Gone Girl: A Novel (51 page)

“You first,” Tanner said. “Tell us what you got.”

“Sure,” Boney said. “Okay.” She turned on the tape recorder, dispensed with the preliminaries. “It is your contention, Nick, that you never bought or touched the items in the woodshed on your sister’s property.”

“That is correct,” Tanner replied for me.

“Nick, your fingerprints are all over almost every item in the shed.”

“That’s a lie! I touched
nothing
, not a thing in there! Except for my anniversary present, which
Amy left inside
.”

Tanner touched my arm:
Shut the fuck up
.

“Nick, your fingerprints are on the porn, on the golf clubs, on the watch cases, and even on the TV.”

And then I saw it, how much Amy would have enjoyed this: my deep, self-satisfied sleep (which I lorded over her, my belief that if she were only more laid-back, more like me, her insomnia would vanish) turned against me. I could see it: Amy down on her knees, my snores
heating her cheeks, as she pressed a fingertip here and there over the course of months. She could have slipped me a mickey for all I knew. I remember her peering at me one morning as I woke up, sleep-wax gumming my lips, and she said, “You sleep the sleep of the damned, you know. Or the drugged.” I was both and didn’t know it.

“Do you want to explain about the fingerprints?” Gilpin said.

“Tell us the rest,” Tanner said.

Boney set a biblically thick leather-covered binder on the table between us, charred all along the edges. “Recognize this?”

I shrugged, shook my head.

“It’s your wife’s diary.”

“Um, no. Amy didn’t do diaries.”

“Actually, Nick, she did. She did about seven years’ worth,” Boney said.

“Okay.”

Something bad was about to happen. My wife was being clever again.

W
e drive my car across state lines into Illinois, to a particularly awful neighborhood of some busted river town, and we spend an hour wiping it down, and then we leave it with the keys in the ignition. Call it the circle of strife: The Arkansas couple who drove it before me were sketchy; Ozark Amy was obviously shady; hopefully, some Illinois down-and-outer will enjoy it for a bit too.

Then we drive back into Missouri over wavy hills until I can see, between the trees, Lake Hannafan glistening. Because Desi has family in St. Louis, he likes to believe the area is old, East Coast old, but he is wrong. Lake Hannafan is not named after a nineteenth-century statesman or a Civil War hero. It is a private lake, machine-forged in 2002 by an oily developer named Mike Hannafan who turned out to have a moonlighting job illegally disposing of hazardous waste. The kerfuffled community is scrambling to find a new name for their lake. Lake Collings, I’m sure, has been floated.

So despite the well-planned lake—upon which a few select residents can sail but not motor—and Desi’s tastefully grand house—a Swiss château on an American scale—I remain unwooed. That was always the problem with Desi. Be from Missouri or don’t, but don’t pretend Lake “Collings” is Lake Como.

He leans against his Jaguar and aims his gaze up at the house so that I have to pause for appreciation also.

“We modeled it after this wonderful little chalet my mother and I
stayed at in Brienzersee,” he says. “All we’re missing is the mountain range.”

A rather big miss
, I think, but I put my hand on his arm and say, “Show me the inside. It must be fabulous.”

He gives me the nickel tour, laughing at the idea of a nickel. A cathedral kitchen—all granite and chrome—a living room with his-and-hers fireplaces that flows onto an outdoor space (what midwesterners call a deck) overlooking the woods and the lake. A basement entertainment room with a snooker table, darts, surround sound, a wet bar, and its own outdoor space (what midwesterners call another deck). A sauna off the entertainment room and next to it the wine cellar. Upstairs, five bedrooms, the second largest of which he bestows on me.

“I had it repainted,” he says. “I know you love dusty rose.”

I don’t love dusty rose anymore; that was high school. “You are so lovely, Desi, thank you,” I say, my most heartfelt. My thank-yous always come out rather labored. I often don’t give them at all. People do what they’re supposed to do and then wait for you to pile on the appreciation—they’re like frozen-yogurt employees who put out cups for tips.

But Desi takes to thank-yous like a cat being brushed; his back almost arches with the pleasure. For now it’s a worthwhile gesture.

