Gone Girl

Part two: Boy Loses Girl Chapter Thirty-Seven
NICK DUNNE

EIGHT DAYS GONE

We searched every cranny of my father's house, which didn't take long, since it's so pathetically empty. The cabinets, the closets. I yanked at the corners of rugs to see if they came up. I peeked into his washer and dryer, stuck a hand up his chimney. I even looked behind the toilet tanks.

'Very Godfather of you,' Go said.

'If it were very Godfather, I'd have found what we were looking for and come out shooting.'

Tanner stood in the center of my dad's living room and tugged at the end of his lime tie. Go and I were smeared with dust and grime, but somehow Tanner's white button-down positively glowed, as if it retained some of the strobe-light glamour of New York. He was staring at the corner of a cabinet, chewing on his lip, tugging at the tie, thinking. The man had probably spent years perfecting this look: the Shut up, client, I'm thinking look.

'I don't like this,' he finally said. 'We have a lot of uncontained issues here, and I won't go to the cops until we're very, very contained. My first instinct is to get ahead of the situation  -  report that stuff in the shed before we get busted with it. But if we don't know what Amy wants us to find here, and we don't know Andie's mind-set ... Nick, do you have a guess about what Andie's mind-set is?'

I shrugged. 'Pissed.'

'I mean, that makes me very, very nervous. We're in a very prickly situation, basically. We need to tell the cops about the woodshed. We have to be on the front end of that discovery. But I want to lay out for you what will happen when we do. And what will happen is: They will go after Go. It'll be one of two options. One: Go is your accomplice, she was helping you hide this stuff on her property, and in all likelihood, she knows you killed Amy.'

'Come on, you can't be serious,' I said.

'Nick, we'd be lucky with that version,' Tanner said. 'They can interpret this however they want. How about this one: It was Go who stole your identity, who got those credit cards. She bought all that crap in there. Amy found out, there was a confrontation, Go killed Amy.'

'Then we get way, way ahead of all this,' I said. 'We tell them about the woodshed, and we tell them Amy is framing me.'

'I think that is a bad idea in general, and right now it's a really bad idea if we don't have Andie on our side, because we'd have to tell them about Andie.'

'Why?'

'Because if we go to the cops with your story, that Amy framed you - '

'Why do you keep saying my story, like it's something I made up?'

'Ha. Good point. If we explain to the cops how Amy is framing you, we have to explain why she is framing you. Why: because she found out you have a very pretty, very young girlfriend on the side.'

'Do we really have to tell them that?' I asked.

'Amy framed you for her murder because ... she was ... what, bored?'

I swallowed my lips.

'We have to give them Amy's motive, it doesn't work otherwise. But the problem is, if we set Andie, gift-wrapped, on their doorstep, and they don't buy the frame-up theory, then we've given them your motive for murder. Money problems, check. Pregnant wife, check. Girlfriend, check. It's a murderer's triumvirate. You'll go down. Women will line up to tear you apart with their fingernails.' He began pacing. 'But if we don't do anything, and Andie goes to them on her own ...'

'So what do we do?' I asked.

'I think the cops will laugh us out of the station if we say right now that Amy framed you. It's too flimsy. I believe you, but it's flimsy.'

'But the treasure hunt clues - ' I started.

'Nick, even I don't understand those clues,' Go said. 'They're all inside baseball between you and Amy. There's only your word that they're leading you into ... incriminating situations. I mean, seriously: crummy jeans and visor equals Hannibal?'

'Little brown house equals your dad's house, which is blue,' Tanner added.

I could feel Tanner's doubt. I needed to really show him Amy's character. Her lies, her vindictiveness, her score-settling. I needed other people to back me up  -  that my wife wasn't Amazing Amy but Avenging Amy.

'Lets see if we can reach out to Andie today,' Tanner finally said.

'Isn't it a risk to wait?' Go asked.

