The Couple Next Door (18 page)

Eventually Anne works herself into an exhausted stupor and falls asleep on the sofa in the living room.

The next morning, early, she wakes and showers before Marco realizes she’s spent the night on the sofa. She pulls on black leggings and a tunic as if in a trance, filled with dread.

She feels paralyzed when she thinks of the police, of being interrogated by Rasbach again. He has no idea where their baby is, but he seems to think that they do. He asked her yesterday, after taking Marco’s statement, to come in this morning. She doesn’t want to go. She doesn’t know why he wants to talk to her again. What’s to be gained from going through the same things over and over?

From his place in the bed, propped up against the pillows, Marco watches her getting dressed, his face expressionless.

‘Do I have to go?’ she asks him. She would avoid it if she could. She doesn’t know what her rights are. Should she refuse?

‘I don’t think you have to,’ Marco says. ‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s time we spoke to a lawyer.’

‘But that will look bad,’ Anne says worriedly. ‘Won’t it?’

‘I don’t know,’ Marco says tonelessly. ‘We look bad already.’

She approaches the bed, looks down at him. Seeing him like this, so plainly wretched, would break her heart if it weren’t broken already. ‘Maybe I should speak to my parents. They could get us a good lawyer. Although it seems ridiculous to think we even need one.’

‘It might be a good idea,’ Marco says uneasily. ‘Like I told you last night, Rasbach still seems to suspect us. He seems to believe we staged the whole thing.’

‘How can he think that now – after yesterday?’ Anne asks, her voice becoming agitated. ‘Why would he? Just because there was a car going down the lane at the same time you checked on Cora?’

‘That seems to be the gist of it.’

‘I’ll go in,’ Anne says finally. ‘He wants me there for ten o’clock.’

Marco nods tiredly. ‘I’ll come with you.’

‘You don’t have to,’ Anne says, without conviction. ‘I could call my mother.’

‘Of course I’ll come. You can’t face that mob out there alone. Let me put some clothes on, and I’ll take you,’ Marco says, getting out of bed.

Anne watches him walk to his dresser in his boxers. How much thinner he looks – she can see the outline of his ribs. She is grateful that he’s coming to the station with her. She doesn’t want to call her mother, and she doesn’t think she can
do this on her own. Also, she thinks it’s important that she and Marco be seen together, to appear united.

There are more reporters outside their house again now after yesterday’s fiasco. Anne and Marco have to fight them off to get to their cab – the police have the Audi for the time being – and there are no police officers here to help them. Finally they make it to the taxi on the street. Once inside the car, Anne quickly locks the doors. She feels trapped – all those jabbering faces crowding in on them through the windows. She recoils but stares back at them. Marco swears under his breath.

Anne looks silently out the window as the mob falls away. She can’t understand how the reporters can be so cruel. Are none of them parents? Can they not imagine, for one moment, what it’s like not knowing where your baby is? To lie awake at night missing your child, seeing her little body, still, dead, behind your closed eyelids?

They head downtown along the river until they reach the police station. As soon as Anne sees the building, she feels herself tensing up inside. She wants to run away. But Marco is beside her. He helps her out of the cab and into the station, his hand on her elbow.

As they wait at the front desk, Marco speaks quietly into her ear. ‘It’s all right. They may try to rattle you, but you know we haven’t done anything wrong. I’ll be out here waiting for you.’ He gives her a small, encouraging smile. She nods at him. He rests his hands gently on her shoulders, looks into her eyes. ‘They might try to turn us against each other, Anne. They may say things about me, bad things.’

‘What bad things?’

He shrugs, averts his eyes. ‘I don’t know. Just be careful. Don’t let them get to you.’

She nods, but she is more worried now, not less.

At that moment Detective Rasbach approaches them. He doesn’t smile. ‘Thank you for coming. This way, please.’

He leads Anne to a different interview room this time, the one they’ve been using for Marco. They leave Marco alone in the waiting area. Anne stops at the door of the interview room and turns to look back at him. He smiles at her, a nervous smile.

She goes in.

ANNE SITS DOWN
in the seat offered to her. As she sinks into it, she can feel her knees give way. Jennings offers her a cup of coffee, but she shakes her head no, because she doesn’t trust herself not to spill it. She is more anxious this time than the last time she was interviewed. She wonders about the police, why they’re so suspicious of her and Marco. If anything, the police should be
less
suspicious of them after they received the onesie in the mail, and after the money had been taken. Obviously, someone else has their baby.

