flynn_gillian_gone_girl (1) (858987), страница 26
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A lot of good times. So just … forgive me,sweetheart, what I said before. I’m just being a silly old divorced lady. Oh, mother ofpearl, I think I had too much wine.” And she uttered a goodbye at me and scamperedaway through all the other disappointed couples.“You’re not supposed to be here,” Bill Dunne was suddenly saying, and he was sayingit to me.
“Why are you here? You’re not allowed here.”“I’m Amy,” I say, touching his arm as if that might wake him. Bill has always likedme; even if he could think of nothing to say to me, I could tell he liked me, the way hewatched me like I was a rare bird. Now he is scowling, thrusting his chest toward me, acaricature of a young sailor ready to brawl.
A few feet away, Go sets down her food andgets ready to move toward us, quietly, like she is trying to catch a fly.“Why are you in our house?” Bill Dunne says, his mouth grimacing. “You’ve got somenerve, lady.”“Nick?” Go calls behind her, not loudly but urgently.“Got it,” Nick says, appearing. “Hey, Dad, this is my wife, Amy. Remember Amy? Wemoved back home so we could see you more. This is our new house.”Nick glares at me: I was the one who insisted we invite his dad.“All I’m saying, Nick,” Bill Dunne says, pointing now, jabbing an index nger towardmy face, the party going hushed, several men moving slowly, cautiously, in from theother room, their hands twitching, ready to move, “is she doesn’t belong here.
Littlebitch thinks she can do whatever she wants.”Mama Mo swoops in then, her arm around her ex-husband, always, always rising tothe occasion. “Of course she belongs here, Bill. It’s her house. She’s your son’s wife.Remember?”“I want her out of here, do you understand me, Maureen?” He shrugs her o andstarts moving toward me again.
“Dumb bitch. Dumb bitch.”It’s unclear if he means me or Maureen, but then he looks at me and tightens his lips.“She doesn’t belong here.”“I’ll go,” I say, and turn away, walk straight out the door, into the rain. From themouths of Alzheimer’s patients, I think, trying to make light. I walk a loop around theneighborhood, waiting for Nick to appear, to guide me back to our house. The rainspackles me gently, dampening me. I really believe Nick will come after me.
I turntoward the house and see only a closed door.NICK DUNNEFOUR DAYS GONERand and I sat in the vacant Find Amy Dunne headquarters at ve in the morning,drinking co ee while we waited for the cops to check out Lonnie. Amy stared at us fromher poster perch on the wall. Her photo looked distressed.“I just don’t understand why she wouldn’t say something to you if she was afraid,”Rand said. “Why wouldn’t she tell you?”Amy had come to the mall to buy a gun on Valentine’s Day, of all days, that’s whatour friend Lonnie had said.
She was a little abashed, a little nervous: Maybe I’m beingsilly, but … I just really think I need a gun. Mostly, though, she was scared. Someone wasunnerving her, she told Lonnie. She gave no more details, but when he asked her whatkind of gun she wanted, she said: One that stops someone fast. He told her to come backin a few days, and she did.
He hadn’t been able to get her one (“It’s not really my bag,man”), but now he wished he had. He remembered her well; over the months, he’dwondered how she was now and then, this sweet blonde with the fearful face, trying toget a gun on Valentine’s Day.“Who would she be afraid of?” Rand asked.“Tell me about Desi again, Rand,” I said. “Did you ever meet him?”“He came to the house a few times.” Rand frowned, remembering. “He was a nicelooking kid, very solicitous of Amy—treated her like a princess. But I just never likedhim.
Even when things were good with them—young love, Amy’s rst love—even then Idisliked him. He was very rude to me, inexplicably so. Very possessive of Amy, armsaround her at all times. I found it strange, very strange, that he wouldn’t try to be niceto us. Most young men want to get in good with the parents.”“I wanted to.”“And you did!” He smiled. “You were just the right amount of nervous, it was verysweet. Desi wasn’t anything but nasty.”“Desi’s less than an hour out of town.”“True. And Hilary Handy?” Rand said, rubbing his eyes. “I don’t want to be sexisthere—she was scarier than Desi.
Because that Lonnie guy at the mall, he didn’t say Amywas afraid of a man.”“No, he just said she was afraid,” I said. “There is that Noelle Hawthorne girl—theone who lives near us. She told the police she was best friends with Amy when I knowshe wasn’t. They weren’t even friends. Her husband says she’s been in hysterics. That shewas looking at pictures of Amy, crying. At the time I thought they were Internet photos,but … what if they were actual photos she had of Amy? What if she was stalking Amy?”“She tried to talk with me when I was a little busy yesterday,” Rand said.