Tanner nodded. 'It's a risk. We have to move fast. If another bit of evidence pops up, if the police get a search warrant for the woodshed, if Andie goes to the cops - '

'She won't,' I said.

'She bit you, Nick.'

'She won't. She's pissed off right now, but she's ... I can't believe she'd do that to me. She knows I'm innocent.'

'Nick, you said you were with Andie for about an hour the morning Amy disappeared, yes?'

'Yes. From about ten-thirty to right before twelve.'

'So where were you between seven-thirty and ten?' Tanner asked. 'You said you left the house at seven-thirty, right? Where did you go?'

I chewed on my cheek.

'Where did you go, Nick  -  I need to know.'

'It's not relevant.'

'Nick!' Go snapped.

'I just did what I do some mornings. I pretended to leave, then I drove to the most deserted part of our complex, and I ... one of the houses there has an unlocked garage.'

'And?' Tanner said.

'And I read magazines.'

'Excuse me?'

'I read back issues of my old magazine.'

I still missed my magazine  -  I hid copies like porn and read them in secret, because I didn't want anyone feeling sorry for me.

I looked up, and both Tanner and Go felt very, very sorry for me.

I drove back to my house just after noon, was greeted by a street full of news vans, reporters camped out on my lawn. I couldn't get into my driveway, was forced to park in front of the house. I took a breath, then flung myself out of the car. They set on me like starving birds, pecking and fluttering, breaking formation and gathering again. Nick, did you know Amy was pregnant? Nick, what is your alibi? Nick, did you kill Amy?

I made it inside, locked myself in. On each side of the door were windows, so I braved it and quickly pulled down the shades, all the while cameras clicking at me, questions called. Nick, did you kill Amy? Once the shades were pulled, it was like covering a canary for the night: The noise out front stopped.

I went upstairs and satisfied my shower craving. I closed my eyes and let the spray dissolve the dirt from my dad's house. When I opened them back up, the first thing I saw was Amy's pink razor on the soap dish. It felt ominous, malevolent. My wife was crazy. I was married to a crazy woman. It's every a*shole's mantra: I married a psycho bitch. But I got a small, nasty bite of gratification: I really did marry a genuine, bona fide psycho bitch. Nick, meet your wife: the world's foremost mindf*cker. I was not as big an a*shole as I'd thought. An a*shole, yes, but not on a grandiose scale. The cheating, that had been preemptive, a subconscious reaction to five years yoked to a madwoman: Of course I'd find myself attracted to an uncomplicated, good-natured hometown girl. It's like when people with iron deficiencies crave red meat.

I was toweling off when the doorbell rang. I leaned out the bathroom door and heard the reporters' voices geared up again: Do you believe your son-in-law, Marybeth? What does it feel like to know you'll be a grandpa, Rand? Do you think Nick killed your daughter, Marybeth?

They stood side by side on my front step, grim-faced, their backs rigid. There were about a dozen journalists, paparazzi, but they made the noise of twice that many. Do you believe your son-in-law, Marybeth? What does it feel like to know you'll be a grandpa, Rand? The Elliotts entered with mumbled hellos and downcast eyes, and I slammed the door shut on the cameras. Rand put a hand on my arm and immediately removed it under Marybeth's gaze.

'Sorry, I was in the shower.' My hair was still dripping, wetting the shoulders of my T-shirt. Marybeth's hair was greasy, her clothes wilted. She looked at me like I was insane.

'Tanner Bolt? Are you serious?' she asked.

'What do you mean?'

'I mean, Nick: Tanner Bolt, are you serious. He only represents guilty people.' She leaned in closer, grabbed my chin. 'What's on your cheek?'

'Hives. Stress.' I turned away from her. 'That's not true about Tanner, Marybeth. It's not. He's the best in the business. I need him right now. The police  -  all they're doing is looking at me.'

'That certainly seems to be the case,' she said. 'It looks like a bite mark.'

'It's hives.'

