The Couple Next Door

Anne needs to prepare herself for what’s coming, but she doesn’t know how.

She considers telling them that she wants to speak to a lawyer but fears that will make her look guilty. Her parents could afford to get her the best criminal lawyer in the city, but she’s afraid to ask them. What would they think if she asked them to get her a lawyer? And what about Marco? Do they each need a separate lawyer? It infuriates her, because she knows they did not harm their baby; the police are wasting their time. And meanwhile Cora is alone somewhere, terrified, abused, or— Anne feels like she’s going to be sick.

To stop herself from throwing up, she thinks instead about Marco. But then she sees it again in her mind, him kissing Cynthia, his hands on her body—the body that is so much more desirable than her own. She tells herself that he was drunk, that Cynthia probably came on to him, just like he said, rather than the other way around. She’d watched Cynthia come on to Marco all night. Still, Marco went out back with her for a cigarette. He was just as much to blame. They both denied they were having an affair, but she doesn’t know what to believe.

The door opens, making her jump in her seat. Detective Rasbach enters, followed by Detective Jennings.

“Where’s Marco?” Anne asks, her voice shaky.

“He’s waiting for you in the lobby,” Rasbach says, and smiles briefly. “We won’t be long,” he says gently. “Please relax.”

She smiles weakly back at him.

Rasbach points to a camera mounted near the ceiling. “We’ll be videotaping this interview.”

Anne glances at the camera, dismayed. “Do we have to do this on camera?” she asks. Then she looks nervously at the two detectives.

“We record all our interviews,” Rasbach tells her. “It’s to protect everyone concerned.”

Anne straightens her hair nervously, tries to sit up taller in her chair. The woman officer remains stationed at the door, as if they’re afraid she’ll make a run for it.

“Can I get you anything?” Rasbach asks. “Coffee? Water?”

“No, thank you.”

Rasbach says, “Okay, then, let’s get started. Please state your name and today’s date.” The detective leads her carefully through the events of the night the baby went missing. “When you saw that she wasn’t in the crib, what did you do?” Rasbach asks. His voice is kind, encouraging.

“I told you. I think I screamed. I threw up. Then I called 911.”

Rasbach nods. “What did your husband do?”

“He looked around the upstairs while I was calling 911.”

Rasbach looks more sharply at her, his eyes on hers. “How did he seem?”

“He seemed shocked, horrified, like me.”

“You found nothing out of place, nothing disturbed, other than that the baby was gone?”

“That’s right. We searched the house before the police arrived, but we didn’t notice anything. The only thing different or odd—other than that she wasn’t there and that her blanket was gone—was that the front door was open.”

“What did you think when you found the crib empty?”

“I thought someone had taken her,” Anne whispers, looking down at the table.

“You told us that you smashed the bathroom mirror after finding the baby gone, before the police arrived. Why did you smash the bathroom mirror?” Rasbach asks.

Anne takes a deep breath before answering. “I was angry. I was angry because we had left her at home alone. It was our fault.” Her voice is dry; her lower lip trembles. “Actually, could I have some water?” she asks, looking up.

“I’ll get it,” Jennings offers, and he leaves the room, soon returning with a bottle of water that he places on the table in front of Anne.

Gratefully, she twists off the cap and takes a drink.

Rasbach resumes his questioning. “You said you’d had some wine. You’re also on antidepressant medication, the effects of which are increased with the use of alcohol. Do you think your memories of what happened that night are reliable?”

“Yes.” Her voice is firm. The water seems to have revived her.

“You are certain of your version of events?” Rasbach asks.

“I’m certain,” she says.

“How do you explain the pink onesie that was found underneath the pad on the changing table?” Rasbach’s voice is not so gentle now.

Anne feels her composure deserting her. “I . . . I thought I put it in the hamper, but I was very tired. It must have gotten shoved under there somehow.”

“But you can’t explain how?”

Anne knows what he’s driving at. How much can he trust her version of events when she can’t explain something as simple as how the onesie, which she said she remembered putting into the laundry hamper, was underneath the pad on the changing table?

“No. I don’t know.” She begins to wring her hands in her lap beneath the table.

“Is there any possibility that you might have dropped the baby?”

“What?” Her eyes snap up to meet the detective’s. His eyes are unnerving; she feels they can see right through her.

“Is there any possibility that you might have accidentally dropped the baby, that she was harmed in some way?”

“No. Absolutely not. I would remember that.”

Rasbach is not so friendly now. He leans back in his chair and cocks his head at her, as if he doesn’t believe her. “Perhaps you dropped her earlier in the evening and she hit her head, or perhaps you shook her and when you came back to see her, she wasn’t breathing?”

“No! That didn’t happen,” Anne says desperately. “She was fine when I left her at midnight. She was fine when Marco checked her at twelve thirty.”

“You don’t actually know if she was fine when Marco checked on her at twelve thirty. You weren’t there, in the baby’s room. You only have your husband’s word for it,” Rasbach points out.

“He wouldn’t lie,” Anne says anxiously, continuing to wring her hands.

Rasbach lets silence fill the room. Then, leaning forward, he says, “How much do you trust your husband, Mrs. Conti?”

“I trust him. He wouldn’t lie about that.”

“No? What if he went to check on the baby and found she wasn’t breathing? What if he thought you had harmed her—hurt her by accident or held a pillow over her face? And he arranged for someone to take the body away because he was trying to protect you?”

“No! What are you saying? That I killed her? Is that what you really think?” She looks from Rasbach to Jennings to the woman officer at the door, then back at the detective.

“Your neighbor, Cynthia, says that when you returned to the party after you fed the baby at eleven, you looked like you’d been crying and that you’d washed your face.”

Anne colors. This is a detail she’d forgotten. She had cried. She’d fed Cora in her chair in the dark at eleven with tears running down her face. Because she was depressed, because she was fat and unattractive, because Cynthia was tempting her husband in a way that she could no longer tempt him, and she felt useless and hopeless and overwhelmed. Trust Cynthia to notice—and to tell the police.

“You are under the care of a psychiatrist, you said. A Dr. Lumsden?” Rasbach sits up straight now and picks up a file from the table. Opens it and looks inside.

“I already told you about Dr. Lumsden,” Anne says, wondering what he’s looking at. “I am seeing her for mild postpartum depression, as you know. She prescribed an antidepressant that’s safe while breast-feeding. I have never thought about harming my child. I didn’t shake her or smother her or hurt her in any way. I didn’t drop her by accident either. I wasn’t that drunk. I was crying when I fed her because I was sad about being fat and unattractive, and Cynthia—who is supposed to be a friend—had been flirting with my husband all evening.” Anne draws strength from the anger she feels, remembering this. She sits up straighter and looks the detective in the eye. “Maybe you should become a little better informed about postpartum depression, Detective. Postpartum depression is not the same thing as postpartum psychosis. I am clearly not psychotic, Detective.”