flynn_gillian_gone_girl (1) (858987), страница 55
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She bought all that crap in there. Amy found out, there was aconfrontation, Go killed Amy.”“Then we get way, way ahead of all this,” I said. “We tell them about the woodshed,and we tell them Amy is framing me.”“I think that is a bad idea in general, and right now it’s a really bad idea if we don’thave Andie on our side, because we’d have to tell them about Andie.”“Why?”“Because if we go to the cops with your story, that Amy framed you—”“Why do you keep saying my story, like it’s something I made up?”“Ha.
Good point. If we explain to the cops how Amy is framing you, we have toexplain why she is framing you. Why: because she found out you have a very pretty,very young girlfriend on the side.”“Do we really have to tell them that?” I asked.“Amy framed you for her murder because … she was … what, bored?”I swallowed my lips.“We have to give them Amy’s motive, it doesn’t work otherwise. But the problem is, ifwe set Andie, gift-wrapped, on their doorstep, and they don’t buy the frame-up theory,then we’ve given them your motive for murder.
Money problems, check. Pregnant wife,check. Girlfriend, check. It’s a murderer’s triumvirate. You’ll go down. Women will lineup to tear you apart with their ngernails.” He began pacing. “But if we don’t doanything, and Andie goes to them on her own …”“So what do we do?” I asked.“I think the cops will laugh us out of the station if we say right now that Amy framedyou.
It’s too flimsy. I believe you, but it’s flimsy.”“But the treasure hunt clues—” I started.“Nick, even I don’t understand those clues,” Go said. “They’re all inside baseballbetween you and Amy. There’s only your word that they’re leading youinto … incriminating situations. I mean, seriously: crummy jeans and visor equalsHannibal?”“Little brown house equals your dad’s house, which is blue,” Tanner added.I could feel Tanner’s doubt. I needed to really show him Amy’s character. Her lies,her vindictiveness, her score-settling.
I needed other people to back me up—that mywife wasn’t Amazing Amy but Avenging Amy.“Let’s see if we can reach out to Andie today,” Tanner finally said.“Isn’t it a risk to wait?” Go asked.Tanner nodded. “It’s a risk. We have to move fast. If another bit of evidence pops up,if the police get a search warrant for the woodshed, if Andie goes to the cops—”“She won’t,” I said.“She bit you, Nick.”“She won’t.
She’s pissed o right now, but she’s … I can’t believe she’d do that to me.She knows I’m innocent.”“Nick, you said you were with Andie for about an hour the morning Amydisappeared, yes?”“Yes. From about ten-thirty to right before twelve.”“So where were you between seven-thirty and ten?” Tanner asked. “You said you leftthe house at seven-thirty, right? Where did you go?”I chewed on my cheek.“Where did you go, Nick—I need to know.”“It’s not relevant.”“Nick!” Go snapped.“I just did what I do some mornings. I pretended to leave, then I drove to the mostdeserted part of our complex, and I … one of the houses there has an unlocked garage.”“And?” Tanner said.“And I read magazines.”“Excuse me?”“I read back issues of my old magazine.”I still missed my magazine—I hid copies like porn and read them in secret, because Ididn’t want anyone feeling sorry for me.I looked up, and both Tanner and Go felt very, very sorry for me.I drove back to my house just after noon, was greeted by a street full of news vans,reporters camped out on my lawn.
I couldn’t get into my driveway, was forced to parkin front of the house. I took a breath, then ung myself out of the car. They set on melike starving birds, pecking and uttering, breaking formation and gathering again.Nick, did you know Amy was pregnant? Nick, what is your alibi? Nick, did you kill Amy?I made it inside, locked myself in.
On each side of the door were windows, so Ibraved it and quickly pulled down the shades, all the while cameras clicking at me,questions called. Nick, did you kill Amy? Once the shades were pulled, it was likecovering a canary for the night: The noise out front stopped.I went upstairs and satis ed my shower craving. I closed my eyes and let the spraydissolve the dirt from my dad’s house. When I opened them back up, the rst thing I sawwas Amy’s pink razor on the soap dish. It felt ominous, malevolent. My wife was crazy.I was married to a crazy woman.
It’s every asshole’s mantra: I married a psycho bitch. ButI got a small, nasty bite of grati cation: I really did marry a genuine, bona de psychobitch. Nick, meet your wife: the world’s foremost mindfucker. I was not as big an asshole asI’d thought. An asshole, yes, but not on a grandiose scale. The cheating, that had beenpreemptive, a subconscious reaction to ve years yoked to a madwoman: Of course I’dnd myself attracted to an uncomplicated, good-natured hometown girl. It’s like whenpeople with iron deficiencies crave red meat.I was toweling o when the doorbell rang.
I leaned out the bathroom door and heardthe reporters’ voices geared up again: Do you believe your son-in-law, Marybeth? Whatdoes it feel like to know you’ll be a grandpa, Rand? Do you think Nick killed your daughter,Marybeth?They stood side by side on my front step, grim-faced, their backs rigid.
There wereabout a dozen journalists, paparazzi, but they made the noise of twice that many. Doyou believe your son-in-law, Marybeth? What does it feel like to know you’ll be a grandpa,Rand? The Elliotts entered with mumbled hellos and downcast eyes, and I slammed thedoor shut on the cameras. Rand put a hand on my arm and immediately removed itunder Marybeth’s gaze.“Sorry, I was in the shower.” My hair was still dripping, wetting the shoulders of myT-shirt.
Marybeth’s hair was greasy, her clothes wilted. She looked at me like I wasinsane.“Tanner Bolt? Are you serious?” she asked.“What do you mean?”“I mean, Nick: Tanner Bolt, are you serious. He only represents guilty people.” Sheleaned in closer, grabbed my chin. “What’s on your cheek?”“Hives. Stress.” I turned away from her. “That’s not true about Tanner, Marybeth.
It’snot. He’s the best in the business. I need him right now. The police—all they’re doing islooking at me.”“That certainly seems to be the case,” she said. “It looks like a bite mark.”“It’s hives.”Marybeth released an aggravated sigh, turned the corner into the living room. “Thisis where it happened?” she asked. Her face had collapsed into a series of eshy ridges—eye bags and saggy cheeks, her lips downcast.“We think. Some sort of … altercation, confrontation, also happened in the kitchen.”“Because of the blood.” Marybeth touched the ottoman, tested it, lifted it a fewinches, and let it drop. “I wish you hadn’t xed everything.
You made it look likenothing ever happened.”“Marybeth, he has to live here,” Rand said.“I still don’t understand how—I mean, what if the police didn’t find everything? Whatif … I don’t know. It seems like they gave up. If they just let the house go. Open toanyone.”“I’m sure they got everything,” Rand said, and squeezed her hand. “Why don’t we askif we can look at Amy’s things so you can pick something special, okay?” He glanced atme. “Would that be all right, Nick? It’d be a comfort to have something of hers.” Heturned back to his wife.
“That blue sweater Nana knitted for her.”“I don’t want the goddamn blue sweater, Rand!”She ung his hand o , began pacing around the room, picking up items. She pushedthe ottoman with a toe. “This is the ottoman, Nick?” she asked. “The one they said wasflipped over but it shouldn’t have been?”“That’s the ottoman.”She stopped pacing, kicked it again, and watched it remain upright.“Marybeth, I’m sure Nick is exhausted”—Rand glanced at me with a meaningful smile—“like we all are. I think we should do what we came here for and—”“This is what I came here for, Rand. Not some stupid sweater of Amy’s to snuggle upagainst like I’m three. I want my daughter. I don’t want her stu . Her stu meansnothing to me.
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