Marybeth released an aggravated sigh, turned the corner into the living room. 'This is where it happened?' she asked. Her face had collapsed into a series of fleshy ridges  -  eye bags and saggy cheeks, her lips downcast.

'We think. Some sort of ... altercation, confrontation, also happened in the kitchen.'

'Because of the blood.' Marybeth touched the ottoman, tested it, lifted it a few inches, and let it drop. 'I wish you hadn't fixed everything. You made it look like nothing ever happened.'

'Marybeth, he has to live here,' Rand said.

'I still don't understand how  -  I mean, what if the police didn't find everything? What if ... I don't know. It seems like they gave up. If they just let the house go. Open to anyone.'

'I'm sure they got everything,' Rand said, and squeezed her hand. 'Why don't we ask if we can look at Amy's things so you can pick something special, okay?' He glanced at me. 'Would that be all right, Nick? It'd be a comfort to have something of hers.' He turned back to his wife. 'That blue sweater Nana knitted for her.'

'I don't want the goddamn blue sweater, Rand!'

She flung his hand off, began pacing around the room, picking up items. She pushed the ottoman with a toe. 'This is the ottoman, Nick?' she asked. 'The one they said was flipped over but it shouldn't have been?'

'That's the ottoman.'

She stopped pacing, kicked it again, and watched it remain upright.

'Marybeth, I'm sure Nick is exhausted'  -  Rand glanced at me with a meaningful smile  -  'like we all are. I think we should do what we came here for and - '

'This is what I came here for, Rand. Not some stupid sweater of Amy's to snuggle up against like I'm three. I want my daughter. I don't want her stuff. Her stuff means nothing to me. I want Nick to tell us what the hell is going on, because this whole thing is starting to stink. I never, I never  -  I never felt so foolish in my life.' She began crying, swiping away the tears, clearly furious at herself for crying. 'We trusted you with our daughter. We trusted you, Nick. Just tell us the truth!' She put a quivering index finger under my nose. 'Is it true? Did you not want the baby? Did you not love Amy anymore? Did you hurt her?'

I wanted to smack her. Marybeth and Rand had raised Amy. She was literally their work product. They had created her. I wanted to say the words Your daughter is the monster here, but I couldn't  -  not until we'd told the police  -  and so I remained dumbfounded, trying to think of what I could say. But I looked like I was stonewalling. 'Marybeth, I would never - '

'I would never, I could never, that's all I hear from your goddamn mouth. You know, I hate even looking at you anymore. I really do. There's something wrong with you. There's something missing inside you, to act the way you've been acting. Even if it turns out you're totally blameless, I will never forgive you for how casually you've taken all of this. You'd think you mislaid a damn umbrella! After all Amy gave up for you, after all she did for you, and this is what she gets in return. It - You  -  I don't believe you, Nick. That's what I came here to let you know. I don't believe in you. Not anymore.'

She began sobbing, turned away, and flung herself out the front door as the thrilled cameramen filmed her. She got in the car, and two reporters pressed against the window, knocking on it, trying to get her to say something. In the living room, we could hear them repeating and repeating her name. Marybeth  -  Marybeth -

Rand remained, hands in his pockets, trying to figure out what role to play. Tanner's voice  -  we have to keep the Elliotts on our side  -  was Greek-chorusing in my ear.

Rand opened his mouth, and I headed him off. 'Rand, tell me what I can do.'

'Just say it, Nick.'

'Say what?'

'I don't want to ask, and you don't want to answer. I get that. But I need to hear you say it. You didn't kill our daughter.'

He laughed and teared up at the same time. 'Jesus Christ, I can't keep my head straight,' Rand said. He was turning pink, flushed, a nuclear sunburn. 'I can't figure out how this is happening. I can't figure it out!' He was still smiling. A tear dribbled on his chin and fell to his shirt collar. 'Just say it, Nick.'

'Rand, I did not kill Amy or hurt her in any way.' He kept his eyes on me. 'Do you believe me, that I didn't physically harm her?'

