I thought. “I’m sure I have, but I can’t actually think of an instance. There was an awards dinner a couple of years ago.”

“You were covering the awards? Or you were up for one?”

“I was up for one. For spot news reporting.”

“So that wasn’t really an assignment. That was the sort of thing anyone would take their spouse to.”

“I suppose so,” I conceded.

“Did you win?” Duckworth asked.

“No.”

“So then, why did you take your wife on this outing?”

“Like I told you, she’s been feeling depressed the last few weeks, and she told me she was going to take Friday off, so I suggested she come along for the ride. She could keep me company on the way up and back.”

“Okay,” Duckworth said. “What did you talk about on the way up?”

I shook my head in frustration. “I don’t know, we just-What’s the point of this, Detective?”

“I’m just getting a full picture of the events that led up to your wife’s disappearance.”

“Our drive to Lake George did not lead up to her disappearance. It’s just something we did the day before Five Mountains. Unless-”

Duckworth cocked his head to one side. “Unless?”

The car. The one Jan had spotted following us. The one that did a couple of drive-bys of the place where I was supposed to meet the woman.

“I think we were followed,” I said.

Duckworth leaned back in his chair. His eyebrows went up. “You were followed.”

I nodded. “Jan noticed a car following us up. But I wasn’t that sure. Then, when we were waiting in the parking lot for this contact to show up, the car drove by a couple of times. Went up the road, turned around and came back. I ran out to it at one point, trying to get a look at who it was, but then the car sped off.”

Duckworth folded his arms across his chest. His forearms sat on his belly like it was a countertop. He hadn’t touched his coffee yet, and I hadn’t cracked the top of the bottled water.

“You were followed,” he said again.

“I’m pretty sure,” I said.

“Who would have followed you?”

“I don’t know. At the time, I figured it was someone who found out this woman had arranged to meet me. I thought maybe that was what scared her off. She saw that car snooping about and chickened out.”

“But now you have a different theory?”

“I don’t know. You’re so interested in what happened Friday, and after what I found out from these people I thought were Jan’s parents, maybe the person in that car was following Jan. Maybe that’s what this is all about. She’s a relocated witness, someone figured out who she was, was following her, and she had to disappear.”

Duckworth, finally, took a sip of his coffee. He smiled. “You’re not going to believe this, but this coffee is fantastic. We’ve got this one guy, he works burglary, makes the best pot of coffee. Better than Starbucks. What are the odds, in a police station, you know? You sure you don’t want a cup?”

“No thanks.”

“So, what did you tell your wife about where you were going?”

“I told her what I’ve told you. That I was going up there to meet with this woman.”

“Who was going to tell you all the council members who’re taking payoffs from this prison outfit.”

“That’s what she suggested in her email.”

“I guess you wouldn’t have any trouble producing this email for me,” Duckworth said. “When did you receive it?”

“Last Thursday,” I said. “And… I deleted it.”

“Oh,” Duckworth said. “That seems like an odd thing to do. Why’d you do it?”

“Because,” I said slowly, “I didn’t want it left in the system.”

“At your own office? Why?”

I thought before answering. “I don’t think everyone at the Standard shares my enthusiasm for pursuing this story.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Just that I’m learning not to present stories on this prison thing unless they’re completely nailed down. I want to make it hard for my superiors to say no to printing something. I like to play my cards close to the chest. So I don’t leave emails around for them to read.”

Duckworth looked unconvinced, but went in another direction. “Do you remember the email address?”

I took a look around the room and shook my head, disgusted with myself. “No. It was just random numbers and letters strung together. A Hotmail address.”

“I see. Okay then,” Duckworth said, “tell me about this car that was following you. Make, model?”

“It was dark blue. It was a Buick with tinted windows. A four-door sedan.”

Duckworth nodded, impressed. “Did you happen to get a plate number?”

“I tried,” I said. “But it was covered with mud. But it was a New York plate.”

“I see. Was the whole car covered in mud, or just the plate?”

“The car was pretty clean, actually. Just the plate was dirtied up. Doesn’t that tell you they probably did it deliberately?”

“Absolutely,” Duckworth said.

“Don’t patronize me,” I said. “You don’t believe a word I’m saying. I can tell. I can see it in your face. But we were there. If you don’t believe me talk to whoever was working in the store that day. It’s called…” I struggled to remember the exact name of the place. “Ted’s Lakeview General Store. That was it. Jan went in to buy something to drink. Someone there might remember her.”

Duckworth looked at me without saying anything.

“What?” I said.

“I believe you were there,” he said. “I don’t doubt that for a minute.”

He was good at keeping me off guard. Just when I was sure he didn’t trust what I was saying, he seemed to accept that last part.

“Then what’s the problem?”

“So when did you drive home?”

“I stayed until around five-thirty, and when I was sure the woman wasn’t going to show, we drove back.”

“Both of you,” Duckworth said.

“Of course both of us.”

“Any stops along the way?”

“Just to my parents’ place. To pick up Ethan.”

“So both of you went to get your son.”

I could tell he already knew the truth here. “No,” I said. “I went alone to get Ethan.”

“I’m confused,” he said, although I doubted that. “How did you end up going to your parents’ house alone?”

“Jan wasn’t feeling well,” I said. “She had a headache. She asked me to drop her off at our house first. She didn’t feel well enough to see my parents. Or maybe she didn’t want to see them, and just said she had a headache.”

Duckworth nodded a little too hard. “Okay, okay. But isn’t your parents’ place on the way home? I mean, you’d have to pass your parents’ house to get to yours coming back from Lake George, then double back to get your son.”

“That’s true,” I said. “But sometimes my parents… they like to talk. They would have thought it rude not to at least come out to the car to talk to Jan. And she wasn’t up to that. That’s why I took her home first. What are you getting at? You think I left her up in Lake George?”

When Duckworth didn’t say anything right away, I said, “Do I have to bring my son in here? Do I need Ethan as a witness? To tell you my wife came back with me that day?”

“I don’t think there’s any need for that,” Duckworth said. “I wouldn’t want to put a four-year-old through anything like that.”

“Why’s that? Because if he backed me up, you wouldn’t believe it anyway? Because he’s a kid? And you’d think I coached him?”

“I never said anything of the kind,” Duckworth said, taking another sip of coffee.

“At least go up there,” I said. “Talk to whoever was working at Ted’s store that day.”

Duckworth said. “There’s no problem there, Mr. Harwood. Your wife’s been identified as being in the store at the time you say.”

I waited.

“Trouble is what she had to say when she was in there.”

“Excuse me?”

“She said you’d driven up there for some sort of surprise. She said she had no idea what she was doing up there.”

“What?”

“She didn’t know why you were taking her up there. She seemed not to know what you had in mind.”