Josh was gone. Without a trace.
The police hadn’t believed her story. Oh, they’d been solicitous, but she could feel the eyes on the back of her neck, the sly whispers. When the investigation into Josh’s disappearance began in earnest, they’d pull Aubrey in to the CJC to “talk,” stop by her house at all hours. Metro homicide interviewed the waitstaff at the hotel, and none would admit to delivering a gin and tonic to a lone woman in the Jack Daniel’s Lounge. Aubrey had gone through photos of the staff herself and hadn’t seen the waiter either, but she really hadn’t been paying attention.
That particular instance became one of great interest to the detective assigned to Josh’s case. There was nothing to corroborate her story about the drink. Which meant, in the detective’s mind, there were nearly three lost hours in her story, after the accident and before she connected with Arlo Tonturian.
Nothing physical tied Aubrey to the blood-soaked scene at their house, but that didn’t matter. They always look at the spouse first, and those three hours of doubt were enough for the police to tear apart her life. Once they unsealed her juvenile record and realized Aubrey wasn’t a plain-Jane suburban housewife, they went at her doubly hard. When they found out about the insurance policy, the $5 million Aubrey would get in the event of Josh’s death, put into place a week before, the district attorney decided to go forward with the case. There wasn’t enough evidence from the start, but that didn’t stop him. He bandied around the possibility of a murder for hire, and the grand jury bought it. His performance must have been masterful because she was bound over for trial and arrested for first-degree murder. The DA went on the news that night, a self-satisfied smirk on his face, bragging that they’d gotten murder convictions without bodies before.
The Nashville media joined in and did quite a job on her, turning her into a devious liar with a sordid past. A black widow nestled in their midst. They posited she’d snuck away from the party, murdered her husband, planted herself in the bar for an alibi, and, after the appropriate amount of time had passed, made a show of looking for him. After all, $5 million was a lot of money.
In the middle of all of this, as hours grew to days grew to weeks, Josh was simply gone. During the long, cold, hard days after he disappeared, as Aubrey was buffeted by the hurricane-force winds of the investigation and arrest and trial, she became the queen of vacillation.
Maybe he was dead. Maybe she’d imagined the drink. Maybe the media was right, she had some sort of Jekyll-and-Hyde split personality, one side a mild-mannered Montessori teacher, the other a scheming Mata Hari who, with malice aforethought, murdered her husband and successfully discarded his body where no one could find it.
The reports became more salacious by the day. Her lawyer always brought her the papers when he came to discuss the next day’s testimony; the headlines screamed at her.
She could almost believe she was as wicked as they claimed.
Daisy had not helped things. She’d volunteered to be a witness for the prosecution. Aubrey had to sit in the stifling courtroom looking at the face of the woman she’d known for so many years as she spun truth into lies, making Aubrey’s entire life look like one long episode of Law & Order.
After a week of listening to people cast aspersions on her character, it was her turn. Her attorney did a wonderful job, setting everything perfectly. She told her story without crying, stayed strong, resolute, humble.
And then it was time for the cross-examination. The DA started kind, gentle, even. He ran her through the events of that night. Asked her a million questions. Pointed out she had a history of violence. Postulated that Aubrey had been drunk, so drunk and out of control that in a fit of rage she’d murdered Josh and didn’t remember doing so.
She told him wearily she hadn’t been drinking, not until the G&T at the bar.
With a smile that said he was about to nail shut the lid of her coffin, he said he had just been informed of two new witnesses, waiters who claimed they’d seen her drinking the bachelorette party’s signature pink pi?a coladas.
Her defense attorney quickly raised a polite objection, pointed out Aubrey had a severe, well-documented allergy to coconut. He calmly explained that a woman in the grips of both a violent drunk and anaphylactic shock could hardly manage to kill her husband and disappear his body off the face of the earth so effectively that no trace had been found outside of the blood in their living room, which was ten miles away. Without a car, without a taxi arriving at the hotel to take her, without a friend who would admit to driving her to her assignation, and without an EpiPen to counteract the effects of the coconut. It was just too preposterous to imagine.
The jury agreed.
If the glove don’t fit, you must acquit.