Everyone Here Is Lying(15)

“So, no one can verify where you were between three forty-five when your daughter left school and when you arrived home at five forty. Good to know.” Now he leans in. “Did you go home yesterday, Dr. Wooler? When your daughter was in the house?”

“No.” He summons all his internal strength and meets the detective’s eyes steadily. “I didn’t go home till Erin called me, around five twenty. I got there at five forty. The police were already there when I arrived.”

Bledsoe nods. “Okay. That’s all we need for now. Thank you.” He gets up. “If you don’t mind, you can remain here while we talk to your wife.”





Nine


Erin sits nervously in the interview room, waiting for Bledsoe and Gully. She doesn’t know how long she’ll be here. She’s frantic about her missing daughter, thinks all this is a waste of time. She’s worried about what the detectives think. She frets about Michael alone in the waiting room. He’s only twelve years old. This will damage him. It will damage all of them.

Finally, the door opens, and Bledsoe makes his way in, followed by Gully. Erin’s not so sure of Gully anymore.

“Let’s get started,” Bledsoe says, as he and Gully sit down across from her. He smiles at her. “This is purely voluntary. You can leave at any time.”

This is a surprise to Erin. It doesn’t feel that way. She wonders what they would do if she got up and left. Bledsoe has a file in his hand, which he places on the table. Erin wonders what’s in it. She wishes she knew what her husband said in his interview.

Bledsoe begins. “You said that you were at work when your son called your cell yesterday at four fifty-five p.m.”

So they are definitely suspects. She feels a mounting hysteria. Will they put their energies into finding Avery, or into trying to pin this on her and William? “Yes.”

“Was there anyone else in the office?”

She nods. “Yes. There were several people there who can vouch for me being there all afternoon, until I left at about five.” Maybe this is just a formality, she thinks, something they have to do, and then they will get back to looking for Avery.

“Okay,” Bledsoe says. He pauses briefly, then says, “Your husband can’t account for his whereabouts at the time Avery went missing.”

Erin freezes. She assumed he’d been at work. Where else would he have been? “What?” she says faintly.

Bledsoe fixes his eyes on her. “He says he was out for a drive, from about two o’clock until you called him at about five twenty. No one can verify his whereabouts.”

She hadn’t anticipated this; she can’t even mask her shock. She feels a strange numbness setting in.

“Any idea where he might have been?” the detective asks.

She shakes her head. “If he says he was out for a drive, then he was.” But her thoughts are reeling, her stomach clenching.

“That’s a long drive,” Bledsoe says.

She says, “He really likes his new car.”

“How would you describe your relationship with your husband?” Bledsoe asks.

“It’s fine.” He continues to stare at her, and it annoys her; it’s as if he’s implying something. She’s not going to share the intimate details of her marriage with them. It’s none of their business. “I mean, we have ups and downs like any couple, but we’re solid.”

“And how is your husband with the children?”

“He’s an excellent father,” she insists.

“Does he ever lose his patience?” Bledsoe asks.

Erin glances at Gully. Why doesn’t he let her ask any questions? She finds Bledsoe aggressive, unnerving. She answers carefully; she doesn’t like how this is going. “Sometimes. As do I. Any parent does. Do you have any children, Detective?” She’s panicking now. What has William said? What has he admitted to? Why didn’t they anticipate this and talk before they came in here, when they were in their hotel room? And Michael, they are going to question him. What a terrible position to put a child in—tell the police the truth or protect your parents. She feels the room begin to spin.

He ignores her question. “Your husband says he wasn’t home yesterday afternoon.”

“Of course he wasn’t,” she answers.

“If he was, we’ll find out.”

“It wasn’t him, it was someone else,” she insists, the hysteria coming out in her voice. “Someone must have come to the door, and she let them in. Someone took her. You have to find her!” She turns her panic-stricken gaze to Gully, who is regarding her with sympathy.



* * *



? ? ?

Michael bites his nails as he sits in the waiting room alone. It’s a habit that he kicked recently, but it started again last night with a vengeance. He doesn’t care; his world is falling apart. Maybe his last happy moment in his whole life, he thinks, is when the coach praised him at basketball practice yesterday.

He’s afraid for his sister. He knows she’s a pain and makes them all upset sometimes, that she makes her parents fight. She’s been like that for as long as he can remember. He remembers clearly the first time his dad hit her. She was six years old, throwing a tantrum because she didn’t get the cup she wanted for supper. His mom got up from the table to take it out of the dishwasher and wash it for her, to placate her. His father was incensed. Erin, sit down. Stop jumping up to do everything she says. You’re spoiling her. And Avery turning to him and yelling, I HATE YOU, and shoving the table so hard that everything spilled. He slapped her face, and everything went quiet. But the quiet didn’t last long because then his parents launched into a massive argument. Michael had cried, but Avery had seemed, even then, to enjoy the chaos she caused.