c7

Boney and Gilpin moved our interview to the police station, which looks like a failing community bank. They left me alone in a little room for forty minutes, me willing myself not to move. To pretend to be calm is to be calm, in a way. I slouched over the table, put my chin on my arm. Waited.
"Do you want to call Amy's parents?" Boney had asked.
"I don'd want to panic them," I said. "If we don'd hear from her in an hour, I'll call."
We'd done three rounds of that conversation.
Finally, the cops came in and sat at the table across from me. I fought the urge to laugh at how much it felt like a TV show. This was the same room I'd seen surfing through late-night cable for the past ten years, and the two cops – weary, intense – acted like the stars. Totally fake. Epcot Police Station. Boney was even holding a paper coffee cup and a manila folder that looked like a prop. Cop prop. I felt giddy, felt for a moment we were all pretend people: Let's play the Missing Wife game!
"You okay there, Nick?" Boney asked.
"I'm okay, why?"
"You"re smiling."
The giddiness slid to the tiled floor. "I'm sorry, it's all just—"
"I know," Boney said, giving me a look that was like a hand pat. "It's too strange, I know." She cleared her throat. "First of all, we want to make sure you"re comfortable here. You need anything, just let us know. The more information you can give us right now, the better, but you can leave at any time, that's not a problem, either."
"Whatever you need."
"Okay, great, thank you," she said. "Um, okay. I want to get the annoying stuff out of the way first. The crap stuff. If your wife was indeed abducted – and we don'd know that, but if it comes to that – we want to catch the guy, and when we catch the guy, we want to nail him, hard. No way out. No wiggle room."
"Right."
"So we have to rule you out real quick, real easy. So the guy can'd come back and say we didn'd rule you out, you know what I mean?"
I nodded mechanically. I didn'd really know what she meant, but I wanted to seem as cooperative as possible. "Whatever you need."
"We don'd want to freak you out," Gilpin added. "We just want to cover all the bases."
"Fine by me." It's always the husband, I thought. Everyone knows it's always the husband, so why can'd they just say it: We suspect you because you are the husband, and it's always the husband. Just watch Dateline.
"Okay, great, Nick," Boney said. "First let's get a swab of the inside of your cheek so we can rule out all of the DNA in the house that isn'd yours. Would that be okay?"
"Sure."
"I'd also like to take a quick sweep of your hands for gun shot residue. Again, just in case—"
"Wait, wait, wait. Have you found something that makes you think my wife was—"
"Nonono, Nick," Gilpin interrupted. He pulled a chair up to the table and sat on it backward. I wondered if cops actually did that. Or did some clever actor do that, and then cops began doing it because they'd seen the actors playing cops do that and it looked cool?
"It's just smart protocol," Gilpin continued. "We try to cover every base: Check your hands, get a swab, and if we could check out your car too …"
"Of course. Like I said, whatever you need."
"Thank you, Nick. I really appreciate it. Sometimes guys, they make things hard for us just because they can."
I was exactly the opposite. My father had infused my childhood with unspoken blame; he was the kind of man who skulked around looking for things to be angry at. This had turned Go defensive and extremely unlikely to take unwarranted shit. It had turned me into a knee-jerk suckup to authority. Mom, Dad, teachers: Whatever makes your job easier, sir or madam. I craved a constant stream of approval. "You'd literally lie, cheat, and steal – hell, kill – to convince people you are a good guy," Go once said. We were in line for knishes at Yonah Schimmel's, not far from Go's old New York apartment – that's how well I remember the moment – and I lost my appetite because it was so completely true and I'd never realized it, and even as she was saying it, I thought: I will never forget this, this is one of those moments that will be lodged in my brain forever.
We made small talk, the cops and I, about the July Fourth fireworks and the weather, while my hands were tested for gunshot residue and the slick inside of my cheek was cotton-tipped. Pretending it was normal, a trip to the dentist.
When it was done, Boney put another cup of coffee in front of me, squeezed my shoulder. "I'm sorry about that. Worst part of the job. You think you"re up to a few questions now? It'd really help us."
"Yes, definitely, fire away."
She placed a slim digital tape recorder on the table in front of me. "You mind? This way you won'd have to answer the same questions over and over and over …" She wanted to tape me so I'd be nailed to one story. I should call a lawyer, I thought, but only guilty people need lawyers, so I nodded: No problem.
"So: Amy," Boney said. "You two been living here how long?"
"Just about two years."
"And she's originally from New York. City."
"Yes."
"She work, got a job?" Gilpin said.
"No. She used to write personality quizzes."
The detectives swapped a look: Quizzes?
"For teen magazines, women's magazines," I said. "You know: “Are you the jealous type? Take our quiz and find out! Do guys find you too intimidating? Take our quiz and find out!”"
"Very cool, I love those," Boney said. "I didn'd know that was an actual job. Writing those. Like, a career."
"Well, it's not. Anymore. The Internet is packed with quizzes for free. Amy's were smarter – she had a master's in psychology – has a master's in psychology." I guffawed uncomfortably at my gaffe. "But smart can'd beat free."
"Then what?"
I shrugged. "Then we moved back here. She's just kind of staying at home right now."
"Oh! You guys got kids, then?" Boney chirped, as if she had discovered good news.
"No."
"Oh. So then what does she do most days?"
That was my question too. Amy was once a woman who did a little of everything, all the time. When we moved in together, she'd made an intense study of French cooking, displaying hyper-quick knife skills and an inspired boeuf bourguignon. For her thirty-fourth birthday, we flew to Barcelona, and she stunned me by rolling off trills of conversational Spanish, learned in months of secret lessons. My wife had a brilliant, popping brain, a greedy curiosity. But her obsessions tended to be fueled by competition: She needed to dazzle men and jealous-ify women: Of course Amy can cook French cuisine and speak fluent Spanish and garden and knit and run marathons and day-trade stocks and fly a plane and look like a runway model doing it. She needed to be Amazing Amy, all the time. Here in Missouri, the women shop at Target, they make diligent, comforting meals, they laugh about how little high school Spanish they remember. Competition doesn'd interest them. Amy's relentless achieving is greeted with open-palmed acceptance and maybe a bit of pity. It was about the worst outcome possible for my competitive wife: A town of contented also-rans.
"She has a lot of hobbies," I said.
"Anything worrying you?" Boney asked, looking worried. "You"re not concerned about drugs or drinking? I'm not speaking ill of your wife. A lot of housewives, more than you'd guess, they pass the day that way. The days, they get long when you"re by yourself. And if the drinking turns to drugs – and I'm not talking heroin but even prescription painkillers – well, there are some pretty awful characters selling around here right now."
"The drug trade has gotten bad," Gilpin said. "We"ve had a bunch of police layoffs – one fifth of the force, and we were tight to begin with. I mean, it's bad, we"re overrun."