Rand laughed again. 'You know what I was about to say? I was about to say I don't know what to believe anymore. And then I thought, that's someone else's line. That's a line from a movie, not something I should be saying, and I wonder for a second, am I in a movie? Can I stop being in this movie? Then I know I can't. But for a second, you think, I'll say something different, and this will all change. But it won't, will it?'

With one quick Jack Russell headshake, he turned and followed his wife to the car.

Instead of feeling sad, I felt alarmed. Before the Elliotts were even out of my driveway, I was thinking: We need to go to the cops quickly, soon. Before the Elliotts started discussing their loss of faith in public. I needed to prove my wife was not who she pretended to be. Not Amazing Amy: Avenging Amy. I flashed to Tommy O'Hara  -  the guy who called the tip line three times, the guy Amy had accused of raping her. Tanner had gotten some background on him: He wasn't the macho Irishman I'd pictured from his name, not a fire-fighter or cop. He wrote for a humor website based in Brooklyn, a decent one, and his contributor photo revealed him to be a scrawny guy with dark-framed glasses and an uncomfortable amount of thick black hair, wearing a wry grin and a T-shirt for a band called the Bingos.

He picked up on the first ring. 'Yeah?'

'This is Nick Dunne. You called me about my wife. Amy Dunne. Amy Elliott. I have to talk with you.'

I heard a pause, waited for him to hang up on me like Hilary Handy.

'Call me back in ten minutes.'

I did. The background was a bar, I knew the sound well enough: the murmur of drinkers, the clatter of ice cubes, the strange pops of noise as people called for drinks or hailed friends. I had a burst of homesickness for my own place.

'Okay, thanks,' he said. 'Had to get to a bar. Seemed like a Scotch conversation.' His voice got progressively closer, thicker: I could picture him huddling protectively over a drink, cupping his mouth to the phone.

'So,' I began, 'I got your messages.'

'Right. She's still missing, right? Amy?'

'Yes.'

'Can I ask you what you think has happened?' he said. 'To Amy?'

F*ck it, I wanted a drink. I went into my kitchen  -  next best thing to my bar  -  and poured myself one. I'd been trying to be more careful about the booze, but it felt so good: the tang of a Scotch, a dark room with the blinding sun right outside.

'Can I ask you why you called?' I replied.

'I've been watching the coverage,' he said. 'You're f*cked.'

'I am. I wanted to talk to you because I thought it was ... interesting that you'd try to get in touch. Considering. The rape charge.'

'Ah, you know about that,' he said.

'I know there was a rape charge, but I don't necessarily believe you're a rapist. I wanted to hear what you had to say.'

'Yeah.' I heard him take a gulp of his Scotch, kill it, shake the ice cubes around. 'I caught the story on the news one night. Your story. Amy's. I was in bed, eating Thai. Minding my own business. Totally f*cked me in the head. Her after all these years.' He called to the bartender for another. 'So my lawyer said no way I should talk to you, but ... what can I say? I'm too f*cking nice. I can't let you twist. God, I wish you could still smoke in bars. This is a Scotch and cigarette conversation.'

'Tell me,' I said. 'About the assault charge. The rape.'

'Like I said, man, I've seen the coverage, the media is shitting all over you. I mean, you're the guy. So I should leave well enough alone  -  I don't need that girl back in my life. Even, like, tangentially. But shit. I wish someone had done me the favor.'

'So do me the favor,' I said.

'First of all, she dropped the charges  -  you know that, right?'

'I know. Did you do it?'

'F*ck you. Of course I didn't do it. Did you do it?'

'No.'

'Well.'

Tommy called again for his Scotch. 'Let me ask: Your marriage was good? Amy was happy?'

I stayed silent.

'You don't have to answer, but I'm going to guess no. Amy was not happy. For whatever reason. I'm not even going to ask. I can guess, but I'm not going to ask. But I know you must know this: Amy likes to play God when she's not happy. Old Testament God.'

'Meaning?'

