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“My name is Detective Charlie Fletcher.” Fletch nods his acceptance as the woman sets a glass of water down on the coffee table that separates our chairs from hers. “My partner,” he tilts his head my way, “Detective Archer Malone. Can you tell us a little bit about your husband?”
Who is, apparently, in Minka’s fridge downtown.
“Aaron was just…” She sets a second glass down in front of me and backs up to sit in a tall, tan, wingback chair.
She’s not as emotional as the two wives who came before her. Not sobbing into her tissues, or denying what she saw on the news.
She’s more in control.
Despite that, I see her emotions broiling just beneath the surface. Her fiddling fingers, picking at the tiniest speck of dust on the arm of her chair. The bob of her throat as she swallows. The wariness in her stare as I pick up my water and take a slow sip.
“He was an airline pilot—an excellent pilot,” she admits with small notes of pride in her expression. “He romanced me in the air, Detectives, and never let that passion go away.”
“Did he work commercial?” I ask. “For which airline?”
She shakes her head. “He worked privately, catering to the kind of clientele who had enough money for such flights, but not so much as to maintain their own jet. He worked away for several weeks at a time, chauffeuring those clients as needed.”
“So you and Aaron own a jet?”
“We own several,” she answers easily. “And lease a few more. When he was younger, Aaron considered a future flying commercially, but because of reasons known only to those airlines, he could never land a position.” She stops and blushes. “No pun intended.”
I set my water down, ever so gently, so it stays within the circle of condensation it’s already created on the table. “Go on.”
She sniffles, finally showing a small crack in her armor, but follows it with a shrug. “I don’t know what else to say. Aaron was a brilliant, caring, kind man. He was the love of my life.”
“You speak in past tense,” Fletch points out. “Why is that?”
“Because I saw him on the news.” Her voice breaks. “I saw his face, and knew right away what that meant. And you’re homicide detectives, so it doesn’t take a great stretch of the mind to surmise what has happened.”
Yet, you’re calm. Collected. Hosting a tea party for us, and speaking coherently.
“Can you describe Aaron’s physical features?” I request instead. “Tattoos, piercings, scars. Anything that may identify him, should he be otherwise unidentifiable?”
“Um…” Her eyes water, perhaps at the idea her husband is in a state beyond recognition.
Another marriage destroyed, if our John Doe is, in fact, Aaron Davies.
AKA Kyle Andrews.
AKA Roger Wilson.
“He has no tattoos.” She brings her hand up and chews on her thumbnail. “He always thought they’re horrendous and would only get worse when they fade. And,” she adds like an afterthought, “a ridiculously easy way for one’s enemy to identify them.”
“Their enemy?” I sit forward on the couch and study her puffy, honey-colored eyes. “What does that mean?”
Releasing her thumbnail, she scoffs. The sound is almost silent, but it speaks a thousand words. It tells of impatience… and perhaps tolerance for something she doesn’t agree with. “I guess Aaron enjoys the joystick life, ya know? Pilot during the day, and a gamer when he came home. He was a wonderful, attentive, passionate, and kind man. He was a good husband to me,” she emphasizes. “The best, really. But when he needed time to relax, he would play video games. Often,” she glances to Fletch. “These games were the James Bond type. The shoot-‘em-up, espionage, spy thriller kind. He was really into them, and movies, too, and he often spoke of the characters like they were real. He would describe how they were poor spies, making mistakes he never would.” Pausing, she brings her gaze back to me and shrugs. “Tattoos were one of those mistakes he seemed to enjoy lamenting.”
“Interesting.” I write shorthand notes in my notebook—‘wannabe spy!’—and study the woman who sits across from me.If he wasn’t a wannabe, but a genuine operative, perhaps he picked apart the fictional kind as a type of power trip.“Besides tattoos—or lack thereof,” I amend, “did he have any other physical attributes that would make him stand out?”
“He had an appendectomy a few years back,” she confirms, nailing this fucker to the wall and adding another name to our whiteboard. “The scarring is jagged and not very pleasing.” She wrinkles her nose. “He hated it.”
“He hated the scar?” Fletch searches for clarification. “Why?”
“Well, you can’t be a very good covert agent if you have an ugly, memorable scar on your body, Detectives. He’d been researching for months on how to get the scar tissue removed, and where to find a better surgeon to fix the mess left previously. But I guess it’s too late now.”
A single, delicate tear slips across her cheek and dribbles to the edge of her jaw. “It was just a silly game to blow off steam, ya know? Since way back in eighth grade, when he accidentally burned his fingerprints off in a science class, he’s had a love for intrigue. He surrounded himself with all things thriller and mystery: books, movies, games. Now he’s gone, and that game he loved so much is just…” She reaches across and takes a tissue from a sunflower-yellow box on the table. “It’ll collect dust and never again be used.”
* * *