The detectives take their seats across from her.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Detective Rasbach begins, ‘about yesterday.’

She says nothing. Her mouth is dry. She clasps her hands in her lap.

‘Please relax,’ Rasbach says gently.

She nods nervously, but she cannot relax. She doesn’t trust him.

‘I just have a few questions, about what happened yesterday,’ he tells her.

She nods again, licks her lips.

‘Why didn’t you call us when you got the package in the mail?’ the detective asks. His tone is friendly enough.

‘We thought it was too risky,’ Anne says. Her voice is unsteady. She clears her throat. ‘The note said no police.’ She reaches for the bottle of water that has been placed on the table for her. She fumbles with the cap. Her hand is shaking slightly as she moves the bottle to her lips.

‘Is that what you thought?’ Rasbach asks. ‘Or is that what Marco thought?’

‘We both thought so.’

‘Why did you handle the onesie so much? Any evidence it might have offered us has been contaminated, unfortunately.’

‘Yes, I know, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I could smell Cora on it, so I carried it around with me, to have her near me.’ She begins to cry. ‘It brought her back to me. It was like I could almost pretend she was in her crib, sleeping. That none of this ever happened.’

Rasbach nods and says, ‘I understand. We’ll run whatever tests we can on the garment and the note.’

‘You think she’s dead, don’t you?’ Anne says woodenly, looking him directly in the eye.

Rasbach returns her look. ‘I don’t know. She may still be alive. We will not stop searching for her.’

Anne takes a tissue from the box on the table and presses it against her eyes.

‘I’ve been wondering,’ Rasbach says, leaning back casually in his chair, ‘about your babysitter.’

‘Our babysitter? Why?’ Anne asks, startled. ‘She didn’t even come that night.’

‘I know. I’m just curious. Is she a good babysitter?’

Anne shrugs, not knowing where this is going. ‘She’s good with Cora. She obviously likes babies – and a lot of girls don’t
really. They just babysit for the money.’ She thinks about Katerina. ‘She’s usually reliable. You can’t blame her that her grandmother died. Although – if only she hadn’t, we might still have Cora.’

‘Let me ask you this: If someone wanted to know whether you’d recommend her, would you?’ Rasbach asks.

Anne bites her lip. ‘No, I don’t think so. She tends to fall asleep with her earbuds in, listening to music. When we get home, we have to wake her. So no, I wouldn’t recommend her.’

Rasbach nods, makes a note. Then he looks up and says, ‘Tell me about your husband.’

‘What about my husband?’

‘What kind of man is he?’

‘He’s a good man,’ Anne says firmly, sitting up straighter in her chair. ‘He’s loving and kind. He’s smart and thoughtful and hardworking.’ She pauses, then says in a rush, ‘He’s the best thing that ever happened to me, other than Cora.’

‘Is he a good provider?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because it’s true,’ Anne snaps.

‘But isn’t it also true that it was your parents who set your husband up in business? And you told me yourself that your parents paid for your house.’

‘Just a minute,’ Anne says. ‘My parents did not “set my husband up in business”, as you put it. Marco has degrees in computer science and business. He started his own company, and he was very successful on his own. My parents just invested in it, later on. He was already doing very well. You can’t fault Marco as a businessman.’ Even as she says this, Anne is faintly aware of the financial information she came across on Marco’s computer the other day. She hadn’t looked
deeply into it at the time, and she hasn’t asked Marco about it; now she wonders if she’s just lied to the police.

‘Do you believe your husband is honest with you?’

Anne blushes. And then hates it that she’s given herself away. She takes her time answering. ‘Yes. I believe he is honest with me’ – she falters – ‘most of the time.’

‘Most of the time? Shouldn’t honesty be an “all of the time” thing?’ Rasbach asks, leaning forward slightly.

‘I heard you,’ Anne confesses suddenly. ‘The night after the kidnapping. I was at the top of the stairs. I heard you accusing Marco of making out with Cynthia. She said Marco came on to her, and he denied it.’

‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that you were listening.’

‘I’m sorry, too. I wish I didn’t know about it.’ She looks down at her hands in her lap, clutching the bunched-up tissue.