'She doles out punishment,' Tommy said. 'Hard.' He laughed into the phone. 'I mean, you should see me,' he said. 'I do not look like some alpha-male rapist. I look like a twerp. I am a twerp. My goto karaoke song is "Sister Christian," for crying out loud. I weep during Godfather II. Every time.' He coughed after a swallow. Seemed like a moment to loosen him up.

'Fredo?' I asked.

'Fredo, man, yeah. Poor Fredo.'

'Stepped over.'

Most men have sports as the lingua-franca of dudes. This was the film-geek equivalent to discussing some great play in a famous football game. We both knew the line, and the fact that we both knew it eliminated a good day's worth of are we copacetic small talk.

He took another drink. 'It was so f*cking absurd.'

'Tell me.'

'You're not taping this or anything, right? No one's listening in? Because I don't want that.'

'Just us. I'm on your side.'

'So I meet Amy at a party  -  this is, like, seven years ago now  -  and she's so damn cool. Just hilarious and weird and ... cool. We just clicked, you know, and I don't click with a lot of girls, at least not girls who look like Amy. So I'm thinking ... well, first I'm thinking I'm being punked. Where's the catch, you know? But we start dating, and we date a few months, two, three months, and then I find out the catch: She's not the girl I thought I was dating. She can quote funny things, but she doesn't actually like funny things. She'd rather not laugh, anyway. In fact, she'd rather that I not laugh either, or be funny, which is awkward since it's my job, but to her, it's all a waste of time. I mean, I can't even figure out why she started dating me in the first place, because it seems pretty clear that she doesn't even like me. Does that make sense?'

I nodded, swallowed a gulp of Scotch. 'Yeah. It does.'

'So, I start making excuses not to hang out so much. I don't call it off, because I'm an idiot, and she's gorgeous. I'm hoping it might turn around. But you know, I'm making excuses fairly regularly: I'm stuck at work, I'm on deadline, I have a friend in town, my monkey is sick, whatever. And I start seeing this other girl, kinda sorta seeing her, very casual, no big deal. Or so I think. But Amy finds out  -  how, I still don't know, for all I know, she was staking out my apartment. But ... shit ...'

'Take a drink.'

We both took a swallow.

'Amy comes over to my place one night  -  I'd been seeing this other girl like a month  -  and Amy comes over, and she's all back like she used to be. She's got some bootleg DVD of a comic I like, an underground performance in Durham, and she's got a sack of burgers, and we watch the DVD, and she's got her leg flopped over mine, and then she's nestling into me, and ... sorry. She's your wife. My main point is: The girl knew how to work me. And we end up ...'

'You had sex.'

'Consensual sex, yes. And she leaves and everything is fine. Kiss goodbye at the door, the whole shebang.'

'Then what?'

'The next thing I know, two cops are at my door, and they've done a rape kit on Amy, and she has "wounds consistent with forcible rape." And she has ligature marks on her wrists, and when they search my apartment, there on the headboard of my bed are two ties  -  like, neckties  -  tucked down near the mattress, and the ties are, quote, "consistent with the ligature marks."'

'Had you tied her up?'

'No, the sex wasn't even that ... that, you know? I was totally caught off guard. She must have tied them there when I got up to take a piss or whatever. I mean, I was in some serious shit. It was looking very bad. And then suddenly she dropped the charges. Couple of weeks later, I got a note, anonymous, typed, says: Maybe next time you'll think twice.'

'And you never heard from her again?'

'Never heard from her again.'

'And you didn't try to press charges against her or anything?'

'Uh, no. F*ck no. I was just glad she went away. Then last week, I'm eating my Thai food, sitting in my bed, watching the news report. On Amy. On you. Perfect wife, anniversary, no body, a real shitstorm. I swear, I broke out in a sweat. I thought: That's Amy, she's graduated to murder. Holy shit. I'm serious, man, I bet whatever she's got cooked up for you, it's drum-f*cking-tight. You should be f*cking scared.'