“You have proof to the contrary?” Officer Berg asks, which of course I don’t. Nothing concrete.
“You could call the school,” I manage to think up just then. “Check with the school nurse to see which day Emma’s daughter was sick. Because I’d bet my life on it, Officer. It wasn’t December first.”
The look he gives me is leery. He says nothing.
“I’m a good doctor” is all I can think in that moment to say. “I’ve saved many lives, Officer. More than you know,” and I think of all those people who would no longer be alive if it wasn’t for me. Those with gunshot wounds to vital organs, in diabetic comas and respiratory distress. I say it again. “I’m a good doctor.”
“Your work ethic isn’t what concerns me, Doctor,” he says. “What I’m trying to get at is that on the afternoon of the first, between the hours of twelve and three, your whereabouts are unaccounted for. You have no alibi. Now, I’m not saying you had anything to do with Morgan’s murder or that you are somehow an unfit physician. What I’m saying is that there seems to be some ill will between you and Mrs. Baines, some sort of hostility that needs explaining, as do your lies. It’s the cover-up, Dr. Foust, that’s often worse than the crime. So why don’t you just tell me. Just go on and tell me what happened that afternoon between you and Mrs. Baines,” he says.
I cross my arms against my chest. There’s nothing to say.
“Let me let you in on a little secret,” he says in response to my silence. “This is a small island and stories spread quick. Lots of loose lips.”
“I don’t know what that has to do with anything.”
He says, “Let’s just say that yours wouldn’t be the first husband who ever had eyes for Mrs. Baines.”
And then he offers a flinty stare, waiting for some response, for me to become indignant.
I won’t give in.
I swallow hard. I force my hands behind me; they’ve begun to shake.
“Will and I are happily married. Madly in love,” I say, forcing my eyes on his. Will and I were madly in love, once. It’s a half-truth, not a lie.
The lie comes next. “Will has never had eyes for any woman but me.”
Officer Berg smiles. But it’s a tight-lipped smile. A smile that says he knows better than to believe this. “Well,” he says, careful with his words. “Mr. Foust is a very lucky man. You’re both lucky. Happy marriages these days are a rare bird.” He raises his left hand to show me the bare ring finger. “Married twice,” he confesses, “divorced twice. No more weddings for me. Anyhow,” he says, “maybe I misinterpreted what they said.”
My willpower isn’t strong. I know I shouldn’t and yet I do. I take the bait.
“What who said?” I ask.
He tells me, “The mothers at the school pickup line. They stand in clusters outside the gate, waiting for their kids to be released. They like to talk, to gossip, as I’m sure you know. For most, it’s the only adult conversation they have all day until their husbands come home from work.”
It strikes me as a very misogynistic thing to say. That women gossip, that husbands work. I wonder what Officer Berg thinks of Will’s and my arrangement. I don’t ask. He goes on to say, “It’s just that, when I questioned them, they alluded to the fact that your husband and Mrs. Baines were quite—What’s the word they used?” he thinks aloud, deciding, “Chummy.Yes, that’s it. Chummy. He said that they were quite chummy.”
My reply is immediate. “You’ve met him. Will is outgoing, easy to get along with. Everyone likes him. This doesn’t surprise me.”
“No?” he asks. “Because the details,” he tells me, “surprised me a bit. The way these women said they would stand close, their conversations hushed, whispering words so that no one else could hear. One of the women had a picture.”
“She took a picture of Will and Morgan?” I interject, incredulous. Not only is she gossiping about my husband, but she’s taking photos of him—for what purpose?
“Calm down, Dr. Foust,” he says, though it’s patronizing the way he says it. On the surface, I am calm, though inside my heart is racing. “She took a picture of her son coming out of school. He’d received the Principal’s Award,” he explains, finding the photo that this woman shared and showing it to me. Her son stands in the foreground. Maybe ten years old, a mop of flaxen hair that hangs into his eyes, his winter coat unzipped, shoe untied. In his hands he holds a certificate that reads Principal’s Award, a big deal in elementary school, though it shouldn’t be. Because by the end of the year everyone gets one. But for the kids, it’s a big deal. The boy’s grin is wide. He’s proud of his certificate.
My eyes move to the background. There stand Will and Morgan, just as Officer Berg described. They stand close in a way that makes my stomach churn. He’s turned toward her, facing her, his hand on her arm. There’s sadness on her face, in her eyes. It’s plain to see. His torso is bent at the waist so that he slopes into her by twenty or thirty degrees. His face is only inches from hers. His lips are parted, eyes locked on hers.
He’s speaking to her, telling her something.
What was Will telling her when this picture was taken?
What was he saying that he had to be standing so close to say it?
“Looks a little suspect, if you ask me,” Officer Berg says, snatching the photograph from me.
“I didn’t ask,” I think aloud, getting angry, unable to stop the words that come next.
“I saw you,” I remember just then. “I saw you put something into the Nilssons’ mailbox, Officer. Twice. It was money,” I say. An indictment.
