“Even though you’re going to be at my parents’ house, you still might hear some things, maybe on TV or on the radio, or maybe from someone coming by their place, about your dad that aren’t very nice.”

“What kind of things?”

“That I was mean to your mother.” How did you tell your son that people might think you killed his mother?

“You aren’t mean to her,” he said.

“I know that and you know that, but you know how, sometimes, your friends will tattle on you, even though you didn’t do anything?”

He nodded.

“That’s kind of what might happen to me. People saying I did bad things to your mom. Like the TV news people, for one.”

Ethan thought a moment, then reached out and patted my hand. “Do you want me to talk to them and tell them it’s not true?” he asked.

I had to look away for a moment. I made as though I had something in my eye, both of them.

“No,” I said. “But thank you. You just have a good time with your grandparents.”

“Okay.” Now he was thinking about something else. “That’s like what Mom told me.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “What did she tell you?”

“She said that people might say awful things about her, but that she wanted me to remember that she really loves me.”

I remembered that.

“Is everybody going to start saying bad things about me, too?” he asked.

“Never,” I said, leaning in and kissing Ethan’s forehead.

When I walked out the door with Ethan, Craig, my neighbor to the right, was getting into his Jeep Cherokee to head off to work. Since moving in three years ago, I’d never known Craig not to say hello, comment on the weather, ask how we were doing. He was a friendly guy, and when he borrowed your hedge trimmer, he always returned it the minute he was finished.

I saw Craig glance my way, but he said nothing. So I said, “Morning.”

Not even a grunt. Craig got into his car, put on his seatbelt, and turned the ignition without looking my way. He backed out and took off briskly.

While I was getting Ethan buckled into the back seat, I heard a car that had been driving up the street slow down as it reached the end of my driveway.

I looked up. A man in a Corolla had put down his window and shouted as he drove by, “Who you gonna kill today?” Then he laughed, stomped on the gas, and disappeared up the street.

“What did he say?” Ethan asked.

“It’s just like I told ya, sport,” I said, snapping his strap into place.

After I had dropped him off at my parents’, I drove to the newspaper. I had time to pop in before my appointment with Natalie Bondurant.

I went up to the newsroom first. As I walked through, what few people were there stopped whatever they were doing to watch me. No one called out, no one said anything. I was a “dead man walking” as I proceeded to my desk.

There were several phone messages-most from the same media outlets that had already tried to reach me at home. One call, which I was unable to determine whether it was a joke-was from the Dr. Phil show. Did I want to come on and give my side of the story, let America know that I had not killed my wife and disposed of her body?

I erased it.

When I tried to sign in to my computer, I couldn’t get it to work. My password was rejected.

“What the fuck?” I said.

Then, a voice behind me. “Hey.”

It was Brian. When I spun around in the chair, he said to me, “I didn’t expect you to come in today, what with, you know, all you got to deal with at the moment.”

“I’m just popping in,” I said. “You’re right, I have a lot on my plate right now.”

“Got a sec?” he said.

Once we were both inside his office, he closed the door, pointed to a chair. I sat down and he settled in behind his desk.

“I really hate to do this,” he said, “but I-we’re-I mean, they’re putting you on suspension. Actually, more like a leave. A leave of absence.”

“Why’s that, Brian? Did you think I wanted to write a book?” It was a reporter’s usual reason for taking a leave.

I knew what was going on, and understood it, but even in my current circumstances it was hard to pass up an opportunity to make Brian squirm. Particularly when I considered him to be a first-class weasel.

“No, not anything like that,” he said. “It’s just, given your current predicament, being questioned by the police about your wife, it kind of compromises your ability as a journalist at the moment.”

“When did the paper start worrying about its journalistic integrity being compromised? Does this mean we’ve fired our reporters in India and plan to send our own people to cover city hall?”

“Jesus, Dave, do you always have to be a dick?”

“Tell me, Brian. Was it you?”

“Huh?”

“Was it you who got into my emails?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You know what? Forget it. Because even if it was you, you’d just have been doing Madeline’s bidding.”

“I really don’t know what this is about.”

“So, am I on a paid suspension or unpaid?”

Brian couldn’t look me in the eye. “Things are kind of tight, Dave. It’s not like the paper can afford to pay people for not doing anything.”

“I’ve got three weeks’ vacation,” I said. “Why don’t I take that now? I still get paid, but I’m not writing. If my problems haven’t gone away in three weeks, you can suspend me then without pay.”

Brian thought about that. “Let me bounce that off them.”

“Them” meaning Madeline.

“Thanks,” I said. “Do you want me to ask them myself?”

“What do you mean?”

I stood up and opened the door. “See you later, Brian.”

On the way out of the newsroom, I went past the bank of mailbox cubbyholes, scooped three or four envelopes out of my mailbox-one of them my payroll deposit slip. I wondered whether it would be my last. I stuffed the envelopes into my pocket and kept on walking.

From there, I went to the publisher’s office. Madeline Plimpton’s executive assistant, Shannon, was posted at her desk just outside Madeline’s door.

“Oh, David,” she said. “I’m so sorry…” She struggled. Sorry that my wife was missing? Sorry that the cops liked me for it? Sorry that the publisher wanted to help me through my difficult time by bouncing me from the payroll?

I went straight past her and opened the door to Madeline’s oak-paneled office despite Shannon’s protests.

Madeline sat behind her broad desk, looking down at something, a phone to her ear. She raised her eyes and took me in, not even blinking.

“Something’s come up. I’ll have Shannon reconnect us shortly.” She cradled the receiver and said, “Hello, David.”

“I just dropped by to thank you for your support,” I said.

“Sit down, David.”

“No thanks, I’ll stand,” I said. “I saw Brian, found out I’m on the street for the duration.”

“I’m not without sympathy,” Madeline said, leaning back in her leather chair. “Assuming, of course, that you had no involvement in your wife’s misfortune.”

“If I told you I didn’t, would you even believe me?”

She paused. “Yes,” she said. “I would.”

That threw me.

“I’ve heard the whispers,” Madeline said. “I’ve asked around. I know people in the police department. You’re much more than a person of interest. You’re a suspect. They think something has happened to your wife and they think you did it. So I feel doubly bad for you. I feel badly that something may have happened to Jan. My heart goes out to you. And I feel sick at the witch hunt whirling around you. I think I know you, David. I’ve always thought you were a good man. A bit self-righteous at times, a bit idealistic, not always able to see the big picture, but a man who’s always had his heart in the right place. I don’t know what’s happened to Jan, but I would find it hard to believe you’ve had anything to do with it.”

I sat down. I wondered whether she was being sincere or playing me.