Page 17 of Everyone Here Is Lying
•••
Erin is sitting,almost catatonic, on the sofa in her living room. She is tortured by thoughts of Avery. Where is she? Is she being held somewhere? Erin can’t breathe for a moment. She must stop imagining it. She must cling to hope, focus on getting Avery back.
The police have stopped treating the house as a crime scene, at least. Maybe now they will put more effort into looking for Avery instead of seeing them as possible suspects. But she thinks uneasily about her husband. Why wasn’t he at work for all that time yesterday afternoon? What the hell was he doing going out for a drive when he was supposed to be at work? Is he hiding something from her?
“You should eat something,” William coaxes her. “You’ve barely eaten since...” he falters, “yesterday.”
She doesn’t answer, just regards him silently. Michael, unable to bear any of it anymore, has retreated to his bedroom, probably to lose himself in his computer games. She’s on the verge of asking her husband again what he was doing the afternoon before, but he speaks first.
“I’m going to make you some toast. And some tea. Okay?” William says solicitously.
He retreats to the kitchen. At least they are being left alone now, she thinks, after the miserable morning. Such an ordeal, all ofit—the distressing questioning at the station, coming home from the hotel and preparing for the appeal, the appearance on television. She could feel her hands trembling during the entire thing. She can’t bear to watch it. But the TV is on low in the living room, and the appeal plays on the local channel every hour. They are trying. They are all trying.
William brings in the buttered toast and tea and sets it on the coffee table in front of her. The aroma suddenly makes her realize how hungry she is; William is right, she hasn’t eaten since lunchtime yesterday. She hadn’t been able to touch that muffin this morning.
There’s a knock at the door and they both freeze.
“Who’s that?” Erin asks, her stomach clenching. She can’t possibly see anyone right now. Not even well-meaning friends. She has had William turn everyone away. She wants to hide until all this is over.
“I don’t know,” William says, and walks over to the living-room window and peers through a gap in the curtains in the direction of the front door. “Fuck,” he says vehemently. “It’s those fucking detectives.” He immediately seems agitated, on guard.
She’s taken aback at his reaction. “Maybe they have news,” she says. “Maybe they’ve found her.” She feels a sudden alarming combination of hope and fear that makes her dizzy.
William goes to the door and lets them in; Erin doesn’t think that she can stand. The toast and tea sit on the coffee table, untouched.
Bledsoe and Gully come into the living room where they have already spent so much time. They sit down in the same armchairs as before, as William joins her on the sofa.
“Have you found her?” Erin asks, her voice unsteady.
Gully shakes her head, and Bledsoe says, “I’m afraid not. Not yet.” He looks directly at her husband and lets a long pause develop.
Erin starts to feel frightened.What’s going on here?
“We have had a tip, though,” Bledsoe says, continuing to stare at William. “Someone saw something after all.” He waits a beat. “One of your neighbors saw your car, Dr. Wooler, enter your garage at around four o’clock yesterday afternoon.”
Erin turns to look at her husband in horror.
•••
William is backat the police station in the same interview room he was in earlier that morning. “Do I have a choice?” he’d asked Bledsoe back at the house.
“Not really,” Bledsoe had said. “You’d better read him his rights, Gully.”
His wife didn’t even get up off the sofa as they took him away. She was not on his side. Not anymore. She wouldn’t be ever again after this, he thought. They were done. She would hate him. And Michael would too.
William has told them he doesn’t need a lawyer because he hasn’t done anything wrong. He wonders if this is a mistake, but he already looks bad, and he doesn’t want to look worse.
They tell him he’s being videotaped, and they begin.
“We have a witness who saw your car going into your garage at around four o’clock yesterday afternoon,” Bledsoe says.
At first, he denies it. He wants to deny that any of this is happening at all. He shakes his head. “No. That’s impossible. I wasn’t there.”
“But someone saw you there, William,” Bledsoe says. “One of your neighbors saw you. And then he went away overnight on business and didn’t come into the station to let us know until this morning. You’ve got some explaining to do.”
William places both hands over his face and begins to sob. He sobs as if he’s broken. Heisbroken. He will never survive this. But as he cries, and the detectives watch, he realizes that there is an instinct for survival deep inside him somewhere. Finally, he pulls himself together and wipes his eyes with his hands. Gully pushes a box of tissues at him. They’re waiting, as he stares down at the table. They think they’ve solved the case, the smug bastards, he thinks. Well, it’s not that simple.
“I didn’t do anything to her,” he says. “I don’t know where she is.” The detectives simply look at him, waiting. “I was there,” he admits at last, sensing his own doom. They’ll never believe him. “I decided to go home early for a change. I thought the house would be empty. It was Tuesday, and Michael had basketball practice and Avery had choir, and I thought they wouldn’t be home until about a quarter to five.”
