The Dead Husband by Carter Wilson (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

see the eagerness in your face, the hope you might make some kind of name for yourself with your new department. But I can tell you this: you won’t make it from this case. You won’t make it from me. Whether Riley’s death was accidental or maybe something he secretly wanted, I’m not sure I’ll ever know. But I would never hurt someone I loved.”

There were many key words in what she’d just said, and Colin would surely go over the transcript of the recording many times dissecting them, but one word stood out above all others. It stood out because it had the clearest ring of a lie, more than anything else.

“So you loved him, then?”

She rose, and that was that.

“If you need to speak with me again, you can contact my lawyer.”

Twenty-Four

The moment he leaves, a dull throb begins in my head, a manifestation of anxiety. As is the tightness in my chest and the sudden glaze of warm sweat inside my armpits. I try to calm myself with a few deep breaths, but it’s like trying to meditate while drowning.

Detective Pearson didn’t want to know about my distant past. I was paranoid to think he did. My distant past has nothing to do with Milwaukee, so a Milwaukee cop would know nothing about something that happened twenty-two years ago in Bury, New Hampshire.

I pull back the thick mahogany drapes from the living room window and peek outside as Pearson gets in the patrol car, where he sits and talks with the Bury cop. Who was it? Timmons? Simmons?

Our conversation didn’t end the way I wanted. I didn’t want to threaten getting a lawyer, but the alternative was to answer Pearson’s questions, and I saw no good end to that. Every cop I’ve ever interviewed for my research has told me it’s usually the best move for a suspect to lawyer up, but it always reinforces the perception of guilt.

How would you characterize your relationship with your husband?

Well, Detective, it was pretty damn bleak. We’d been growing apart for some time, and then I recently found out he was screwing his business partner, who is younger, firmer, and way richer than me. Riley wanted to save our marriage but I wasn’t able to move forward emotionally with him. We continued living together while planning how best to separate.

In the final months leading up to his death, Riley grew bitter.

Bitter and angry.

Riley wasn’t prone to anger, and even in his worst moments, he just tended to be sullen. But not long before he died, that changed. I’d told him I’d had enough of sharing the apartment and was going to find my own place, even though I could scarcely afford it. I needed out. We’d share Max fifty-fifty and figure out a schedule as we moved toward divorce.

Maybe Riley had still been clinging to a hope that we’d remain together, or perhaps he just didn’t like me making the final decision. But the sullenness became anger.

Searing anger.

You want to leave me? What the hell are you going to do with your life? You’re incapable of making money. How’re you going to pay for a place?

Name-calling.

You’re just a selfish bitch, you know that? You’re ruining our family.

Threats over Max.

If you think I’m going to let you take him away, you’re out of your mind. In fact, I’ll sue for full custody.

Riley changed into another person in those last weeks, a desperate, needy, and hateful little boy. I should have left sooner. Should have taken Max and stayed with friends. But a part of me was convinced I could stabilize Riley, get him to accept our marriage was over and we both needed to get on with our lives. We were still going to have to raise Max together, and I wanted Riley in a more grounded place before I left.

I thought that would be the best thing for Max.

But Riley didn’t stabilize. He got worse.

I should have anticipated that.

Riley started drinking earlier in the day and finishing later at night, always capped off with his prescription sleeping pills, which would knock him out until late in the morning. He stopped looking for work, hardly left the apartment, hardly spoke to either Max or me. Just brooded like a sullen child convinced the world was out to get him.

But for all his horrible behavior, he was never violent. I was never scared of him.

I should’ve been.

The light of my world remains blocked by the black mass of all my should’ves.

On that last night, the last of his life, he walked into our bedroom while I was folding laundry on the bed. I could tell he was already several drinks in on the evening. He thought I was packing, that I was leaving him that night, and he flipped out.

What the hell are you doing?

I’m just folding laundry.

No, you’re not. You want to go, Rose? Just go already. I’m sick of you. Sick of seeing your face. You’re ugly, you know that? Ugly.

You don’t understand the only reason I put up with this is I keep hoping you’ll straighten out enough to have a rational conversation about us.

I’m straight as an arrow, baby. So get the fuck out.

If you want me to leave now, then I’m taking Max with me.

No, you aren’t. He doesn’t go anywhere.

Riley, I don’t trust you alone with him. Not with the way you’ve been behaving. Not with how much you’ve been drinking.

You think I’d hurt my own son? Is that what you’re saying?

I’m saying you’re in no shape to be a single parent right now.

There’s only one person in this apartment I want to hurt.

With that last statement, Riley turned and slammed his fist into the wall next to the bed. Bam. His hand disappeared through the drywall as if it were nothing more than rice paper; I think he was even more surprised than me. He just stood there, fist still in the wall, seconds passing, until finally his shoulders slumped, his head lowered, and