Gone Girl

‘Nick, we are taking this extremely seriously,’ Boney said. ‘The lab guys are over at your place as we speak, and that will give us more information to go on. Right now, the more you can tell us about your wife, the better. What is she like?’

The usual husband phrases came into my mind: She’s sweet, she’s great, she’s nice, she’s supportive.

‘What is she like how?’ I asked.

‘Give me an idea of her personality,’ Boney prompted. ‘Like, what did you get her for your a

‘I hadn’t gotten anything quite yet,’ I said. ‘I was going to do it this afternoon.’ I waited for her to laugh and say ‘baby of the family’ again, but she didn’t.

‘Okay. Well, then, tell me about her. Is she outgoing? Is she – I don’t know how to say this – is she New Yorky? Like what might come off to some as rude? Might rub people the wrong way?’

‘I don’t know. She’s not a never-met-a-stranger kind of person, but she’s not – not abrasive enough to make someone … hurt her.’

This was my eleventh lie. The Amy of today was abrasive enough to want to hurt, sometimes. I speak specifically of the Amy of today, who was only remotely like the woman I fell in love with. It had been an awful fairy-tale reverse transformation. Over just a few years, the old Amy, the girl of the big laugh and the easy ways, literally shed herself, a pile of skin and soul on the floor, and out stepped this new, brittle, bitter Amy. My wife was no longer my wife but a razor-wire knot daring me to unloop her, and I was not up to the job with my thick, numb, nervous fingers. Country fingers. Flyover fingers untrained in the intricate, dangerous work of solving Amy. When I’d hold up the bloody stumps, she’d sigh and turn to her secret mental notebook on which she tallied all my deficiencies, forever noting disappointments, frailties, shortcomings. My old Amy, damn, she was fun. She was fu

She was not the thing she became, the thing I feared most: an angry woman. I was not good with angry women. They brought something out in me that was unsavory.

‘She bossy?’ Gilpin asked. ‘Take-charge?’

I thought of Amy’s calendar, the one that went three years into the future, and if you looked a year ahead, you would actually find appointments: dermatologist, dentist, vet. ‘She’s a pla

‘That can drive you crazy,’ Boney said sympathetically. ‘If you’re not that type. You seem very B-personality.’

‘I’m a little more laid-back, I guess,’ I said. Then I added the part I was supposed to add: ‘We round each other out.’

I looked at the clock on the wall, and Boney touched my hand.

‘Hey, why don’t you go ahead and give a call to Amy’s parents? I’m sure they’d appreciate it.’

It was past midnight. Amy’s parents went to sleep at nine p.m.; they were strangely boastful about this early bedtime. They’d be deep asleep by now, so this would be an urgent middle-of-the-night call. Cells went off at 8:45 always, so Rand Elliott would have to walk from his bed all the way to the end of the hall to pick up the old heavy phone; he’d be fumbling with his glasses, fussy with the table lamp. He’d be telling himself all the reasons not to worry about a late-night phone call, all the harmless reasons the phone might be ringing.

I dialed twice and hung up before I let the call ring through. When I did, it was Marybeth, not Rand, who answered, her deep voice buzzing my ears. I’d only gotten to ‘Marybeth, this is Nick’ when I lost it.

‘What is it, Nick?’

I took a breath.

‘Is it Amy? Tell me.’

‘I uh – I’m sorry I should have called—’

‘Tell me, goddamn it!’

‘We c-can’t find Amy,’ I stuttered.

‘You can’t find Amy?’

‘I don’t know—’

‘Amy is missing?’

‘We don’t know that for sure, we’re still—’

‘Since when?’

‘We’re not sure. I left this morning, a little after seven—’

‘And you waited till now to call us?’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t want to—’

‘Jesus Christ. We played te

‘I’m at the station right now.’

‘Put on whoever’s in charge, Nick. Please.’

Like a kid, I went to fetch Gilpin. My mommy-in-law wants to talk to you.

Phoning the Elliotts made it official. The emergency – Amy is gone – was spreading to the outside.

I was heading back to the interview room when I heard my father’s voice. Sometimes, in particularly shameful moments, I heard his voice in my head. But this was my father’s voice, here. His words emerged in wet bubbles like something from a rancid bog. Bitch bitch bitch. My father, out of his mind, had taken to flinging the word at any woman who even vaguely a

‘What’s going on?’ I asked her. ‘This is my father.’

‘You got our call?’

‘What call?’

‘To come get your father.’ She overenunciated, as if I were a dim ten-year-old.

‘I – My wife is missing. I’ve been here most of the night.’

She stared at me, not co

‘Sir, Comfort Hill has been trying to contact you all day. Your father wandered out a fire exit early this morning. He’s got a few scratches and scrapes, as you can see, but no damage. We picked him up a few hours ago, walking down River Road, disoriented. We’ve been trying to reach you.’

‘I’ve been right here,’ I said. ‘Right goddamn next door, how did no one put this together?’

Bitch bitch bitch, said my dad.

‘Sir, please don’t take that tone with me.’

Bitch bitch bitch.

Boney ordered an officer – male – to drive my dad back to the home so I could finish up with them. We stood on the stairs outside the police station, watched him get settled into the car, still muttering. The entire time he never registered my presence. When they drove off, he didn’t even look back.

‘You guys not close?’ she asked.

‘We are the definition of not close.’

The police finished with their questions and hustled me into a squad car at about two a.m. with advice to get a good night’s sleep and return at eleven a.m. for a 12-noon press conference.

I didn’t ask if I could go home. I had them take me to Go’s, because I knew she’d stay up and have a drink with me, fix me a sandwich. It was, pathetically, all I wanted right then: a woman to fix me a sandwich and not ask me any questions.

‘You don’t want to go look for her?’ Go offered as I ate. ‘We can drive around.’

‘That seems pointless,’ I said dully. ‘Where do I look?’

‘Nick, this is really fucking serious.’

‘I know, Go.’

‘Act like it, okay, Lance? Don’t fucking myuhmyuhmyuh.’ It was a thick-tongued noise, the noise she always made to convey my indecisiveness, accompanied by a dazed rolling of the eyes and the dusting off of my legal first name. No one who has my face needs to be called Lance. She handed me a tumbler of Scotch. ‘And drink this, but only this. You don’t want to be hungover tomorrow. Where the fuck could she be? God, I feel sick to my stomach.’ She poured herself a glass, gulped, then tried to sip, pacing around the kitchen. ‘Aren’t you worried, Nick? That some guy, like, saw her on the street and just, just decided to take her? Hit her on the head and—’