CHAPTER 3 - Molly

CHAPTER 3MollyTHE POLICE ALLOWED ME TO CHANGE MY CLOTHES AND PACK A BAG before leaving with Corrine. My home is now a crime scene, and I’m banished, at least for a little while. It pains me to leave, as though I’m turning my back on Jay and our life together. When I return, even his body will be gone, and I’ll be alone again, an idea that shakes me to my core.My sister and her husband, Rich, live in a toney apartment building in Boston. They’d moved there last year after their son left for college. Corrine was never the domestic type, and the less square footage to keep up, the better. Besides, she and Rich both work downtown in tall office buildings. The urban life suits them.I changed out of my sweats when I got here, took a shower in the perfectly appointed guest bathroom, and dressed in leggings and a long blue sweater. Sergeant Simmons told me to expect a visit from the detectives.I sit on my sister’s expensive off-white sofa with a cup of tea she made and shoved into my icy hands. I can’t seem to warm up, but don’t want to ask her to turn the heat up again. The view is beautiful, Boston Harbor in the distance, dark and still, and I try to make out the details of the boats anchored there, anything to keep from thinking about Jay. I’m beyond traumatized, temporarily emptied of tears, numb. I’m on autopilot. I know how to do this—function, don’t think, and definitely don’t feel.Rich is away at a conference, so it’ll be just my sister and me and our parents when they get here from Maynard. I really want to see Kim and Laken. I was able to call them and Elise quickly while my house was being searched, but then the cops asked for my phone, telling me they’d have it back as soon as possible. I guess I could’ve said no, but I don’t want to hinder the investigation. Don’t know what they think they’ll find on it, but they assured me it was routine.The bell chimes, and Corrine leads a man and an older woman into the living room. The woman is slim, has dark hair, with a light smattering of gray, pulled up in a bun, and light blue eyes that seem to take in everything around her. She’s dressed in dark pants and a white, collared, button-up shirt, a jacket draped over her arm. The younger detective is bundled up in an overcoat and scarf. He carries a briefcase, and she drops a battered leather satchel on the floor next to the armchair. They introduce themselves as Detectives Myers and Fuller, Graybridge PD.“We’re sorry for your loss, Mrs. Bradley,” Detective Myers says as she settles back in the chair.I nod. It sounds so inadequate, as though my handbag went missing. But it’s what people say in times like this.Corrine appears from the kitchen. “Can I get anyone tea, coffee?”They politely decline, and she heads back to the other room while I set my cup on the end table.“Mind if I tape our conversation?” Detective Myers asks.I shake my head, and she places her phone on the coffee table on top of a shiny art book. She has me state my name and the date before she dives into questions, scrawling in a little notebook as if the recording won’t be enough.“We’ve read the statement you gave to Sergeant Simmons. But we need to ask you to clarify a few things.” Her eyes sweep over papers in a file folder. “How old are you, Mrs. Bradley?”“Thirty-five.” Why is that relevant?“And your line of work?”“I’m a sales associate at Graybridge Books.” My gaze meets hers. “I have a college degree, English.” That always comes out defensively.“Okay. Your husband was forty? A psychologist in private practice?”“Yes.” I choke on my tears. The mention of Jay wipes away the numbness that had temporarily set in. I feel a gurgling in my chest as if my pain were a living thing clawing to get out.“No children?”That stings and I lower my eyes. “No.”“How long were you married?”“Three years.”“Happy years?”Detective Myers’s eyes meet mine, and I push a clump of tissues under my nose. “Yes.”“You and your husband weren’t having problems?”“No!” I gasp.“How are your finances?”I take a deep breath and shake my head. “Fine. Jay made a good living. We weren’t having money trouble, if that’s what you mean.” I feel a flash of anger in my chest. “What are you doing to find my husband’s killer, Detective? Who could’ve done this? Everybody loved Jay!” A sob erupts from deep inside me.Detective Fuller leans forward, his dark eyes meet mine. “We’re going to do everything we can to find his killer, Mrs. Bradley.”Detective Myers taps her pencil against her notebook. “We need to get all the details first, no matter how trivial they seem. Would you walk us through yesterday?”Yesterday? Will I go through that day forever in my mind? Like a precious holiday never to be forgotten, but instead of family and fun, it’s filled with pain and unimaginable sorrow. I don’t want to recount it for these two strangers. It’s mine, and I don’t want to share my last day with Jay. Their request that I “walk through it” for them seems somehow obscene.