Dangerous Women by Unknown Read Free Book Online Page A

seemed she barely knew she was there.
    “Mr. Ferguson, I need to ask you: Has your wife had a history of emotional problems?”
    “What kind of question is that?”
    “It’s a standard question in cases like this,” the detective said. “And we’ve had some reports.”
    “Are you talking about the local news?”
    “No, Mr. Ferguson. We don’t collect evidence from TV.”
    “Collecting evidence? What kind of evidence would you need to collect about Lorie? It’s Shelby who’s missing. Aren’t you—”
    “Mr. Ferguson, did you know your wife spent three hours at Your Place Lounge on Charlevoix yesterday afternoon?”
    “Are you following her?”
    “Several patrons and one of the bartenders contacted us. They were concerned.”
    “Concerned? Is that what they were?” His head was throbbing.
    “Shouldn’t they be concerned, Mr. Ferguson? This is a woman whose baby is missing.”
    “If they were so concerned, why didn’t they call me?”
    “One of them asked Lorie if he could call you for her. Apparently, she told him not to.”
    He looked at the detective. “She didn’t want to worry me.”
    The detective looked back at him. “Okay.”
    “You can’t tell how people are going to act when something like this happens to you,” he said, feeling his head dipping. Suddenly his shoulders felt very heavy and he had these pictures of Lorie in his head, at the far corner of the long black lacquered bar, eyes heavy with makeup and filled with dark feelings. Feelings he could never touch. Never once did he feel sure he knew what she was thinking. That was part of it. Part of the throb in his chest, the longing there that never left.
    “No,” he said, suddenly.
    “What?” the detective asked, leaning forward.
    “She has no history of emotional problems. My wife.”
    It was the fourth week, the fourth week of false leads and crying and sleeping pills and night terrors. And he had to go back to work or they wouldn’t make the mortgage payment. They’d talked about Lorie returning to her part-time job at the candle store, but somebody needed to be home, to be waiting.
    (Though what, really, were they waiting for? Did toddlers suddenly toddle home after twenty-seven days? That’s what he could tell the cops were thinking.)
    “I guess I’ll call the office tomorrow,” he said. “And make a plan.”
    “And I’ll be here,” she said. “You’ll be there and I’ll be here.”
    It was a terrible conversation, like a lot of those conversations couples have in dark bedrooms, late into the night, when you know the decisions you’ve been avoiding all day won’t wait anymore.
    After they talked, she took four big pills and pushed her face into her pillow.
    He couldn’t sleep and went into Shelby’s room, which he only ever did at night. He leaned over the crib, which was too small for her but Lorie wouldn’t use the bed yet, said it wasn’t time, not nearly.
    He put his fingers on the soft baby bumpers, festooned with bright yellow fish. He remembered telling Shelby they were goldfish, but she kept saying
Nana, nana,
which was what she called bananas.
    Her hands were always covered with the pearly slime of bananas, holding on to the front of Lorie’s shirt.
    One night, sliding his hand under Lorie’s bra clasp, between her breasts, he felt a daub of banana even there.
    “It’s everywhere,” Lorie had sighed. “It’s like she’s made of bananas.”
    He loved that smell, and his daughter’s forever-glazed hands.
    At some point, remembering this, he started crying, but then he stopped and sat in the rocking chair until he fell asleep.
    In part, he was relieved to go back to work, all those days with neighbors and families and friends huddling in the house, trading Internet rumors, organizing vigils and searches. But now there were fewer family members, only a couple friends who had no other place to go, and no neighbors left at all.
    The woman from the corner house came late one evening and asked