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

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.’
‘Then what?’
I shrugged. ‘Then we moved back here. She’s just kind
of staying at home right now.’
‘Oh! You guys got kids, then?’ Boney chirped, as if she
had discovered good news.
‘No.’
‘Oh. So then what does she do most days?’
That was my question too. Amy was once a woman
who did a little of everything, all the time. When we moved
in together, she’d made an intense study of French
cooking, displaying hyper-quick knife skills and an inspired
boeuf bourguignon. For her thirty-fourth birthday, we flew to
Barcelona, and she stunned me by rolling off trills of
conversational Spanish, learned in months of secret
lessons. My wife had a brilliant, popping brain, a greedy
curiosity. But her obsessions tended to be fueled by
competition: She needed to dazzle men and jealous-ify
women: 
Of course Amy can cook French cuisine and
speak fluent Spanish and garden and knit and run
marathons and day-trade stocks and fly a plane and look
like a runway model doing it
. She needed to be Amazing
Amy, all the time. Here in Missouri, the women shop at
Target, they make diligent, comforting meals, they laugh
about how little high school Spanish they remember.
Competition doesn’t interest them. Amy’s relentless
achieving is greeted with open-palmed acceptance and
maybe a bit of pity. It was about the worst outcome
possible for my competitive wife: A town of contented also-
rans.

---

‘She has a lot of hobbies,’ I said.
‘Anything worrying you?’ Boney asked, looking
worried. ‘You’re not concerned about drugs or drinking? I’m
not speaking ill of your wife. A lot of housewives, more than
you’d guess, they pass the day that way. The days, they get
long when you’re by yourself. And if the drinking turns to
drugs – and I’m not talking heroin but even prescription
painkillers – well, there are some pretty awful characters
selling around here right now.’
‘The drug trade has gotten bad,’ Gilpin said. ‘We’ve
had a bunch of police layoffs – one fifth of the force, and we
were tight to begin with. I mean, it’s 
bad
, we’re overrun.’
‘Had a housewife, nice lady, get a tooth knocked out
last month over some Oxycontin,’ Boney prompted.
‘No, Amy might have a glass of wine or something, but
not drugs.’
Boney eyed me; this was clearly not the answer she
wanted. ‘She have some good friends here? We’d like to
call some of them, just make sure. No offense. Sometimes
a spouse is the last to know when drugs are involved.
People get ashamed, especially women.’
Friends. In New York, Amy made and shed friends
weekly; they were like her projects. She’d get intensely
excited about them: Paula who gave her singing lessons
and had a wicked good voice (Amy went to boarding
school in Massachusetts; I loved the very occasional times
she got all New England on me: