but the detectives weren’t biting.
‘You know Noelle Hawthorne?’ Boney asked. ‘The friend of Amy’s you told us to check out?’
‘Wait, I want to talk about the bills, because they are not mine,’ I said. ‘I mean, please, seriously, we need to track this down.’
‘We’ll track it down, no problem,’ Boney said, expressionless. ‘Noelle Hawthorne?’
‘Right. I told you to check her out because she’s been all over town, wailing about Amy.’
Boney arched an eyebrow. ‘You seem angry about that.’
‘No, like I told you, she seems a little too broken up, like in a fake way. Ostentatious. Attention-seeking. A little obsessed.’
‘We talked to Noelle,’ Boney said. ‘Says your wife was extremely troubled by the marriage, was upset about the money stuff, that she worried you’d married her for her money. She says your wife worried about your temper.’
‘I don’t know why Noelle would say that; I don’t think she and Amy ever exchanged more than five words.’
‘That’s funny, because the Hawthornes’ living room is covered with photos of Noelle and your wife.’ Boney frowned. I frowned too: actual real pictures of her and Amy?
Boney continued: ‘At the St. Louis zoo last October, on a picnic with the triplets, on a weekend float trip this past June. As in last month.’
‘Amy has never uttered the name Noelle in the entire time we’ve lived here. I’m serious.’ I scanned my brain over this past June and came upon a weekend I went away with Andie, told Amy I was doing a boys’ trip to St. Louis. I’d returned home to find her pink-cheeked and angry, claiming a weekend of bad cable and bored reading on the deck. And she was on a float trip? No. I couldn’t think of anything Amy would care for less than the typical midwestern float trip: beers bobbing in coolers tied to canoes, loud music, drunk frat boys, campgrounds dotted with vomit. ‘Are you sure it was my wife in those photos?’
They gave each other a he serious? look.
‘Nick,’ Boney said. ‘We have no reason to believe that the woman in the photos who looks exactly like your wife and who Noelle Hawthorne, a mother of three, your wife’s best friend here in town, says is your wife, is not your wife.’
‘Your wife who – I should say – according to Noelle, you married for money,’ Gilpin added.
‘I’m not joking,’ I said. ‘Anyone these days can doctor photos on a laptop.’
‘Okay, so a minute ago you were sure Desi Collings was involved, and now you’ve moved on to Noelle Hawthorne,’ Gilpin said. ‘It seems like you’re really casting about for someone to blame.’
‘Besides me? Yes, I am. Look, I did not marry Amy for her money. You really should talk more with Amy’s parents. They know me, they know my character.’ They don’t know everything, I thought, my stomach seizing. Boney was watching me; she looked sort of sorry for me. Gilpin didn’t even seem to be listening.
‘You bumped up the life insurance coverage on your wife to one-point-two million,’ Gilpin said with mock weariness. He even pulled a hand over his long, thin-jawed face.
‘Amy did that herself!’ I said quickly. The cops both just looked at me and waited. ‘I mean, I filed the paperwork, but it was Amy’s idea. She insisted. I swear, I couldn’t care less, but Amy said – she said, given the change in her income, it made her feel more secure or something, or it was a smart business decision. Fuck, I don’t know, I don’t know why she wanted it. I didn’t ask her to.’
‘Two months ago, someone did a search on your laptop,’ Boney continued. ‘Body Float Mississippi River. Can you explain that?’
I took two deep breaths, nine seconds to pull myself together.
‘God, that was just a dumb book idea,’ I said. ‘I was thinking about writing a book.’
‘Huh,’ Boney replied.
‘Look, here’s what I think is happening,’ I began. ‘I think a lot of people watch these news programs where the husband is always this awful guy who kills his wife, and they are seeing me through that lens, and some really innocent, normal things are being twisted. This is turning into a witch hunt.’
‘That’s how you explain those credit-card bills?’ Gilpin asked.
‘I told you, I can’t explain the fucking credit-card bills because I have nothing to do with them. It’s your fucking job to figure out where they came from!’
They sat silent, side by side, waiting.
‘What is currently being done to find my wife?’ I asked. ‘What leads are you exploring, besides me?’
The house began shaking, the sky ripped, and through the back window, we could see a jet shooting past, right over the river, buzzing us.
‘F-10,’ Rhonda said.
‘Nah, too small,’ Gilpin said. ‘It’s got to be—’
‘It’s an F-10.’
Boney leaned toward me, hands entwined. ‘It’s our job to make sure you are in the hundred percent clear, Nick,’ she said. ‘I know you want that too. Now if you can just help us out with the few little tangles – because that’s what they are, they keep tripping us up.’
‘Maybe it’s time I got a lawyer.’
The cops exchanged another look, as if they’d settled a bet.