INNOCENT CRIMINAL
INNOCENT CRIMINAL
T here is no note. No explanation. Just a crumpled old newspaper article written by my wife several years ago. I remember the story and how much it upset Abby at the time. My wife was an amazing journalist. She found out all kinds of things about the dead man’s wealthy family—things the legal team at the newspaper refused to let her print—including that they bribed Coraline Thatcher’s defense lawyer to do a shoddy job and make sure she was convicted. But Abby always had to do the right thing, and she kept digging until she uncovered enough truth to get some justice for that poor woman. The creepy-looking antique doll I found in her car the night she disappeared had been sent to her at the newspaper. Her editor watched her open the box and was convinced that the doll with its mouth sewn up was a warning. The police tested the doll for fingerprints but found only Abby’s.
I don’t understand why someone is sending me this old article now. Or why they couldn’t tell me to my face. Unless it is a clue about what happened to Abby? What else could it be?
Maybe I didn’t imagine seeing my missing wife on the island.
I read the newspaper clipping again. The words seem to blur and twist and move on the page, but I put on my reading glasses, and try to focus. Abby’s article says that Coraline Thatcher was dressed all in green when they met. Like Cora at the corner shop. One of Cora’s many badges said she was at least eighty years old, and the woman in the article would have been seventy-five seven years ago, so the age fits. Could Cora Christie be Coraline Thatcher? Even if she is, what is the connection to my wife if they barely met? Did Abby dig too deep into the rapist’s family? Were they responsible for the threats she had been receiving before she disappeared? Did they send the doll? And who was the one-handed dead man who washed up on the beach last year around the same time Abby vanished?
If someone is trying to tell me something then I don’t understand who or what or why. But someone knows something, and they came to the cabin to try to tell me. And it was someone on the island, which means there can be only twenty-five suspects.
It’s late, it’s been a long time since I got any real rest, and I’m so tired I feel as though I could fall asleep standing up. Columbo is already snoring at the foot of the bed and I think he has the right idea. Maybe this will all make more sense in the morning, though I doubt it. I replace the floorboards and the rug and pour myself another small glass of whiskey—just a little something to help me sleep.
It doesn’t work.
It rarely does.
I lie awake thinking about Abby, as always.
What if she was scared that someone was going to hurt her, so she decided to disappear and find somewhere to hide? Somewhere remote like the Isle of Amberly, where she would be safe? Where nobody would think to look?
Hope can be just as devastating as despair.
I worry that not sleeping properly for months has done permanent damage to my mind. Nothing has been the same since that night. Even when I do sleep it is rarely for long. The first few doctors I saw about my insomnia were sympathetic but useless. Saying things like pills are a last resort and suggesting I make a list of my worries before bedtime. Another told me to try meditation. Surprisingly, to me, that worked for a while until it didn’t. They all told me to cut down on screen time and avoid alcohol. Both of which are things I can’t do, and besides, alcohol is the only thing that does sometimes quiet my mind when life is too loud.
I think there are just too many questions rattling around inside my broken brain:
What happened to my wife that night?
Where is she?
Is she alive?
Questions that nobody has answers for.
I remember showing our joint bank statements to Kitty, pointing out the large sums of money Abby had withdrawn in the months before she disappeared. Kitty was as baffled as I was about her goddaughter’s behavior, and too polite to say out loud what so many others I’m sure were thinking: that Abby had staged her own disappearance. I didn’t blame them because that’s what I would have thought too. But they didn’t know her like I did; she would never do something like that. And now, just like all those other nights, she is all I can think of. Wondering how well I really knew my wife and whether I’ll ever know the truth.
The last doctor I saw took pity on my sorry story and reluctantly prescribed sleeping pills, but they don’t really help. Not unless I double the recommended dose. Even if I manage to get a few hours rest, I’m so deeply tired after all these months that my head feels fuzzy. Like there is permanent white noise all around me. My memory is noticeably affected too, and some days I barely have enough energy to function. Sometimes I can’t form proper sentences anymore; I literally can’t find the words, which is a bit of a problem for a writer. I’ve read that long-term insomnia can cause hallucinations and paranoia, and I’m starting to wonder if that’s what is happening to me now. But I find the newspaper article and it’s real. I didn’t imagine that. Someone is trying to tell me something .
Writing a book can mean long periods of isolation filled with intense self-doubt and sustained self-loathing. If the books are not well behaved it feels like doing daily battle with myself for months, and I fight dirty when cornered. Not all varieties of self-harm are possible to see. The people who tried to support me when Abby first disappeared soon stopped calling. I didn’t have the energy to see or even talk to people and they didn’t seem to understand. How could they? My whole world imploded the day she disappeared. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t write, and sometimes it felt like I couldn’t breathe. I was too tired to see anyone, too tired to do anything much at all. I told everyone I was busy, that the best cure for heartbreak was hard work, but really all I was doing was staring at a blank page on a screen and drinking myself to oblivion. Lost inside myself. Reliving the night she disappeared over and over again, thinking she’d still be there if I had done something differently. It felt like the end of my world, but I soon learned that the rest of the world goes on spinning with or without you.
Abby made me happy. And writing used to make me happy too. It was something I truly loved; I lived to write and I wrote to live. But all of that has changed for me now. Writing is like being beaten to death by your own dream. It began with not being able to write, but these past few months I’ve been so tired I can’t even read. When I try, the words seem to move sideways across the page, like the view out of a fast-moving train. I know I need to rest but I can’t, not until I know what happened to the woman I loved.
I see her everywhere but I thought it was just my tired mind playing tricks on me. After what Midge and Sandy told me tonight about a mystery woman coming to Amberly last year, and the newspaper article slipped beneath the door, I’m not so sure.
What if my wife really was here on this island?
What if she still is?
Unable to switch off the thoughts and fears that are always too loud, I lie awake in the darkness. I long for sleep but it doesn’t find me. I open my eyes and am grateful for the beautiful view at least. The glass doors at the back of the cabin really do bring the outside inside and I am living on the edge in more ways than one. From my bed, I can see the almost full moon reflected in the ocean beneath a star-stained sky. The sound of the sea in the distance, a sound Abby hated, calms me like a watery lullaby.
Until I see a face in the window.