Gone Girl

It is our one-year a

Whenever my sweet hubby gets a cold

It is this dish that will soon be sold.

Answer: the torn yum soup from Thai Town on President Street. The manager will be there this afternoon with a taster bowl and the next clue.

Also McMa

I had suggested we get burgers. Nick wanted us to go out – fivestar, fancy – somewhere with a clockwork of courses and name-dropping waiters. So the lobsters are a perfect in-between, the lobsters are what everyone tells us (and tells us and tells us) that marriage is about: compromise!

We’ll eat lobster with butter and have sex on the floor while a woman on one of our old jazz records sings to us in her far-side-of-the-tu

Then maybe we’ll have sex again. And a late-night burger. And more Scotch. Voilà: happiest couple on the block! And they say marriage is such hard work.

NICK DUNNE

THE NIGHT OF

Boney and Gilpin moved our interview to the police station, which looks like a failing community bank. They left me alone in a little room for forty minutes, me willing myself not to move. To pretend to be calm is to be calm, in a way. I slouched over the table, put my chin on my arm. Waited.

‘Do you want to call Amy’s parents?’ Boney had asked.

‘I don’t want to panic them,’ I said. ‘If we don’t hear from her in an hour, I’ll call.’

We’d done three rounds of that conversation.

Finally, the cops came in and sat at the table across from me. I fought the urge to laugh at how much it felt like a TV show. This was the same room I’d seen surfing through late-night cable for the past ten years, and the two cops – weary, intense – acted like the stars. Totally fake. Epcot Police Station. Boney was even holding a paper coffee cup and a manila folder that looked like a prop. Cop prop. I felt giddy, felt for a moment we were all pretend people: Let’s play the Missing Wife game!

‘You okay there, Nick?’ Boney asked.

‘I’m okay, why?’

‘You’re smiling.’

The giddiness slid to the tiled floor. ‘I’m sorry, it’s all just—’

‘I know,’ Boney said, giving me a look that was like a hand pat. ‘It’s too strange, I know.’ She cleared her throat. ‘First of all, we want to make sure you’re comfortable here. You need anything, just let us know. The more information you can give us right now, the better, but you can leave at any time, that’s not a problem, either.’

‘Whatever you need.’

‘Okay, great, thank you,’ she said. ‘Um, okay. I want to get the a

‘Right.’

‘So we have to rule you out real quick, real easy. So the guy can’t come back and say we didn’t rule you out, you know what I mean?’

I nodded mechanically. I didn’t really know what she meant, but I wanted to seem as cooperative as possible. ‘Whatever you need.’

‘We don’t want to freak you out,’ Gilpin added. ‘We just want to cover all the bases.’

‘Fine by me.’ It’s always the husband, I thought. Everyone knows it’s always the husband, so why can’t they just say it: We suspect you because you are the husband, and it’s always the husband. Just watch Dateline.

‘Okay, great, Nick,’ Boney said. ‘First let’s get a swab of the inside of your cheek so we can rule out all of the DNA in the house that isn’t yours. Would that be okay?’

‘Sure.’

‘I’d also like to take a quick sweep of your hands for gun shot residue. Again, just in case—’

‘Wait, wait, wait. Have you found something that makes you think my wife was—’

‘Nonono, Nick,’ Gilpin interrupted. He pulled a chair up to the table and sat on it backward. I wondered if cops actually did that. Or did some clever actor do that, and then cops began doing it because they’d seen the actors playing cops do that and it looked cool?

‘It’s just smart protocol,’ Gilpin continued. ‘We try to cover every base: Check your hands, get a swab, and if we could check out your car too …’

‘Of course. Like I said, whatever you need.’

‘Thank you, Nick. I really appreciate it. Sometimes guys, they make things hard for us just because they can.’

I was exactly the opposite. My father had infused my childhood with unspoken blame; he was the kind of man who skulked around looking for things to be angry at. This had turned Go defensive and extremely unlikely to take unwarranted shit. It had turned me into a knee-jerk suckup to authority. Mom, Dad, teachers: Whatever makes your job easier, sir or madam. I craved a constant stream of approval. ‘You’d literally lie, cheat, and steal – hell, kill – to convince people you are a good guy,’ Go once said. We were in line for knishes at Yonah Schimmel’s, not far from Go’s old New York apartment – that’s how well I remember the moment – and I lost my appetite because it was so completely true and I’d never realized it, and even as she was saying it, I thought: I will never forget this, this is one of those moments that will be lodged in my brain forever.

We made small talk, the cops and I, about the July Fourth fireworks and the weather, while my hands were tested for gunshot residue and the slick inside of my cheek was cotton-tipped. Pretending it was normal, a trip to the dentist.

When it was done, Boney put another cup of coffee in front of me, squeezed my shoulder. ‘I’m sorry about that. Worst part of the job. You think you’re up to a few questions now? It’d really help us.’

‘Yes, definitely, fire away.’

She placed a slim digital tape recorder on the table in front of me. ‘You mind? This way you won’t have to answer the same questions over and over and over …’ She wanted to tape me so I’d be nailed to one story. I should call a lawyer, I thought, but only guilty people need lawyers, so I nodded: No problem.

‘So: Amy,’ Boney said. ‘You two been living here how long?’

‘Just about two years.’

‘And she’s originally from New York. City.’

‘Yes.’

‘She work, got a job?’ Gilpin said.

‘No. She used to write personality quizzes.’

The detectives swapped a look: Quizzes?

‘For teen magazines, women’s magazines,’ I said. ‘You know: “Are you the jealous type? Take our quiz and find out! Do guys find you too intimidating? Take our quiz and find out!”’

‘Very cool, I love those,’ Boney said. ‘I didn’t know that was an actual job. Writing those. Like, a career.’

‘Well, it’s not. Anymore. The Internet is packed with quizzes for free. Amy’s were smarter – she had a master’s in psychology – has a master’s in psychology.’ I guffawed uncomfortably at my gaffe. ‘But smart can’t beat free.’