I set my bag down in my room, trying to signal my retirement for the evening—I need to see how people are reacting to Andie’s confession and whether Nick has been arrested—but it seems I am far from through with the thank-yous. Desi has ensured I will be forever indebted to him. He smiles a special-surprise smile and takes my hand
(I have something else to show you)
and pulls me back downstairs
(I really hope you like this)
onto a hallway off the kitchen
(it took a lot of work, but it’s so worth it)
.

“I really hope you like this,” he says again, and flings open the door.

It’s a glass room, a greenhouse, I realize. Within are tulips, hundreds, of all colors. Tulips bloom in the middle of July in Desi’s lake house. In their own special room for a very special girl.

“I know tulips are your favorite, but the season is so short,” Desi said. “So I fixed that for you. They’ll bloom year-round.”

He puts his arm around my waist and aims me toward the flowers so I can appreciate them fully.

“Tulips any day of the year,” I say, and try to get my eyes to glisten. Tulips were my favorite in high school. They were everyone’s favorite, the gerbera daisy of the late ’80s. Now I like orchids, which are basically the opposite of tulips.

“Would Nick ever have thought of something like this for you?” Desi breathes into my ear as the tulips sway under a mechanized dusting of water from above.

“Nick never even remembered I liked tulips,” I say, the correct answer.

It is sweet, beyond sweet, the gesture. My own flower room, like a fairy tale. And yet I feel a lilt of nerves: I called Desi only twenty-four hours ago, and these are not newly planted tulips, and the bedroom did not smell of fresh paint. It makes me wonder: the uptick in his letters the past year, their woeful tone … how long has he been wanting to bring me here? And how long does he think I will stay? Long enough to enjoy blooming tulips every day for a year.

“My goodness, Desi,” I say. “It’s like a fairy tale.”

“Your fairy tale,” he says. “I want you to see what life can be like.”

In fairy tales, there is always gold. I wait for him to give me a stack of bills, a slim credit card, something of use. The tour loops back around through all the rooms so I can ooh and ahh about details I missed the first time, and then we return to my bedroom, a satin-and-silk, pink-and-plush, marshmallow-and-cotton-candy girl’s room. As I peer out a window, I notice the high wall that surrounds the house.

I blurt, nervously, “Desi, would you be able to leave me with some money?”

He actually pretends to be surprised. “You don’t need money now, do you?” he says. “You have no rent to pay anymore; the house will be stocked with food. I can bring new clothes for you. Not that I don’t like you in bait-shop chic.”

“I guess a little cash would just make me feel more comfortable. Should something happen. Should I need to get out of here quickly.”

He opens his wallet and pulls out two twenty-dollar bills. Presses them gently in my hand. “There you are,” he says indulgently.

I wonder then if I have made a very big mistake.

I
made a mistake, feeling so cocky. Whatever the hell this diary was, it was going to ruin me. I could already see the cover of the true-crime novel: the black-and-white photo of us on our wedding day, the blood-red background, the jacket copy:
including sixteen pages of never-seen photos and Amy Elliott Dunne’s actual diary entries—a voice from beyond the grave …
I’d found it strange and kind of cute, Amy’s guilty pleasures, those cheesy true-crime books I’d discovered here and there around our house. I thought maybe she was loosening up, allowing herself some beach reading.

Nope. She was just studying.

Gilpin pulled over a chair, sat on it backward, and leaned toward me on crossed arms—his movie-cop look. It was almost midnight; it felt later.

“Tell us about your wife’s illness these past few months,” he said.

“Illness? Amy never got sick. Once a year she’d get a cold, maybe.”

Boney picked up the book, turned to a marked page. “Last month you made Amy and yourself some drinks, sat on your back porch. She writes here that the drinks were impossibly sweet and describes what she thinks is an allergic reaction:
My heart was racing, my tongue was slabbed, stuck to the bottom of my mouth. My legs turned to meat as Nick walked me up the stairs
.” She put a finger down to hold her place in the diary, looked up as if I might not be paying attention. “When she woke the next morning:
My head ached and my stomach was oily, but weirder, my fingernails were light blue, and when I
looked in the mirror, so were my lips. I didn’t pee for two days after. I felt so weak
.”

