The Couple Next Door

Jesus. Jesus. Fuck.

His computer at the office. He’d Googled “postpartum depression” and followed the links to “postpartum psychosis,” read those horrible stories about women who’d murdered their babies. The woman who had smothered her two kids. The woman who’d drowned her five children in the bathtub. The one who had driven her kids into a lake. Jesus fucking Christ. If the police look at his computer at the office, they’ll find all that.

Marco starts to sweat just lying in bed. He feels clammy, sick. What would the police make of that if they found it? Do they already think that Anne killed Cora? Do they think he helped her cover it up? If they saw his browser history, would they think he’d been worried for weeks about Anne?

He lies there flat on his back, eyes wide open. Should he tell the police about it, before they find it themselves? He doesn’t want to look like he’s hiding anything. They’ll wonder why he researched it at work, instead of using his home computer.

His heart is racing now, as he gets up. He makes his way downstairs in the dark, leaving Anne snoring lightly behind him. Detective Rasbach is in the chair in their living room that he seems to have chosen as his favorite, doing something on his laptop. Marco wonders if the detective ever sleeps, wonders when he’s going to leave their house. He and Anne can’t exactly kick him out, although they would both like to.

Detective Rasbach looks up as Marco comes into the room.

“I can’t sleep,” Marco mumbles. He sits down on the sofa, tries to think of how to begin. He can feel the detective’s eyes on him. Should he tell or not? Have they been to his office yet? Have they looked at his computer? Have they found out the mess his business is in? Do they know that he’s at risk of losing his company? If they don’t yet, they soon will. He knows they’re suspicious of him, that they’re looking into his background. But having financial problems doesn’t make you a criminal.

“There’s something I’d like to tell you,” Marco says nervously.

Rasbach looks at him calmly and puts his laptop aside.

“I don’t want you to misconstrue this,” Marco says.

“Okay,” Detective Rasbach says.

Marco takes a deep breath before he begins. “When Anne was diagnosed with postpartum depression a few months ago, it really kind of freaked me out.”

Rasbach nods. “That’s understandable.”

“I mean, I had no experience with this kind of thing. She was getting very depressed, you know, crying a lot. She seemed listless. I was worried about her, but I thought she was just exhausted, that it was temporary. I thought she’d get over it when the baby started sleeping through the night. I even suggested that maybe she should go back to work part-time, because she loved her job at the gallery and I thought it would give her a break. But she didn’t want to do that. She looked at me like I thought she was a failure as a mother.” Marco shakes his head. “Of course I didn’t think that! I suggested she get a bit of help during the day, maybe get a girl in so she could nap, but she wouldn’t hear of it.”

Rasbach nods again, listening intently.

Marco continues, feels himself getting more nervous. “When she told me her doctor said she had postpartum depression, I didn’t want to make it into a big deal, you know? I wanted to be supportive. But I was worried, and she wasn’t telling me much.” He starts rubbing his hands on his thighs. “So I looked it up online, but not here at home, because I didn’t want her to know I was worried. So I used my computer at the office.” He feels himself flushing. This is coming out all wrong. He sounds as if he suspects Anne, as if he doesn’t trust her. It sounds like they’re keeping secrets from each other.

Rasbach stares back at him, inscrutable. Marco can’t make out what the detective is thinking. It’s unnerving.

“So I just wanted you to know, if you check my computer at work, why I was looking at those sites about postpartum depression. I was trying to understand what she was going through. I wanted to help.”

“I see.” Rasbach nods as if he completely understands. But Marco can’t tell what he’s really thinking.

“Why do you want to tell me that you were researching postpartum depression at your office? It seems a natural enough thing to do, in your situation,” Rasbach says.

Marco feels a chill. Has he just made things worse? Has he just made them want to examine his office computer? Should he explain further about following the links to the murders or just leave things as is? For a moment he panics, unsure of what to do. He decides he has already screwed up enough. “I just thought I should tell you, that’s all,” Marco says gruffly, and gets up to go, angry with himself.

“Wait,” the detective says. “Do you mind if I ask you something?”

Marco sits back down. “Go ahead.” He crosses his arms in front of him.

“It’s about last night, when you went back to the neighbors’ house after checking on the baby at twelve thirty.”

“What about it?”

“What were you and Cynthia talking about out there?”

The question makes Marco feel uncomfortable. What had they talked about? Why is he asking? “Why do you want to know what we were talking about?”

“Do you remember?” Rasbach asks.

Marco can’t remember. He doesn’t remember talking much at all.

“I don’t know. Just trivial stuff. Chitchat. Nothing important.”

“She’s a very attractive woman, wouldn’t you agree?”

Marco is silent.

“Wouldn’t you agree?” Rasbach repeats.

“I guess,” Marco says.

“You say that you don’t remember seeing or hearing anything when you were out back last night between shortly after twelve thirty and just before one a.m., when the two of you returned inside.”

Marco hangs his head, doesn’t look at the detective. He knows where this is going. He starts to sweat.

“You said”—and here the detective flips back through his notebook for a bit—“you said you ‘weren’t paying attention.’ Why were you not paying attention?”

What the hell should he do here? He knows what the detective is getting at. Like a coward, Marco says nothing. But he feels the pulse in the vein at his temple, wonders if the detective notices.

“Cynthia says that you came on to her, that you made sexual advances to her out on the patio.”

“What? No I didn’t.” Marco lifts his head sharply and looks at the detective.

The detective consults his notes again, flips some pages. “She says you ran your hand up her legs, that you kissed her, pulled her onto your lap. She says you were quite persistent, that you got carried away.”

“That’s not true!”

“It’s not true? You didn’t kiss her? And get carried away?”

“No! I mean—I didn’t come on to her, she came on to me.” Marco can feel himself blush deeply and is furious with himself. The detective says nothing. Marco fumbles over the words in his haste to defend himself, all the while thinking, That lying bitch.

“That’s not how it happened,” Marco insists. “She started it.” He cringes at how that sounds, how juvenile. He takes a steadying breath. “She came on to me. I remember, she came and sat on my lap. I told her she shouldn’t be on my lap and tried to nudge her off. But she took my hand and placed it inside her skirt. She was wearing this long dress with a slit up the side.” Marco is really sweating now, thinking how this must sound. He tries to relax. Tells himself no matter how much of a heel the detective must think him, there’s no reason for him to think this has anything to do with Cora. “She kissed me.” Marco stops, colors again. He can tell that Rasbach doesn’t believe a word of it. “I kept protesting, and telling her we shouldn’t, but she wouldn’t get off my lap. She got my fly down. I was afraid someone would see us.”

Rasbach says, “You had a lot to drink. How reliable is your memory of what happened?”

“I was drunk, but I wasn’t that drunk. I know what happened. I didn’t start anything with her. She practically threw herself at me.”