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

and yet he tossed out my cuckoo
clock
’). The cuckoo was, in fact, soon to pop out, its
grinding windup beginning over my head – a sound that
inevitably made my jaw tense – when the camera crews
outside emitted a loud, collective, oceanic wushing.
Somebody was here. I heard the seagull cries of a few
female news anchors.
Something is wrong
, I thought.
The doorbell rang three times in a row: Nick-nick!
Nick-nick! Nick-nick!
I didn’t hesitate. I had stopped hesitating over the past
month: Bring on the trouble posthaste.
I opened the door.
It was my wife.
Back.
Amy Elliott Dunne stood barefoot on my doorstep in a
thin pink dress that clung to her as if it were wet. Her ankles
were ringed in dark violet. From one limp wrist dangled a
piece of twine. Her hair was short and frayed at the ends,
as if it had been carelessly chopped by dull scissors. Her
face was bruised, her lips swollen. She was sobbing.
When she flung her arms out toward me, I could see
her entire midsection was stained with dried blood. She

---

tried to speak; her mouth opened, once, twice, silent, a
mermaid washed ashore.
‘Nick!’ she finally keened – a wail that echoed against
all the empty houses – and fell into my arms.
I wanted to kill her.
Had we been alone, my hands might have found their
place around her neck, my fingers locating perfect grooves
in her flesh. To feel that strong pulse under my fingers …
but we weren’t alone, we were in front of cameras, and they
were realizing who this strange woman was, they were
coming to life as sure as the cuckoo clock inside, a few
clicks, a few questions, then an avalanche of noise and
light. The cameras were blasting us, the reporters closing in
with microphones, everyone yelling Amy’s name,
screaming, literally screaming. So I did the right thing, I held
her to me and howled her name right back: ‘Amy! My God!
My God! My darling!’ and buried my face in her neck, my
arms wrapped tight around her, and let the cameras get
their fifteen seconds, and I whispered deep inside her ear,
‘You fucking bitch.’ Then I stroked her hair, I cupped her
face in my two loving hands, and I yanked her inside.
Outside our door, a rock concert was demanding its
encore: 
Amy! Amy! Amy!
Someone threw a scattering of
pebbles at our window. 
Amy! Amy! Amy!
My wife took it all as her due, fluttering a dismissive
hand toward the rabble outside. She turned to me with a
worn but triumphant smile – the smile on the rape victim,
the abuse survivor, the bed burner in the old TV movies, the
smile where the bastard has finally received due justice and
we know our heroine will be able to move on with 
life
!

---

Freeze frame.
I gestured to the twine, the hacked hair, the dried
blood. ‘So, what’s your story, wife?’
‘I’m back,’ she whimpered. ‘I made it back to you.’ She
moved to put her arms around me. I moved away.
‘What is your 
story
, Amy?’
‘Desi,’ she whispered, her lower lip trembling. ‘Desi
Collings took me. It was the morning. Of. Of our
anniversary. And the doorbell rang, and I thought … I don’t
know, I thought maybe it was flowers from you.’
I flinched. Of course she’d find a way to work in a
gripe: that I hardly ever sent her flowers, when her dad had
sent her mom flowers each week since they’d been
married. That’s 2,444 bouquets of flowers vs. 4.
‘Flowers or … something,’ she continued. ‘So I didn’t
think, I just flung open the door. And there he stood, Desi,
with this look on his face. Determined. As if he’d been
girding himself up for this all along. And I was holding the
handle … to the Judy puppet. Did you find the puppets?’
She smiled up at me tearily. She looked so sweet.
‘Oh, I found everything you left for me, Amy.’
‘I had just found the handle to the Judy puppet – it had
fallen off – I was holding it when I opened the door, and I
tried to hit him, and we struggled, and he clubbed me with
it. Hard. And the next thing I knew …’
‘You had framed me for murder and disappeared.’
‘I can explain everything, Nick.’
I stared at her a long hard moment. I saw 
days under
the hot sun
stretched across the sand of the beach, her
hand on my chest, and I saw 
family dinners
at her parents’
house, with Rand always refilling my glass and patting me

---

on the shoulder, and I saw us 
sprawled on the rug
in my
crummy New York apartment, talking while staring at the
lazy ceiling fan, and I saw 
mother of my child
and the
stunning life I’d planned for us once. I had a moment that
lasted two beats, 
one, two
, when I wished violently that she
were telling the truth.
‘I actually don’t think you can explain everything,’ I said.
‘But I am going to love watching you try.’
‘Try me now.’
She tried to take my hand, and I flung her off. I walked
away from her, took a breath, and then turned to face her.
My wife must always be faced.
‘Go ahead, Nick. Try me now.’
‘Okay, sure. Why was every clue of the treasure hunt
hidden in a place where I had … relations with Andie?’
She sighed, looked at the floor. Her ankles were raw. ‘I
didn’t even know about Andie until I saw it on TV … while I
was tied to Desi’s bed, hidden away in his lake house.’
‘So that was all … coincidence?’
‘Those were all places that were meaningful to us,’ she
said. A tear slid down her face. ‘Your office, where you
reignited your passion for journalism.’
I snuffed.
‘Hannibal, where I finally understood how much this
area means to you. Your father’s house –confronting the
man who hurt you so much. Your mother’s house, which is
now Go’s house, the two people who made you such a
good man. But … I guess it doesn’t surprise me that you’d
like to share those places with someone you’ – she bowed
her head – ‘had fallen in love with. You always liked
repeats.’

---

‘Why did each of those places end up including clues
that implicated me in your murder? Women’s undies, your
purse, your 
diary
. Explain your 
diary
, Amy, with all the lies.’
She just smiled and shook her head like she was sorry
for me. ‘Everything, I can explain everything,’ she said.
I looked in that sweet tear-stained face. Then I looked
down at all the blood. ‘Amy. Where’s Desi?’
She shook her head again, a sad little smile.
I moved to call the police, but a knock on our door told
me they were already here.

---