“No . . .” I stammer. “I haven’t seen him since yesterday, when he left for the day.”
“Did you speak to him?”
“No.” I tried, Annie, but he walked by me, without one word, like I’m worth nothing to him. “I saw him from my window. Running to his car. He didn’t have an umbrella.”
“I need you to do me a favor and let me in to his office,” she says. “I can be there in fifteen minutes.”
“His office?” I turn and look around the room. “I’m sorry, Annie. But I can’t do that.”
“Why not?” she asks, brusque.
“I’m not allowed downstairs,” I say. “You’ll see the restricted access clause right there in the lease he and I signed. I can only enter his office with his explicit permission.”
“I understand,” she says. “You can give me the key, and—”
“I don’t have a key.”
She’s silent a moment. “Are you serious?” she says. “You’re Sam’s landlord, and you don’t have a key to his office?”
“Your husband insisted on it,” I say, my voice steady. “He’s very conscientious about protecting his patients’ privacy.”
She swears under her breath. “I honestly don’t know what to do.”
“Have you tried calling him?”
“Yeah, I thought of that,” she says, impatiently. “He’s not answering my calls or my texts. He never does that.”
“Well, I’m sure there must be some explanation.”
“This is my cell, but can I also give you my home number?” she asks. “In case he shows up?”
“Yes, of course. Let me find something to write with.” I scan the room, spotting the Stephen King novel on the floor. I pick it up and find a pen in Sam’s desk drawer. “Go ahead,” I say, opening the front cover and writing down the number she recites. “I’ll be sure to call you the minute he shows up. And don’t worry, Mrs. Statler. I’m sure everything will be okay.”
“Thank you,” she says. “And it’s Potter.”
“I’m sorry?”
“It’s Annie Potter. We have different last names.”
“Potter. Got it,” I say, printing the name under her number. “Good night now.”
The phone goes dead in my hand, and I stoop down to collect Sam’s bills, slide them into the book, and head toward the door. Inside my foyer, I hide the extra key the locksmith was kind enough to make for me, remove my latex gloves, and head toward the computer in the library, buzzing with excitement. Of course. Potter, not Statler. That’s why I could never find you in a Google search, Annie.
*
Sitting at the desk in the library, I sharpen my pencil and scan my list.
Things I’m Learning about Sam’s Wife: A List
Annie Marie Potter is a forty-one-year-old native of Kennebunkport, Maine.
She is, as my father would say, the ambitious type: i. A PhD with distinction in comparative literature from Cornell University.
ii. A teaching position at Columbia University, in the Department of Gender Studies, which is apparently something they made up in the 1970s.
iii. Since this past September, she has held a visiting fellowship at a small, private university in Chestnut Hill, New York, where, as far as I can tell, she teaches just one class: It’s All in Her Head: Women and Madness in Literature. From the mad heroines of classic Victorian literature to the rise of the unreliable female narrator, the psychological vulnerability of women has long been a captivating subject. Tuesday and Thursday. 10:00 a.m. Higgins Hall auditorium.
She’s not as pretty as I was expecting. I know there’s probably a whole host of classes in Annie’s gender studies department devoted to why it’s wrong for me to comment on her physical appearance, but it’s true. She wisely seems to have eschewed all social media, but I found a photo of her on the university website, which I’ve been studying for the past hour. Attractive, I suppose, but not the model type I was expecting.
I never would have spoken to either her or Sam in high school, each for different reasons. Him because he would have thought he was too good for me; her because confident girls scared me.
I knew, in theory, that she existed. For one thing, she was mentioned （in passing） in the interview Sam did with the local paper, and then he brought her up a few times himself, like the day he responded to the flyer I’d stuck under his windshield. He came right over to look at the space, spent an hour walking back and forth, listening to my ideas to spruce the place up. You could position your office back here. Knock out this wall, replace it with glass. “My wife Annie is better at envisioning these things,” he said, excited. “But I think you’re right. This could be great.”