‘Do you think he made sexual advances toward Cynthia, or do you think it was the other way around, as Marco says?’

Anne twists the tissue in her hands. ‘I don’t know. They’re both at fault.’ She looks up at him. ‘I’ll never forgive either one of them,’ she says rashly.

‘Let’s go back,’ Rasbach prompts. ‘You say your husband is a good provider. Does he share with you how his business is doing?’

She shreds the tissue into small pieces. ‘I haven’t taken a lot of interest in the business these days,’ Anne says. ‘I’ve been absorbed with the baby.’

‘He hasn’t been telling you how the business is going?’

‘Not recently, no.’

‘Don’t you think that’s a bit odd?’ Rasbach asks.

‘Not at all,’ Anne says, thinking as she does that it
is
odd. ‘I’ve been really busy with the baby.’ Her voice breaks.

‘The tire tracks in your garage – they don’t match your car,’
Rasbach says. ‘Someone used your garage shortly before the kidnapping. You saw the baby in her crib at midnight. Marco was in your house with the baby at twelve thirty. We have a witness who saw a car driving down the lane away from the direction of your garage at twelve thirty-five a.m. There’s no evidence that anyone else was inside the house or yard. Perhaps at twelve thirty Marco took the baby out to an accomplice who was waiting in a car in your garage.’

‘That’s ridiculous!’ Anne says, her voice rising.

‘Do you have any idea who that accomplice might be?’ Rasbach persists.

‘You’re wrong,’ Anne says.

‘Am I?’

‘Yes. Marco didn’t take Cora.’

‘Let me tell you something,’ Rasbach says, leaning forward. ‘Your husband’s business is in trouble. Deep trouble.’

Anne feels herself go paler. ‘It is?’ she says.

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘To be honest, Detective, I don’t really care if the business is in trouble. Our baby is gone. What does either of us care now about money?’

‘It’s just that . . .’ Rasbach pauses, as if changing his mind about what he’s going to say. He looks at Jennings.

‘What?’ Anne glances nervously back and forth between the two detectives.

‘It’s just that I see things in your husband that you may not see,’ Rasbach says.

Anne does not want to take the bait. But the detective waits, letting the silence expand. She has no choice. ‘Like what?’

Rasbach asks, ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit manipulative of him not to be honest with you about the business?’

‘No, not if I didn’t show any interest. He was probably
trying to protect me, because I’ve been depressed.’ Rasbach says nothing, just regards her with his sharp blue eyes. ‘Marco is not manipulative,’ Anne insists.

‘What about the relationship between Marco and your parents? Marco and your father?’ Rasbach says.

‘I told you, they don’t like each other. They tolerate each other, for me. But that’s my parents’ fault. No matter what Marco does, it’s never good enough. I could have married anyone, and it would have been the same.’

‘Why do you think that is?’

‘I don’t know. That’s just the way they are. They’re overprotective and hard to please. Maybe it’s because I’m an only child.’ She has reduced the tissue in her lap to crumbs. ‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter about the business, not really. My parents have a lot of money. They could always help us if we needed it.’

‘But would they?’

‘Of course they would. All I’d have to do is ask. My parents have never denied me anything. They came up with five million dollars just like that for Cora.’

‘Yes, they did.’ The detective pauses, then says, ‘I tried to see Dr Lumsden, but apparently she’s away.’

Anne feels the blood drain from her face but forces herself to sit up straight. She knows he can’t have talked to Dr Lumsden. Even after she returns, there is no way Dr Lumsden will talk to the detective about her. ‘She won’t tell you anything about me,’ Anne says. ‘She can’t. She’s my doctor, and you know it. Why are you toying with me this way?’

‘You’re right. I can’t get your doctor to breach doctor–patient privilege.’

Anne leans back in her chair and gives the detective an annoyed look.

‘Is there anything
you’d
like to tell me, though?’ the detective asks.

‘Why would I talk to you about my sessions with my psychiatrist? It’s none of your goddamned business,’ Anne says bitterly. ‘I have mild postpartum depression like lots of other new mothers. It doesn’t mean I harmed my baby. I want nothing more than to get her back.’

‘I can’t help thinking it’s possible that Marco might have had the baby taken away to cover up for you, if you killed her.’