Page 51 of The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year
Police Transcript
Excerpt from the Official Police Interrogation of Margaret Chase and Ethan Wyatt
December 25
Inspector Patel:When did it start?
Mr. Wyatt:Oh. It started—
Ms. Chase:In the elevator.
Mr. Wyatt:Yeah. The elevator.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Five Years Earlier
Ethan
It wasn’t until the elevator doors were sliding open that Ethan realized he’d made a terrible mistake. He never should have answered the phone, but the big office building in Midtown Manhattan was a tower of glass and steel and strangers, and Ethan wasn’t thinking clearly as a security guard waved him through a turnstile and pointed toward the elevator that would take him where he had to go.
The ringing phone had felt like salvation—like a sign. He was looking for any excuse to turn around, go home. Hide. So he’d answered the phone on instinct, totally unprepared to hear—
“Where are you?” Ethan’s father hadn’t worn a uniform in more than a decade, but he still sounded like a commanding officer—like it was the whole world’s job to salute and sayyes, sir. “I told the board you’d be here. We’re doing Maui. Did I tell you it’s Maui?”
He probably hadn’t, but that didn’t matter. Ethan wasn’t going—a fact he’d mentioned on more than one occasion. He had a laundry list of excuses and could have picked any one: He still had physical therapy twice a week. Long flights made him antsy. He’d lost forty pounds of muscle and his suits didn’t fit him anymore. Plus, no one wants the family disappointment at Christmas dinner. But Ethan couldn’t say a word of that to his father, so he pushed the button for the twenty-seventh floor with his left hand and adjusted the contraption that held his right.
He’d wanted to ditch the sling for the party—had started to leave it home a dozen times—but physical therapistsare better than poker players: they can always tell when you’re bluffing. So he’d thrown it on over a dark blue blazer and even darker jeans and hoped he’d gotten the dress code right.
“Thought you’d be happy about that” was his father’s response to the silence. “I know Aspen’s not your favorite, and you can golf, right? I put you in my foursome.”
“Well, being that I can’t use my right arm, Dad, no. I probably won’t be golfing in the near future.”
“Watch that tone, boy.”
Ethan did watch his tone, but only because it was easier. “I’m not coming, Dad. I have rehab. You pulled a lot of strings to get me into that clinic.”
“Damn right I did. I need you back in shooting shape. Say, when will they let you hit the range?”
“Listen, Dad...” he was saying as the doors started sliding closed—just before he heard someone running, calling—
“Hold the elevator, please!” A small hand reached inside and the doors sprang back in an instant.
He heard his father say, “Where are you? I’ll send the jet.” But the words were static in Ethan’s head as the elevator opened to reveal a woman. Cashmere coat and snowflakes in her hair, a little out of breath because she’d been caught out in the storm. It felt like she’d been chasing him his whole life and had only now caught up. Ethan wished he’d stopped running a lot sooner.
“Son? Ethan?” The voice was a dull roar in his ears. He could barely hear it over the pounding of his heart.
“I gotta go, Dad. Bye.”
And then it was just the two of them and the sliding doors and the knowledge that Ethan didn’t believe in love at first sight, but that didn’t mean he could make himself stop staring.
“Uh, can you push...” She shifted, trying to see around him, and when she spotted the illuminated button, she exhaled. “Oh. I guess we’re going to the same...” But she trailed off as she spotted her own reflection in the elevator’s shiny interior. Black half boots and tights. That long coat and (now damp) hair. “Please tell me I don’t look like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like a Victorian street urchin someonetried to drown in a rain barrel.”
Okay, so the snowflakes had melted, and her long, dark hair was matted under the weight, clinging to ivory skin that was tinged pink from the cold.
