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Heather gave me a final squeeze and I followed the man down a dark corridor lit with fluorescent lighting. He guided me into a small room with a table and two chairs. The sight of an iron ring welded to the top of the table struck me with fear. Oh, god, I thought. This is like, where they handcuff people.
I shivered.
“There’s no need to be frightened,” the man said, as if reading my mind. “Everything is going to be fine, trust me.”
I nodded.
“I’m Detective Aberson,” he said. He smiled, showing yellowed teeth. “You can call me Al,” he said. “If you want.”
I nodded. “I’m Beth,” I said softly. “Well, Elisabeth, actually. Elisabeth Wilson.”
“Beth is fine,” Al said. “So, Beth, can you tell me a little about your fiancé?”
I shuddered and convulsed with sobs. Tears ran down my cheeks and I cried, feeling helpless and embarrassed. After a few seconds, Al handed me a plastic disposable pack of tissues from his pocket. They were crumpled and smelled like stale tobacco, but I was grateful. I blew my nose and wiped my sticky cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “I just…I can’t believe it.”
“I’m very sorry,” Al said gently. “And I’m sorry that you have to be here.”
My stomach twisted and flipped. “The…the cops said there was reason to think Michael’s death wasn’t an accident,” I said slowly. “Why?”
Al sighed. “I don’t have very much information yet,” he said. “Can you tell me about your relationship with Mr. Bennett?”
I sank down in my chair. “You mean, you don’t know who did it?”
“We have some ideas,” Al said gently. “But please – your relationship?”
I nodded. The numb feeling was spreading back through my limbs. I was already exhausted from vacillating between upset and numb…it was strangely tiring. I closed my eyes and thought of how satisfying it would feel to drop in bed and sleep for days.
“We’d been together for four years,” I said slowly. “We got together when I was twenty-two. Michael had just turned twenty-eight.”
“Can you tell me about that?”
I frowned, narrowing my eyes. “Why does it matter how we met?”
Al glanced at me with sharp eyes. “I just want to hear it from you,” he said smoothly.
A wedge of fear pierced my heart and I shivered. “Do you…do you think I have something to do with his death?” My voice rose to a hysterical pitch. “Do you think I was involved in killing my fiancé?”
Al shook his head. “No,” he said calmly. “But we want all the information possible on Mr. Bennett.”
I shifted, feeling scared. There was no way I’d had anything to do with killing him – wasn’t that obvious?
“We met at a graduate school open house,” I said slowly. “He was there with another girl, and he gave me his card and I gave him my number. He kept calling me, but I never called him back until he told me that he’d dumped his girlfriend.” I blushed. Recalling and talking about the memory felt like walking barefoot over a pile of broken glass and fire ants.
“I see,” Al said. He scribbled an untidy column of handwriting. “And when did he ask you to marry him?”
“Well, I guess we talked about marriage from the beginning,” I said slowly. “But he asked me about a year ago, close to our three year anniversary.” I blushed. “I don’t actually know the date of our anniversary,” I confessed. “I mean, I didn’t know what to count it – the day we met, or the day we went out for the first time? Or the day he asked me to be his girlfriend?” I shrugged. A hollow feeling was spreading through my chest and limbs. “I don’t really know,” I said again. “I know that sounds bad.”
“It doesn’t sound bad,” Al said, but he didn’t look up. “What was Michael like at home?”
I sighed. “He was kind of a perfectionist,” I said. “He was very traditional – he wanted things done his way, or not at all. He didn’t really seem much like a modern guy, to be honest. I mean, he was kind of like a guy from the fifties.”
“How do you mean?” Al tapped his notebook with the tip of his pen.
I shrugged. “Like, he wanted me to quit working as soon as we got married – he said it was embarrassing because he made so much money. But we didn’t really live like he made all that money – we were still in the same condo he bought before he met me.”
Al nodded. “So he was pragmatic?”
