Gone Girl

I leaned against the door, staring at my sister. I could still smell Andie, and I wanted that moment to myself for one second, because now that she was gone, I could enjoy the idea of her. She always tasted like butterscotch and smelled like lavender. Lavender shampoo, lavender lotion. Lavender’s for luck, she explained to me once. I’d need luck.

‘Nick. Do you not realize how fucked you are?’ Go said. ‘Fucked and dumb.’ She made dumb – a kid’s word – hit me as hard as if I were a ten-year-old again.

‘Ideal situation! You are … you’re a cheater, Nick. I mean, what happened to you? You were always one of the good guys. Or have I just been an idiot all along?’

‘No.’ I stared at the floor, at the same spot I stared at as a kid when my mom sat me down on the sofa and told me I was better than whatever I’d just done.

‘Now? You’re a man who cheats on his wife, you can’t ever undo that,’ Go said. ‘God, even Dad didn’t cheat. You’re so – I mean, your wife is missing, Amy’s who knows where, and you’re here making time with a little—’

‘Go, I enjoy this revisionist history in which you’re Amy’s champion. I mean, you never liked Amy, not even early on, and since all this happened, it’s like—’

‘It’s like I have sympathy for your missing wife, yeah, Nick. I have concern. Yeah, I do. Remember how before, when I said you were being weird? You’re—It’s insane, the way you’re acting.’

She paced the room, chewing a thumbnail. ‘The police find out about this, and I just don’t even know,’ she said. ‘I’m fucking scared, Nick. This is the first time I’m really scared for you. I can’t believe they haven’t found out yet. They must have pulled your phone records.’

She succumbed for a second, collapsed on the sofa, the new reality settling on her. In truth, I was relieved that Go knew.

‘A little over a year.’ I made myself pull my eyes from the floor and look at her directly.

‘I was afraid you’d tell me to stop. That you’d think badly of me and then I’d have to stop. And I didn’t want to. Things with Amy—’

‘Over a year,’ Go said. ‘And I never even guessed. Eight thousand drunk conversations, and you never trusted me enough to tell me. I didn’t know you could do that, keep something from me that totally.’

Go shrugged: How can I believe you now? ‘You love her?’ She gave it a jokey spin to show how unlikely it was.

‘You do realize, that if you actually dated her, saw her on a regular basis, lived with her, that she would find some fault with you, right? That she would find some things about you that drove her crazy. That she’d make demands of you that you wouldn’t like. That she’d get angry at you?’

She shrugged again: Do you? ‘We need a lawyer,’ she said. ‘A good lawyer with some PR skills, because the networks, some cable shows, they’re sniffing around. We need to make sure the media doesn’t turn you into the evil philandering husband, because if that happens, I just think it’s all over.’

‘Go, you’re sounding a little drastic.’ I actually agreed with her, but I couldn’t bear to hear the words aloud, from Go. I had to discredit them.

Go jabbed me in the sternum with two hard fingers. ‘Don’t you fucking pull that with me, Lance. “Oh, girls get so overexcited.” That’s bullshit. You are in a really bad place, my friend. Get your head out of your ass and start helping me fix this.’

Beneath my shirt, I could feel the spot embering on my skin as Go turned away from me and, thank God, went back to her room. I sat on her couch, numb. Then I lay down as I promised myself I’d get up.

I dreamed of Amy: She was crawling across our kitchen floor, hands and knees, trying to make it to the back door, but she was blind from the blood, and she was moving so slowly, too slowly. Her pretty head was strangely misshapen, dented in on the right side. Blood was dripping from one long hank of hair, and she was moaning my name.

I woke and knew it was time to go home. I needed to see the place – the scene of the crime – I needed to face it.

No one was out in the heat. Our neighborhood was as vacant and lonely as the day Amy disappeared. I stepped inside my front door and made myself breathe. Weird that a house so new could feel haunted, and not in the romantic Victorian-novel way, just really gruesomely, shittily ruined. A house with a history, and it was only three years old. The lab technicians had been all over the place; surfaces were smeared and sticky and smudged. I sat down on the sofa, and it smelled like someone, like an actual person, with a stranger’s scent, a spicy aftershave. I opened the windows despite the heat, get in some air. Bleecker trotted down the stairs, and I picked him up and petted him while he purred. Someone, some cop, had overfilled his bowl for me. A nice gesture, after dismantling my home. I set him down carefully on the bottom step, then climbed up to the bedroom, unbuttoning my shirt. I lay down across the bed and put my face in the pillow, the same navy blue pillowcase I’d stared into the morning of our anniversary, the Morning Of.

‘Ellen Abbott is doing a special noon-day show. It’s about Amy. You. I, uh, it doesn’t look good. You want me to come over?’

