“It was frozen.”
“It’s what your father used to make for dinner when I wasn’t around.”
“Oh,” Harry said, wanting to apologize. Instead, he said, “So you really think it was Annie Callahan’s husband?”
“I know it was. I think I knew it when I first heard what happened to your father, but I didn’t trust myself.”
“Do you think she was the only one . . . the only other—”
“She was the only one I found out about, but I don’t know. I assume she was it. Your father and I had a good marriage, but I think that over time maybe he’d fallen a little bit out of love with me. At least it felt that way; he began treating me more like a friend than a wife.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“You don’t need to be sorry about anything. It wasn’t you. And if it makes you feel better, I can tell you that I think your father only ever loved one woman, and that was your mother, Harry, not me.”
Harry didn’t say anything right away. He’d never heard Alice talk so openly before. “I think he was in love with you,” he finally said. “He said nice things about you.”
She half smiled, and something about the expression made her look young and vulnerable. “Thank you, Harry. I appreciate it. Look, I’m exhausted right now. I just want to watch some television for a while. You understand, don’t you?”
“Of course. I’m sorry.” He got up to leave the room as Alice turned the volume up. He was returning to the kitchen when she said, “You’ll watch with me, won’t you?”
“Oh. Okay.” Harry got himself a beer, and put a slice of the Mediterranean pizza on a plate and returned to the living room. He almost sat in the leather recliner, but it had been his father’s chair, so instead he sat on the other side of the couch from Alice. Together, they watched the show in silence, Alice’s attention not even wavering during the commercials. As soon as the show ended, another one started up instantly. Same couple, different house. Harry stood, stretched, and asked Alice if it was okay if he took a walk. Without turning away from the screen, she said, “Has it stopped raining?”
Harry tried to remember if it had rained that day. He hadn’t been out of the house. “I don’t know,” he said. “I need a little fresh air, regardless.”
“Go, Harry,” she said. “I’ll be fine.” She sounded a little doubtful, though, and for a moment Harry considered just staying with Alice. He felt bad for her, and she seemed to need him. But she had the television, for now at least, and he’d be back soon, he told himself.
He cleaned his plate, looking out through the window that was over the sink. The sky was filled with dusky light and towers of pink clouds. The window was cracked and the air that was coming through it felt cool, almost cold. He went up the stairs to his room, where he changed into his best jeans and pulled a V-neck sweater over his T-shirt, then left the house, the sound of Alice’s program still coming from the living room.
Chapter 18
Then
When the doorbell to the condo rang, Alice thought it was probably the police. She was prepared. She would tell them how Gina had come to her door the night before, apologizing and wanting to go for a night swim in the ocean, and how Gina had seemed intoxicated.
But when Alice opened the door, it was Mrs. Bergeron, Gina’s mom, standing on the landing. Alice had never seen her without makeup on before, and she almost didn’t recognize her. Her skin was blotchy, and she had bags under her eyes. “Is she here?” she asked Alice.
“Who? Gina?”
“She’s missing, Alice. I went into her room this morning and she hadn’t even slept there.” She was stepping into the house, uninvited, and Alice suddenly panicked that Jake was about to come down the stairs naked.
“She’s not here, Mrs. Bergeron,” she said, “but she was here last night.”
“She was? When?”
“I don’t know exactly. It was late. She knocked on the door, and she seemed really drunk. She apologized about dinner, and asked me if I wanted to go swimming.”
“Swimming?”
“That’s what she said. I told her I was tired and going to bed, and she left. That’s all I know.”
“Why did she want to go swimming? It’s so cold out.”
“I know. I thought it was strange, too, but she wasn’t herself. I shouldn’t have let her . . . I should have . . .”
“Jesus, do you think she went swimming by herself? Stupid, stupid girl.” Mrs. Bergeron’s eyes were jittery. “Can I use your phone?”
“Of course.” Alice led her into the kitchen, and to the wall-mounted phone. Mrs. Bergeron plucked the receiver up, then pulled out a card from the front pocket of her jeans, dialed a number. Alice could see that the card was from the Kennewick Police Department.
“Is that Michael?” she asked, her voice panicky. Then: “I think she went swimming. In the ocean . . . Last night . . . Okay, yes. Okay.”
Alice watched the conversation from the doorway, and jumped a little when she realized that Jake was standing right behind her. “What’s going on?” he said.
“Gina’s missing,” she said, turning. He was dressed but he hadn’t shaved yet. His dark stubble was flecked with grey.
“Since when?” he asked.
“She was here last night, after you fell asleep. She was drunk.”
“Did you—”
He was interrupted by Mrs. Bergeron hanging up the phone, and racing out of the kitchen. “I have to go, Alice,” she said, moving toward the front door.
“Can we do anything to help?” Jake asked, but she had already left.
Alice went to shut the front door, while Jake went into the kitchen.
“Do you think I should help them look for her?” she asked him as he was pouring coffee into a mug.
“She’ll turn up,” he said. “I’m sure of it.”
Later, Alice heard that they found the clothes on the beach first, then found the body later that afternoon, lodged between rocks north of Buxton Point.
The police, as Alice knew they would, came to the house the following morning. Jake answered the door while Alice was cleaning up the dishes from breakfast. It was just one uniformed police officer, an Officer Wilson, who took his hat off when he entered the living room of the condo. He looked like he was in his early twenties; he had a large balding patch at the back of his head, and he had tried to make up for it by growing a wispy, blond mustache. Alice and Jake sat across from him as he took out a notebook.
“I’m sure you know why I’m here,” he said, his eyes on Alice.
“It’s about Gina Bergeron.”
“Right. Her mother said that she came here yesterday, and you were the one who informed her that Gina had gone swimming on Friday night.”
Alice nodded.
“Can you tell me about Friday night? Do you remember what time she was here?”
Alice told the whole story, omitting the part about Gina and her mother confronting her after dinner at the Bergerons’. And definitely omitting the part about biting Gina on the hand. She just said that she left their house and then later Gina showed up, acting drunk and wanting to go swimming.
“Was that unusual?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did it surprise you that Gina was drunk, or that she wanted to go swimming? Was this something she typically did?”
“I don’t really know her that well, to tell the truth,” Alice said, repeating words that she’d said to herself in her own mind many times. “We were close friends in high school, and then she went to New York City, and she changed. I didn’t know her anymore.”
“You didn’t know her anymore because you didn’t see her, or because she’d changed so much?”
“Both, I guess. I barely had any contact with her. I saw her mother more, because she comes into the pharmacy where I work, and she was the one who wanted me to come over for dinner when Gina was back in town. I didn’t know why, but I think it had something to do with her being worried about Gina being on drugs, and maybe she hoped I’d be a good influence.”
“She said all this to you? Gina’s mother?”
“No. It was just what I thought.”