The Grieving Wife

The officer asked why she wasn't crying, and Margot Ashford said, honestly, that she was still in shock. That was six months ago. She has said a lot of things since. To the police. To his mother. To the insurance company. To the women from the wine club who brought lasagna and watched her face. She was asleep. She was asleep. She was asleep. Then a traffic camera publishes a photograph of her husband's car on the bridge, and there is a woman in the passenger seat, and the coat is Margot's. She has never let anyone borrow it. The alarm log is gone. The wine glass in the sink was rinsed by someone. Her toothpaste has been squeezed from the wrong end for three weeks, and there is a smell in the guest room that she knows. Someone is inside her house. Someone knows what she did or didn't do. Margot has stopped sleeping. She has started locking the attic door from outside.