Benny Abbott - Day Three
Benny Abbott
Day Three
The temperature in interview room three is alternately too hot or too cold. Presently, the air conditioner blasts, but soon it will shut off, and the outdoor heat will seep through the soundproof walls like odorless poison.
So far, all I’ve learned is that Xander was found dead beside his MG deep in Angeles National Forest. At some point on Tuesday night he drove off a curve and crashed in a location not visible from the road.
A hiker discovered him this afternoon. I receive this information with rising dread.
“What about Joy? Was she in the car with him?”
“That’s still unclear.”
“What if she’s injured? What if she’s lost in the forest or, or—”
“We’re not ruling it out.” Her tone is not kind but not unkind either. “We have a team searching the area right now.”
I take this in, blood throbbing in my ears.
Somehow this doesn’t make me feel better.
The A/C goes off, stilling the air. “Her neighbor—Emil? You talked to him, right? He said something last night…” I pause.
Was that last night? I rub my eyes. Blink them into focus.
“About the MG. He was worried—because it’s an old roadster—he was worried it might’ve had some issues. Is that what happened?”
She makes a note of this, and then studies me. “Let me ask you a question. How many fire extinguishers do you own?”
“I guess…” I blink again, unsure where she’s going with this. “I guess … two.”
“You guess?”
“Two,” I say more definitively. “I had one, and then I bought another when I realized my dog liked to chew on electrical cords. Why?”
“And Joy and Xander?” she asks, ignoring my question. “Any idea how many they have?”
“There’s one in the office downstairs…” I trail off. “Does this have something to do with the accident? Was there a fire?”
Keller glances at baby-face Price, who sits cross-armed in a squeaky chair at the end of the laminate table.
The silence stretches, and the details sink in—Xander was found beside the MG.
In the forest. Not visible from the road.
There is, I realize, a very important piece of information they’ve been leaving out. “How exactly,” I ask, “did Xander die?”
“We’re still waiting on results from the coroner,” Keller says.
“Are you saying—are you saying he might have been murdered?”
“Again, we’re waiting on results from the coroner.”
Far as I’m concerned, that’s a yes.
I know my feelings should be more complicated, but after what I’ve learned, the thought of Xander dying at someone else’s hands doesn’t exactly hurt.
And yet, almost as quickly as this heartless thought passes through my mind, several others press forward to take its place: Whose hands?
What happened to Joy? Why hasn’t she been found?
Keller is watching me. She puckers her wrinkled lips and leans in. “You’ve admitted you and Xander weren’t close. But you have the key to their house, the code to their security system, and basically free run of the place.”
“All because of work,” I say quickly.
Keller’s eyes flash.
It’s hot again. I rub my sweating palms on my thighs.
“You mentioned something on the phone,” she says. “About Joy’s memoir? Do you have it with you?”
I try not to show my disappointment. I’m starting to worry my hasty admission was a mistake. While there are a lot of incriminating details about Joy’s marriage, there are also several passages about me I’d rather keep private.
But there’s no going back now. I pull the thumb drive from my pocket and hand it over.
THEY TELL ME I don’t have to stay. “You’re not under arrest,” Price says with a disturbing pair of air quotes, adding they’ll likely call me right back in for more questions after they finish reading.
So I wait, heart fluttering and skin whirring with impatience.
I want to be out searching. We should all be out searching.
An hour in, another officer brings me a coffee. I ask how much longer it will be, and he shrugs. “Just got here.”
I slink down into my chair. The coffee is hot and weak.
I’m not thirsty, but I finish it anyway.
Keller could’ve skimmed Joy’s pages at least twice by now.
Tearing the waxy paper cup into tiny pieces, I review what I’ve learned over the past twenty-four hours.
Mallory’s documented duplicity. Quinn’s odd behavior at the search party.
Did they or did they not know what Xander was doing to Joy behind closed doors?
Because if they did … And then Ted. I want to punch a hole through this boring cream wall knowing Joy was this close to telling me everything when he stepped in with his stupid camera.
If it weren’t for Ted, the truth would’ve come out sooner, and I would’ve taken Joy far, far away from Xander, and we would’ve cut him out of our lives, and our business, and Joy would not be missing today.
I’m burning up when Keller and Price return.
“Care to explain what your face is doing?”
I shake my head, flames cooling as Keller slaps a stack of papers onto the table. Joy’s memoir. They both take their seats.
“All right,” Keller says. “We had a chance to speak with Mallory while you were waiting.”
“She’s here?”
“Of course she is. Her brother is dead.” Keller opens her notebook. “Let’s return to your whereabouts on Tuesday night.”
My gaze darts back and forth between them. “I’ve told you multiple times,” I say, indignance masking a rush of alarm. “I slept at my place. Alone.”
“Before that. You said you were at Joy’s house for thirty minutes. What exactly did you do while you were there? Walk us through it.”
Keller makes it sound so devious, this question. I haven’t been actively lying about it. It simply hasn’t come up. I swallow. “We started recording an episode.”
“Just the two of you?”
I search their eyes. They know. I know they know. But how? The file disappeared. Mallory and I looked in every folder, every— “Mallory found it, didn’t she?”
Keller’s lips form a smug line as she reaches for her phone. A few seconds later, Joy’s voice fills the room. “I’m not sure how to do this, so I’m just going to say it.” It hits me like a sock to the stomach, and for a moment I can’t breathe.
Keller presses pause. I rub my palms on my shorts and close my eyes.
Joy’s voice returns. “I can’t.”
The room falls silent. I open my eyes. Keller is watching me. “Why was Joy leaving Xander, Benny?”
“It says everything in her memoir.”
Keller puts on an exaggeratedly grave expression and presses play again.
“Luna divorced me because she knew I could never love her enough,” my voice says.
“But why?”
“Because she knows I’m in love with you.”
I feel sick. “You took that out of context.”
Keller offers a skeptical sniff.
“It’s no secret we love each other,” I say. “We’ve been best friends for years.”
“What I heard just now doesn’t sound like platonic love.” Her voice has a serrated edge to it.
“Out of context,” I repeat.
“What about this? Is this out of context?” I know what’s coming and I can’t do anything to stop it.
“What did he do to you?” My voice is a shotgun of emotion. “What did he do? If he hurt you, I swear to god I’ll kill him.”
My ears ring. I grip my seat, trying to calm myself before asking, “Is that all? Can I leave now?”
“You’re not under arrest,” Price says again. No air quotes this time.
I push out my chair and stand.
“Before you go, one more question,” Keller says.
My feet stop even as my brain tells me to keep moving.
“Does Joy love you back? As much as you love her?”
I take one last look at the memoir on the table, then slam the door behind me.