Rating: ★★★★☆ Tags: Mystery Detective, General, Fiction

Her plan
had become immediate shorthand for 
faking
her disappearance and framing you for murder
. It sounded
less insane.
‘Keep me distracted, for one thing. Make me believe
she still loved me. I’m chasing her little clues all over
Christendom, believing my wife was wanting to make
amends, wanting to jump-start our marriage …’
The moony, girlish state her notes had left me in, it
sickened 
me. 
It 
embarrassed 
me. 
Marrow-deep
embarrassment, the kind that becomes part of your DNA,

---

that changes you. After all these years, Amy could still play
me. She could write a few notes and get me back
completely. I was her little puppet on a string.
I will find you, Amy
. Lovesick words, hateful intentions.
‘So I don’t stop to think: 
Hey, it sure looks like I
murdered my wife, I wonder why?
’
‘And the police would have found it strange – you
would have found it strange – if she didn’t do the treasure
hunt, this tradition,’ Go reasoned. ‘It would look as if she
knew she was going to disappear.’
‘This worries me though,’ I said, pointing at the
puppets. ‘They’re unusual enough that they have to mean
something. I mean, if she just wanted to keep me distracted
for a while, the final gift could have been anything wooden.’
Go ran a finger across the male’s motley uniform.
‘They’re clearly very old. Vintage.’ She flipped their clothing
upside down to reveal the club handle of the male. The
female had only a square-shaped gap at her head. ‘Is this
supposed to be sexual? The male has this giant wooden
handle, like a dick. And the female is missing hers. She just
has the hole.’
‘It’s a fairly obvious statement: Men have penises and
women have vaginas?’
Go put a finger inside the female puppet’s gap, swept
around to make sure there was nothing hidden. ‘So what is
Amy saying?’
‘When I first saw them, I thought: 
She bought children’s
toys
. Mom, dad, baby. Because she was pregnant.’
‘Is she even pregnant?’
A sense of despair washed over me. Or rather, the
opposite. Not a wave coming in, rolling over me, but the

---

ebb of the sea returning: a sense of something pulling
away, and me with it. I could no longer hope my wife was
pregnant, but I couldn’t bring myself to hope she wasn’t
either.
Go pulled out the male doll, scrunched her nose, then
lightbulb popped. ‘You’re a puppet on a string.’
I laughed. ‘I literally thought those exact words too. But
why a male and female? Amy clearly isn’t a puppet on a
string, she’s the puppetmaster.’
‘And what’s: 
That’s the way to do it
? To do 
what
?’
‘Fuck me for life?’
‘It’s not a phrase Amy used to say? Or some quote
from the 
Amy
books, or …’ She hurried over to her
computer and searched for 
That’s the way to do it
. Up
came lyrics for ‘That’s the Way to Do It’ by Madness. ‘Oh, I
remember them,’ Go said. ‘Awesome ska band.’
‘Ska,’ I said, swerving toward delirious laughter.
‘Great.’
The lyrics were about a handyman who could do many
types of home-improvement jobs – including electrical and
plumbing – and who preferred to be paid in cash.
‘God, I fucking hate the eighties,’ I said. ‘No lyrics ever
made sense.’
‘“The reflex is an only child,”’ Go said, nodding.
‘“He’s waiting by the park,”’ I muttered back
automatically.
‘So if this is it, what does it mean?’ Go said, turning to
me, studying my eyes. ‘It’s a song about a handyman.
Someone who might have access to your house, to fix
things. Or 
rig
things. Who would be paid in cash so there’s
no record.’

---

‘Someone who installed video cameras?’ I asked.
‘Amy went out of town a few times during the – the affair.
Maybe she thought she’d catch us on tape.’
Go shot a question at me.
‘No, never, never at our house.’
‘Could it be some secret door?’ Go suggested. ‘Some
secret false panel Amy put in where she’s hidden
something that will … I don’t know, exonerate you?’
‘I think that’s it. Yes, Amy is using a Madness song to
give me a clue to my own freedom, if only I can decipher
their wily, ska-infused codes.’
Go laughed then too. ‘Jesus, maybe we’re the ones
who are bat-shit crazy. I mean, are we? Is this totally
insane?’
‘It’s not insane. She set me up. There is no other way
to explain the 
warehouse
of stuff in 
your
backyard. And it’s
very Amy to drag you into it, smudge you a little bit with my
filth. No, this is Amy. The gift, the fucking giddy, sly note I’m
supposed to understand. No, and it has to come back to
the puppets. Try the quote with the word 
marionettes
.’
I collapsed on the couch, my body a dull throb. Go
played secretary. ‘Oh my God. Duh! They’re Punch and
Judy dolls. Nick! We’re idiots. That line, that’s Punch’s
trademark. 
That’s the way to do it
!’
‘Okay. The old puppet show – it’s really violent, right?’ I
asked.
‘This is so fucked up.’
‘Go, it’s violent, right?’
‘Yeah. Violent. God, she’s fucking crazy.’
‘He beats her, right?’
‘I’m reading … okay. Punch kills their baby.’ She

---

looked up at me. ‘And then when Judy confronts him, he
beats her. To death.’
My throat got wet with saliva.
‘And each time he does something awful and gets
away with it, he says, “That’s the way to do it!”’ She
grabbed Punch and placed him in her lap, her fingers
grasping the wooden hands as if she were holding an
infant. ‘He’s glib, even as he murders his wife and child.’
I looked at the puppets. ‘So she’s giving me the
narrative of my frame-up.’
‘I can’t even wrap my brain around this. Fucking
psycho
.’
‘Go?’
‘Yeah, right: You didn’t want her to be pregnant, you
got angry and killed her and the unborn baby.’
‘Feels anticlimactic somehow,’ I said.
‘The climax is when you are taught the lesson that
Punch never learns, and you are caught and charged with
murder.’
‘And Missouri has the death penalty,’ I said. ‘Fun
game.’

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