“No. But I didn’t hear anything last night, did I?”
I groped around wildly, trying to find the lamp, nearly knocking it over and scratching the walnut nightstand before managing to turn it on. I scrambled out of bed and pushed the curtain aside, same blue-and-white chinoiserie pattern as the rug, same blue-and-white chinoiserie as the seat of the very small chair in the corner, checking to make sure the skinny, scared police guard wasn’t splayed out on the front steps with his throat cut. But his scalp gleamed pink as he scanned the fields from left to right and right to left. The land was too vast for one man to monitor, and yet what had happened had happened in a full house with neighbors on all sides. Maybe what felt unsafe was safe. Maybe I should never sleep through the night again.
I tripped over one of Bernadette’s shoes and splintered my shin on the baseboard of the bed. I face-planted onto the sheets and curled up in the fetal position, moaning in pain. Denise was not a neat freak, but she seemed to understand that my penchant for order and organization was about something deeper, so she did the best she could to honor it. If Denise were here with me in this room, her shoes would be in the closet and not strewn all over the floor. If Denise were here, she would ask what the hell was wrong with that very small chair in the corner, too small for an adult and too fancy for a child. If Denise were here, she would have made me laugh with her opinions, her observations, the remarkable lens through which she saw the world.
“What if it is Roger?” Bernadette whispered.
For a moment, I felt like I was swallowing glass. Then I remembered. “It can’t be,” I said, rolling over to face her. On the wall adjacent, there was a painting of Mother Mary, wearing blue and praying with her eyes upcast. “I saw him, remember?”
Bernadette picked at the scratchy, expensive fabric of the comforter. She opened her mouth, and half a vowel came out. She pressed her lips together, tight.
“Bernadette?” I asked, apprehension pooling in my bowels.
She shook her head. No. She wouldn’t say it. No.
I sat up, scooting closer to the foot of the bed and placing my hands on top of her knees. She turned her face away from me.
“You know whatever you tell me is in confidence until you give me permission to talk about it, right?” I had started to say this once I took office, like I was some kind of priest. But I found it worked. It was something about the part “until you give me permission.” It was a sharing of power.
“There was this time.” Bernadette closed her eyes. “With Roger.”
It happened in his car, parked right outside The House, on their way home from a movie. His hand on the back of her neck as they kissed, gently at first, then not. He pushed her face down into his lap. Held it there. He thrust until she sobbed. Her nose stuffed up and she could not breathe. She was sure he was going to accidentally kill her.
“It was last year,” Bernadette said, her face still turned away from me but smeared with tears now. “He and Denise had that huge fight in the middle of Winter Gala, remember? And they didn’t talk for a whole month?”
Oh, I remembered.
“Anyway,” Bernadette said, swiping at her face with the back of her hand, “he asked me out a little bit after that. I didn’t want to advertise it. They were broken up, sure, but you could tell she wanted to be back together with him. And I didn’t want to deal with that, you know?”
That. Denise’s bruised ego; her wrath. I did know.
“We don’t have to tell the police, do we?” Bernadette faced me finally, desperation in her bloated eyes. “I would lose my title if this got out.”
I caught myself about to say I didn’t think we needed to. I didn’t want to give Sheriff Cruso one more reason to suspect Roger. But keeping something like this from the authorities felt unethical, like we were vaguely conspiring to protect a person who didn’t totally deserve it. “Would you be okay if I spoke to my father about it? He’s an attorney. A good one.”
Bernadette replied without taking the time to consider it. “Can I let you know in the morning?”
We stared at each other with honest, exhausted faces. If the answer wasn’t yes now, it certainly wouldn’t be yes with clearer heads.
“Of course,” I told her. The thing about what I said to them—about speaking to me in confidence, about needing their permission to share—it worked because I always kept my word.
Jacksonville, Florida, 2021
Day 15,826
The Jacksonville airport is much newer and nicer than Newark’s. They don’t just have better food options and bathrooms where all the toilet sensors actually work; the floors are gleaming white terrazzo as far as the eye can see, not so much as a swatch of carpet to slow me down as I speed-roll my suitcase alongside me, trying to beat the other business-class passengers to the front of the Hertz line.