Everyone Here Is Lying(42)

Because now there’s this. She’s worried sick. Her stomach hurts. It’s happening all over again. Only this is a million times worse.

She catches Samantha’s mother watching her in the back seat through the rearview mirror. Faith glares at her, and Samantha’s mom averts her eyes, embarrassed.





Twenty-six


Al Blanchard waits anxiously in the empty interview room, wondering what the hell is going on. He hates not knowing. How long can they keep him here? Can they keep him here? And then he remembers Oliver Fuller telling them, before, that if they detain someone, or have them in custody or arrest them, they must read them their rights. No one has read him his rights; he thinks he’s here voluntarily, that he’s free to leave.

But just as he stands up, the door opens, and Detective Bledsoe and Detective Gully enter the room. He quickly sits back down.

“Sorry for the wait,” Bledsoe says, pulling out a chair opposite him. Gully sits down too.

“Do I have to stay here?” Al asks.

“No,” Bledsoe tells him. “You’re free to leave. But it would be helpful to us, and perhaps to your son, if you could answer a few questions.”

“Of course,” Al says, deciding to cooperate. There’s no point getting confrontational.

“Where were you on Tuesday afternoon?” Bledsoe asks.

“What?” It’s not the question he was expecting; he thought they wanted to talk about his son. The detective doesn’t repeat the question. Al says, automatically, “I was at work.”

“And is there anyone at your place of employment who can confirm that?”

No, there isn’t. Because he remembers now that of course he wasn’t at work on Tuesday afternoon. “Actually,” he says, “sorry, I just remembered. Tuesday I was out of the office. I had a meeting with a client from one till shortly after two.”

“And what did you do after that?”

“Why are you asking me this?” Al says.

“Please just answer the question.”

Al swallows.

He takes his time answering. He doesn’t want to lie to the police. “I didn’t go back to the office,” he admits reluctantly. “I—I stopped at a motel.”

“What motel would that be?”

Al can feel the blood rushing to his face. He’s feeling increasingly uncomfortable. “The Breezes Motel, on Route Nine.”

“And what were you doing there?” Bledsoe asks, glancing at his partner.

Al shifts in his seat. He doesn’t want to tell them. He feels his anger and his shame growing. How can he be in this position, being asked this? He remembers who has put him here. His wife. Finally, he answers, trying to pretend it doesn’t bother him as much as it does. “If you must know, my wife is having an affair. I suspected her some time ago, so I followed her one day. She goes to that motel every Tuesday afternoon. To meet William Wooler.” He feels the heat rise up his neck. “So every Tuesday, I park in the back behind the dumpster, and I watch for them to come out.” And then he suddenly feels everything inside him give way and he begins to cry. Oh, the embarrassment of it, the humiliation. The shame. They wait till he pulls himself back together.

“What time did they come out?”

He wipes his eyes roughly with his hands. “It was about three forty-five.” He adds, “Earlier than usual.”

“And what did you do then?” Bledsoe asks.

“Nothing. I just sat in my car behind the dumpster until it was time to go home. I left there about five thirty.” He confesses, his misery and shame complete, “That’s what I do every Tuesday. I told work that I have an appointment every Tuesday afternoon at three, and I don’t go back.” He adds, his voice breaking, “And then I go home and pretend I’ve been at work.”



* * *



? ? ?

Gully and Bledsoe take a moment alone before interviewing Ryan Blanchard. They have suggested that Nora and Al go home, but they have chosen to remain and wait for their son. It might be a long wait. Or it might not.

“You just never know what people are really up to, do you?” Gully says, thinking of Al Blanchard sitting in his car behind the dumpster, every Tuesday afternoon, while his wife and William Wooler were having sex in a motel.

“It gives him motive,” Bledsoe says darkly.

Gully nods. “It does.”

“We only have his word for it that he stayed there till five thirty. We already know there aren’t any working surveillance cameras on that motel,” Bledsoe says. “Maybe that particular day he’d had enough and followed Wooler home to have it out with him. But then William left again and maybe Al saw Avery leave the house and took her. Maybe he thought he could take the daughter and everyone would think William had done it.” He adds, “Revenge—the oldest motive in the book.”

“Assuming Wooler didn’t kill her himself, and assuming Ryan Blanchard didn’t pick her up in his car.” She adds, “And there’s still the boyfriend angle. I need to talk to Derek Seton.”

“Yeah,” Bledsoe agrees, sighing heavily. “We’d need Al Blanchard’s cell phone records to pinpoint his location and eliminate him as a suspect, but I don’t think we have enough for a warrant.”