I shook my head in disgust. I’d become attached to Boney; I expected better of her.

“Is this your wife’s handwriting?” Boney tilted the book toward me, and I saw deep black ink and Amy’s cursive, jagged as a fever chart.

“Yes, I think so.”

“So does our handwriting expert.”

Boney said the words with a certain pride, and I realized: This was the first case these two had ever had that required outside experts, that demanded they get in touch with professionals who did exotic things like analyze handwriting.

“You know what else we learned, Nick, when we showed this entry to our medical expert?”

“Poisoning,” I blurted. Tanner frowned at me:
steady
.

Boney stuttered for a second; this was not information I was supposed to provide.

“Yeah, Nick, thank you: antifreeze poisoning,” she said. “Textbook. She’s lucky she survived.”

“She didn’t
survive
, because that never happened,” I said. “Like you said, it’s textbook—it’s made up from an Internet search.”

Boney frowned but refused to bite. “The diary isn’t a pretty picture of you, Nick,” she continued, one finger tracing her braid. “
Abuse
—you pushed her around.
Stress
—you were quick to anger. Sexual relations that bordered on
rape
. She was very frightened of you at the end there. It’s painful to read. That gun we were wondering about, she says she wanted it because she was afraid of you. Here’s her last entry:
This man might kill me. This man might kill me
, in her own words.”

My throat clenched. I felt like I might throw up. Fear, mostly, and then a surge of rage.
Fucking bitch, fucking bitch, cunt, cunt, cunt
.

“What a smart, convenient note for her to end on,” I said. Tanner put a hand on mine to hush me.

“You look like you want to kill her again, right now,” Boney said.

“You’ve done nothing but lie to us, Nick,” Gilpin said. “You say you were at the beach that morning. Everyone we talk to says you hate the beach. You say you have no idea what all these purchases are on your maxed-out credit cards. Now we have a shed full of exactly
those items,
and they have your fingerprints all over them
. We have a wife suffering from what sounds like antifreeze poisoning weeks before she
disappears
. I mean, come on.” He paused for effect.

“Anything else of note?” Tanner asked.

“We can place you in Hannibal, where your wife’s purse shows up a few days later,” Boney said. “We have a neighbor who overheard you two arguing the night before. A pregnancy you didn’t want. A bar borrowed on your wife’s money that would revert to her in case of a divorce. And of course,
of course
: a secret girlfriend of more than a year.”

“We can help you right now, Nick,” Gilpin said. “Once we arrest you, we can’t.”

“Where did you find the diary? At Nick’s father’s house?” Tanner asked.

“Yes,” Boney said.

Tanner nodded to me:
That’s what we didn’t find
. “Let me guess: anonymous tip.”

Neither cop said a thing.

“Can I ask where in the house you found it?” I asked.

“In the furnace. I know you thought you burned it. It caught fire, but the pilot light was too weak; it got smothered. So only the outer edges burned,” Gilpin said. “Extremely good luck for us.”

The furnace—another inside joke from Amy! She’d always proclaimed amazement at how little I understood the things men are supposed to understand. During our search, I’d even glanced at my dad’s old furnace, with its pipes and wires and spigots, and backed away, intimidated.

“It wasn’t luck. You were meant to find it,” I said.

Boney let the left side of her mouth slide into a smile. She leaned back and waited, relaxed as the star of an iced-tea commercial. I gave Tanner an angry nod:
Go ahead
.

“Amy Elliott Dunne is alive, and she is framing Nick Dunne for her murder,” he said. I clasped my hands and sat up straight, tried to do anything that would lend me an air of reason. Boney stared at me. I needed a pipe, eyeglasses I could swiftly remove for effect, a set of encyclopedias at my elbow. I felt giddy. Do
not
laugh.

Boney frowned. “What’s that again?”

“Amy is alive and very well, and she is framing Nick,” my proxy repeated.

They exchanged a look, hunched over the table:
Can you believe this guy?

“Why would she do that?” Gilpin asked, rubbing his eyes.

“Because she hates him. Obviously. He was a shitty husband.”

Boney looked down at the floor, let out a breath. “I’d certainly agree with you there.”

At the same time, Gilpin said: “Oh, for Christ’s sake.”