Ellen Abbott Live was a cable show specializing in missing, murdered women, starring the permanently furious Ellen Abbott, a former prosecutor and victims’ rights advocate. The show opened with Ellen, blow-dried and lip-glossed, glaring at the camera. ‘A shocking story to report today: a beautiful, young woman who was the inspiration for the Amazing Amy book series. Missing. House torn apart. Hubby is Lance Nicholas Dunne, an unemployed writer who now owns a bar he bought with his wife’s money. Want to know how worried he is? These are photos taken since his wife, Amy Elliott Dunne, went missing July fifth – their five-year anniversary.’

Cut to the photo of me at the press conference, the jackass grin. Another of me waving and smiling like a pageant queen as I got out of my car (I was waving back to Marybeth; I was smiling because I smile when I wave).

Then up came the cell-phone photo of me and Shawna Kelly, Frito-pie baker. The two of us cheek to cheek, beaming pearly whites. Then the real Shawna appeared on-screen, tanned and sculpted and somber as Ellen introduced her to America. Pinpricks of sweat erupted all over me.

ELLEN: So, Lance Nicholas Dunne – can you describe his demeanor for us, Shawna? You meet him as everyone is out searching for his missing wife, and Lance Nicholas Dunne is … what?

SHAWNA: He was very calm, very friendly.

ELLEN: Excuse me, excuse me. He was friendly and calm? His wife is missing, Shawna. What kind of man is friendly and calm?

The grotesque photo appeared on-screen again. We somehow looked even more cheerful.

You should have been nicer to her, Nick. You should have eaten the fucking pie.

ELLEN: Flirty? While his wife is God knows where and Lance Dunne is … well, I’m sorry, Shawna, but this photo is just … I don’t know a better word than disgusting. This is not how an innocent man looks …

The rest of the segment was basically Ellen Abbott, professional hatemonger, obsessing over my lack of alibi: ‘Why doesn’t Lance Nicholas Dunne have an alibi until noon? Where was he that morning?’ she drawled in her Texas sheriff’s accent. Her panel of guests agreed that it didn’t look good.

I phoned Go and she said, ‘Well, you made it almost a week without them turning on you,’ and we cursed for a while. Fucking Shawna crazy bitch whore.

‘Do something really, really useful today, active,’ Go advised. ‘People will be watching now.’

I drove to St. Louis in a near rage, replaying the TV segment in my head, answering all of Ellen’s questions, shutting her up. Today, Ellen Abbott, you fucking cunt, I tracked down one of Amy’s stalkers. Desi Collings. I tracked him down to get the truth. Me, the hero husband. If I had soaring theme music, I would have played it. Me, the nice working-class guy, taking on the spoiled rich kid. The media would have to bite at that: Obsessive stalkers are more intriguing than run-of-the-mill wife killers. The Elliotts, at least, would appreciate it. I dialed Marybeth, but just got voice mail. Onward.

As I rolled into his neighborhood, I had to change my Desi vision from rich to extremely, sickly wealthy. The guy lived in a mansion in Ladue that probably cost at least $5 million. White-washed brick, black lacquer shutters, gaslight, and ivy. I’d dressed for the meeting, a decent suit and tie, but I realized as I rang his doorbell that a four-hundred-dollar suit in this neighborhood was more poignant than if I’d shown up in jeans. I could hear a clattering of dress shoes coming from the back of the house to the front, and the door opened with a desuctioning sound, like a refrigerator. Cold air rolled out toward me.

Desi looked the way I had always wanted to look: like a very handsome, very decent fellow. Something in the eyes, or the jaw. He had deep-set almond eyes, teddy-bear eyes, and dimples in both cheeks. If you saw the two of us together you’d assume he was the good guy.

‘Oh,’ Desi said, studying my face. ‘You’re Nick. Nick Dunne. Good God, I’m so sorry about Amy. Come in, come in.’

He ushered me into a severe living room, manliness as envisioned by a decorator. Lots of dark, uncomfortable leather. He pointed me toward an armchair with a particularly rigid back; I tried to make myself comfortable, as urged, but found the only posture the chair allowed was that of a chastised student: Pay attention and sit up.

Desi didn’t ask me why I was in his living room. Or explain how he’d immediately recognized me. Although they were becoming more common, the double takes and cupped whispers.

‘May I get you a drink?’ Desi asked, pressing two hands together: business first.

He sat down opposite me. He was dressed in impeccable shades of navy and cream; even his shoelaces looked pressed. He carried it all off, though. He wasn’t the dismissible fop I’d been hoping for. Desi seemed the definition of a gentleman: a guy who could quote a great poet, order a rare Scotch, and buy a woman the right piece of vintage jewelry. He seemed, in fact, a man who knew inherently what women wanted – across from him, I felt my suit wilt, my manner go clumsy. I had a swelling urge to discuss football and fart. These were the kinds of guys who always got to me.

