Page 54 of A Familiar Stranger
I swallow. “I don’t know,” I say weakly. “Seroquel, I think. And maybe olanzapine?”
Gersh writes down the two medications, then flips over a different notebook page. “Looks like she stopped both of those last year and switched to Symbyax. Does that sound right?”
Another test, failed. “She changed medicines a lot.” I shift in the hard metal seat. “So maybe.”
“Let’s get back to what you were doing that day.”
I try not to look at my watch, but I need to hurry this along so I can drive around the neighborhood and spot, within walking distance of our house, where Lillian might have gone. I need to stop by the convenience store at the corner, and the liquor store on the other side, and ask that nosy neighbor, the one who is always bitching about our garbage cans. I could also ask the dog walker, the one with four leashes tied to each hand and a fanny pack full of shit. Someone had to have seen Lill, and I realize that I never checked the Uber app to see if she had decided to take a car somewhere, despite her ordered taxi.
“Mike?”
I move my hand under the table to keep myself from checking the time on my watch. “I woke up at six fifteen. Ate breakfast. I watched the news, worked out, took a shower, and left for the office at seven forty-five. I arrived at the office at around eight fifteen, and stayed there until twelve thirty, then drove home to pick up Lill. We were supposed to go to the attorney’s office, but she wasn’t at the house.”
“Were you alarmed?”
“No. I was annoyed. I thought that she forgot or was intentionally avoiding the appointment. She’s a little—she was a little stubborn about things. She’d ‘forget’ to do things that she didn’t want to do. I tried tocall her, then finally went on to the appointment by myself. What time did she die?”
Now it is the detective’s turn to shift in his seat, and I can tell that he is warring over whether to give me the information. “Between three and seven that evening.”
Inside, I groan. Only Lillian would pick such an inconvenient time to die.
“What did you do after the attorney appointment?” He has a pencil out, and he’s writing all this down. After this, he’ll confirm what I’ve said. A drop of sweat runs down the middle of my back. To tell the truth or not? My mind seesaws back and forth over the two options. I had decided to do some business, and fuck Lillian for going and dying during that window of time.
I cleared my throat. “I went to the office. I was there until around six, then I came home.” It was my first lie, but one that would take time to disprove.
“And you were home all night?”
“Yes.”
“Anyone who can verify that?”
“Ah ...” I pause, thinking. “My son spent the night at a friend’s house, but he stopped by the house around ten-thirty to get something.”
The detective is looking at me with distaste, and I can anticipate the next question before it comes. “Didn’t you wonder where your wife was?”
“I’d just discovered that she was having an affair. I assumed that she was with him, if she wasn’t at home. And for all I knew, she was in the guest room. That’s where she’d spent the night before.” I need to wrap this up. Explaining myself to this prick is going to take all day. “Look, I hate to rush this, but I didn’t do anything to Lillian. You’re talking about an emotionally unstable woman who had a history of self-harm and substance abuse. She—”
“We don’t know that,” Gersh interrupts.
“Don’t know what?”
“What history does she have of self-harm?”
I sigh. “Are you serious? Don’t you have her medical records? Or her police records? Last year, Lillian was hospitalized for a suicide attempt. And her behavior is self-destructive. She—”
“We have her medical records,” Gersh interrupts. “And in her hospitalization last May, her stomach contents included a heavy amount of ketamine.”
“So?”
“Her doctors marked it as suspicious.”
“Lillian’s used ketamine as an antidepressant in the past. She micro-doses.” This is why I should have married a normal girl. Becca Parks was ripe for the taking, junior year. She would have popped out two babies for me and never gotten so much as a parking ticket. Instead, I married a beautiful, creative train wreck, one who needed me with a desperation that Becca Parks couldn’t touch.
There is a part of me that already misses her.
“Did you hear me, Mr.Smith?” He is staring at me with barely disguised contempt.
“I’m sorry?”
