‘May we come in, Mr Pierce?’
He nods and steps back, opening the door wide, and then closes it firmly behind them. Robert leads them into the living room.
‘Maybe we should sit down,’ Detective Webb suggests, when Robert stands uncertainly in the middle of the living room staring at them.
All at once, Robert finds he needs to sit. He collapses into an armchair; he can feel the blood draining from his head. He stares at the detectives, slightly dizzy. The moment has come. The detectives sit on the sofa, their backs straight, the bay window behind them.
‘We found your wife’s car this morning.’
‘Her car,’ Robert manages to say. ‘Where?’
‘It was in a lake, out near Canning.’
‘What do you mean, in a lake? Was she in an accident?’ He looks back and forth between them, his mouth dry.
‘It was submerged just offshore, in about fifteen feet of water. Her purse and an overnight bag were in the car.’ He adds quietly, ‘A body was found in the boot.’
Robert slumps back against his chair, as if he’s had the breath knocked out of him. He can feel the two detectives watching him carefully. He looks back at them, afraid to ask. ‘Is it her?’
‘We think so.’
Robert feels himself go pale. He can’t speak. Detective Webb leans forward and Robert notices his eyes for the first time – sharp, intelligent eyes.
‘I know this is a shock. But we need you to come down to identify the body.’
Robert nods. He gets up, grabs a jacket, and follows them outside to the street and gets into the back of their car.
The County Medical Examiner’s Office is a new, low brick building. Robert gets out of the car, expecting to be led into a morgue. He imagines a long, cold, sterile room, with shiny, pale tiles and stainless steel, and harsh light, and the smell of death. His head begins to spin, and he knows they are watching him. But instead of a morgue they conduct him to a large, modern waiting room with a glass viewing panel. He stands in front of the glass and watches as the sheet is turned down to reveal the face of the body on the steel gurney.
‘Is that your wife?’ Webb asks.
He forces himself to look. ‘Yes,’ he says, then closes his eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ the detective says. ‘Let’s get you home.’
Silently, they return to the car. Robert gazes out the window, but he doesn’t see the passing streets; what he sees is his wife’s face, battered, bloated, and tinged with green. He knows what’s going to happen next. They are going to question him.
They arrive at his house. The two detectives get out of the car and accompany him to the door.
Detective Webb says, ‘I’m sorry, I know this is a difficult time, but we’d like to come in and ask you a few more questions, if that’s all right with you.’
Robert nods and lets them in. They return to the living room they’d been in just a short time before, take the same seats. He swallows and says, ‘I don’t know anything more than I did when she disappeared a couple of weeks ago. I told the police everything I could then. What have you been doing all this time?’ It comes out more confrontationally than it should have. Detective Webb looks back at him without blinking. ‘You weren’t even looking for her,’ Robert says. His voice is bitter. ‘That’s the impression I got, anyway.’
‘It’s a murder investigation now,’ the detective says, glancing at his partner. ‘Obviously there will be an autopsy and we’ll be looking at everything very closely.’ He adds, ‘We need to go back to the beginning.’
Robert nods wearily. ‘Fine.’
‘How long were you and your wife married, Mr Pierce?’
‘Two years, last June.’ He notices that the other detective, Moen, is taking notes.
‘Were there any problems in your marriage?’
‘No. Nothing out of the ordinary.’
‘Had your wife ever been unfaithful to you?’
‘No.’
‘Had you ever been unfaithful to her?’
‘No.’
‘Any arguments, any … violence or abuse?’
He bristles. ‘Of course not.’
‘Did your wife have any enemies?’
‘No, not at all.’
‘Anything different about her in the days or even weeks before she went missing? Did she seem preoccupied at all? Did she mention anyone bothering her?’
He shakes his head. ‘No, not that I noticed. Everything was fine.’
‘Any financial problems?’
He shakes his head. ‘No. We were planning a trip to Europe. Work was good for me. She was a temp, and she liked that, the freedom. Didn’t like being tied down to the same job fifty-two weeks a year.’
‘Tell us about that weekend,’ the detective says.
Robert looks at both detectives and says, ‘She’d planned to go away that weekend with a friend of hers, Caroline Lu. They were going into New York City.’ He pauses. ‘That’s what she told me, anyway.’
‘Did she do this kind of thing often, go away for the weekend?’
‘Sometimes. She liked her little shopping expeditions.’
‘How would she make her travel arrangements?’
He lifts his head. ‘She made her own arrangements. She booked things online, on her laptop, put it on her credit card.’
‘You weren’t suspicious when she left?’
‘No, not at all. I knew Caroline. I liked her. They’ve done this sort of thing before.’ He adds, ‘I don’t enjoy shopping.’
‘So tell us about Friday morning,’ Webb says, ‘September twenty-ninth.’
‘She’d packed her overnight case the night before. I remember she was humming as she went around the bedroom packing her things. I was lying on the bed, watching her. She seemed … happy.’ He looks earnestly at the two detectives. ‘We made love that night, everything was fine,’ he assures them.
But it wasn’t like that, he remembers, not at all.
‘The next morning,’ Robert continues, ‘when she was leaving for work, I kissed her goodbye, told her to have fun. She was going to leave directly from work, leave her car at the station and take the train in. It was her last day of that temp assignment.’
‘Where was that?’ the detective asks.
‘I told the police all this already,’ Robert complains. ‘It was an accounting firm. The information must be in the file.’ He feels a flash of irritation.
‘Did you talk to her again that day at all?’
‘No. I meant to, but I was busy with work. When I got home, I called her cell, but she didn’t answer. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. But she didn’t pick up all weekend – it just went to voice mail. We’re not a clingy couple, calling each other all the time. I thought she was busy, having fun. I didn’t think much of it.’
‘When did you start to realize something was wrong?’ Webb asks.
‘When she didn’t return Sunday night as expected, I started to worry. I’d left messages on her cell, but she hadn’t called me back. I couldn’t remember where they were staying either. That’s when I called Caroline. I thought her husband might know something, if they’d been delayed. But Caroline answered the phone.’ He pauses. ‘And she told me that she’d never had plans with Amanda that weekend, that she hadn’t actually talked to Amanda in a while.’ He rubs a hand over his face. ‘I went to the police station on Monday morning and reported her missing.’