“She quotedsome Amazing Amy stu at me. Amazing Amy and the Best Friend War, actually. ‘Bestfriends are the people who know us best.’ ”“Sounds like Hilary,” I said. “All grown up.”We met Boney and Gilpin just after seven A.M. at an IHOP out along the highwayfor a showdown: It was ridiculous that we were doing their job for them. It was insanethat we were the ones discovering leads. It was time to call in the FBI if the local copscouldn’t handle it.A plump, amber-eyed waitress took our orders, poured us co ee, and, clearlyrecognizing me, lingered within eavesdropping distance until Gilpin scatted her away.She was like a determined house y, though. Between drink re lls and dispensing ofutensils and the magically quick arrival of our food, our entire harangue came in limpbursts.
This is unacceptable … no more co ee, thanks … it’s unbelievable that … uh, sure, ryeis fine …Before we were done, Boney interrupted. “I understand, guys, it’s natural to want tofeel involved. But what you did was dangerous. You have got to let us handle this kindof thing.”“That’s just it, though, you aren’t handling it,” I said. “You’d never have gotten thisinformation, about the gun, if we didn’t go out there last night. What did Lonnie saywhen you talked to him?”“Same thing you said he said,” Gilpin said.
“Amy wanted to buy a gun, she wasscared.”“You don’t seem that impressed by this information,” I snapped. “Do you think hewas lying?”“We don’t think he was lying,” Boney said. “There’s no reason for the guy to invitepolice attention to himself. He seemed very struck by your wife. Very … I don’t know,rattled that this had happened to her. He remembered speci c details. Nick, he said shewas wearing a green scarf that day. You know, not a winter scarf but a fashionstatement scarf.” She made uttery moves with her ngers to show she thought fashionto be childish, unworthy of her attention. “Emerald green.
Ring a bell?”I nodded. “She has one she wears with blue jeans a lot.”“And a pin on her jacket—a gold cursive A?”“Yes.”Boney shrugged: Well, that settles it.“You don’t think he might have been so struck by her that he … kidnapped her?” Iasked.“He has an alibi. Rock-solid,” Boney said, giving me a pointed look. “To tell the truth,we’ve begun to look for … a different kind of motive.”“Something more … personal,” Gilpin added. He looked dubiously at his pancakes,topped with strawberries and pu s of whipped cream.
He began scraping them to theside of his plate.“More personal,” I said. “So does that mean you’re nally going to talk to DesiCollings, or Hilary Handy? Or do I need to?” I had, in fact, promised Marybeth I’d gotoday.“Sure, we will,” Boney said. She had the placating tone of a girl promising her peskymom to eat better. “We doubt it’s a lead—but we’ll talk to them.”“Well, great, thanks for doing your job, kind of,” I said.
“And what about NoelleHawthorne? If you want someone close to home, she’s right in our complex, and sheseems a little obsessed with Amy.”“I know, she’s called us, and she’s on our list.” Gilpin nodded. “Today.”“Good. What else are you doing?”“Nick, we’d actually like you to make some time for us, let us pick your brain a bitmore,” Boney said.
“Spouses often know more than they realize. We’d like you to think abit more about the argument—that barnburner your neighbor Mrs., uh, Tevereroverheard you and Amy having the night before she went missing.”Rand’s head jerked toward me.Jan Teverer, the Christian casserole lady who wouldn’t meet my eye anymore.“I mean, could it have been because—I know this is hard to hear, Mr. Elliott—becauseAmy was under the in uence of something?” Boney asked. Innocent eyes. “I mean,maybe she has had contact with less savory elements in town.
There are plenty of otherdrug dealers. Maybe she got in over her head, and that’s why she wanted a gun. There’sgot to be a reason she wants a gun for protection and doesn’t tell her husband. AndNick, we’d like you to think harder about where you were between that time—the timeof the argument, about eleven P.M., the last anyone heard Amy’s voice—”“Besides me.”“Besides you—and noon, when you arrived at your bar. If you were out and about inthis town, driving to the beach, hanging around the dock area, someone must have seenyou. Even if it was someone just, you know, walking his dog. If you can help us, I thinkthat would be really …”“Helpful,” Gilpin finished.
He speared a strawberry.They both watched me attentively, congenially. “It’d be super-helpful, Nick,” Gilpinrepeated more pleasantly. First time I’d heard about the argument—that they knewabout it—and they chose to tell me in front of Rand—and they chose to pretend it wasn’ta gotcha.“Sure thing,” I said.“You mind telling us what it was about?” Boney asked. “The argument?”“What did Mrs. Teverer tell you it was about?”“I hate to take her word when I got you right here.” She poured some cream into hercoffee.“It was such a nothing argument,” I began. “That’s why I never mentioned it.
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