Page 71 of Count My Lies

“What was the fight about?” he asks.

“She thought…” I stop again. I rub my temple. My brow is slick with sweat.Fuck.“She thought she saw me with the nanny.” My head is pounding, pain wrapping from the back of my skull to my forehead. “Can I get a water or something?”

The detective ignores me. “Did she?” He’s straight-faced, doesn’t blink.

I shift in my chair. “Look, my wife and I, we’ve been having some problems. We’ve discussed separating.” I know this doesn’t answer his question, but I want him to know that it’s not what it looks like.

“Who suggested the separation?”

I shrug. “I don’t know, we both agreed that things haven’t been working.” This, too, isn’t exactly the truth. But the truth won’t help me.

“But initially, Mrs. Lockhart was the one who wanted to end things?”

I’m not sure what he’s getting at. Or who told him that.

“She was angry, and yes, she might have been the one to first say it, but we were working on things—”

He interrupts me. “So, she wanted out and you didn’t. Is that why you shot her?”

I stare at him incredulously. “What? Shot her? No! I didn’t shoot her. Did she say I did? She’s lying!Jesus.”

I drop my head into my hands. I know Violet’s been upset with me; of course I know. Things have been rocky between us for a long time. It’s true I haven’t always been the best husband, but it hasn’t always been easy to be who she wants me to be. It’s been lonely, and I’ll admit, I’ve been weak. The last year in New York has been especially hard. We’ve both done things, said things, to hurt each other, butthis? To say I shot her?What the fuck, Violet?

“Look.” I raise my head. I’m exhausted, every part of my body like deadweight. “Can I talk to her? If I could just have five minutes, I’m sure I can clear this all up.Please.Just a quick call.” I’m begging now. “She’ll tell you, this is all a mistake!”

Detective Edgerton sighs. Then he leans back in his chair. He looks tired, too. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

“I haven’t had my phone call yet!” I say, realizing. “Don’t I get a phone call? Please. Let me talk to her!”

The detective clears his throat. There’s a long, heavy pause before he says, “Unfortunately, Mrs. Lockhart died two hours ago, on the way to the hospital.”

I stare at him in disbelief.What? No.No. She can’t be—

“Which”—he clears his throat again—“means you’re looking at afirst-degree murder charge. Are you ready to tell me what really happened the last time you saw Mrs. Lockhart? If I know the truth, I can help you.”

The room seems to expand then shrink, my vision getting darker. Suddenly, it feels like I’m underwater, everything distorted. I’m waterlogged, sounds muffled, my eyes bleary.

“Mr. Lockhart?” Detective Edgerton’s voice booms loudly. “Someone get me some water!” he calls. “Mr. Lockhart, are you okay?”

“I need a lawyer,” I hear myself say.

No one comes for me until the following afternoon. My body is stiff and aching, head still pounding. My eyes burn from the lack of sleep. After my interview with the detective, I was booked—fingerprinted, photographed, clothes exchanged for oversized sweatpants and a stained T-shirt—and led to a cell with a thin mat in one corner and metal toilet in the other. The small room was hot and reeked of piss.

Exhausted, I lay down on the mat. I drifted in and out of sleep, jolting awake whenever I dozed too deeply, chest seizing, remembering.Violet’s dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.

A guard banged on my door early this morning, signaling breakfast. Four hours later, lunch. Both were served on plastic trays, both inedible.

Finally, the guard unlocks my cell, swings the door wide. “Your lawyer’s here,” he says apathetically. “Get up.”

Before he left the interview room yesterday, after I steadied myself, lifting my head from between my knees, Detective Edgerton slid a list of names across the metal table. “Attorneys on the island,” he said. “If you don’t have one.”

I pointed to the first name I saw. Javier Delgado. I could have called Kathleen, the divorce lawyer I met with a few times, but what good would a divorce lawyer do me now? And I wanted someone local, on the island. Someone who could get me out of here as soon as possible.

The guard leads me to the same interrogation room I was in yesterday. Javier is in the same chair as the detective was, a file folder open in front of him on the table. He stands when we walk in, smiling politely at me as he reaches to shake my hand.

Javier is well-dressed in a nicely tailored gray suit, expensive tie, leather loafers. He’s late thirties, early forties, maybe, with thick salt-and-pepper hair, a pair of wire-rimmed glasses on his clean-shaven face.

I know how I look in contrast, steeped in grime and sweat, eyes bloodshot, rimmed with deep bags. I smell, too, a sharp acrid smell, like sweat and urine, the stench of the cell clogging my pores. I need a shower. I need to go home, get the fuck off this island.

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