“Mrs. Bradley?”“Okay.” I guess I have no choice if I want Jay to be avenged, and I do. “It was a typical Saturday, except that it was Jay’s birthday. We spent the morning running errands, groceries, post office, that sort of thing.”“Both of you?”I nod and sniff. There’s no more “both of us.” “Then we stopped at André’s on the square, and I ran in alone to pick up the cake and the party food.” Detective Myers stops writing a moment, looks up. “I didn’t want Jay to see the cake before the party. One of the guys who works there helped me carry everything to the car.”“Then what?”“We went home. Had lunch. Jay went out to his office to work while I cleaned the house, got ready for the party.”Detective Myers leans back in her chair, trains her eyes on me. “Your husband has an office in town, right?”“Yes. He and another therapist share space in the Tackler Building.”“Why does he need a home office in the garage?”“A lot of people have a home office.”“Does he treat patients there?”“Of course not. He just . . .” I take a deep breath. I’m rarely in Jay’s office. It’s his intellectual equivalent of a man cave. “He researches. He writes. But he definitely doesn’t see any patients out there.”“What’s he writing?”“A book about psychology. Scholarly stuff. He really doesn’t talk too much about his work.”“Does he keep anything out there in the filing cabinet or his desk that someone might want?”“I have no idea. I doubt it.” But I remember the office had been in disarray. One of the filing cabinet drawers was open. Jay wouldn’t have left it that way. “Do you think it was a robbery?”“We don’t know,” Detective Myers says. She flips through papers in her folder. “You made a list of all the people at the party last night?”“Yes. Our friends. Three couples.”“What time did they leave?”I take a deep breath. I have no idea. “I’m not sure. I went up to bed, and Jay was still downstairs.”“You went to bed with your guests still there?”I brush my hand through my damp hair. “No. I mean, everyone was getting ready to leave. Jay was walking them out.”“If you had to guess the time?”“I don’t know. Eleven-thirty maybe?”The detective’s eyes sweep over papers in her folder. “Any of your husband’s patients giving him any cause for concern?”“No. I don’t think so. He doesn’t discuss them with me except in vague terms on occasion.”“He wasn’t worried about anyone, anything lately?”I glance over her shoulder back out to the harbor and follow an expensive cabin cruiser as it motors slowly out to sea. “Not that he told me, but he was a little quiet this week. Something was on his mind, I think.”“Uh huh. But nothing you can pinpoint?”“No.” My gaze falls to my lap, where I’ve twisted a clump of tissues into a damp, fibrous mess. I want to help, but I really have no idea what was bothering Jay. I take a shuddering, teary breath. I should’ve pressed him. Why didn’t I insist he tell me? I rub my hand over my eyes. It’s my fault for being so needy, for being so focused on my own problems, never thinking that other people have troubles too. And now Jay’s dead.“Mrs. Bradley, are you sure you don’t know what was on his mind?”I try to weed through the last few days, remember our conversations, but nothing emerges that explains Jay’s preoccupied mood. I shake my head. “I don’t know what was bothering him, Detective,” I say, feeling like a total failure.“Okay. You hear anything after you went to bed? Raised voices? A scuffle?”I was passed out. I can’t even remember putting on my pajamas. “No. I didn’t hear anything.”Detective Myers lifts a piece of notebook paper, looks it over through black-rimmed reading glasses. “So you had three couples at your house for the party. What can you tell me about them?”I describe our friends and wonder what the detectives are thinking. Are they looking for trouble among our little group? From my perspective, that seems a waste of time. Whoever did this to Jay has to be a monster. No one who knew him would’ve hurt him. But maybe a patient, someone so disturbed that he or she shifted their animus onto Jay, made him the bad guy. I’m sure there’s a psychological term for that.Detective Myers nods as I talk. She writes in her notebook, her pencil scratching across the page, and I notice she’s drawing, sketching a picture of me.I look up and catch her gaze, and she snaps her notebook shut.My cheeks are wet with tears, and I lean back into the sofa and wipe my face with my sleeve.“Thank you, Mrs. Bradley,” Detective Myers says. “That’s all for now.”They stand, and Corrine pops up and walks them out. I wander to the window and glance down at the busy street below. I see cars, traffic, but no media, thank God. Not yet. I squeeze my eyes shut and pray they don’t find me.