“I’m sure you know what I mean,” Desi said, and smiled winkily at me.
What an odd man, I thought. Who compares another man’s wife to a bath he wants to sink into? Another man’s missing wife?
Behind Desi was a long, polished end table bearing several silver-framed photos. In the center was an oversize one of Desi and Amy back in high school, in tennis whites—the two so preposterously stylish, so monied-lush they could have been a frame from a Hitchcock movie. I pictured Desi, teenage Desi, slipping into Amy’s dorm room, dropping his clothes to the floor, settling onto the cold sheets, swallowing plastic-coated pills. Waiting to be found. It was a form of punishment, of rage, but not the kind that occurred in my house. I could see why the police weren’t that interested. Desi trailed my glance.
“Oh, well, you can’t blame me for that.” He smiled. “I mean, would you throw away a photo that perfect?”
“Of a girl I hadn’t known for twenty years?” I said before I could stop. I realized my tone sounded more aggressive than was wise.
“I know Amy,” Desi snapped. He took a breath. “I knew her. I knew her very well. There aren’t any leads? I have to ask … Her father, is he … there?”
“Of course he is.”
“I don’t suppose … He was definitely in New York when it happened?”
“He was in New York. Why?”
Desi shrugged: Just curious, no reason. We sat in silence for a half minute, playing a game of eye-contact chicken. Neither of us blinked.
“I actually came here, Desi, to see what you could tell me.”
I tried again to picture Desi making off with Amy. Did he have a lake house somewhere nearby? All these types did. Would it be believable, this refined, sophisticated man keeping Amy in some preppy basement rec room, Amy pacing the carpet, sleeping on a dusty sofa in some bright, clubby ’60s color, lemon yellow or coral. I wished Boney and Gilpin were here, had witnessed the proprietary tone of Desi’s voice: I know Amy.
“Me?” Desi laughed. He laughed richly. The perfect phrase to describe the sound. “I can’t tell you anything. Like you said, I don’t know her.”
“But you just said you did.”
“I certainly don’t know her like you know her.”
“You stalked her in high school.”
“I stalked her? Nick. She was my girlfriend.”
“Until she wasn’t,” I said. “And you wouldn’t go away.”
“Oh, I probably did pine for her. But nothing out of the ordinary.”
“You call trying to kill yourself in her dorm room ordinary?”
He jerked his head, squinted his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, then stared down at his hands. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, Nick,” he finally said.
“I’m talking about you stalking my wife. In high school. Now.”
“That’s really what this is about?” He laughed again. “Good God, I thought you were raising money for a reward fund or something. Which I’m happy to cover, by the way. Like I said, I’ve never stopped wanting the best for Amy. Do I love her? No. I don’t know her anymore, not really. We exchange the occasional letter. But it is interesting, you coming here. You confusing the issue. Because I have to tell you, Nick, on TV, hell, here, now, you don’t seem to be a grieving, worried husband. You seem … smug. The police, by the way, already talked with me, thanks, I guess to you. Or Amy’s parents. Strange you didn’t know—you’d think they’d tell the husband everything if he were in the clear.”
My stomach clenched. “I’m here because I wanted to see for myself your face when you talked about Amy,” I said. “I gotta tell you, it worries me. You get a little … moony.”
“One of us has to,” Desi said, again reasonably.
“Sweetheart?” A voice came from the back of the house, and another set of expensive shoes clattered toward the living room. “What was the name of that book—”
The woman was a blurry vision of Amy, Amy in a steam-fogged mirror—exact coloring, extremely similar features, but a quarter century older, the flesh, the features, all let out a bit like a fine fabric. She was still gorgeous, a woman who chose to age gracefully. She was shaped like some sort of origami creation: elbows in extreme points, a clothes-hanger collarbone. She wore a china-blue sheath dress and had the same pull Amy did: When she was in a room, you kept turning your head back her way. She gave me a rather predatory smile.
“Hello, I’m Jacqueline Collings.”
“Mother, this is Amy’s husband, Nick,” Desi said.