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She opens the door and sees the two detectives. From the window they looked ordinary. Up close they are much more intimidating. She swallows nervously as they introduce themselves.
‘Your name?’ Detective Webb asks.
‘Becky Harris.’ The detective has an alert, probing look about him; it makes her even more nervous.
He asks, ‘Did you know Amanda Pierce?’
She shakes her head slowly, frowning. ‘Not really. I mean, my husband and I had drinks with her and her husband on one or two occasions – just casually. We had them over once, when they first moved in. And they had us over, a few weeks later. But we didn’t do it again. We didn’t have that much in common, other than the fact that we’re neighbours.’ The detective waits, as if expecting more. She adds, ‘And I believe Amanda sometimes did temp work at my husband’s office. But we barely know them, really. It’s just awful what happened to Amanda.’
‘And you’ve never spent time with Robert Pierce other than on those two occasions?’ the detective asks, looking at her closely.
She hesitates. ‘I used to see Robert over the fence sometimes, in the summer, sitting in the backyard, reading, drinking a beer. Sometimes we’d chat, very casual. He seems like a nice man.’ She looks back at the two detectives and says, ‘He was devastated when his wife went missing.’
‘So you’ve spoken to him since his wife disappeared?’ Detective Webb asks.
She shifts uneasily. ‘Not really. Just – across the back fence. When Amanda didn’t come home, he told me that he’d reported her missing, but he didn’t want to talk. He looked awful.’
The detective tilts his head at her, as if considering something. Then he says, ‘So, you weren’t in his house until very late at night on the Saturday of the weekend his wife disappeared?’
She feels herself flush a deep red; they will know she’s lying. But she must deny it. ‘I – No, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Where did you get that idea?’ Did Robert tell them?
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure,’ she says sharply.
‘Okay,’ the detective says, obviously not convinced. He hands her his card. ‘But if you’d like to reconsider your story, you can contact us. Thank you for your time.’
Robert Pierce watches from the window as the detectives knock on the neighbours’ doors, one after another, and question them on their doorsteps. He watches them interview Becky, next door. She’s shaking her head. She glances over toward his house. Does she see him, watching from the window? He ducks his head back out of sight.
Olivia has made penne with pesto and chicken for supper. Paul is eating quietly, his thoughts clearly elsewhere. They’d had a short, stricken conversation about Amanda Pierce when she got home from book club the night before. Then, when he got home from work, he told her that the news about Amanda had been all over the office. She wonders if Raleigh has heard about it, or if he’s simply oblivious. Raleigh is wolfing his meal down wordlessly. He’s been sullen and quiet since he got home from school, obviously sulking. She feels a spurt of annoyance. Why are they all such hard work? Why is it up to her to inquire how everybody’s doing, to make conversation at the dinner table? She wishes Paul would make an effort. He didn’t use to be like this – so … removed. And Raleigh’s recent problems hang over them all like a dark cloud.
‘How was school today, Raleigh?’ she asks.
‘All right,’ he mumbles, his mouth full, declining to elaborate.
‘How did your maths test go?’
‘I don’t know. Fine, I guess.’
She says, ‘The police were searching the Pierce house today.’ Paul frowns at her. Raleigh looks up. Olivia knows that teenage boys pretty much live in a self-absorbed bubble – Amanda isn’t on his radar, even though he’d broken into her house. She turns to him. ‘The woman who lived down the street from us, Amanda Pierce – she went missing a couple of weeks ago. Everyone thought she’d left her husband.’
‘Yeah, so,’ Raleigh says.
‘It turns out she was murdered. They found her body yesterday.’
Paul puts his cutlery down and goes rather still. ‘Should we really talk about this at the dinner table?’ he says.
‘Well, it’s all over the news,’ she says. ‘They’re saying now that she was beaten to death.’
‘Where did they find her?’ Raleigh asks.
‘They haven’t said exactly. They haven’t said much, actually. Somewhere out toward Canning, out in the Catskills,’ Olivia says.
‘Did you know her?’ her son asks.
‘No,’ Olivia says, glancing at her husband.
‘No, we didn’t know her,’ Paul echoes.
She looks at her husband and notices something pass fleetingly across his face, but it’s gone so quickly that she’s not sure she saw it at all. She looks away. ‘It’s too close to home,’ Olivia says, ‘having someone on your street murdered.’
‘Do they know who killed her?’ Raleigh asks uneasily.
Olivia says, ‘I think they suspect her husband had something to do with it. Anyway, they were searching the house today.’ She pushes her pasta around her plate and glances up at her son. He looks disturbed. Suddenly she realizes what might be bothering him. What if they find Raleigh’s fingerprints in the house?
Chapter Eleven
BECKY FEELS SHAKY as she walks into the police station downtown on Wednesday. She got the telephone call this morning, just after nine o’clock. Even before she picked it up, she just knew. She stared at the phone, watching it ring, but finally answered.
It was that detective, Webb. She recognized his voice before he’d even identified himself; she’d expected it. He’d figured in her dreams the night before, and not in a good way. He’d asked her to come down to the station, at her earliest convenience. He meant as soon as possible.
‘Why? What for?’ she asked cagily.
‘We have a few more questions, if you don’t mind,’ the detective had said.
They know she was in Robert’s house that night. Robert must have told them. They’d known she was lying. Her heart is pumping loudly in her ears. If this gets out, it will destroy her marriage, her family.
Of all the shitty luck! How was she to know, when she slept with her handsome next-door neighbour – only twice, as it turns out – that it would all come spilling out because his wife would be murdered and he would become the centre of a police investigation? Of course they questioned him, put him under a microscope – he would have to tell.
She’d never been unfaithful before, in over twenty years of marriage.
Now here she is, climbing the steps to the police station, hoping no one who knows her will see her. And then she thinks, what difference does it make, if all of this ends up in the newspapers anyway? She’s absolutely mortified; she has children, nineteen-year-old twins – what will they think of her? There’s no way they will possibly understand.
The officer at the front desk asks her to wait and picks up a phone. She sits in a plastic chair trying to slow her breathing. Maybe she can persuade them not to use her name. She wonders if she has any rights at all. She wonders if they’re going to charge her with anything. Detective Webb approaches her. She stands up hurriedly.