Then I knew who he was: He was the guy who’d shown up alone the first day of searches, the guy who kept sneaking looks at Amy’s photo.

‘I was,’ Desi said, reasonable. ‘I was about to say that. I wish I’d been able to meet you that day, express my condolences.’

‘I could say the same to you.’ He smiled. ‘Look, I’m really fond of Amy. Hearing what had happened, well, I had to do something. I just—It’s terrible to say this, Nick, but when I saw it on the news, I just thought, Of course.’

‘Of course someone would … want her,’ he said. He had a deep voice, a fireside voice. ‘You know, she always had that way. Of making people want her. Always. You know that old cliche´: Men want her, and women want to be her. With Amy, that was true.’

Desi folded large hands across his trousers. Not pants, trousers. I couldn’t decide if he was fucking with me. I told myself to tread lightly. It’s the rule of all potentially prickly interviews: Don’t go on the offense until you have to, first see if they’ll hang themselves all on their own.

‘It wasn’t only her looks,’ Desi said. He leaned on a knee, his eyes distant. ‘I’ve thought about this a lot, of course. First love. I’ve definitely thought about it. The navel-gazer in me. Too much philosophy.’ He cracked a self-effacing grin. The dimples popped. ‘See, when Amy likes you, when she’s interested in you, her attention is so warm and reassuring and entirely enveloping. Like a warm bath.’

‘Bear with me,’ he said. ‘You feel good about yourself. Completely good, for maybe the first time. And then she sees your flaws, she realizes you’re just another regular person she has to deal with – you are in actuality Able Andy, and in real life, Able Andy would never make it with Amazing Amy. So her interest fades, and you stop feeling good, you can feel that old coldness again, like you’re naked on the bathroom floor, and all you want is to get back in the bath.’

I knew that feeling – I’d been on the bathroom floor for about three years – and I felt a rush of disgust for sharing this emotion with this other man.

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?’

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 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.’

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.

‘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.’

‘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.

‘Amy.’ The woman smiled again. She had a bottom-of-a-well voice, deep and strangely resonant. ‘We’ve been quite interested in that story around here. Yes, very interested.’ She turned coldly to her son. ‘We can never stop thinking about the superb Amy Elliott, can we?’

‘Of course,’ Jacqueline agreed. ‘I’m so sorry, Nick, for what you’re going through.’ She stared at me a moment. ‘I’m sorry, I must … I didn’t picture Amy with such an … American boy.’ She seemed to be speaking neither to me nor to Desi. ‘Good God, he even has a cleft chin.’

‘I came over to see if your son had any information,’ I said. ‘I know he’s written my wife a lot of letters over the years.’

‘Oh, the letters!’ Jacqueline smiled angrily. ‘Such an interesting way to spend one’s time, don’t you think?’

‘Once I went through the trash to read one.’ I turned back to Jacqueline. ‘Just to see what exactly was going on.’

‘Good for you,’ Jacqueline said, purring at me. ‘I’d expect nothing less of my husband.’

‘Amy and I always wrote each other letters,’ Desi said. He had his mother’s cadence, the delivery that indicated everything he said was something you’d want to hear. ‘It was our thing. I find e-mail so … cheap. And no one saves them. No one saves an e-mail, because it’s so inherently impersonal. I worry about posterity in general. All the great love letters – from Simone de Beauvoir to Sartre, from Samuel Clemens to his wife, Olivia – I don’t know, I always think about what will be lost—’

‘Have you kept all my letters?’ Jacqueline asked. She was standing at the fireplace, looking down on us, one long sinewy arm trailing along the mantelpiece.

I shivered, was about to reach out toward the fireplace for warmth, but remembered that it was July. ‘It seems to me a rather strange devotion to keep up all these years,’ I said. ‘I mean, she didn’t write you back.’

That lit up Desi’s eyes. ‘Oh’ was all he said, the sound of someone who spied a surprise firework.

‘It strikes me as odd, Nick, that you’d come here and ask Desi about his relationship – or lack thereof – with your wife,’ Jacqueline Collings said. ‘Are you and Amy not close? I can guarantee you: Desi has had no genuine contact with Amy in decades. Decades.’

‘I’m just checking in, Jacqueline. Sometimes you have to see something for yourself.’

Jacqueline started walking toward the door; she turned and gave me a single twist of her head to assure me that it was time to go.

‘How very intrepid of you, Nick. Very do-it-yourself. Do you build your own decks too?’ She laughed at the word and opened the door for me. I stared at the hollow of her neck and wondered why she wasn’t wearing a noose of pearls. Women like these always have thick strands of pearls to click and clack. I could smell her, though, a female scent, vaginal and strangely lewd.

‘It was interesting to meet you, Nick,’ she said. ‘Let’s all hope Amy gets home safely. Until then, the next time you want to get in touch with Desi?’