The Pilot's Wife_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [41]
“To your knowledge, did Jack call anyone that day?” Somers asked. “Talk to anyone?”
“I have no idea,” she said.
She wondered: Could Jack have talked to someone that day? Of course he could have. He could have talked to twenty people for all she knew.
Robert had his arms crossed over his chest. He seemed to be studying the coffee table with great interest. On the table were art books, a stone plate Jack and she had brought back from Kenya, an enameled box from Spain.
“Mrs. Lyons,” Somers continued. “Did your husband seem agitated or depressed that day or the night before?”
“No,” she said. “Nothing out of the ordinary. The shower was leaking, I remember, and he was a bit annoyed at that, since we’d only recently had it repaired. I remember he said to call Alfred.”
“Alfred is?”
“Alfred Zacharian. The plumber.”
“And when did he ask you to call Alfred?”
“Twice, actually. Once upstairs about ten minutes before he left. And again as he was walking to the car.”
“Did Jack have a drink prior to his departing for the airport?” “Don’t answer that,” Robert said, sitting forward on the sofa. Kathryn crossed her legs and thought about the wine Jack and she had had with dinner on Saturday night and had continued to have after dinner, and she quickly calculated the number of hours between his last drink and his flight. At least eighteen. That was all right then. What was the phrase? Twelve hours from bottle to throttle?
“It’s all right,” she said to Robert. “Nothing,” she said to Somers.
“Nothing at all?”
“Nothing at all.”
“Did you pack his suitcase?” he asked.
“No, I never do.”
“Or his flight bag?”
“No. Absolutely not. I virtually never looked in there.”
“Do you usually unpack his suitcase?”
“No. That’s Jack’s responsibility. He takes care of his own bags.”
She heard the words, takes care of. Present tense.
She looked around at the men in the room, all of whom were examining her intently. She wondered if the airline would want to question her, too. Perhaps she ought to have a lawyer with her right now, she thought. But if that were true, wouldn’t Robert have said so?
“Did your husband have any close friends in the U.K.?” Somers asked. “Did he regularly talk to someone there?”
“The U.K.?”
“England.”
“I know what U.K. means,” she said. “I just don’t understand the relevance of the question. He knew a lot of people in the U.K. He flew with them.”
“Have you noticed any unusual withdrawals from or deposits into any of your bank accounts?” Somers asked.
She wondered where they were going with this, what any of it meant. She felt herself to be on shifting ground, as though at any moment she might step unthinkingly into a crevice.
“I don’t understand,” she began.
“In the last several weeks, or at any time, have you noticed any unusual withdrawals from or deposits into your bank accounts?”
“No.”
“In the last several weeks did you notice any unusual behavior in your husband?”
She had to answer this one, for Jack’s sake. She wanted to answer it.
“No,” she said.
“Nothing out of the ordinary?”
“Nothing.”
Rita, from the airline, stepped into the room, and the men looked up at her. Beneath her suit, she had on a jewel-necked silk blouse. Kathryn couldn’t remember the last time she herself had worn a suit. At school, she almost always wore pants and a sweater, sometimes a jacket, occasionally jeans and boots when the weather was bad.
“Mrs. Lyons?” Rita said. “Your daughter is on the phone. She says she has to talk to you right now.”
Alarmed, Kathryn spun out of the chair and followed Rita into the kitchen. She glanced at the clock over the sink: 9:14.
“Mattie,” she said, picking the phone up from the counter.
“Mom?”
“What is it? Is everything OK?”
“Mom, I called Taylor. Just to talk to someone. And she was acting funny?”
Mattie’s voice was tight and high, a tone Kathryn knew from previous experience indicated strenuous control over imminent hysteria. Kathryn shut her eyes and pressed her forehead to the cabinet.
“And so I asked her what