Never Saw It Coming

Six

They both worked at the Home Depot, Wendell in plumbing most days, unless they were shorthanded in some other department, and Laci over in home lighting fixtures. They’d had coffee breaks together, talked about their families, the joys and-mostly-heartaches of raising kids. She had two boys aged fifteen and seventeen who did nothing but fight with one another. Laci confessed once, only half jokingly, that she wished they’d have one final no-holds-barred battle and kill each other.

Wendell laughed. He said he knew exactly how she felt.

He always found reasons to stroll through the lighting section.

Laci often seemed to be passing through the plumbing department.

It started with friendly teasing, then double entendres. When Laci wandered by, she’d narrow her eyes and say she needed help with her plumbing. When Garfield was over in light fixtures, he’d bump into Laci on purpose and say he wondered if she could help him keep his light switch in the up position.

All in fun, of course. Totally innocent. After all, they were both, from all indications, happily married. Wendell and Ellie had been together for twenty-one years. Laci and Trevor, an assistant bank manager in Bridgeport, had just celebrated their twenty-third anniversary. They’d caught the train into New York, checked into the Hyatt by Grand Central, and taken in Priscilla Queen of the Desert, which Trevor, to his amazement, absolutely loved, even though he was not what you’d call a big fan of the drag queen community. It would have been a perfect getaway, except for when Laci took a beer from the minibar, and Trevor had a fit, telling her they could have gone to the closest grocery store and bought a six-pack for what that one beer was going to cost them. He wasn’t going to mention it when they checked out, see if they figured it out later and charged it to his Visa.

Which they did.

One day at work Wendell had been asked to assemble, for display purposes, a vinyl-sided utility shed. He was inside the nearly finished structure, tightening up some bolts to make sure the thing wouldn’t fall down in the wind, when Laci Harmon stepped inside, slid the door shut behind her, and placed his right hand on her left breast.

“Feel my nipple,” she whispered. “Feel how hard it is.”

Wendell had been touching the same two nipples for all of those last twenty-one years, although not quite as often as he once did, so feeling an unfamiliar one, even through Laci’s blouse, was an electrifying experience. He thought he’d explode right then, and probably would have if he hadn’t received a call on his employee radio that someone needed help picking out a leaf blower.

They agreed to rendezvous that night at a Day’s Inn. It was a Thursday, which meant Ellie would be out doing the weekly shopping, and Wendell wouldn’t have to make some excuse about why he was leaving the house. But they’d have to be quick. Ellie was never gone more than two hours.

Turned out all they really needed was about ninety seconds.

“You’re just nervous,” Laci told him. “You’ve never done anything like this before.”

“Have you?” Wendell asked.

Laci was horrified by the question. “Of course not.” She pointed out that she was not that kind of girl.

Except now she kind of was.

They managed to meet once or twice a week. Not always at the Day’s Inn, because it was expensive to have to rent a room every time. Sometimes they did it in Laci’s Honda minivan. One time, they tried it in the backseat of Wendell’s Buick, but he concluded that you’re not quite as limber in your forties as you were in your teens, so they opted for Laci’s van, which had seats that folded right down into the floor.

Handy.

The first few times, Wendell felt consumed with guilt. But the more Ellie went on and on about their daughter, the more he told himself that he had been driven to this. It wasn’t his fault. It was survival. It was the only way he could cope.

Maybe, once the baby was born, and things with Melissa had settled down, he’d end it with Laci.

That was what he told himself. There were times when he even believed it.

A few minutes after he’d finished talking with the police, the phone rang. He thought maybe it was Detective Wedmore calling, but when he saw the call display, he swore under his breath. What the hell was she doing, phoning him at home? Did the woman have no sense?

“Hello?”

“Oh, Wen, I just had to get in touch.”

“Laci, this isn’t a good time.”

“But I can’t stop thinking about you, about what you must be going through,” she said. She wasn’t whispering, which told Garfield that she was alone in her house.

“Where’s Trevor and the boys?” he asked her.

“He took the boys to Schenectady for a long weekend to see his parents,” Laci said. “They’ll be back later today. I’m just heading out the door to work. Wendell, you have to talk to me.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Have they found out anything? Do the police know what happened? I watched it on TV. I watched it at six, and I watched it again at eleven. It was very moving. You were very good, if you know what I mean. You held it together really well. I think, if anyone knew anything, if they knew anything at all, they’d call if they saw that.”

“I just got off the phone with the police,” Garfield said. “They haven’t received any good tips.”

“I feel… I feel so… It’s hard to explain,” Laci said. “I feel sort of guilty, you know? Because of what we’ve been doing, behind her back.”

“Those things don’t have anything to do with each other.”

“I’m sure that’s true, but I keep thinking, what if someone finds out? What if someone finds out what’s going on between us, and they think it has something to do with what’s happened to Ellie? And if, God forbid, something actually did happen to Ellie, then how is it going to look if-”

“Laci, please, don’t go there,” he said. “Maybe she just decided to go away for a while, clear her head.”

“Is that what you think?”

“I don’t know what to think. But I suppose it’s a possibility. I mean, they haven’t found her car or anything. If something had happened to her around here, you’d think they’d have at least found her car.”

“So you think she just decided to drive away? Like, to Florida or something?”

“Laci, I don’t know, okay? I don’t have any goddamn idea.”

His tone stopped Laci for a second. “You don’t have to get angry with me.”

“I’m going through a lot right now. I’m just trying to keep it together.”

“How’s Melissa coping?”

“Not well.”

“What about that man who got her pregnant? Is he still in the picture? Can he be there for Melissa at a time like this?”

“She says she doesn’t want anything to do with him. Honestly, I don’t think it would make things any easier for me if he was around right now.”

“I was just-oh my God, I just thought of something,” she said.

“What?”

“They’re not tapping your phone, are they? They’re not listening in?”

He felt a chill run down his spine. Could they be? He could kick himself. It hadn’t even occurred to him until she mentioned it. He’d been doing such a good job, being the distraught husband, he hadn’t thought there was any reason for the police to be bugging his phone. Sure, he knew the cops would probably be looking at him sooner or later, but he didn’t believe he’d given any indication that he was in any way responsible for his wife’s disappearance.

“I mean, if they hear us, and know we’ve been seeing each other, then-”

“Hang up, Laci,” he said.

“-then they might think that you had something to do with it, you know, so that you could spend your life with me and-”

He slammed down the phone. If the police had been listening, the damage was done. They’d know he’d been having an affair. They’d know he and Laci had been seeing each other for weeks now.

Not good, not good at all.

Laci’s call left Garfield rattled. He tried to tell himself he was going to get through this. He had to keep his wits about him. Even if the police found out he’d been sleeping with Laci, it didn’t have to mean he’d had anything to do with this business about his wife.

They hadn’t found a body. Or her car.

And he was as sure as he could be that they never would.

Pull yourself together, he told himself.

The doorbell rang.

Jesus, he thought. They really were listening to his phone, and now they wanted to question him about Laci, about whether he’d killed his wife to be with this other woman.

He took a couple of deep breaths, composed himself, and strode through the living room to the front door. He pulled the curtain back first, to see who it was.

It was a woman.

A woman with green parrot earrings.