Threads of Suspicion(38)
“I have no idea where to start.”
“Do you love him?”
Evie glanced over at David, wondering how to put her situation into words that would make sense to a guy who was head over heels in love with his girl. “I like him. A lot. I think at times I love him. But I have a history with canceled weddings that tends to make me jittery when the subject comes up.”
“Define jittery.”
“Three engagements that didn’t make it to I do.”
David winced. “Ouch.”
“Yeah. All were ages ago. As I described recently to a friend, they were good guys, and any one of them would have made a fine husband. But I didn’t fight very hard to keep a wedding in view once the relationship began to go south. I was looking for something I thought a guy could give me . . . to fill the void I was feeling, make me complete. I grew up, and grew out of that stage in my life.
“Rob is different. He’s more . . . what? Aware of us, of me? I’m different too. I run stretches where I’m certain it’s not him, then it rolls back toward he really is the guy. We’re at the point there’s a marriage proposal on the table if I want him to ask, want to say yes. It’s already bedrock certain on his side. He wants a future together.”
“You’re uncertain what you want.”
“Uncertain more about the idea of marriage than about Rob, I guess.” She struggled to find the right words. “I want something in my life that is a contrast to my work, something that isn’t what crime scene I walked into recently. Cold cases are actually easy compared to my day job. My phone is going to ring tonight, tomorrow, and it’s going to be some police officer in a small town dealing with a double murder, asking for state help to sort out the scene. Or it’s going to be an arson fire that leaves people dead, matching a string of them across the state. Those weighty phone calls will always keep coming, and I’m good at solving those critical cases. But to be able to shut that door for a while, have another life—it’s something I need. And maybe it’s why I actually do love Rob. There’s not a single crime-scene detail that’s going to be part of our dinner conversation. He’s ‘normal life,’ if someone of his standing in the financial world has a normal life. I’m making a decision about marriage, about Rob, but it’s also what he represents. A life outside of being a cop. And I don’t want to choose Rob merely out of a desire to balance out my life. That just wouldn’t be fair to him.”
“You sound like you don’t expect others to understand that heartfelt desire for a life different from being a cop,” David said. “I get it, Evie. I certainly understand. But for a cop to have a life outside of the job, it’s you who has to be able to ‘turn it off’ when you leave work, as much as the other person needs to be a safe place. What you want to find is as much about you as it is Rob.”
Evie thought about the last couple of days, nodded. “I read Jenna’s journals late into the night—rather than watch some movie or read a book. I spend evenings adding new ideas to my master list of theories. And I know—just for a moment in time—I would resent the phone ringing, interrupting that work, even if it was Rob on the other end. Work is this chase, this ongoing puzzle that grips at my time and thinking until it’s resolved and I can put it back in its box. After that, until I open a new box, I can be as lazy about work as anyone would like, totally leave it behind. But when a case is open and the details are soaking into my head, it’s ‘How can I get this solved? And please don’t distract me.’”
“Which do you want to tame?” David asked. “The desire to do the job or the impulse to be annoyed with the interruptions?”
Evie smiled at the question. “Ann and I have had the conversation whether God just wires some people to be cops. I can’t help it, really, this habit of wanting to run real-life puzzles to the ground. It’s not that I want to be this single-track person, but it actually does matter to me to figure things out. And when it’s a real-life crime, doing it fast matters to people. I don’t have an easy way to tone down that intensity—it seems to spring up of its own volition.”
“To use your analogy, God wired Maggie to be all about music,” David told her. “You take a break in a conversation, and she’s jotting a song lyric or two in the margin of the newspaper she’s reading. She can’t help herself. Her mind thinks up music all the time. Create a pause point, create stillness, and her mind comes alive with rich refrains. It’s like a tide of music flows in any time there’s an opening. Who’s to say that the producing of ideas, the what-ifs that so suit your job, aren’t also wired into how your mind works? You may never shut it off, Evie. When there’s a puzzle to chew on, your mind keeps turning it over and generating solutions until it’s resolved.”