Gone Girl

stomach every time she accused me of being a baby.
    ‘Anyway,’ Gilpin interrupted. ‘Both he and his mother deny that he ever stalked Amy, or that he even had much contact with her these past years except the occasional note.’
    ‘My wife would tell you differently. He wrote Amy for years – years – and then he shows up here for the search, Rhonda. Did you know that? He was here that first day. You talked about keeping an eye out for men inserting themselves into the investigation—’
    ‘Desi Collings is not a suspect,’ she interrupted, one hand up.
    ‘But—’
    ‘Desi Collins is not a suspect,’ she repeated.
    The news stung. I wanted to accuse her of being swayed by Ellen Abbott , but Ellen Abbott was probably best left unmentioned.
    ‘Okay, well what about all these, these guys who’ve clogged up our tip line?’ I walked over and grabbed the sheet of names and numbers that I’d carelessly tossed on the dining room table. I began reading names. ‘Inserting themselves into the investigation: David Samson, Murphy Clark – those are old boyfriends – Tommy O’Hara, Tommy O’Hara, Tommy O’Hara, that’s three calls, Tito Puente – that’s just a dumb joke.’
    ‘Have you phoned any of them back?’ Boney asked.
    ‘No. Isn’t that your job? I don’t know which are worthwhile and which are crazies. I don’t have time to call some jackass pretending to be Tito Puente.’
    ‘I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on the tip line, Nick,’ Rhondasaid. ‘It’s kind of a woodwork situation. I mean, we’ve fielded a lot of phone calls from your old girlfriends . Just want to say hi. See how you are. People are strange.’
    ‘Maybe we should get started on our questions,’ Gilpin nudged.
    ‘Right. Well, I guess we should begin with where you were the morning your wife went missing,’ Boney said, suddenly apologetic, deferential. She was playing good cop, and we both knew she was playing good cop. Unless she was actually on my side. It seemed possible that sometimes a cop was just on your side. Right?
    ‘When I was at the beach .’
    ‘And you still can’t recall anyone seeing you there?’ Boney asked. ‘It’d help us so much if we could just cross this little thing off our list.’ She allowed a sympathetic silence. Rhonda could not only keep quiet, she could infuse the room with a mood of her choosing, like an octopus and its ink.
    ‘Believe me, I’d like that as much as you. But no. I don’t remember anyone.’
    Boney smiled a worried smile. ‘It’s strange, we’ve mentioned – just in passing – your being at the beach to a few people, and they all said … They were all surprised, let’s put it that way. Said that didn’t sound like you. You aren’t a beach guy.’
    I shrugged. ‘I mean, do I go to the beach and lay out all day? No. But to sip my coffee in the morning? Sure.’
    ‘Hey, this might help,’ Boney said brightly. ‘Where’d you buy your coffee that morning?’ She turned to Gilpin as if to seek approval.
    ‘Could tighten the time frame at least, right?’
    ‘I made it here,’ I said.
    ‘Oh.’ She frowned. ‘That’s weird, because you don’t have any coffee here. Nowhere in the house. I remember thinking it was odd. A caffeine addict notices these things.’
    Right, just something you happened to notice , I thought. I knew a cop named Boney Moronie … Her traps are so obvious, they’re clearly phony …
    ‘I had a leftover cup in the fridge I heated up.’ I shrugged again: No big deal .
    ‘Huh. Must have been there a long time – I noticed there’s no coffee container in the trash.’
    ‘Few days. Still tastes good.’
    We both smiled at each other: I know and you know. Game on . I actually thought those idiotic words: Game on . Yet I was pleased in a way: The next part was starting.
    Boney turned to Gilpin, hands on knees, and gave a little nod.Gilpin chewed his lip some more, then finally pointed: toward the ottoman, the end table, the living room now righted. ‘See, here’s our problem, Nick,’ he started. ‘We’ve seen dozens of home invasions—’
    ‘Dozens upon dozens upon dozens,’ Boney interrupted.
    ‘Many home invasions. This – all this area right there, in the living room – remember it? The upturned ottoman, the overturned table, the vase on the floor’ – he slapped down a photo of the scene in front of me – ‘this whole area, it was supposed to look like a struggle, right?’
    My head expanded and snapped