Page 39 of The Note

“I woke his ass up and confronted him,” Christine replied, anger creeping into her voice. “He denied any actual cheating, but it was too obvious from the messages. He was totally gaslighting me. Calling me crazy and paranoid,” Christine said, the pitch of her voice rising. “Then when hefinally admitted it, he told me he thought he had a ‘love addiction.’ His college girlfriend died the summer after graduation at some camp, and he started blaming that. I didn’t really see the connection. I told him he was just making excuses. Then he made it sound like he was somehow the victim, complaining that someone catfished him.”

David’s friend Simon had told Carter that David had fallen hard for someone who turned out to be a “crackpot.” “David told you he was catfished?” he asked.

“He didn’t use that word, but he said some woman used a fake name to dupe him into falling in love with her, as if I was supposed to feel sorry for him. I said he was looking for sympathy when the truth is he was a giant narcissist who thrived on female attention. He lashed out and told me I was a monster—likeIwas the bad guy. I was so fucking mad. Sorry, language. I grabbed a little figurine from the hotel dresser—it was a bird—and threw it. I wasn’t aiming at him, I promise. I was just pissed. I mean, we had just slept together the previous night and he was lying right to my face, saying I was ridiculous not to believe him. It hit the wall and shattered. He started calling me crazy, so I packed up my stuff as fast as I could and got out of there. I took an Uber to the Amagansett train station and got on the next train to the city to stay with my friend.”

“And have you spoken to David since then?”

“No.”

“He didn’t call or text you? Try to convince you to come back?”

She shook her head. “Oh, I think we both made it pretty clear there would be no going back.”

Carter had not found anything disrupted in the hotel room when he initially searched it, and the hotel staff only realized the bird figurine was missing when Carter specifically asked them about it after Christine’s call. Apparently the housekeepers didn’t take an inventory of missing or damaged items until checkout. Was it possible Christine cleaned up the scene after the fight and was only telling the truth now because the hotel would notice the bird was missing? Or had David Smith cleaned it up himself after Christine left on her own, just as she was saying she did?

Carter nodded. “Let me shift direction for a second. Is there anything else unusual that came up during your trip?”

She was biting her lip as she shook her head.

“Did David say anything about maybe purchasing drugs or any other kind of meetup that might have taken a bad turn?”

She shook her head again, this time a bit less emphatically. “I mean … unless he decided to try to find another woman to spend the rest of the weekend with, but obviously I wouldn’t know that.”

“What about any phone calls that seemed unusual?”

She shrugged. “We were both on the phone a lot. Work never ends, you know? But nothing that seemed to be bothering him.”

He flipped his sun visor down and handed her the list of weekend calls from David’s phone that he had stashed there. He watched as her eyes scanned the pages. It seemed to line up with the times she recalled him on the phone, she said, but she couldn’t add to the information. He called specific attention to an incoming call late Friday night from a Rhode Island number that Carter had not been able to lock down yet.

“I was already asleep by then, and that number doesn’t look familiar. Sorry.”

He only had one question left by the time he pulled into the station parking lot. “How long had the trip here been in the works? Did you two plan it together?”

Christine sighed. “I have no idea. I found out by accident. He opened the Resy app for us to look at dinner options in Providence, and I noticed that the location that popped up was the Hamptons. When I asked him if he was planning a trip, he told me it was supposed to be a surprise.”

“And when exactly was that?”

“I don’t know … two weeks ago? It was a Friday night, so I guess two and a half weeks ago.”

According to Simon, Smith was originally planning to bring a different woman to East Hampton, but Christine didn’t seem to knowthat yet. Smith’s hotel reservation was booked the morning after Christine had seen the Hamptons restaurant search on his phone. Carter’s best guess was that Smith felt locked into taking Christine after she saw that he’d been looking at restaurants in the Hamptons.

The lies, the other women, a shattered clay bird—none of this painted a picture of a happy couple, but the fact that Christine was being so forthright about the ugly details suggested to Carter that she might be telling something close to the truth. He’d call her friend to confirm she really had been in the city since last Saturday, but if so, that did not bode well for David Smith. It was looking increasingly unlikely that Smith was just off having fun, as Carter had originally hoped. Maybe he went looking for a party and found the wrong drug dealer. Accidental fentanyl deaths were spiking again. Or maybe his goal had been a new hotel companion, and he ran afoul of the wrong boyfriend or husband.

In the police lot, Carter pulled Christine’s bag from his trunk and led the way to the station. “I’ll get a more formal statement from you in writing if that’s okay, and then we can get you on your way.”

They were greeted inside the lobby by a loud, imperious voice. “I’m only asking you one simple question. Have you received any new information about my son’s disappearance or not?” The voice’s owner placed her handbag on the receptioncounter. She had a silver-gray bob and wore a bright blue linen blazer with a black skirt.

“As I told you before, ma’am, let me find a place for you to wait until I can reach the detective in charge.” Tim Keene, the on-duty desk sergeant, sounded harried. Clearly this exchange had been going on for some time.

“His last name is Decker. I have his number.” She pulled a cell phone from her purse.

Carter asked Christine to take a seat on a bench in the foyer, then approached the front desk. “I’m here. I’m Carter Decker.”

She looked him up and down, not bothering to mask her displeasure. “I’m David’s mother, Tinsley Smith.”

23

Lauren unlocked the front door of the beach house to find an empty kitchen, the sounds of a Bob Marley song audible from the back of the house. As she and May walked toward the sliding screen door leading to the pool deck, she could make out Nate’s voice.

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