Page 57 of Such a Good Wife

“You think they’ll make a movie about this Ellison murder?” Tammy asks eagerly, and Gill rolls her eyes. She often treats Tammy like she’s the dummy of the group.

“There are a ton of murders every day, Tammy. Why would they make a movie about this one?”

Tammy shrugs, feeling the condescension in Gillian’s voice. She trails her finger across the top of her frosting and licks it off her index finger, looking away.

“Well, I’ll tell you why,” Karen chimes in. “I heard he was beheaded.”

“Who?” Gill asks.

“The dead guy. Luke Ellison.”

“I heard that too I think!” Tammy is happy to be validated. “Yeah, beheaded by his own kitchen knife.” She seems unsure about this, but still spews out the fiction like it’s fact. The news never even divulged the cause of death, let alone these grizzly details. It’s suddenly, as if it wasn’t already, very clear to me how simple rumors become venomous, life-ruining facts in this town.

“That’s not true,” Liz snaps, and we all look at her. Her cheeks are flushed and she seems angry at the conversation. The others don’t really pay much attention to this outburst. They laugh it off and continue, but I keep my eyes on Liz a moment, wondering why this seems so personal to her. She takes a few swallows of wine and rolls her eyes, then excuses herself to the bathroom.

“What’s with her?” Gill asks in her absence.

“Well, there is a killer running loose, maybe she doesn’t want to talk about it. It’s horrifying,” Karen says, and they all give something like a silent agreement, with nods and quiet sips of wine.

“I did hear that they can’t find the head though,” Tammy adds, “and that’s why they won’t say how he died.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Gill chides her again. “If the media had a juicy fact like that, that’s all they’d be talking about.”

I feel like I could be sick listening to this, but I just stay calm and frown down at my shoes, hoping to remain in the background of the conversation.

When Liz returns, they leave the topic alone and discuss Cassie Duchesne’s botched boob job and the seasoning on the deviled eggs Karen brought.

“Subbed Greek yogurt for the mayo. Tangy and healthier.” She beams with pride as she passes them around.

Just then, Gillian’s husband, Robert, pops his head in the open door. All the women greet him, and he gives a curt nod of acknowledgment, but gestures for Gillian to talk with him privately.

They stay under the awning around the side of the studio, and Karen makes a tasteless joke about her being in trouble for overspending her allowance. Everyone shifts toward the spread of food on the drafting table, but I watch a moment, and see Robert put his finger in Gillian’s face. I can’t make out what he’s saying; I try to read his lips to get the gist, but to no avail. She looks like she’s defending herself about something. Then her demeanor changes, and she looks like she gains the upper hand. She heaves some last words at him before storming away without looking back, but I see him rest his straight arm against the side of the house and look up, sighing, as if to say You gotta be kidding me.

No one else has paid attention to this. Liz still looks pale, but she’s doing her best to fawn over the mini tartlets with everyone else. I shoot Liz a look, silently asking if she’s okay. When she catches my eye, she looks away. Then Gillian walks in, chipper as ever, an uncanny ability to shake off whatever just happened and go seamlessly back into hostess mode.

“Oh, aren’t they just darling?” She joins the tartlet fan club and the women giggle and poke at more food on the table.

There’s a strange intensity in the room, and I have no idea what’s going on. I have to remind myself that there’s probably nothing going on. I’m highly sensitive right now. Gillian engaged in a very normal disagreement, probably over which side of the house got to use the good vodka for their party or some equally petty feud they always have when they think no one is looking, and Liz is probably terrified that there is an unsolved murder, and doesn’t want to keep being reminded of it. I can’t let unreasonable paranoia hijack my rationality. I pick up a small plate of assorted mini-foods and give a sensationalized account of how good it is, as one does.

At home, Collin sits with Ben on the back deck, playing a card game with a kerosene lamp flickering between them. I pop my head out to let him know I’m back, and I only need to look down at my watch with my mom face on for Collin to tell me they’re wrapping it up. It’s far past his bedtime, but Collin’s joy in spending quiet time with Ben is touching. I smile at them both and then fall into the living room recliner, exhausted from the strange day.

Now that I know who Valerie is—now that I get what she wants and understand that if she turned me in I could say I was researching her because she was blackmailing me—I feel more free to dig into her background online.

There are a zillion Valerie Ellisons on the social media sites I search. This won’t be as easy as searching for Lacy, so I pull off my shoes and lean back against the mass of pillows on the bed. I narrow the search by area and click on dozens of photos that don’t match up until, forty-five minutes in, I come across a photo that looks like her—somehow her smile even looks smug when she’s trying to appear genuine and so it pops out, even from its tiny thumbnail size on the screen. I click.

She half scowls at me from her profile photo, wearing a white, beachy dress and holding a glass of champagne, blue pool water in the background. I try to click through for more photos. Only a few are public. I can’t see her occupation or relationship status. In another photo, she’s in front of the Space Needle in Seattle, giving a thumbs-up to the camera. Another woman has an arm around her and wears a fanny pack and visor. Nothing that gives me any information. I don’t really even know what I’m looking for. Then I see it. We have a friend in common. We both know Joe Brooks.

He’s been in the background of my Facebook friends for years. I’ve known him since we were kids, and he coaches Ben’s team, it’s to be expected that we would be tied somehow on social media, but I don’t log on often, and I’d completely forgotten about Joe being a so-called friend. I click on his profile, shakily.

I flip through all of his photos. Many are of him out on his boat with the guys and a few pretty women in bikinis. Lots of gym selfies, him flexing his muscles. A celebration photo captioned Detective Brooks. That must have been the night I met Lacy. She said he was celebrating his promotion and I can see the kitschy Budweiser signs and coin-operated pool tables behind him in the photo. There is no trace of Lacy anywhere. No photos, and they’re not friends.

His page seems to be all selfies and beer with the occasional shared images that are in poor taste, but not overtly offensive. A tray of buns from the oven that look like butts. Super classy. I can’t imagine what his page would look like if he didn’t have to hold back, his job being in the public eye. I scroll through his posts as the page loads and blooms a new crop of idiotic memes. I stop cold when I see his post from September 20. There’s a huge charity event in town every September. Formal dress, overpriced drinks, a silent auction, dancing, the whole nine yards. Collin and I have gone a few times, but we both balk at dressing in black-tie attire, so we haven’t bothered in a few years. I didn’t realize it had fallen on the twentieth.

I’m looking at a massive group photo, about thirty people scrunched in for the shot. Joe is in the back, in a tux. A few women duck down in the front row in their gowns, balancing as they crouch in heels. One gives another bunny ears. Some of the faces I know from town, a few I haven’t seen before. But there, in the second row of the photo, is Valerie Ellison and her rock-solid alibi. She’s posing for a group photo time-stamped at 9:23 p.m.

Except that she’s not posing, not exactly. It looks as though...she’s looking back slightly, not at the camera, but toward Joe Brooks. I throw my phone to the end of the bed, impulsively, when I hear Collin’s footfalls coming down the hall. Then, I scramble to pick it up and toss it in my nightstand drawer before he enters the room, and lie back on the bed. He chuckles when he sees me.

“They’re that exhausting, huh?”

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