Everyone Here Is Lying(20)
Twelve
The search presses on, but there is no sign of Avery. Gully knows it’s a race against time; with each passing hour, the chance of finding her alive diminishes.
Immediately after the television appeal, however, the tips start to come in. Uniformed officers take the calls and follow up on every one of them, except for the truly outlandish. For a town that prides itself on its sense of community, of looking after one another, there’s a surprising number of people willing to tell the police that someone they know is strange or might be a pervert. Like in small towns everywhere, Gully sighs to herself, the mindset can be narrower than in a large metropolis.
Gully is in the large room they’ve established as the command post when Bledsoe approaches her. She looks up.
Giving her a meaningful glance, Bledsoe says, “You’ll never guess what they just found in William Wooler’s car.”
“Avery’s DNA in the trunk,” Gully says grimly.
He shakes his head. “No, they’re still processing. But they found a pay-as-you-go phone, hidden inside the rear-seat armrest.”
Gully is taking this in when an officer approaches the two of them and says, “Someone here to see you.”
* * *
? ? ?
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 of it—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 back at 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.