А Финн - The Woman in the Window

Ed’s still quiet.

Then:

“Well, for one thing, just to be academic, are you sure it was him?”

“Him who?”

“The husband. Who . . . did it.”

“Bina said the same thing. Of course I’m sure.”

“Couldn’t have been this other woman?”

I go still.

Ed’s voice perks, the way it does when he’s thinking out loud. “Say she’s the mistress, as you say. Down from Boston or wherever. They fight. Out comes the knife. Or whatever. In goes the knife. No husband involved.”

I think. I resist it, but—maybe. Except: “Who did it is beside the point,” I insist. “For now. The fact is, it was done, and the problem is that no one believes me. I don’t even think Bina believes me. I don’t think you believe me.”

Silence. I find I’ve drifted up the stairs, entered Olivia’s bedroom.

“Don’t tell Livvy about this,” I add.

Ed laughs, an actual Ha!, bright as tin. “I’m not going to.” He coughs. “What does Dr. Fielding say?”

“I haven’t talked to him.” I should.

“You should.”

“I will.”

A pause.

“And what’s going on with the rest of the block?”

I realize I have no idea. The Takedas, the Millers, even the Wassermen—they haven’t so much as pinged my radar this last week. A curtain has fallen on the street; the homes across the road are veiled, vanished; all that exists are my house and the Russells’ house and the park between us. I wonder what’s become of Rita’s contractor. I wonder which book Mrs. Gray has selected for her reading group. I used to log their every activity, my neighbors, used to chronicle each entrance and exit. I’ve got whole chapters of their lives stored on my memory card. But now . . .

“I don’t know,” I admit.

“Well,” he says, “maybe that’s for the best.”

After we’ve spoken, I check the phone clock again. Eleven eleven. My birthday. Jane’s, too.

47

I’ve avoided the kitchen since yesterday, avoided the first floor altogether. Now, though, I’m once more at the window, staring down the house across the park. I pour a ribbon of wine into a glass.

I know what I saw. Bleeding. Pleading.

This isn’t nearly over.

I drink.

48

The blinds, I see, are up.

The house gawks at me, wide-eyed, as though surprised to find me looking back. I zoom in, pan the windows with my gaze, focus on the parlor.

Spotless. Nothing. The love seat. The lamps like guardsmen.

Shifting in the window seat, I swerve the lens up toward Ethan’s room. He’s gargoyle-perched at his desk, in front of his computer.

I zoom further. I can practically make out the text on the screen.

Movement on the street. A car, glossy as a shark, cruises into a spot in front of the Russells’ walk, parks. The driver’s door fans out like a fin, and Alistair emerges in a winter coat.

He strides toward the house.

I snap a photo.

When he reaches the door, I snap another.

I don’t have a plan. (Do I ever have a plan anymore, I wonder?) It’s not as though I’ll see his hands rinsed in blood. He won’t knock on my door and confess.

But I can watch.

He enters the house. My lens jumps to the kitchen, and sure enough, he appears there a moment later. Slaps the keys on the counter, shrugs off his coat. Leaves the room.

Doesn’t return.

I move the camera one floor up, to the parlor.

And as I do, she appears, light and bright in a spring-green pullover: “Jane.”

I adjust the lens. She goes crisp, sharp, as she moves first to one lamp, then the other, switching them on. I watch her fine hands, her long neck, the sweep of her hair against her cheek.

The liar.

Then she leaves, slim hips shifting as she walks out the door.

Nothing. The parlor is empty. The kitchen is empty. Upstairs, Ethan’s chair sits vacant, the computer screen a black box.

The phone rings.

My head swivels, almost back to front, like an owl, and the camera drops to my lap.

The sound is behind me, but my phone is by my hand.

It’s the landline.

Not the kitchen landline, rotting downstairs in its dock, but the one in Ed’s library. I’d forgotten it entirely.

It rings again, distant, insistent.

I don’t move. I don’t breathe.

Who’s calling me? No one’s called the house phone in . . . I can’t remember. Who would even have this number? I can barely remember it myself.

Another ring.

And another.

I shrivel against the glass, wilt there in the cold. I imagine the rooms of my house, one by one, throbbing with that noise.

Another ring.

I look across the park.

She’s there, in the parlor window, a phone at her ear.

Looking right at me, hard.

I scuttle from my seat, grip the camera in one hand, retreat to my desk. She holds her gaze, her mouth a terse line.

How did she get this number?

But then how did I get hers? Directory assistance. I think of her dialing, speaking my name, asking to be connected. To me. Invading my house, my head.

The liar .

I watch her. I glare.

She glares back.

One more ring.

And then another sound—Ed’s voice.

“You’ve reached Anna and Ed,” he says, low and rough, like a movie-trailer announcer. I remember him recording the message; “You sound like Vin Diesel,” I told him, and he laughed, and pitched his voice lower still.

“We’re away right now, but leave us a message and we’ll get right back to you.” And I remember how as soon as he’d finished, as soon as he’d pressed the Stop button, he’d added, in a god-awful Cockney accent, “When we bloody feel like it.”

For an instant, I close my eyes, picture him calling to me.

But it’s her voice that fills the air, fills the house.

“I think you know who I am.” A pause. I open my eyes, find her looking at me, watch her mouth shape the words boring into my ears. The effect is uncanny. “Stop photographing our house or I’ll call the police.”

She removes the phone from her ear, slips it into her pocket. Stares at me. I stare back.

All is silent.

Then I leave the room.

49

GIRLPOOL has challenged you!

It’s my chess program. I give the screen the finger and press the phone to my ear. Dr. Fielding’s voicemail greeting, brittle as a dead leaf, invites me to leave a message. I do so, enunciating carefully.

I’m in Ed’s library, laptop warming my thighs, midday sun puddled on the carpet. A glass of merlot stands on the table beside me. A glass and a bottle.

I don’t want to drink. I want to stay clear; I want to think. I want to analyze . Already the past thirty-six hours are receding, evaporating, like a bank of fog. Already I can feel the house squaring its shoulders, shrugging the outside world away.

I need a drink.

Girlpool. What a stupid name. Girlpool. Whirlpool . Tierney. Bacall. It’s in your bloodstream now.

It certainly is. I tip the glass to my lips, feel the flood of wine rushing down my throat, the fizz in my veins.

Hold your breath, cross your fingers.

Let me in!

You’ll be all right.

You’ll be all right. I snort.

My mind is a swamp, deep and brackish, the true and the false mingling and mixing. What are those trees that grow in heavily sedimented swampland? The ones with their roots exposed? Man . . . mandrake? Man-something, definitely.

David.

The glass wobbles in my hand.

In the rush, in the rumble, I’ve forgotten about David.

Who worked at the Russells’. Who could have— must have—met Jane.

I set the glass on the table, bring myself to my feet. Sway into the hall. Down the stairs, emerging into the kitchen. I lob a glance at the Russell house—no one on display, no one watching me—then knock on the basement door, gently at first, again with force. I call his name.