Gone Girl

purse.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Yep, no cash left, but her ID, cell phone. In Hannibal, of all places. On the banks of the river, south of the steamboat landing. Our guess: Someone wanted to make it look like it’d been tossed in the river by the perp on the way out of town, heading over the bridge into Illinois.’
    ‘ Make it look like? ’
    ‘It had never been fully submerged. There are fingerprints still at the top, near the zipper. Now sometimes fingerprints can hold on even in water, but … I’ll spare you the science, I’ll just say, the theory is, this purse was kinda settled on the banks to make sure it was found.’
    ‘Sounds like you’re telling me this for a reason,’ I said.
    ‘The fingerprints we found were yours, Nick. Which isn’t that crazy – men get into their wives’ purses all the time. But still—’ She laughed as if she got a great idea. ‘I gotta ask: You haven’t been to Hannibal recently, have you?’
    She said it with such casual confidence, I had a flash: a police tracker hidden somewhere in the undercarriage of my car, released to me the morning I went to Hannibal.
    ‘Why, exactly, would I go to Hannibal to get rid of my wife’s purse?’
    ‘Say you’d killed your wife and staged the crime scene in your home, trying to get us to think she was attacked by an outsider. But then you realized we were beginning to suspect you, so you wanted to plant something to get us to look outside again. That’s the theory. But at this point, some of my guys are so sure you did it, they’d find any theory that fit. So let me help you: You in Hannibal lately?’
    I shook my head. ‘You need to talk to my lawyer. Tanner Bolt.’
    ‘ Tanner Bolt? You sure that’s the way you want to go, Nick? I feel like we’ve been pretty fair with you so far, pretty open. Bolt, he’s a … he’s a last-ditch guy. He’s the guy guilty people call in.’
    ‘Huh. Well, I’m clearly your lead suspect, Rhonda. I have to look out for myself.’
    ‘Let’s all get together when he gets in, okay? Talk this through.’
    ‘Definitely – that’s our plan.’
    ‘A man with a plan,’ Boney said. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’ She stood up, and as she walked away, she called back: ‘Witch hazel’s good for hives.’
    An hour later, the doorbell rang, and Tanner Bolt stood there in a baby-blue suit, and something told me it was the look he wore when he went ‘down South.’ He was inspecting the neighborhood, eyeing the cars in the driveways, assessing the houses. He reminded me of the Elliotts, in a way – examining and analysing at all times. A brain with no off switch.
    ‘Show me,’ Tanner said before I could greet him. ‘Point me toward the shed – do not come with me, and do not go near it again. Then you’ll tell me everything.’
    We settled down at the kitchen table – me, Tanner, and a just-woken Go, huddling over her first cup of coffee. I spread out all of Amy’s clues like some awful tarot-card reader.
    Tanner leaned toward me, his neck muscles tense. ‘Okay, Nick, make your case,’ he said. ‘Your wife orchestrated this whole thing. Make the case!’ He jabbed his index finger on the table. ‘Because I’m not moving forward with my dick in one hand and a wild story about a frame-up in the other. Unless you convince me. Unless it works.’
    I took a deep breath and gathered my thoughts. I was always better at writing than talking. ‘Before we start,’ I said, ‘you have to understand one very key thing about Amy: She is fucking brilliant. Her brain is so busy, it never works on just one level. She’s like this endless archaeological dig: You think you’ve reached the final layer, and then you bring down your pick one more time, and you break through to a whole new mine shaft beneath. With a maze of tunnels and bottomless pits.’
    ‘Fine,’ Tanner said. ‘So …’
    ‘The second thing you need to know about Amy is, she is righteous. She is one of those people who is never wrong, and she loves to teach lessons, dole out punishment.’
    ‘Right, fine, so …’
    ‘Let me tell you a story, one quick story. About three years ago, we were driving up to Massachusetts. It was awful, road-rage traffic, and this trucker flipped Amy off – she wouldn’t let him in – and then he zoomed up and cut her off. Nothing dangerous, but really scary for a second. You know those signs on the back of trucks: How Am I Driving? She had me call and give them the license plate. I thought